Challenger Disaster (Reading05-lgrazios)

The root causes for then Challenger Disaster, had nothing to do with the O-Rings. Of course technically speaking the erosion on the O-Rings was definitely the cause of the explosion, but what I am saying is that that could’ve been easily avoided. There was a flaw in the design and the O-Rings malfunctioned causing the leak but that was a known possibility and possible threat from using them. That being said, the root cause for the disaster was ignoring the possibility of an O-Ring malfunction. What makes things worse was that a day before the incident, the engineers from Thiokol had voiced their concern and had explicitly suggested not to launch that until the temperature was above 54 degrees. So it seems stupid how the managers decided to ignore these concerns and go ahead with the launch. It is pretty obvious that the root cause, and blame, lies on the managers from both NASA and Thiokol. They decided to prioritize “results” over safety. It is easy to risk safety when it is not your own, that is why the managers needed “quantified” concerns, because to them it was all numbers, not actual lives at stake.

            I believe Boisjoly was ethical in sharing information with the public it was vital information the people needed to know. It was the right thing to expose what they trying to hide. Somebody had to be held accountable for what happened or at least the truth had to be exposed so that something might be done to prevent similar events from happening again. I think Boisjoly’s action might have had a direct influence in the next 17 years of success NASA experienced after this incident. There was a plan that took action to improve “ ‘flawed’ process in decision-making” at NASA. Of course after that a similar thing happened with Columbia, and it goes back to the same issue of people watching over their backs and trying to keep their jobs as opposed to keeping people safe.

            I don’t believe the company was justified in retaliating in the way that they did, because they shouldn’t have attempted to hide information in the first place. They owed to the public, and to peoples families to come clean and say what happened. The fact that they hid information makes them worse because it shows that they don’t own up to their decisions and makes them less reliable. Personally I believe they should be held accountable for what they did specially since they tried covering it.

            Whistle blowing is the right thing to do no matter what it might result in for the whistle-blower. It is just the right thing to do, but there is also something to consider about this: sometimes people may opt for whistleblowing to gain some thing from it or to take guilt away for oneself and that is not right. Whistle blowing by definition helps someone else, it helps the general public, and just by that it is worth it.