Introduction
The crash of the Columbia and Challenger space shuttles is often construed with varied opinions and views among Americans and indeed all people of age and size. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which is the worldwide leader in areas that deal with space science is one of the most exclusive organizations in terms of intricacy, limitation, mission, dimension and motivation (Kerwin 56).
The organization’s flagship venture –human spaceflight, is very precarious and one of the most difficult tasks that can embark on by man. The tragic occurrences that affected the Challenger on 28 January 1986 are often deemed as a result of serious flaws in the organizational processes and structure that controlled the missions. The breakup of the space shuttle Columbia during re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere was a reaffirmation that something was missing and a reminder to all of how perceived harmless and small details play a very significant role in the delicate systems.
The organization has evolved over its years of existence and detailed analysis and revision of organizational processes are needed in order for it to survive and thrive amidst all the challenges that come with the missions. If NASA is to seriously eliminate chances of failure and advance its mission, then a serious revision of rules and procedures has to be undertaken (Kerwin 59).
Nowhere is failure very likely than in high-risk organizations such as NASA which utilizes a range of systems for the purposes of risk avoidance. The aim of the systems is simple; ensure that all persons and instruments sent to space come back in one piece safely. This although has not always been the case as manifested in the two disasters that plagued the organization. All the two incidences are blamed on a mixture of both technical and mostly organizational breakdown.
Organizational Analysis
With over 18,000 employees employed directly by NASA and with an expenditure of $ 15 billion dollars, the organization is arguably one of the biggest and most technical that is complex along with its mission and goals. These goals have evolved over time from competing with the Soviet Union in the space race to the current objectives which are to advance knowledge in and facilitation of technological transfer. The organization has been defined as being greatly path-dependent which means that it is decisions made by managers and the decision makers heavily rely on the history of the organization. NASA’s organizational structure is “inelastic.”
In that, it is incapable of returning to its original form or state after encountering stimulus. The advent of the space race heralded the beginning new frontier where cost was of less concern to the agency and where research and development into better and safer ways of space travel were the rules rather than the exception. At the end of the space race, these efforts and initiatives took a back seat as budget cuts ensued which led to the situation where spaceflight was now focused on transporting people and equipment into space with as minimal costs as possible. This usually came at the expense of safety as the shuttles now lacked the lift capability in comparison to the initial Saturn V (Kerwin 67). The goal of the organization shifted with the onset of telecommunication through launches of satellites to space.
Shuttle launches became routine as also the allure of space travel. This fostered a good breeding ground for inefficiency s NASA now was more targeted on launching as many satellites as possible to the chagrin of shuttle engineers who were not given enough time to research safety measures. Essential parts of the program were contracted out to the benefit of private contractors which had a heavy effect of introducing operational demands into R&D initiatives.
Problem-affected shuttle launches continued to plague the missions even though none had a catastrophic effect that led to the death of crew or loss of the vehicle. A culture was bred within NASA where engineers did not receive enough incentive in terms of resources, to track down the root cause of the problems considered to be non fight safety risks. It reached a point where even flight shuttles were deemed safe to fly based on its historical successful performance.
The Challenger Tragedy
On January 28th 1986, the shuttle exploded just after seventy-three seconds into its launch leading to the death of all seven crew members and loss of equipment worth billions of dollars. An investigation commission led by led by William Rogers concluded that the cause was due to the failure of a solid rocket booster joint that permitted flame to encroach the external fuel tanks that led to the explosion.
Due to the low temperature, the shuttle was exposed to in the three nights before the launch, one of the O rings that constituted the solid rocket booster (SRB) had become fragile. This was demonstrated to the commission by Richard Feynman a physicist, who demonstrated the brittle nature of the O rings when he submerged a part of it in a glass of ice water. The part simply lost resiliency and became brittle. On the night before the launch of the shuttle, there was ongoing concern among engineers at Thiokol (contractors who designed and made the O rings for the space program) that the O rings had been exposed to temperatures that were lower than those that it could withstand.
Following a meeting between the senior engineers of the firm and NASA officials, this issue was disregarded and pumping of liquid fuel went on as usual in order for the shuttle to be launched the next day. Why was the shuttle launch delayed for a more conclusive investigation to be done?
Apparently, there was a deeply ingrained culture of seeking proof and when engineers from Thiokol could not prove their suspicions because of the hurried manner the meeting was convened, their fears were disregarded and the decision to take off was stamped. This was compounded by the state of the Union address in which the president was to use the launch in his speech in highlighting its importance as it was to carry Sharon Christa McAuliffe an educator and a civilian. At the time there were major spending cuts in the educational budget and the president wanted to seek public approval in these initiatives. Hence the officials at NASA faced technical as well as political pressure in launching the shuttle (Kerwin 68).
Columbia Disaster: Again?
In February 2003, Columbia disintegrated on re-entry back to the earth’s orbit. Again a committee was formed to investigate the tragedy and conclusive findings showed that a big chunk of foam hit the left wing of the orbiter and left a gushing hole of approximately twenty-five centimeters. Enough for the orbiter to be compromised during the re-entry back to earth.
The foam strike was noticed on the second day after the launch of the shuttle and despite requests by the crew on the conduction of photo imagery to check on the extent of the damage, they were turned down as the probability of mission failure due to foam damage was low. Such instances of foam damage had become frequent that it warranted no confirmation of the integrity of the shuttle or the preparation of emergency plans.
Apparently serious flaws were reported up to within a day after the launch but this was not acted upon within the two weeks that the orbiter was in space (Nohria 26). Indeed NASA had not learned from the previous tragedy and this was manifested by the lack of establishing safety imperatives. The sense of vulnerability was thrown outside the window and processes assumed. Past successes of the former programs had created an attitude that minimized any contemplation of failure (Nohria 30).
Near misses were perceived as success and not near-failures. Since no disaster had resulted as a result of foam strike, they were not regarded as a risk to flight safety regardless of flight manuals that explained the opposite. Every successful shuttle mission seemed to enforce the opinion that foam shedding was inevitable and hence an acceptable risk. In the challenger case, the presence of the secondary O ring was considered adequate enough to prevent any disaster if the primary O ring was damaged. Instead of investigating the root causes, safety was left to chance and hence the culmination of the two disasters that led to the loss of crew members and equipment worth billions of Dollars.
Conclusion
The major question is what would have NASA done in order to mitigate any chances of an error occurring that would lead to the tragedies. Many scholars and scientists have come up with theories to answer this fundamental question. One of the solutions was that the hierarchy structure within NASA is flattened so as to enable faster response time in the dealing of issues both core and noncore to the organization (Nohria 22).
Managers were afraid of making decisions that would be detrimental to their job positions and hence there needs to be a new structure where bureaucracy could be bypassed. There was also a need for closer collaboration between contractors and NASA officials and the interface between them should be rich in order for better understanding so as to avoid cases such as the challenger disaster.
The organizational failures exhibited by the two crashes were avoidable as NASA is in a position to efficiently develop, discover and encourage research and development relevant to the safety of their space vehicles.
Works Cited
Kerwin, Joseph. Challenger & Columbia crew cause and time of death. New York: Prentice-Hall, 2004. Print.
Nohria, Ghoshal. The Differentiated Network: Organizing Multinational Corporations for Value Creation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997. Print.