Doll, 1

Samuel Doll

Dr. Geoff Knowles

Ethics Case Study Paper

Apr. 25th, 2023

The Second-Greatest Commandment

If there is a famous and well-known case of engineering failure, it is the Challenger

explosion. With the high government profile it carried, and all of the publicity it received before

and after the fact, it is no wonder how such a tragedy could be immortalized as it has been. But

beyond what almost everyone knows about the Challenger’s tragic launch, there is a complex

story of ethical crossroads and occupational conflict that fueled and led to this immortal event.

Diving deeper into the wealth of information surrounding this occurrence leads to the

realization that the situation is not so clear cut as it might have seemed, and that the choices

and decisions involved were not simply flagrant and ignorant, but made with good intentions in

mind.

NASA, in the 1980’s was in fierce competition with the European Space Agency and the

Russian Space Agency to prove that they were still economically effective in the face of up-and-

coming foreign technology. By 1986, they were under enormous pressure to prove that they

could complete projects not just in a timely manner, but one that was capable of beating the

foreign space agencies (The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster). As such, their schedule was one

big, convoluted mess of practically impossible deadlines, rushing the workers around, to get
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everything ready for the launch on time. And, at a rate of 24 flights per year-two every month-

NASA simply did not have the resources to realistically keep up with such a pace (Britannica).

As the Challenger’s launch drew closer and closer, concerns began to be raised, and

question marks began to appear. Some things started seeming sketchy at best, and majorly

questionable at worst. Some of the project Engineers raised concerns about one of the engine

components, the O-Rings, that they had harbored for around two years. The issue with this

component was not that it was flawed in its performance, but that it was not designed to work

in the low temperatures predicted for the launch day. Research all the way from 1977, almost

ten years prior, indicated that the O-Rings would fail (This Month in Physics History). These

concerns harbored by the engineers resulted in action being taken to present them to the

upper management.

These issues were formally brought to NASA during a teleconference between a group

of Engineers and some management from the Kennedy Space Center the night before the

scheduled launch. The engineers, with scant time to prepare an argument, did so anyway, and

presented all that they had to the management. The issue was that the aforementioned

research only indicated a small potential for failure, and only to a low of 53 degrees Fahrenheit.

Due to the uncertain results and indications, Kennedy management called for a decision to be

made by management on the engineer’s side. Their manager, Joe Kilminster, was told to “Take

off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.” Doing so, he wrote out a new

official recommendation, saying that the inconclusive evidence made the cold a safety concern,

but not a large enough one to mandate a delay of launch. And with that, the launch was

officially greenlit (The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster).

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The next day, even colder temperatures than predicted caused increased safety

concerns, such as ice forming all over the launch platform, and additional concerns that that ice

could fall on and damage the heat resistant tiles on the shuttle itself. These were also bypassed,

and the launch continued with, although the personnel who waived that were not aware of the

prior night’s teleconference (The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster). As the shuttle took off, an

effect known as “joint rotation” did just what the engineers had feared, and prevented proper

sealing by the O-Rings, leaving a path for hot exhaust gas to escape, which caused a stream of

flame to grow and eventually erode a strut that held the booster to a tank holding hydrogen

and oxygen for the orbiter engines. This proved to be fatal when a small lag in thrust, normally

nothing to worry about, caused the burnt strut to snap, which allowed for the booster base to

force its way into the fuel tank, leading to an explosion, which sent the shuttle spiraling into a

flaming, disastrous wreck (Britannica). All because of a small issue with some tiny O-Rings.

The question left burning in everyone’s mind after hearing of such a sequence of

unfortunate events is likely “Why?”. Why was NASA management so lackadaisical in their duties

they permitted a flight like that? For one, hindsight truly is 20/20, and for two, it must be

remembered that management in such a position as NASA’s has a code of ethics that they in

their position must follow. And it is between this veritable rock and a hard place that we must

look. Because one’s personal code of ethics can vary so much, from something like ethical

egoism, where one’s actions are determined by what furthers one’s own self-interest (Shaver)

to relativism, where right and wrong are determined by one’s own personal background. With

so many contradicting standpoints, it is necessary to look instead at a different code of ethics, a

positional one.
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Positional ethics is a code of ethics where one’s choices are determined by the

requirements of one’s position. In other words, a manager’s right and wrongs differ from a

generic worker, and they have different quotas and goals that they must accomplish. This

influences decisions to a degree that would not necessarily have been reached had someone

been put to the same fork in the road outside of their position. And this is where we must go to

fully understand what transpired leading up to the fateful day of the explosion.

The managers who chose to veto the engineers’ recommendation didn’t do so out of

some selfish desire to keep the launches going, or out of some misplaced sense of pride where

they felt that the potential risk was inconsequential. As previously mentioned, NASA at the time

was enforcing a strict 24 launches a year schedule. And with all the publicity surrounding the

Challenger, pressure was on to conduct a successful launch. Combine that with the fact that the

previous shuttle had been delayed a record number of times due to poor conditions, and you

have ample reason for bypassing potential concerns (The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster).

There was a small chance in the first place that the predicted temperatures

would negatively impact the launch. Additionally, as previously mentioned, that the data on

exactly how much the cold would affect the O-rings didn’t exist. So, while the potential

concerns for safety were certainly present, the Challenger launch had so much going for it, and

had so much media presence surrounding it, that to delay the launch was an “Only for

emergencies” option, so to speak. Thus, the perfect storm was created: A launch date that had

to be met to keep up with NASA’s schedule, and a bunch of concerns that couldn’t properly be

quantified. So, rather than take the time to evaluate the concerns, as would likely have been

done otherwise, they were sidelined, leading to the tragic outcome we are all familiar with.
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These decisions were not necessarily morally right from a Christian standpoint, as we

are told that the second-greatest commandment is “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

(Bible Gateway Passage). According to this ethical viewpoint, human life trumps all other

factors in a quandary. In this case, the management did not break any laws in their decision,

nor is this completely illogical a thing to decide, especially from a corporate view. And this is

what can be learned from this incident. Rather than companies trying to push deadlines to

satisfy investors, or keep up a front of some false façade, the focus should be kept on ethical

treatment of human lives. Had emphasis been placed on them, rather than the company’s

agenda, things would have easily turned out differently.

In a similar way, the formal Code of Professional Engineers explicitly says to “Hold

paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public…If engineers’ judgment is overruled

under circumstances that endanger life or property, they shall notify their employer or client

and such other authority as may be appropriate.” (Code of Ethics). The engineers on the team

certainly did notify their higher-ups in the company, but they did not go as far as they could

have in informing people. Especially considering that they were certain of failure to the point of

one of them telling his wife that it would certainly explode upon launch (Berkes). They partially

fulfilled their obligation but did not complete it in time to save the launch. But, similar to the

management, they feared the repercussions of failing (The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster).

And this leads to one more lesson, that companies need to be okay with failing.

Somehow, we’ve gotten ourselves to this industrial ideal of perfection in all things. Companies

feel the need to lie, take shortcuts, and do unethical things just to fulfill this ideal, when that

simply isn’t true. As a result of this incident, NASA tightened up their chain of command, to
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ensure proper communication, and in the hopes of preventing goal-driven tragedies like this

(This Month in Physics History).

The bright side to this story is that NASA learned from this mistake and took major

corrective action to repair this error. But looking at the rest of the world, think about how many

companies still cut those corners, and try to avoid the slightest possibility of messing up. To

truly remove ourselves from the self-inflicted failures that the Challenger represents, measures

need to continue to be taken to ensure that human life and the general safety of the people

involved always takes the spotlight in terms of concern and action. To avoid the unnecessary

loss that arises from situations like these, we need to remember the commandment Messiah

Himself gave us over anything else but loving God: Loving our neighbors as we would ourselves

and being deliberate in taking care of our fellow man before worrying about the goals of this

world.
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Works Cited

Baghramian, Maria, and J. Adam Carter. “Relativism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

Stanford University, 15 Sept. 2020, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/.

Berkes, Howard. “30 Years after Explosion, Challenger Engineer Still Blames Himself.” NPR,

NPR, 28 Jan. 2016, https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/01/28/464744781/30-

years-after-disaster-challenger-engineer-still-blames-himself.

“Bible Gateway Passage: Mark 12 - New King James Version.” Bible Gateway,

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+12&version=NKJV.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopedia. “Challenger Disaster.” Encyclopædia Britannica,

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 27 Mar. 2023,

https://www.britannica.com/event/Challenger-disaster.

“Code of Ethics.” Code of Ethics | National Society of Professional Engineers,

https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics.

Shaver, Robert. “Egoism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 9 Jan.

2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/.

“The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster.” The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster | Online Ethics,

https://onlineethics.org/cases/engineering-ethics-cases-texas-am/space-shuttle-challenger-

disaster.
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“This Month in Physics History.” American Physical Society, 2001,

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200101/history.cfm.