NASA's Dark Day

On January 28, 1986 the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded 73 seconds into its flight, killing six astronauts and one school teacher. The aftermath of this tragedy seriously damaged our country's faith in NASA. What disturbed Americans more than anything was the investigation of the accident and the mere fact that a more thorough systems check could have easily prevented the explosion.

Dombrowski's critique of this accident focuses on three areas.

1) The lack of clear and concise communication within NASA
2) The lack of organization in the common set of values and language within NASA
3) The lack of ethical responsibility within technical documentation resulting in a system without common ethical requisites.

Dombrowski makes the very good point that the business of NASA is far from risk free. The nature of space travel assumes many variables and hazards however the astronaut, the person placed in risk, must be able to assume that the utmost amount of preventative maintenance and research are completed before lift off.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Challenger_%28STS-51-L%29_Liftoff.ogg

*The investigation revealed that it was glaringly obvious that such measures were not taken prior to lift off.

This, by no means,was the first major NASA disaster. Apollo 1: Fire during training (3 dead). Malfunction with Apollo 13 while in space (nearly killed all members)

In the case of the CHALLENGER; After inquiries and reports came in it became apparent that a long series of unethical decisions had been made and were inconspicuous because they were nestled in technical documents.

*Big issue here is oversight. The communication gap between Research and Development and the practical/testing side of NASA was essentially a language barrier. The barrier between them was technical jargon differences. As technical writers, it is vitally important to know our audience. Having a common body of language is important for oversight.

1) Two big hitters

*Presidential and *Congressional reports

a) Pres Rep. focused on weak links in safety precautions but failed to clarify communication issues in regard to PROPORTIONS and the end result appeared to be obfuscating the results to direct its readers in one direction (confusing lingo)

The Infamous O-Ring

The problem that Dombrowski has with these reports is not so much the raw data but the way they were interpreted. It was not tested enough and the results made assumptions about tests that weren't carried out. The charred O-Ring was directly related to temperature but the O-Ring, which is a huge safety factor, was ASSUMED to be functional for launch. COULD haves and SHOULD haves can't cut it in such a costly endeavor.

"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 SRB's aft attachment and the structural failure of the external tank. Aerodynamic forces promptly broke up the orbiter (WIKIPEDIA)."

NASA was literally left to pick up the pieces after the explosion and Dombrowski constructs a clear format that could highlighted relevant information and organized preventative check-lists.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Challenger_%28STS-51-L%29_Liftoff.ogg