INDE 410: Engineering Ethics

3.2 Case study: The Challenger disaster

Read the following case and then address the questions below. There is no need to submit
anything but you need to be ready to answer any of the questions in class on Wednesday. So it is
highly advised that you take written notes of your answers.

The Challenger Disaster in 1986 is one of the most notorious cases of engineering failure. Watch
the following short documentary to get a sense for what happened on that day. There is also a
new Netflix documentary about the subject (Challenger: The Final Flight).

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYX35Z_L-dw

How could such a disaster happen at NASA? You have to go back many years before the
incident. NASA employs many subcontractors, one of which was Morton Thiokol, an
engineering firm that was in charge of creating solid rocket boosters (SRBs). It turned out that
these SRBs were the source of the explosion on board the rocket. Failure in the O-ring seals of
the SRBs allowed pressured gas to leak, and this then caught fire.

It turned out that the O-rings had not been fully tested at low temperatures. The temperature the
day of the launch? -1 degrees Celsius. There had in fact been previous issues with the O-rings,
and both Morton Thiokol and NASA were aware of that. In particular, one engineer at Morton
Thiokol, Roger Boisjoly, was very vocal with his concerns. Read more about what happened in
the hours leading up to the problem here.
1. Who were the different groups of people involved here?
2. What responsibilities did each of these groups have?
3. What engineering ideals were in conflict here?
4. What impediments to responsible action do you detect here for each of these groups?
5. What should each group have done differently, if anything? Refer to the Principle of
Sacrifice and explain whether you agree or not.