Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster: Ethics and Code of Conduct Analysis

This case study examines the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, focusing on the ethical and code of conduct failures that contributed to the catastrophic event. The assignment provides a detailed background of the disaster, including the pressures faced by NASA, the design and function of the solid rocket boosters, and the critical role of the O-rings. The analysis delves into the root causes of the problem, highlighting flawed decision-making processes, communication breakdowns, and the disregard for safety concerns related to the O-rings' sensitivity to cold temperatures. The study explores the outcome of the disaster, including the delays, the Vice President's presence, and the ignored warnings. The assignment relates the findings to the relevant industry sector’s ethics and professional code of conduct. The analysis underscores the significance of ethical considerations and the devastating consequences of prioritizing other factors over safety, ultimately leading to the loss of seven astronauts and a profound impact on the space program. The report draws on various sources, including publications, news articles, and research papers to support its claims.

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Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster
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Introduction
The failed launch of the space shuttle Challenger has been extensively reported. The
failed launch took place on January 28, 1986, taking the lives of seven astronauts. In its 73
seconds after being launched, the Challenger broke into pieces resulting in this catastrophe that
shows the fatal outcomes that result when ethics and codes are not adhered to. During its almost
three years of operation, the shuttle completed nine milestone missions. Summing it up,
according to CBS, the shuttle spent a total of 62 days, 7 hours, 56 minutes, and 22 seconds in
space. In April 1983, the Challenger was host to the first spacewalk, carrying the first black
astronauts as well as the first female astronaut. However, on January 28th, 1986, the shuttle
exploded during its 10th launch, just 73 seconds after liftoff. The explosion killed seven crew
members and resulted in the change to NASA’s space program. Originally, according to the
Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s original intentions were to make the Challenger a test vehicle.
In November 1975, an aerospace manufacturing firm known as Rockwell International was
tasked the duty of building the shuttle. For structural testing, the shuttle was sent to Lockheed
Martin on April 2, 1978. As reported by NASA, during those times, the computer systems were
not sophisticated to enable the calculation of shuttle stresses during various phases of the flight.
In 1981, the shuttle was completed and its main mission was to lunch Tracking and Data Relay
Satellite. However, from the very start, the mission experienced several challenges and the
launch was postponed for a couple of days. The first delay was due to delays in getting another
shuttle, -61-C (Columbia) - safely to the ground. Another delay was due to a severe cold wave
that swept central Florida, depositing ice onto the launch pad. The main objective of this paper is
to discuss the ethics and code of conducts associated with the Challenger case study. Also, the

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paper will provide a background on what went wrong with the Challenger shuttle that resulted in
the ethical failure.
Background
There are several reasons why NASA’s management was anxious about launching the
Challenger shuttle. Such reasons include economic considerations, scheduling backlogs, as well
as political pressures. Due to the unforeseen competition from the European Space Agency,
NASA was put in a tight position whereby it had to fly the challenger shuttle dependably on a
very ambitious schedule (Lambright, 2014, pp.85). The reason for doing this was to show how
cost-effective the Space Transportation Systems was, along with the potential to commercialize.
As a result, in 1986, this led to NASA’s commissioning a record number of missions aimed at
proving the importance for its budget requests (Chang and Chern, 2016, pp.536). However,
before commissioning the Challenger, there was a prior shuttle mission that was delayed several
times as a result of incremental weather, including mechanical factors. However, the firm was
motivated not to delay in launching the Challenger to provide time and space for early
refurbishment of the launch pad, awaiting the next mission. This mission was to carry a probe
whose role was to explore Halley’s Comet. If the launch was done on time, it would help collect
data before Russia launched its probe (Allen, Carpenter, Dydak and Harkins, 2016, pp.23).
Nonetheless, the pressure to launch the Challenger can also be attributed to the fact that they
wanted it to be in space when President Reagan was addressing the state. The main subject that
Reagan would address was education, and he intended to mention the shuttles as well as Christa
McAuliffe, the first teacher in space in his speech.

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The key elements to a shuttle’s operation are the solid rocket boosters. Without these
boosters, a shuttle is incapable of producing enough thrust to enable overcome the gravitational
pull of the earth, thus achieving orbit. Before ignition, every single booster weighs 2 million
pounds. Compared to their liquid fuel counterparts, solid rockets generally produce a higher
thrust (Van Riper, A.B., 2013, pp.94). However, the drawbacks are that on igniting the solid
rocket fuel, it is difficult to control it, leave alone turning it off. Hence, the SRB needed to be
designed properly. In 1974, the contract of designing and building the SRBs was awarded to
Morton Thiokol (Allinson, 2016, pp.96). In 1976, Thiokol’s design that was an upgrade of the
Titan missile was accepted by NASA. The design of the Titan’s missile booster accommodated
one O-ring. However, during the construction of the SRB, a second O-ring was added as a
precaution for redundancy because the boosters were to be used in lifting human beings into
orbit (Altabbakh, Murray, Grantham and Damle, 2013, pp.18). The main difference between a
rocket and the new design was the additional of a second O-ring between the Titan and the
shuttle booster. The O-rings are used in preventing hot combustion gases from getting out of the
motor. Besides, a heat resistant putty is used in providing a barrier between the combustion
gases and the O-rings. Before assembly, the putty is applied to the inner parts. The O-ring’s
amount of combustion is determined by the gap between the clevis and the tang. Inserting shims
between the outside of the clevis’ leg and the tang reduces the gap, thus increasing the squeeze
on the O-ring.
Root Cause of the Problem
Months after the tragedy had occurred, a Presidential Commission went through all the
data available to determine the root cause of the Challenger tragedy (Casler, 2014, pp.241).
Pictures taken during the launch of the Challenger reveal that a puff of smoke was issuing from

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one of the solid rocket boosters. Also, videos taken during the launch show that this smoke
disappeared within seconds, and was replaced by a flame. After growing rapidly, the slipstream
forced the flame towards the fuel tank as it rose higher (Jenab, Herrin and Khoury, 2015, pp.12).
Data reveals that this was caused by a leak in the booster but nothing could be done about it. This
is because it was impossible to shut down the solid boosters and there was no abort option.
Eventually, the flame burnt through the external tank and raptured the liquid-hydrogen tank, few
milliseconds before the right booster crashed into the liquid-oxygen (De Winter and Kosolosky,
2013, pp.84). The mixture of the two liquids resulted in an explosion that destroyed the orbiter.
As it was later learned, the leak was traced to the O-ring. The O-ring is among the many
potentially catastrophic elements that make up a space shuttle and which is sensitive to several
factors such as cold. If the O-ring is exposed to very low temperatures, it loses its elasticity, and
this is what happened with the Challenger. The Challenger’s O-ring became too cold that it was
not able to expand properly, thus allowing the leak (Jenab, Ottosen and Moslehpour, 2016,
pp.16). The O-ring is known to be very sensitive to cold and only works best at temperatures
above 53 degrees and the temperatures during the day of the launch were 36 degrees. With this in
mind, it is unclear why NASA went ahead with the launch. Through investigations, the Rogers
Commission found out that there was a lack of communication (Garrett, 2017, pp.28). It was as if
the officials were playing a broken telephone game which resulted in incomplete and misleading
information to NASA’s top officials. In addition to the ill-translated information, the other
concern was the O-rings. However, consulting every flight-readiness document, this issue was
absent.
Besides, 12 hours before the launch, through as teleconference, Thiokol engineers
informed NASA’s management of the concern they had with the O-rings. During the night,

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temperatures were expected to drop to about 20 degrees, and this raised the ice concern (Jenab
and Pineau, 2015, pp.677. An inspection that was carried in the early morning of the day of
commissioning the Challenger confirmed that foot-long icicles had covered the launch structure,
and there was nobody aware what would happen if the ice broke and hit the shuttle in form of
sharp debris. Irrespective of the risks, they deemed the conditions appropriate to launch.
According to the commission, the root cause of the accident was as a result of a flawed decision-
making process. If information regarding the O-rings had reached the right individuals and
Thiokol remained concerned of safety rather than its key customers, seven lives could have been
saved (Suva and Poizat, 2015, pp.369). This is only part of the factors that led to the accident but
the questions remains why could NASA not delay the launch.
The Outcome
The Challenger mission’s experienced several delays due to a weather front that brought
cold temperatures along with rain (Gill, 2017, pp. 59). Normally, a mission was only postponed
once incremental weather entered the area. However, it was expected that the Vice President
would be present during Challenger’s launch. Due to this, the NASA managers and other
officials postponed the launch as they were concerned with avoiding the Vice President’s
necessity of making futile trip to Florida (Vanclay, Baines and Taylor, 2013, pp.247). The
second delay resulted from a defective micro switch that is located in the hatch locking
mechanisms as well as the challenge of removing the hatch handle. The winds were too high
before these problems had been resolved. The weather front had begun moving again towards
Florida, bringing with them very low temperatures (Messerschmidt, 2017, pp.207). The director
to Solid Rocket Motor Project, Alan McDonald was aware that cold weather was problematic to
the solid rocket motor (Giorgini, et al., 2015, pp.132). As early as 1977, Thiokol was aware of

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the problems linked to the boosters and in 1985 initiated a redesign, and briefed NASA’s
officials on the same. In the booster field joints, it is observed that O-rings had eroded. It is noted
that despite being informed of the problem, there were complaints that the management did not
support the redesign task force. After analyzing the booster field joints, in 1981, it was also
discovered that the O-rings eroded during flight (Hoke, 2013, pp.47). Irrespective that the joints
were perfectly sealing, the hot gases that had escaped beyond the putty were eating away the O-
ring material.
A night before the launch of the Challenger, temperatures were below 8 , much lower℉
than what the team had anticipated. Fire horses, as well as safety showers, were turned on to
ensure that the water pipes in the launch platform did not freeze. However, some water had
settled on the platform, forming ice. Concerns were raised that the ice could fall during launch,
thus damaging the shuttle’s heat resistant (Jenab, Blecher and Moslehpour, 2015, pp.19). The
team concerned with ice inspection put a lot of concern about the situation but the launch
director ignored the concern and proceeded with the countdown. It is worth noting that during
the final countdown, safety measures put in place to warn on low temperatures during launching
were disregarded and given a go ahead by the main officials (Jenab, Khoury, Fine and
Moslehpour, 2015, pp.23). As the launch took place, the ignition’s impact broke loose a piece of
ice attached to the launch platform, striking the left-hand booster. Due to aspiration effect, the
booster nozzle sucked some of the ice. Despite that, according to NASA’s analysis, there was no
account of ice damaging the Orbiter. After firing the igniter, at six-hundredths of a second, that is
when the booster ignition transient started. The right-hand booster’s aft field was the coldest at
around 28 (℉ Martin, 2015, pp.14). The segmented steel casing of the booster bulged, causing
the joint to rotate, thus expanding inward, as observed in other shuttle flights. At this instance,

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the primary O-ring was very cold making it hard for it to settle properly. As a result of extreme
cold, the heat resistant putty whose purpose protecting the rubber O-rings from extreme heat
stiffened and collapsed. The collapse of the putty resulted in gases at a temperature of over
5000 to burn past the two O-rings. After lifting off at eight-hundredths of a second, smoke℉
puffs were observed to come out of the right-hand booster as well as from the aft field joint
(Matthewman, 2014, pp.7). Within seconds the Challenger broke into flames after experiencing
the most fatal wind shear in the shuttle mission history.
Ethical Issues and the Code of Conduct
The Challenger accident has several issues that relate to the engineers as well as ethics
and their code of conduct. The issues have many unanswered questions but they may help
improve awareness among engineers whenever they encounter a situation similar to this one.
One of the issue is concerned with the engineers that are given the positions of management. It is
crucial that they do not disregard their engineering experience, including their subordinate
engineers’ expertise (Sivolella, 2013, n.d.). Most of the times, despite having engineering
experience, a manager may not be updated on engineering practices compared to the field
engineers. Whenever making any substantial decision involving technical matters, the manager
should always keep this in mind.
Engineering ethics and professional code of conduct require that the engineers understand
their professional responsibilities (Kangasniemi, Pakkanen and Korhonen, 2015, pp.1753). When
testing for designs, loads, speeds among other factors, engineers should always recognize their
duty to society in protecting their welfare. In fact, through the tax base, citizens provide the
engineers with the mechanism to obtain an education as well as through legislation, meaning that

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they obtain the license and have to regulate themselves. As a way of paying back to society,
engineers should strive in ensuring the safety and well-being of the public is maintained through
all their professional actions (Kishi, 2017, pp.5). According to the ASME Code of Ethics, every
engineer has to give much consideration to the health, welfare, as well as the safety of the public
as they perform their professional duties. All the main engineering code of conduct do remind all
the engineers of their duty in ensuring that safety, including the public’s well-being is given the
priority. Even though company loyalty is essential, this fact should not be given the chance to
override n engineer’s obligation to society.
The other ethical issues associated with the Challenger disaster is NASA’s flight rate plan
as well as heightened pressure on NASA’s officials in increasing the flight rate. Increasing the
flight rate would make it difficult for NASA to address urgent matters safely. This is due to the
reduced number of individuals dedicated to certain launch schedules. As a result, this resulted in
increased pressure on the management to make rushed decisions on a critical matter that had the
potential of delaying shuttle launch schedules (Aurisicchio, Bracewell and Hooey, 2016, pp.250).
The strict schedule plan made it appear that the management was more interested in the schedule
and not the astronauts’ safety. Based on this fact, the Presidential Commission’s report
recommended that NASA should maintain a flight rate that matches their resources.
Another ethical issue that violated the code of conduct was the issue of taking shortcuts.
Even though some of the engineers seemed concerned of the low temperatures, others believed
that the O-rings would fully function. The flaw in the process of decision-making results from
the certainty that despite receiving several requests to delay the launch, NASA decided to take
the risk and launch the Challenger. Delaying the launch would please nobody. However, putting
the lives of the astronauts first, the decision to delay the launch ought to have been taken

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(Osipov, et al., 2013, pp.865). The National Society of Professional Engineers argues that
holding paramount the public’s health, safety, as well as welfare is the most essential ethical
principle. The management gave less concern to the issue raised by the engineers regarding the
O-rings. The issue was that the O-rings could fail under low temperatures. In instances where
human life is at stake, the code of ethics argues that it is important that no corners are taken and
all issues should be brought to broad daylight and addressed effectively (Ocampo and Klaus,
2013, pp.77). The decision made by the management to proceed with the launch was intended to
save money, thus pleasing its clients but the outcome was the opposite. Eventually, billions of
money was spent in vain. Besides, the clients that the management intended to please were
devastated.
The other ethical issue associated with the Challenger accident was the reliance on
emergency safety controls. The blame for the deaths of the seven crew members was ultimately
blamed on the issue regarding the O-ring seals’ leak. Interesting enough, this issue was known to
the design engineers. However, the issue was not given much attention as required. Instead, the
engineers opted for a backup safety control measure. They put in place a secondary O-ring
anticipating the failure of the primary seal (Stappenbelt, 2013, pp.8). It does not seem ethical to
acknowledge an issue related to the primary seal and depending on the emergency safety control
to abet an accident. The most ethical decision would have been to halt all shuttle launches until
the problem was resolved. It is unethical to gamble with individuals’ lives. Originally, since the
issue was considered that critical to require an emergency safety control, then, it would have
been effectively addressed before continuing with the program.
Also, ignorance of the issue to do with the O-rings was an ethical issue linked to the
Challenger disaster. In 1985, when investigating an SRB unit, Roger Boisjoly, Thiokol’s was

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highly concerned with O-rings safety. The engineer’s investigations uncovered a serious flaw in
the O-rings’ design. After advising Thiokol’s management, a team was formed to address the
issue. However, at a meeting with NASA’s management, Biosjoly was ordered not to emphasize
on fixing the joint, but advice on how to improve it. As a result, Biosjoly’s concerns were
dismissed by NASA experts because they did not delay the launch. Both managements failed to
give Biosjoly the support he needed to address the issue.
Analysis
Professional responsibility of the research designers is the first ethical issues linked to the
Challenger disaster. The design engineers are expected and obligated to make sure that a design
is professional as well as flawless. Some of the methods of making sure that a design is flawless
include using economic statistics or increasing expenditure in building and obtaining the
resources required for a project. NASA and the design’s engineer’s project that aimed at
modifying the O-ring design could help the Challenger complete the mission but the window for
implementation was very narrow (Basart and Serra, 2013, pp.206). The rushed schedule by the
management team to an extent indicated that they were not concerned about the safety of the
seven astronauts. However, if the project was to succeed, the project management would have
listened to the issues being raised by the engineers but they decided to ignore and dismissed the
issues. For instance, NASA’s management had been warned by SRB engineers of the issues with
the O-rings but nothing was done as the matter was dismissed (Lurie and Mark, 2016, pp.422).
Deficiencies such as the lack of inadequate trend analysis, authority, the involvement of safety
personnel, resources, problem-reporting requirements, along with the misrepresentation of
criticality led to the accident (Gharouni, Panahiha and Jam, 2014, pp.159). The accident is not
only attributed to the design engineers but also the society-managerial relations in the project.

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Conclusion
A central message of the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster is that ethical judgments
should wait until facts are established. Also, the retrospective fallacy, as well as the perfect
engineering myth, has to be discarded when selecting the facts to be examined and how they
should be interpreted. In the case study, several ethical issues led to the accident. Among the
many ethical issues that resulted in the Challenger accident include the lack of consistent and
efficient communication between the management and NASA’s engineers. Evidence shows that
there was poor communication between Morton Thiokol engineers and NASA’s management.
Roger Boisjoly accounts that the atmosphere of the meeting held before the incident was filled
with tensions due to customer intimidation. The environment was not conducive for every person
to express their opinion. As a result, Thiokol’s engineers were unable to present their worries to
the management. As a result, the engineers were not able to convince the officials to postpone
the launch, thus leading resulting in the disastrous outcome. Communication failure also took
place between the NASA management and the ground crew. The ground crew was tasked with
measuring the temperature and the thickness of that ice that had settled on the Challenger shuttle.
The recorded temperature on the shuttle’s right-hand Solid Rocket Booster was 8 . Despite℉
being aware of this fact, the ground crew never shared this information with the management or
the engineers because they had only been ordered to report on the ice’s thickness. Nonetheless,
were NASA’s engineers in violation of their responsibility to give more consideration to public
safety rather the launch schedule? Were Thiokol’s engineers in violation of their duty to ensure
public safety above concerns of losing their contract with NASA? Did the management violate
the principle of informed consent? Were Thiokol’s engineers in violation of their duty to treat
records as organizational property? What role did whistleblowing play in the case? The general