Essay on Space Shuttle Ethics Case Study

A timeline of the events leading up to the explosion of the Challenger Space shuttle:

On the morning of January 28th, 1986, Americans watched in shock and horror as the space shuttle Challenger exploded only 74 seconds after its launch, killing all seven crew members on board including a high school teacher Christa McAuliffe. Thousands, including families of the crew and schoolchildren

While seated in the Oval Office of the White house, January 28, 1986 President Ronald Reagan delivers his speech The Challenger Disaster; hours after the space shuttle The Challenger explodes while in take off. Thousands witnessed this horrifying event live in person and on television. This mission was very unique allowing the first civilian to ever be allowed in space during a mission. She was aboard The Challenger as an observer in the NASA Teacher in Space Program. Ironically, nineteen years before this disaster, three astronauts were tragically lost in an accident on the ground. President Reagan remembers those astronauts that were lost not only the day of the disaster, but also those who were lost nineteen years before. He conducts

It holds true that government organizations gradually decline; the enthusiasm is replaced with bureaucracy, employees are resistant to change and overall performance is decreased. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is no exception to this. NASA is an example of bureaucracy having a detrimental effect on an organization. The lines of communication became skewed and were often broken while the organization was locked in an internal battle over who exactly was in charge. While there were heads of each department and heads of each branch, critical information often slipped through the cracks. It was this breakdown in communication and the failure to address known issues that was the direct cause for both the Challenger and Columbia explosions. The explosions, though separated by seventeen years, were incredibly similar. Concerns had been brought to the table and similarly dismissed as “acceptable risk.” This acceptable risk proved fatal for the crews of both space shuttles. Bureaucracy and financial expediency led to reduced federal funding, general distrust from the public, and growing disinterest. The organization that sent men to the moon is vastly different than the organization in charge today. NASA’s beginnings were less clouded in red tape and bureaucratic policies. Ideas were

Perhaps no greater tragedy defines the American Race for Space than the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger before millions of Americans as they watched on live TV in 1986. Building on two decades of successful space exploration kicked off by President Kennedy before his death, by the early eighties the American culture both believed that it was our right to fly into space and that no one did it better than we did. NASA had sent mission after mission into space over more than twenty years, each one accomplishing space exploration goals and building the reputation that America owned the stars. That day in January of 1986 was supposed to be another of those successes as the Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying not only professional astronauts into space but also one everyday person, teacher Christa McAuliffe. Instead, the world watched as after seventy-three seconds after liftoff hopes and dreams exploded with the Challenger - leaving astronauts dead, the space program in jeopardy and America grieving and looking for answers. How leadership responded, what they said and did, would be really important to how the nation dealt with the loss and to the future of the space program. The man for the job was President Ronald Reagan, whose address to the nation appealed to the public on an emotional and logical level and helped to ensure that they

The case study of the two shuttle disasters, the Challenger occurred on January 28th 1986, and the Columbia occurred on February 1st, 2003. Both majestic and yet mournful due to the loss of life on both mission. The Challenger shuttle flight, OV-099 mission STS-51-L, broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of all crew members which included five astronauts and two payload specialists. The Challenger disaster was especially traumatic because young students watched television that were placed in their classrooms so they could watch the launch that day. It was fascinating that a school teacher was on-board as a payload specialist (NASA, 1986.) With a school teacher aboard the flight, it had sparked many interests because at several at young age, understood that education was vital as to why there was such a failure and prevent future disasters.

Executive Summary Many factors must be examined to find the underlying reason for the horrible disaster of the space shuttle Challenger. We will cover both the technical causes to the disaster and the communication breakdown with NASA. We will also look at the outside pressure that NASA was receiving from the media, congress and the military. Recommendations for NASA and anyone in the communication field will be given. These recommendations will help to avoid any further problems with communication in any organization. The O-rings failed to properly seal the gap in the joint seal. Failure of the Orings was the ultimate mechanical cause to the explosion of the Challenger.

Henry Allotey Challenger worker attitude, ethics, behavior. On January 28, 1986, the NASA the space Shuttle Challenger burst into a ball of flame only 73 seconds after take-off, leading to the death of the entire crew on board. Some months later, a commission was created by the President, Ronald Reagan, to investigate the causes of the disaster. It was determined that the cause of the disaster was the failure of a seal in one of the solid rocket boosters.

On 1st of February, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia exploded when it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere after finished a 16 days mission in space. All seven astronauts were dead because of this incident. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had stopped the space shuttle program for more than two years to investigate this tragedy. In the 16 days period, the astronauts did approximately 80 experiments on different categories, for example, life science and material science [1]. An investigation later has found out that the disaster was caused by a problem on the day that took off on 16th of January.

While watching the launch at a distance from box like televisions in the front the classrooms, students and staff members witnessed all 73 seconds of the Challenger tragedy. Within an instant, a wave of shock flooded the school and the students and staff drowned in an ocean of grief and sorrow. “Everyone at my school was in utter shock. The rest of the day classes were canceled and the entire tone of my school changed from excitement to extreme sorrow. It was so traumatizing witnessing the innocent lives of those astronauts being taken away so quickly.”, Rhonda recalled wistfully about the day the Challenger blew apart. The Space Shuttle Challenger accident was clearly an anomaly in the high school experience of Rhonda Crane in which her time was typically occupied with prioritizing friends, sports, and other miscellaneous social extracurriculars instead of learning about global

On January 28, 1986, a day that was supposed to be filled with excitement and exploration, suddenly turned into a day filled with tragedy and sadness. The space shuttle Challenger was supposed to carry a seven member crew into orbit with one unique member along for this particular mission. Christa McAuliffe was supposed to be the first teacher to go into space as a member of the Teacher in Space Project. Due to this occasion, the media coverage and the number of viewers of this mission was extensive, particularly in schools across the nation. The Challenger lifted off shortly after 11:30 A.M., but tragically only seventy three seconds after takeoff it exploded sending debris and the seven crew members back to earth and into the Atlantic

The NASW Code of Ethics maybe considered the most ambitious set of ethical guidelines in social work history. Ethical issues have always been a concern of the professional social worker. As early as 1919 there were attempts to draft professional codes of ethics (Reamer, 1998). There have been several social work organizations since, that have attempted to draft ethical codes, such as the American Association for Organizing Family Social Work and several chapters of the American Association of Social Workers. In 1960 NASW adopted its first code of ethics, five years after the association was formed. The first code consisted of only 14 proclamations, with another added in 1957. In 1979 a new code was adopted, this code was far more

On the morning of Janurary 28th 1986, the world witnessed in shock and horror what was known as the Challenger disaster as the space shuttle exploded only 73 seconds after its launch, killing all seven crew members onboard including one teacher Christa McAuliffe. Approximately 17 percent of Americans watched the live broadcast of this launch, many of them schoolchildren including those from McAuliffe’s school. From this grave moment emerged an exigency that demands immediate action by the president. Later on that same day, President Ronald Reagan delivered his Challenger address to the nation.

Ultimately the fault lies with every person who was a part of the project, except Roger Boisjoly, 3 of his colleagues, and the manager who refused to sign the ok to launch. According to a broadcast by NPR in 1986, Boisjoly’s and his colleague's concerns were escalated to top management. They explained their worries and gave their evidence to the Vice President of Morton Thiokol, Robert Lund. This was then escalated to another meeting with more engineers and managers, which resulted in the conclusion that launching could be catastrophic

Seventy three seconds into its 10th flight, on January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing the seven crew members on board [1]. The Challenger was the second space shuttle constructed by NASA and had completed nine successful missions prior to the disaster. Following the accident, the shuttle program was suspended for 32 months as President Ronald Regan appointed a Commission, chaired by William P. Rogers and known as the Rogers Commission, to investigate the cause of the accident [1].