WWR#4
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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute *
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Course
2530
Subject
English
Date
Apr 3, 2024
Type
docx
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Uploaded by ChefEchidnaPerson2034
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For the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, briefly provide the main technical cause and 2 other “non-technical” (e.g., human factors, social, economic, ethical, cultural, political, environmental) causes/explanations. In your opinion was the primary cause a technical or non-technical issue?
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For the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, briefly provide the main technical cause and 2 other “non-technical” causes/explanations. In your opinion was the primary cause a technical or non-
technical issue?
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As briefly discussed in class, Normal Accidents are described as “inevitable” or bound to happen in complex designs. Select either the Challenger or the Columbia disaster. In your opinion was the disaster inevitable or bound to happen?
1.
The technical cause of the Challenger disaster was the failure of the O-ring seals in one of the rocket boosters. This ultimately caused the space shuttle to explode. One non-
technical cause was the weather. It was extremely cold the day of launch and NASA proceeded with the launch anyways. Another non-technical cause for this was the urge to get the teacher into space. The teacher on board was meant to conduct lessons in space and lecture students all over the country. There was a huge urge to do this which may have resulted in not delaying take off. 2.
The technical cause for the Columbia disaster was a large piece of insulating foam falling off after take off. This was part of the causes for the breakoff upon re entry that ended many lives. A non-technical cause for this was NASA’s oversight for the issue. One of the engineers on board emailed NASA about evaluating the issue but received no feedback for days. NASA’s safety program was not up to par at the time of this incident. Another non-technical issue was politics. NASA was receiving less funding due to the “Space Race” being over so they were pressured to do more with less. This caused extra pressure being added to the take off of Columbia and insufficient funds to complete it. 3.
In my opinion, the Challenger disaster could have been avoided. If NASA delayed take off a few more days, for the weather to clear up. The weather caused the O-rings to break their seal, so if take off was delayed this problem could have been fixed or avoided. This was still an accident that no one expected to happen, but it definitely could
have been avoided knowing what we know now.
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