It has been more than thirty years ago that America’s Space shift department and the NASA department suffered a tragic tragedy that claimed the lives of astronauts on board. The event was so tragic that it affected millions of Americans and left them traumatized. The Challenger shuttle had just been prepared to take over to the moon, the event was televised, and everybody was watching it. The space shuttle exploded just some few seconds after it had taken off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. The explosion claimed the lives of all the seven astronauts on board. This happened in January of 28th in the year 1986. Among those who were left dead was an educator from New Hampshire Crista McAuliffe who and person from the general population by NASA to fly with the Astronauts. Before the tragedy, NASA had also suffered a loss of three astronauts. The Challenger tragedy was devastating and tragic. It was a shock for the whole country and the entire globe since the event was broadcasted and televised giving access to every other person to watch the explosion that took off just a few seconds after a takeover. It was the first tragedy that had happened in the United States history that included a space shuttle and leaving dead astronauts on board. It was later found that the explosion by the Challenger shuttle was caused failure of a certain rubber in the booster to work efficiently. Experts also concluded that the decision to have it launched was flawed and those who made such decisions had no idea of the recent disaster that were caused by the O-rings in the booster. The following people died in the space shuttle including Commander Francis Scobee; pilot Mike Smith, mission specialist Judith Resnik, Ron Mcnair and Elison Onizuka (Wall, 2016).
One of the main ethical issues during the Challenger tragedy was professional responsibility of the design engineers. Engineers in daily life have the responsibility of ensuring that they use their professionalism to check if engines and apparatus are working properly. The NASA design engineers failed to counter check the space shift before it launched. The implementation window was short and that led the space shift to be rushed into launching.
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Lack of effective communication was also an ethical issue that was faced during the Challenger launch. Both the management and the engineers never communicated effectively between them. The engineers were supposed to communicate on the rushed launch and request for an extension of time to complete their preparations, but due to poor communication, none of this happened and the launch was rushed without proper preparation (Boisjoly, Foster & Mellican, 2009).
NASA design engineers neglected ignorance of potential problems. The design engineers ignored to solve the simple problems that they had already identified in the space shuttle, the ignorance by engineers caused the explosion of the space shuttle. They failed to rectify the O-ring, which they clearly knew had a problem. NASA engineers were aware of the problems that the shuttle had including the O-ring and that a potential disaster waited but still went on and launched the shuttle.
The United States stopped space shuttles from launching for more two years after the Challenger tragedy the government under President Ronald Reagan commissioned the Rodgers Commission to determine what went wrong and to develop corrective measures.
The tragedy has affected the society in the United States since after the launch civilians have feared in joining astronauts to space and the families of astronauts have sometimes denied their family members from pursuing such a filed. By learning from their mistakes NASA have been cautious and have successfully launched a space shift in 1988, 20033 and the year 2005 both having a successful launch to space.
References
Boisjoly, R. P., Foster, E., & Mellican, E. (2009). Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger Disaster: The Ethical Dimensions. Journal of Business Ethics , 8 , 4, 217-230.
Wall, M. (2016, January 28). Challenger Disaster 30 Years Ago Shocked the World, Changed NASA . Space.com. Retrieved from https://www.space.com/31760-space-shuttle-challenger-disaster-30-years.html
