Ethics

It was a bright and cold morning when the challenger space shuttle disaster happened. The skies were very clear and thus the sun shone brightly over the Kennedy Space Centres launch area. This happened on 28th of January 1986 and it sent the whole nation into mourning. The space shuttle blew up 73 seconds after its commencing. Seven lives and equipments worth three billion dollars were lost. The disaster left great repercussions perhaps because the incidence was preceded by other incidents at the Three Mile Island and Union Carbide in Bhopal and later by Chernobyl (Vaughan, par 1-8). This left a very troubling question to so many. The question at that time was Has the ability of creating highly developed technological system gone beyond our capability to cope with and master it in practice The answer to the question is obviously no because the only thing that the scientists have to do is to take the necessary precautions, heed to warnings and also use the correct expertise. The challengers space shuttle disaster was mainly caused by a mechanical failure and an administrative problem which lead to poor communication as well as faulty decision making thus causing lose of lives and damage of properties worth many billions of US dollars.

Background Information
The space shuttle challenger accident was as a result of faulty sealing system where by one of the pieces of the huge rocket booster responsible for lifting the shuttle into the orbit did not work correctly.  The piece, known as the O-ring, was part of the shuttles right rocket booster. It was very cold on this particular morning of the launch, and so the O-ring did not work correctly as it allowed the hot gas (exhaust flames) from the solid-fuel rocket booster (SRB) to leak out. The flame ruptured the tank and caused the explosion which destroyed the shuttle (Vaughan, par.1-8).
             
It is after this incidence that the peoples opinion and trust towards NASA as an organization changed completely. Earlier, NASA had wanted people to support it, but instead of impressing the viewers, the disaster scared them the most, especially with the sophisticated and improved technology. In addition, NASA had earlier planned to be sending people into space regularly, but with such a big knock-out, this became impossible (Vaughan, par.1-8).

Who were responsible for the disaster
According to Allinson (13), a cause can not operate singly it will always operate as an ingredient in a network of connection. In this case, the challenger disaster was an organizational-technical system problem. The immediate cause is said to have been a technical failure. The presidential commissioner investigating the incident said that the design failure intermingled with the effect of temperature, physical dimensions, the material character, re-usability effect, processing, and the reaction to dynamic and vibrant loading led to the disaster (Vaughan, par. 6-8).
             
This is a clear indication that technical defect cannot be as a result of one cause.  In relation to this, the blame goes to the NASA organization for contributing to the technical failure. The technical failure is said to have had a long incubation period and that the problems with the O-rings were noted first in 1977 this was according to the Presidential Commission investigations.  Therefore, NASA Organization should have taken initiatives on the same before the tragedy, but they did not.  It is likely that there must have been organizations dealing with such risks and this would have been sorted out before it happened (Vaughan, Par1-6).
                 
However, the Organizations response is said to have been as a result of poor communication, inadequate information handling, faulty technical decision making and failure to act in accordance to the regulations instituted to assure safety. In addition, the regulatory system that oversees the safety of the shuttle program failed to identify and correct the program (Vaughan, par.4-6).
                 
The administrative problem was more philosophical because of the simple fact that all the mechanical failures in regard to the field joint had been identified by Thiokol engineers and all problems were highlighted as potential risk. The engineers did a good and recommendable job. However, there was a communication difficulty towards the managers who were responsible for the launch.  Therefore, the decision to launch the challenger in spite of the identified risks was mainly because of the poor communication and a difference in the evaluation of the risk (Vaughan, par5-6).

The Failure of the Engineers and Managers
In this incident, there was failure of one component to work together with the other. This provoked a complex set of interactions of different connections that lead to the failure of the technical systems therefore causing the space shuttle crash. On the other hand, the organization should have taken immediate measures to eliminate the risk (Vaughan, par.1-3).
         
In addition, the risk was assessed by the engineers and the managers too. The engineers based their assessment more on their technical experience and facts while the managers dwelled more on taking risks mainly on issues of ensuring that the business was running on well without delay. The managers were concerned with the business of management and administration while the engineers were concerned with the day to day activities of the project. It was clear that both categories were not of the same view regarding the risk associated with the O-rings, low temperature, and the testing (Vaughan, par. 5-8).
               
For the managers, they were glad to accept the low temperature tests performed in the laboratory conditions but the engineers were not. They dismissed the tests and referred to them as unrealistic. In addition, NASA did not want to employ an assessment method that was quantitative for such a high pilot project just because it was quite expensive when associated with data collection and the statistical model generation. The organization did not employ any trained engineer in statistical sciences (Vaughan, par. 6-8).
               
On the other hand, around the time when the challenger event happened, NASA managers and their constructors might have been experiencing a lot of pressure because of the economic and scheduling constraints in addition to the task of ensuring the safety of the many missions that were taking place. During that particular time, government funding cuts were being announced and this is the same time that NASA was calling for twenty four shuttle flights per year as a goal. Probably such pressures caused the management to overlook on issues of safety.  However, this has never been regarded as a major reason (Forest, par. 1-2).
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Conclusion
What happened during the space shuttle challenger disaster should be blamed on both the managers and engineers. Both categories had shortcomings. However, the managers failed the more especially in ethical conduct than the engineers who had a good intention by attempting to ensure the safety of the shuttle and the astronauts. All in all, both the managers and the engineers have clearly brought out the importance of communication and ethical considerations.