NASA Challenger Explosion

The history of America will never forget the mission of its Space Shuttle Orbiter “Challenger” that was going to take a non-astronaut civilian, Ms. Christina Mc Auliffe for the first time into space after twenty-four successful launches by NASA. On January 28th, 1986, the shuttle “Challenger”, however, exploded within 73 seconds of its lift-off, killing all the seven crew members on board while millions of people all over the world watched the turmoil. The explosion remains to be one of the most significant events in the history as the disaster drew attention to various technical faults, raising a number of other issues pertaining to organizational and ethical behavior along with the leadership skills of the teams involved, that had a catastrophic
result. While the immediate cause of the disaster was found to be the failure of two rubber O-rings that separated rocket boosters due to the cold temperature, the explosion was not only blamed for its technical faults but also the managerial operations and leadership skills of the teams of NASA and Morton Thiokol involved who were active.