Engineering Ethics Case Study: The Challenger Disaster

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Engineering Ethics Case Study: The Challenger Disaster Course No: LE3-001 Credit: 3 PDH Mark Rossow, PhD, PE, Retired Continuing Education and Development, Stonewall CourtWoodcliff Lake, NJ 07677P: (877) Ethics Case Study: The Challenger Disaster Mark P. Rossow, , 2 2015 Mark P. Rossow All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the author. 3 Preface On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed in a disastrous fire shortly after liftoff. All passengers aboard the vehicle were killed. A presidential commission was formed to investigate the cause of the accident and found that the O-ring seals had failed, and, furthermore, that the seals had been recognized as a potential hazard for several years prior to the Disaster . The commission s report, Report to the President by the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, stated that because managers and engineers had known in advance of the O-ring danger, the accident was principally caused by a lack of communication between engineers and management and by poor management practices.

example, NASA classified 745 components on the Shuttle as “Criticality 1”, meaning failure of the component would cause the loss of the crew, mission, and vehicle (NASA’s . Response to the . Committee’s Investigation of the “Challenger” Accident. 1987). With the advantage of 20-20

  Criticality