Sam K R03

How does one quantify a human life? This is a question I’ve been asking myself recently, in relation to my final project. In the case of the Challenger and those who tried to graph out the dangers of launch, how does one quantify the loss of a human life? Above all media attention, all expensive shuttle parts, and any planned presidential conversations, these human lives were the most devastating of losses when those O-rings failed.

Tufte places most of the blame for this unheeded failure on those who tried to communicate the potential danger. These scientists, as correct as they were with their assessment, created awful and almost incomprehensible infographics to support their claims. In their “History of O-ring Temperatures”, they used a very limited data set, in which the damaged O-ring examples outnumbered the undamaged ones. I can understand why they would use this small dataset if they were making a case for redesigning their O-rings. However, they were comparing damage to launch day temperature, so the number of damaged O-rings shouldn’t have mattered to them because in this case, every single one launched at below 53 degrees F were damaged. This data would be moving enough if shown side-by-side with other launches at higher temperatures, as Tufte shows in his redesign. However, even then, the designers would have to explain how they quantified damage.

To further improve this infographic, I would suggest putting this O-ring damage into a relatable perspective. Surly there were other things at risk, or actually damaged, in these launchings of cold O-rings. Could they have also been quantified, in comparison with what would be lost from the Challenger? Was previous O-ring damage documented with photographs or notation? Could those have been included, to give the charts credibility and context?

It doesn’t surprise me that the administration did not understand or believe the warnings that these scientists were giving them. They obviously did not know how to compose an infographic, or to even explain how they work to their administration. However, I believe that other odds were at work when their ideas were turned down. There was a lot of political and social pressure to launch it, and I wonder if the administration believed too strongly in their project’s success—so much that they couldn’t see its errors. It was easy enough for the media and the world to understand how cold effects the O-rings when the scientist put it in ice-water on television. They already knew that there was an error with the O-rings—so yes, of course, if the scientist says it becomes less elastic in ice-water, it’s completely believable. Tufte is quick to point out the error in this experiment. As an isolated incident, without any comparisons made, it gives incomplete data. The O-rings on the ship weren’t even submerged in water, so can it truly relate back to the failed launch? I think not, but people were quick to accept this as an honest, full explanation, anyway.

All said, the conclusions drawn from experiments done for this situation were examples of people seeing whatever they wanted to see, blind to their own mistaken science and equally deaf to what others were trying ­to communicate.