1/Define and understand the problem.

The Space Shuttle Challenger, with school teacher Christa McAuliffe aboard, exploded in flames on live
television on January 28, 1986, The direct cause of the Challenger explosion was technical - faulty O-rings. But
the Challenger also presented a case study in organizational communication and ethics, including the ethics of
organizational structure and culture as it promotes or discourages necessary communication, the ethics of
whistle blowing, and an excellent study of group thin

Technical Problems Before launching the Space Shuttle Challenger, it had been plagued by the problems with
the field joint design. During testing of the boosters in 1977, Thiokol was being aware of the field joint design
problems being aware [4]. The failure of field joint was a breach between two segments of a booster rocket was
joined. The source of breach was the disintegration occurred on the rubber-like O-rings in a field joint.
Consequence to this, it caused O-rings failed to prevent hot combustion gasses from escaping from the inside of
the motor to reach external and impinged on the adjacent SRB attachment hardware and external fuel tank.
After four years, booster field joints revealed problems again that the O-rings were being eroded by hot gases
after the further examination in second shuttle flight. The erosion of the O-rings was found occasionally
occurred but it was not regarded as a significant matter as a redundant O-ring (secondary O-ring) was added.
Furthermore, the SRB were only used for the first few minutes of the flight, as long as Orings erosion were able
to resist before the SRB ran out of fueland jettisoned, hence NASA’s top management deemed that the result
was ‘acceptable’ in a Flight Readiness Review (FRR) in March 1984 [4]. In 1985, a significant O-rings erosion and
blow-by issue escalated due to the effect of the cold weather on the SRB. Arnie Thompson, who was the
Supervisor of the Structural Design and Analysis for the solid rocket motor at Thiokol, requested his staff went
through preliminary O-rings resiliency testing. The result came out from this testing indicated a low temperature
of 50º F (10ºC) was a contributing factor for the O-rings to harden. The hardening of O-rings lost contact with its
matting surface, and allowing more gas to blow-by and caused the O-rings being eroded. This issue paid a highly
concentration by the engineer at Thiokol as everyone knew that it was different from the previous O-ring
erosion scenario stated before. This current O-rings erosion and blow-by issue occurred within 0.60 seconds
during the motor ignition transient and it would bring to unimaginable destructive consequence [3]. However,
Thiokol kept this secret from NASA. Even in the FRR of the Challenger of January 15, 1986, O-rings problem was
not listed as a launch constraint. B. Poor Management at Thiokol In 1985, Thiokol formed Solid Rocket Motor
Seal Erosion Task Team without official responsibility and also the authority to execute the work. The team
supposed to aim to solve any SRB related problems but due to the organization lacked of understanding the
importance of the task team activity and this team seemed like ‘never existed’ [8]. Besides that, the failure in
communication also happened to their engineers, Boisjoly pleaded a help from Kilminster, the Vice President of
Space Booster Program when they failed to solve SRB problems, and his superior thoroughly failed to
understand the problem that the team had gone through [3].

C. Pressure Faced by NASA The Challenger experienced fourth postponement and NASA were very unsatisfied
with the postponement as they need to report to Congress the reasons failed to meet this initial planning. This
unsatisfactory was increasing when European Space Agency (ESA) announced to develop cheaper shuttle, which
intended to compete with NASA in space transportation. Furthermore, pressure to launch arising in competing
with Russian to be the first to observe Halley’ comet [4]. Hence, in order to prove that the mission was on track,
NASA management set a ‘must’ launching mission in Jan 1986.

D. Unethically Actions Conducted by NASA and Thiokol A day before the launch, the weather forecast predicted
unusually cold, with temperatures to be in low 20ºF in January 28. Thiokol engineers were very concerned with
the effect of cold weather on the O-rings. They believed that cold weather could render the O-rings became stiff
and unable to seal the joints against the hot ignition gases. There were a preflight telephonic conferences held
between the management from Kennedy Space Center, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and engineers
atThiokol during the night before the launch. The prefligh

telephonic conference started with the presentation done by Boisjoly and Thompson about the effect of cold
weather on the O-rings. The presentation included showing some photographs of O-rings taken from previous
flights to NASA management in order to prove that the launch in cold weather was highly discouraged. After the
presentation, Thiokol's Engineering Vice President Bob Lund concluded that Thiokol only had the lowest
temperature data, which is 53ºF for the effects of cold weather on the operational boosters. He added that
although his engineers could not quantify their data but he commented that NASA should delay the launch as
the predicted temperature for the morning’s launch was outside the lowest temperature data. NASA managers
confused as they knew that the temperature for booster in original design should operate properly outside
temperature of 31ºF whereas Thiokol understood the limit for launching was 40°F, and limit for storage of the
booster supposed was 31ºF. Hence, Mulloy commented the data was inconclusive and proceeding to challenge
engineer’s logic [6]. This led to a heated debate with Mulloy, the Solid Rocket Booster Project Manager at
Marshall, bypassing Lund and asked Kilminster for his opinion. Kilminster, which posses extensive engineering
background and was in management team on that time also discouraged the flightworthiness as though the
temperature below 53ºF. Some of the managers at Marshall expressed their disagreement about Thiokol’s
recommendation, this situation prompted Kilminster by asking for a caucus for a few minutes in order for
Thiokol to review their data [7]. There were 14 engineers and managers in this caucus. During the caucus,
Boisjoly and other engineers attempted to convince their managers to adhere to the original decision. They also
implored the management not to ignore the seal in the cold weather [8]. The managers at Thiokol especially
Mason, Senior Vice President at Thiokol in charge of all Wasatch Plant Operations, was persuaded by Mulloy’s
counter –argument that the data was inconclusive and it seemed to be no correlation between temperature and
the erosion experienced by O-rings in previous flight. In the final discussion, the engineers were omitted from
taking the vote poll and the management changed their decision and agreed with NASA that it was a safe
launch. McDonald, Director of the Solid Rocket Motors Project at Thiokol, attended themeeting together with
NASA management at Florida was surprised with the recommendation had been made after 30 minutes at
Thiokol side. He strove in vain to persuade NASA to delay the launch.

III. THE LAUNCH DAY The predicted temperature was 20ºF but it was 8ºF to the contrary on the launch day.
Technicians found icicles accumulated one to two feet long on the launch pad but due to there was no launch-
commit constraint so they ignored to report their finding. The shuttle experienced two hours postponement
while waiting for warming up and also some melted ice in the early morning [4]. Finally, the mission
management team decided to launch the Challenger. The Challenger lift off not more than a second, nine puffs
of black smoke erupted from the lower part of the right booster. Very soon, the right SRB was in flame and
theChallenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff. Hence, all astronauts perished in a fireball [8].