In its two hundred and twenty eight years
of presence, America has seen numerous tragedies and disappointments. The worst
was The Challenger Disaster in 1986. The world was stunned on
January 26th as
everybody witnessed the Challenger detonate, killing all
seven astronauts. This occurred due to a flaw in the design
of the shuttle’s solid
rocket booster and disintegration of an o shaped disk in its right
solid rocket thruster. The shuttle itself did not explode, but various structural
failures caused the orbiter to disintegrate. Even though the
disintegration of the Challenger was not warned
about, the space travels could be aware
of something being bizarre with the
spacecraft. The calamity of The Challenger
was activated by a series of events, the O
shaped ring, on the aircraft’s right
solid rocket booster had failed after liftoff.
Thus the pressurized hydrogen gas escaped from
inside of the thruster. This vaporized material caused the two bits,
the booster and an orange external gas tank, to
disintegrate. Therefore, 73 seconds after
lift-off, the highly explosive reaction between
oxygen and hydrogen yielded a
complete annihilation of the spaceship.
After the mishap, NASA refrained from
sending astronauts into space for over two years as it redesigned the features
of the space craft. The incident cannot be accused on one individual, yet
rather was a group destruction. Had NASA held self-uprightness, and had not
constrained ‘The Challenger’ to leave that day, the incident could have been
avoided. The choice to launch the Challenger Shuttle and its tragedy majorly
affected the public and the administration of the space program.
Challenger’s unique mission and the demise of
Christa McAuliffe (as the first civilian worker, teacher) led
open the door to discuss and research how the management used Decision Support System (DSS)
to decide the choices which will influence public trust.