preview

The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, And Deviance At NASA

Satisfactory Essays

Next, let me talk about the dangers of normalized deviance. Diane Vaughan, sociologist at Columbia University, examined the events that led to the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. In her book, The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, she explains the sociological causes of the failure and describes institutionalized deviance from the norm.1 Vaughan defines normalized deviance as “the gradual process through which unacceptable practice or standards become acceptable. As the deviant behavior is repeated without catastrophic results, it becomes the social norm for the organization.2” The Rogers Commission identified the cause of the accident as a failure of the O-ring, which seals a joint

Get Access