Preview

space shuttle

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2313 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
space shuttle
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

INTRODUCTION: The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster occurred on January 28, 1986, when Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. The spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of central Florida, United States, at 11:39 a.m. EST (16:39 UTC).
Disintegration of the entire vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at liftoff. The O-ring failure caused a breach in the SRB joint it sealed, allowing pressurized hot gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB attachment hardware and external fuel tank. This led to the separation of the right-hand SRBs aft attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces promptly broke up the orbiter.
The crew compartment and many other vehicle fragments were eventually recovered from the ocean floor after a lengthy search and recovery operation. Although the exact timing of the death of the crew is unknown, several crew members are known to have survived the initial breakup of the spacecraft. However, the shuttle had no escape system and the astronauts did not survive the impact of the crew compartment with the ocean surface.
The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found that NASA’s organizational culture and decision-making processes had been a key contributing factor to the accident. NASA managers had known that contractor Morton Thiokol’s design of the SRB’s contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977, but they failed to address it properly. They also disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the cold temperatures of that morning and had

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the following case study, we’ll have a brief analysis of the disaster that took place with the “Challenger Space Shuttle” and the role played by the 3 most important players: Thiokol, NASA and the White House. At the end we will discuss the things that could have prevented not only this but all major disasters that take place in various organizations.…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after 73 seconds into flames in flight on January 28, 1986 with one of the seven astronauts, a school teacher Christa McAuliffe aboard.…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The sequence of events that led to the bad decision on the part of NASA’s base lie in economic, political, and scheduling backlog pressures. Competition from the European Space Agency put NASA under pressure to come up with a space mission, which would hopefully shed light on the ability of NASA to plan commercialized space departures. NASA also had to prove that its program should continue to be funded; another unforeseen pressure pushing NASA to schedule its record number of Space exploration trips that year than in any other year. Also, the space shuttle mission scheduled before the Challenger had been delayed over and over; a record number of times. The next mission after the Challenger involved a probe being sent into space in order to evaluate Haley’s Comet. If the Challenger and subsequently the next mission were not executed in a timely manner then a doppelganger probe from Russia would beat the U.S. probe to Haley’s Comet. Pressure to launch the challenger, as soon as possible, could have also come from President Reagan’s upcoming State of the Union Address in which he would be mentioning the first teacher astronaut in space. All of these beforehand mentioned pressures led to bad engineering design, and timing, which ultimately led to the failure of the Space Shuttle Challenger mission. In order to evaluate and correct…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He was still injured, but made it to his friends house, that was outside of Hiroshima.…

    • 1515 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Ronald Wilson Reagan became the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. During his presidency, on January 28th, 1986, NASA had launched a shuttle, named “the Challenger.” However, immediately after the launch the Challenger experienced a detrimental fault that caused it to explode shortly after takeoff. Seven courageous crew members were aboard this shuttle, and unfortunately none…

    • 61 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Shuttle Info

    • 1441 Words
    • 6 Pages

    CrossIron Mills provides a private shuttle service for exclusive use of transporting current employees to and from their place of work. This is a private service that requires current proof of employment to be produced in order to purchase fare. CrossIron Mills does not provide intercity/regional transportation to members of the public. If you have questions or concerns regarding public transportation in your municipality, we encourage you to contact your local city or county council. LOCATIONS ROUTE #1 Dalhousie (5005 Dalhousie Dr. NW, the LRT lot) Harvest Hills Park & Ride (corner of Harvest Hills Blvd N & Country Village Way NE) ROUTE #2 Métis Trail & 64th Avenue NE LRT Station ROUTE #3 Airdrie (Sierra Springs Drive SE, east-side of the Co-Op Store) Employees MUST purchase a pass prior to boarding the Shuttle, NO PASS = NO RIDE. Passes are purchased at the Guest Services centre located inside CrossIron Mills. CURRENT PROOF OF EMPLOYMENT MUST BE PRESENTED TO PURCHASE A PASS (pay-stub, offer letter, letter from your Manager.) It is your responsibility to provide proof of employment. Phone calls to Managers, etc. will not be accepted. ONE –WAY TICKET = $1.50 MONTHLY PASS = $50.00…

    • 1441 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Shortly after the disaster, Reagan appointed William P. Rogers (known as the Rogers Commission), to investigate the accident. They wanted to know what or who was responsible for…

    • 213 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the early spring of 1986, The Challenger was scheduled to launch in the morning from the Kennedy Space Center. The Challenger had seven passengers. One of these passengers was a Christa McAuliffe, a social studies teacher from New Hampshire. She was the first ordinary citizen to be going to space. The social studies teacher had won the opportunity through NASA’s Teachers in space program. The spacecraft was in the air only seventy-three seconds before it exploded and broke apart into the ocean. Everyone was in shock. All the passengers were killed tragically. This put a horrible mark on NASA’s reputation. Some even wanted to close the exploration to space. American was in mourning and everyone felt the blow of the tragedy. However, President Ronald Reagan saw it fit to continue space exploration. He gave an argument and a tribute to America and the families of the lost passengers. His tribute swayed American to see the silver lining in the tragedy and understand why we must continue the journey to explore space.…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In its two hundred and twenty eight years of existence, the country of America has seen many tragedies and failures. However, in the eyes if many, the worst of these tragedies was by far the Challenger disaster of 1986. On January 26, the world was shocked as everyone watched the Challenger shuttle explode, killing all seven crewmembers. The challenger disaster was by far one of the worst tragedies of the space exploration era. However, the disaster should not have occurred. In fact, it should have been prevented.…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Later that day, president Reagan gave a public announcement about the accident, stating, “The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.” (EBSCOhost). He later appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with the Challenger developed corrective measures for other shuttles and space crafts. Due to this national tragedy and extensive media coverage, NASA decided to suspend all shuttle missions temporarily to evaluate the program for about two years.…

    • 578 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Challenger space shuttle exploded shortly after launch, killing all of the crewmembers aboard at the time including the “first teacher in space”, Christa McAuliffe. This disaster was felt all across the world as people looked in aww that what happened to the crewmembers. The explosion ended up call NASA a total of about two billion dollars and then years of distrust for the organization. After the Explosion NASA launched a major investigation to determine why the shuttle had exploded. In the end of the investigation the committee publicly announced that the explosion was caused by a failure of a motor rubber O-Ring due to an unexpected design flaw. They also found that another cause for the explosion was a faulty management by the organization. January 28, 1986 started off as a cold day for Southern Florida, something they aren't use to.…

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Challenger essay

    • 963 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the presidential speech, “The Space Shuttle "Challenger" Tragedy Address,” Ronald Reagan states his sympathy for the seven lives that were lost in the devastating explosion and how the space program will continue to move forward. Reagan address’s the audience when he states, “We mourn their loss as a nation together.”…

    • 963 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I vividly remember the day of the Challenger Disaster. I was five years old and in kindergarten. My teacher, Ms. Epton, brought us outside to watch the shuttle launch; something many kids have to watch on television, but those of us living on the coast got to witness firsthand. I remember seeing the fiery glow of the shuttle, the gasps by the adults, and quickly being hurried back into the classroom. Not much was said about what had happened, it was not until later that I fully understood.…

    • 603 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Fggds

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The challenger explosion happened because there was a broken O ring. If the scientists didn’t overlook this problem then those people who died in the explosion would have lived the carelessness of these people cost the other people their life. I think that this could have been easily stopped the flight could have been postponed or even cancelled but it wasn’t and cost 7 people their life the families blame the space program for these deaths.…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The disaster resulted in a 32-month hiatus in the shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission, a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident. The Rogers Commission found that NASA's organizational culture and decision-making processes had been a key contributing factor to the accident. NASA managers had known that contractor Morton Thiokol's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings since 1977, but they failed to address it properly. They also disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning and had failed to adequately report these technical concerns to…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays