The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster Essay

On January 28, 1986, millions of Americans either in person or watched live on television watched as the Challenger space shuttle exploded just seventy-three seconds after launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida. All seven of the astronauts that were in the shuttle were not aware of the situation and consequently they died in the explosion. The Challenger disaster was a preventable tragedy that even NASA, shortened for National Aeronautics and Space Administration, had tried to cover up by calling it an accident. The Challenger explosion could have been prevented if the control center listened to the workers or moved the date of the launch again, but at the same time, many debate that it was not NASA’s fault.

As stated earlier, the workers had tried to warn NASA and the managers that something was wrong. The workers that worked at NASA and those that worked at Morton Thiokol, a corporation that manufactured the booster rockets, even said that failure during launch would undoubtly be catastrophic. Which is exactly what had happened.

According to the Space Exploration Reference Library, “The Thiokol engineers were concerned that the O-rings would stiffen in the cold, causing the seal to fail. Since the O-rings had never been tested at low temperatures, the Thiokol managers overruled the engineer,” (Challenger Crew, 2005). However, during the lift-off, there was a flame that appeared on one of the O-rings, which started out small then gradually got bigger, which caused the explosion that everyone saw - due to the cold weather and icicles that formed around the space shuttle. Since NASA and the others did not listen and callously shrugged it off, the Challenger exploded.

The problems that NASA had with the Challenger were one-offs, but there was an ongoing problem. There have been past problems with the rocket boosters, especially with the O-rings. While reporting for the New York Times, William J. Broad wrote, “Problems had already been noted concerning the design of the part; …according to the investigation…notes a number of problems with the "O"-ring which both Morton Thiokol, Inc., the contractor, and NASA were aware,” (Thousands Watch a Rain of Debris, 2004).

Throughout all the launches that NASA had before the Challenger, like Discovery and Columbia, the engineers would record the rocket boosters, and in each report, they all reported the same issue - the erosion of the O-ring seals. Even though each report had shown there was an issue, it was not as significant as to what had happened to the Challenger. While the cause of the explosion was faulty O-ring seals, which resulted in structural failure, there were more problems that occurred.

NASA, Thiokol, and everyone who worked on the Challenger, except for the astronauts, knew there were more to the issue, yet why did they not do anything about it? There were many ways they could have found a solution, one of them was moving the launch date, which NASA, prior to the explosion, had moved the date frequently due to other problems, beforehand.

The launch date for the Challenger had been moved a lot because of other problems, why not move it once more? The Challenger did not get off a good start, due to many reasons. Originally the Challenger launch was set for the 22nd but delayed; therefore there were additional postponements on both the 24th and the 25th, then on the 26th, due to bad weather and other issues, it was delayed once again, (Challenger Crew, 2005). Even if they did not move the launch date, everyone at NASA had time to correct their mistakes.

According to the Space Exploration Reference Library, “The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science and Technology then conducted hearings on the matter…determined that NASA and Thiokol had sufficient time to correct the O-ring problem,” (Challenger Crew, 2005). Instead of moving the launch date to a period where the O-rings could be fixed and the weather was not a problem, they decided to launch the Challenger Shuttle like it was in perfect shape.

Due to NASA's strict launch schedule, it was found that they had outstripped its resources and overrode warnings from safety engineers just so it could launch in time, (Evenson, 2003). Although NASA had already postponed many times for the launch, they could have postponed it once again, or actually fixed the problem. However, despite all that NASA could have done to avoid the explosion, it was not their fault.

Regardless of NASA being the blame, it was not their fault, as other research shows. NASA was constantly pressured and demanded to build the spaceships and to be the first ones to go to the moon. According to the American Political Science Review, “By demanding that NASA develop more cost-effective policies, politicians put the agency under greater pressure to pursue type II reliability…type II failure costs are generally associated with wasted resources and inefficient behavior…The greater pressure for efficient space policy, therefore, led NASA to allocate more of its resources to type II reliability,” (Heimann, 1993).

Going to space was never an easy task, which everyone knew, however, it did not stop other officials trying to put pressure onto NASA. They, both NASA and the officials, knew that the space shuttle is known to be the most complex machine ever built and the risks of accidents were high. The Challenger disaster left NASA searching for stability, respect, and direction, (Space Shuttles, 2005). As research shows that NASA is at fault, other research shows that they are not at fault.

NASA had all the knowledge of the problems that were associated with the Challenger, however, they are at fault because they could have prevented this tragic tragedy. In fact, there were many “close calls” NASA had before the Challenger accident. For example, in one of Discovery's flights, you could see paint on the body flap of the orbiter - it was on fire, which was very dangerous - thankfully no one got hurt. Even though NASA could have prevented it, they learned through their mistakes as time went on, especially with Columbia and Discovery.

Millions of people witnessed the explosion of the Challenger that launched off of Cape Canaveral on January 28, 1986. The Challenger could have been avoided by listening to the workers or moving the date of the launch, however, despite NASA being at fault, there is research that shows that the explosion was not NASA’s fault. The Challenger disaster should not be moved on or forgotten about, instead it should show that sometimes the risks are not meant to be taken.