Challenger Accident Analysis

I believe that in order to be considered a responsible professional in today’s society, one requires a high level of reliability. A technological professional always follows the codes and rules that are displayed for them. I believe this because these professionals are relied upon by the public for their expertise, honesty, and reliability. If a technological professional does not inherit these characteristics, then he/she is not truly a professional and may even danger the public.
In the case of the Challenger accident in 1986 presented by Harris, he discusses the importance of honesty and informing the client or customer everything. You see, the engineers in charge of the challenger project informed the astronauts of ice buildup and suggested to them about postponing the

launch in order to make adjustments.

However, the engineers failed to inform the astronauts of the possible dangers if they continued with the launch. As a result of the engineer’s dishonesty and unreliability, seven people died in an explosion, including five astronauts and two payload specialists. This example that Harris brought up is a perfect example when a professional fail to follow code, if the engineers had followed procedure and informed the astronauts of the possible dangers, they might’ve decided to postpone the launch, preventing their deaths.
Another example that Harris brings up is a situation where moral values intertwine with professional values. Harris brings up a story about John’s summer internship with an oil company. John was able to obtain this summer job through an old friend that he knew from school and was put in charge of a team tasked to drill sites in order to create succinct reports for

the customer. After reviewing field data from their last drilling report, he concurred that an essential step was skipped by his friend paul, one that couldn’t be easily fixed unless they repeat the whole drilling process again. John realizes that if he points this mistake out, not only will he cost the company a great amount of money to fix the problem, but he realizes that paul will likely lose his job as a result. John doesn’t want to make paul lose his job while the job market for oil is very slow and while paul is expected a child soon. John faces a dilemma between his professional life and his moral values. Although Harris doesn’t give a proper answer to what John should do, I will give my own answer to how John should react. John should first accept that he must do something about the situation and not try to simply try his luck by ignoring it and lying about this in his report. John must be professional and confront his superior and inform him of the situation, John’s main problem is assuming that his friend paul will automatically be fired for his mistake but perhaps John can compromise with his superior in order to fix the problem while allowing paul to keep his job. this is the best path for John because it allows him to stay as a professional while trying to compromise for his friend’s job, which his is main dilemma.