Space Shuttle Challenger Failure

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Introduction In 1980s, NASA began working on the goal of achieving a launch schedule of 24 flights per year (Committee on Science and Technology, 1986). As a result of the pressure to push for such an unrealistic goal, NASA focused its priorities on productivity at the cost of safety. Under these circumstances the Space Shuttle Challenger suffered an accident during its launch on January 28, 1986 (Bolman & Deal, 2008). While the physical cause of the accident is the failure in the aft field joint, there were many factors that contributed to the accident. According to the Committee, there were flaws in NASA’s Shuttle management structure, safety and communication procedures, maintenance policies, quality assurance programs, and contract…show more content…
Unlike Orbiters Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour it was equipped with science modules Spacelab and SPACEHAB (Columbia Accident Investigation Board, 2003). Columbia was meant to fly science missions and service the Hubble Space Telescope (Columbia Accident Investigation Board, 2003). On January 16, 2003 Orbiter Columbia launched for a 16-day mission (Columbia Accident Investigation Board, 2003). On February 1, 2003, while traveling at speeds greater than 10,000 mph and only 16 minutes prior to scheduled touchdown, the Orbiter fell out of control (Columbia Accident Investigation Board, 2003). A break in the Thermal Protection System of the left wing was the physical cause of the loss (Columbia Accident Investigation Board, 2003). However, according to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (2003), history, budgets, culture, organization and safety practices are also important factors that contributed to this…show more content…
As a result, reestablishing a clear agenda would have been a political strategy that would effectively aid NASA’s administration to manage the operations of the organization. At the time, NASA’S resources were very scares; there was little public interest and government funding was limited. Yet, the organization continued to embrace ambitious goals. Under such conditions, NASA’s administration needed to take the time to clearly state its interests and develop scenarios for securing necessary resources. Instead, the management attempted to continue with all current projects while making detrimental alterations to the organizational systems by cutting staff, changing oversight structures, and compromising safety procedures (Columbia Accident Investigation Board,
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