What was the fatal flaw that caused the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster?
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> While physical systems failures played an important role in both the Challenger and Columbia disasters, they cannot be categorized as normal accidents because in both cases the failures that caused the accidents were known to occur. Instead, true failures in these cases were the fault of NASA itself. The agency had become institutionalized due to the normalization of deviance as well as its internal culture of success at all costs. The deviant behaviors were compounded by the stresses put on NASA by its stakeholders to complete projects quickly and with a pitifully low budget. The organizational structure of NASA was a significant factor that contributed to safety having a low priority in the agency. Those who expressed concerns were actively ostracized, and the ability for concerns to even be heard by top level management was nearly impossible due to the confusing procedures put in place for reporting concerns and the levels of bureaucracy through which concerns had to flow.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Celia-Zeinert/publication/325261235_THE_CHALLENGER_AND_COLUMBIA_DISASTERS_NOT-SO-NORMAL_ACCIDENTS/links/5b01f0cfaca2720ba097e983/THE-CHALLENGER-AND-COLUMBIA-DISASTERS-NOT-SO-NORMAL-ACCIDENTS
Nancy Leveson, MIT, has written extensively about the Challenger accident from a systems perspective.
> While physical systems failures played an important role in both the Challenger and Columbia disasters, they cannot be categorized as normal accidents because in both cases the failures that caused the accidents were known to occur. Instead, true failures in these cases were the fault of NASA itself. The agency had become institutionalized due to the normalization of deviance as well as its internal culture of success at all costs. The deviant behaviors were compounded by the stresses put on NASA by its stakeholders to complete projects quickly and with a pitifully low budget. The organizational structure of NASA was a significant factor that contributed to safety having a low priority in the agency. Those who expressed concerns were actively ostracized, and the ability for concerns to even be heard by top level management was nearly impossible due to the confusing procedures put in place for reporting concerns and the levels of bureaucracy through which concerns had to flow.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Celia-Zeinert/publication/325261235_THE_CHALLENGER_AND_COLUMBIA_DISASTERS_NOT-SO-NORMAL_ACCIDENTS/links/5b01f0cfaca2720ba097e983/THE-CHALLENGER-AND-COLUMBIA-DISASTERS-NOT-SO-NORMAL-ACCIDENTS
Nancy Leveson, MIT, has written extensively about the Challenger accident from a systems perspective.
And the reason they had o-rings in the first place was because to get from the manufacturer’s plant in Utah to the assembly / launch site in Florida they travelled by rail. Along the rail journey is a tunnel with a curve in it, so the length of the load was limited, leading to the boosters having to be manufactured in sections.
hard to ELY5. but here it is: seal didn’t seal because temperature was too low. bad seal = fuel leak. fuel leak + flames = boom
Not organizing and presenting previous shuttle launch o-ring failure data in a way that showed the past flaws related to temperature.
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
And the reason they had o-rings in the first place was because to get from the manufacturer’s plant in Utah to the assembly / launch site in Florida they travelled by rail. Along the rail journey is a tunnel with a curve in it, so the length of the load was limited, leading to the boosters having to be manufactured in sections.
Not organizing and presenting previous shuttle launch o-ring failure data in a way that showed the past flaws related to temperature.
Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative
hard to ELY5. but here it is: seal didn’t seal because temperature was too low. bad seal = fuel leak. fuel leak + flames = boom
The launch had been delayed several times already. The brass were tired of waiting for the big publicity stunt of sending a schoolteacher to space. They launched knowing the risks of failure due to freezing o-rings. Morton Thiocol even warned them not to launch.
If you have Netflix I highly recommend the challenger documentary. Its very interesting and explains the issues very well.
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