Human Error Is Avertable
While some human errors can lead to accidental success, history has proven that human error comes down to lack of communication, not being observant, or not being cautious. Because when creating new technology such as NASA's Space Shuttle or the "unsinkable," the inventors fool themselves to believe that nothing can go wrong, when in most cases it's the complete opposite. Not listening to superiors and taking major warning signs into account, made them vulnerable to technological infallibility. Space Shuttle Challenger and the Titanic could have easily been avoided if people took warnings into account. January 28, 1986 the NASA’s first ever Space Shuttle Challenger exploded into oblivion along with its seven crew
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Investigation revealed that the O-rings became brittle from the 36 degree temperature and failed. The investigation also revealed that the company that designed the solid rocket boosters, Morton Thiokol, ignored the warnings they were given about the potential issues and never passed that information along to the engineers that built the shuttle. But, the NASA managers heard about the design problems and failed to take action (Peter Greier, …show more content…
This British ocean liner was one of the biggest cruise ships ever made. The ship began its maiden voyage in the early morning of April 10, 1912 from Southampton, England to New York City. Mainly the ships 2,200 passengers were of deathly upper-class families looking for a good time in the city, while a smaller amount was people going to the city to find work. Many thought that when they board the ship, they were in for the trip of a lifetime. Well, that trip soon ended in tragedy. The Titanic sank early in the morning on the 15th when the ship hit an iceberg. Captain Edward J. Smith had the ship sailing full speed ahead despite the concerns about several icebergs. The ship received multiple warnings about dangerous ice fields in the North over the telegraph. General Corfield who was in charge of warning the captain of any obstacles along the way, said he failed to pass the warning along by senior radio operator, Jack Phillips. The “unsinkable” was actually built with very sinkable cheap material. It was built with low-grade iron rivets instead of the more expensive higher-grade material rivets. These small details easily could have been avoided (history.com
R. M. Boisjoly had over a quarter-century’s experience in the aerospace industry in 1985 when he became involved in an improvement effort on the O-ring which connect segments of Morton Thiokol’s Solid Rocket Booster. This was used to bring the Space Shuttle into orbit (OEC, 2006). Morton Thiokol is an aerospace company that manufactures the solid propellant rocket motors used to launch the Challenger (Skubik). Boisjoly authored a memo to R.L. Lund, Vice President of Engineering and four others, in regards to his concerns about the flawed O-ring erosion problem. His warnings were ignored leading to the deaths of six astronauts and one social studies teacher.
It was on January 28, 1986 at 11:38 A.M. that the shuttle Challenger, NASA flight 51-L, the twenty-fifth shuttle flight, took off. It was the "Teacher in Space" mission. At lift-off, the temperature at ground level was 36° Fahrenheit, which was 15° Fahrenheit cooler than any previous launch by NASA. It was the Challenger's tenth flight. Take-off had been delayed several times. Finally the shuttle had taken off. The shuttle had climbed high in the sky thirty-five seconds after take-off, and it was getting hit by strong winds. The on board computers were making continuous adjustments so the shuttle would stay on course. About eight miles in the air, about seventy-two seconds after take-off, people watched in fear and horror as the shuttle was engulfed by a huge fire ball. All the crew members were killed instantly.
Collins and Pinch draw a distinctive line between what actually happened and the public’s perspective on what happened. The public had a compulsive desire to create a moral lesson and provide heroes and villains. Many people misconstrued this as a conflict between the knowledgeable engineers and the greedy management. The public believed that NASA and Thiokol’s managers were ignorant to the engineering, but this is not true, since they were all engineers before their promotion to management. The authors stress the phrase “after the event” to show that hindsight bias is contributing to the public’s view on what actually happened. The physicist, Richard Feynman, awed the public with a demonstration of putting rubber, the material of the O-ring, in icy water. Th...
The U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission detailed that the launch took place on January 28, 1986 at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The skis about Kennedy Space Center were clear and the sun was out in the sky. However the day was very cold the temperature was only slightly above freezing. This launch was going to be the coldest that NASA had ever launched before. The time of lift off was 11:38 AM Eastern Standard Time, this was when the 25th shuttle mission lifted off and headed towards space.
It was a freezing morning on January 28, 1986. Many spectators were waiting anxiously to witness the liftoff of the Challenger space shuttle’s 25th mission. These spectators included thousands of students because Christa McAuliffe was to be the first teacher in space. Tragically, only 73 seconds after liftoff, the Challenger split apart resulting in the death of all 7 members on board. There is evidence that NASA was aware of issues that could have potentially complicated the scheduled liftoff, but NASA fatally decided to proceed with the mission. Because of NASA’s negligence and the loss of 7 lives, the Challenger mission of January 1986 was one of the greatest failures of NASA.
The RMS Titanic, known as the Ship of Dreams, collided with an iceberg and sunk in the early hours of April 15, 1912. The boat, which was the most luxurious of her time, was set to sail from Southampton, England to New York City. Out of the 2,240 passengers on the boat during her maiden voyage, approximately 1,500 survived on the 20 lifeboats available. a controversial topic that is still debated today is whether or not the disaster of the Titanic could have been avoided. There is considerable evidence to suggest that this statement is true, but to what extent is still being decided today.
NASA postponed the launch five times since it was planned to launch, this put pressure on everyone and they just wanted to get started already. The 4th time it was postponed was because of problems with the external access hatch, this is not even close to as big of a problem as the damage of the O-rings, yet they still took that day off to fix it but when it was moved to the 28th the conditions were even worse but the shuttle was still allowed to launch. This proves that it was a very important for them to launch and that the crew and people at HQ were pressured to do it. The reason pressure was on them is because delays coast money and jobs would be at stake also the press and news reporters did not stop hassling them for the delays. NASA employees wanted to ensure and stay on contract which they negotiated with NASA at that point in time. The contract being worth more than 1 billon dollars diffidently changed many of the workers minds in hope of keeping their company running.
On the 28th of January 1986, it was supposed to be day of exploration and excitement but ended up being a day of sadness and tragedy. Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States of America delivered a speech to the people of his nation to address them about an incident that occurred earlier that day. The space shuttle challenger exploded and broke apart, 73 seconds after its take-off sending the
One of the greatest tragedies in history occurred on January 8, 1986. Shortly after it was launched, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire schoolteacher chosen to be the first teacher in space (“Challenger Disaster, n.d.). The explosion was caused by a failure of the O-rings of the solid rocket boosters. The O-rings were unable to seat properly, causing the leaking of hot combustion gases, which burnt through the external fuel tank. The malfunction was not any one person’s or organization’s fault; it was caused by many factors including the decision to launch despite the cold weather, the poor communication between management levels of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the readiness of NASA management to launch the shuttlecraft (“Engineering Ethics,” n.d.).
The Space Shuttle was supposed to launch into space, but due to the weather, NASA was debating if they should launch or not.
The Challenger mission STS-51-L was the tenth mission of a series of spaceflights. The mission objectives were to monitor and observe Halley’s Comet occurring only once every 75-76 years. They were to run two teacher in space experiments, three student involvement program experiments led by Christa McAuliffe. Also on the agenda they were to do
The Titanic set voyage on April 1912 to New York. The Titanic and its sister ships, Olympia and Britannic were said to be virtually unsinkable by a magazine article, not the White Star Line. The Titanic was the second ship to set sail on its maiden voyage out of the three sister ships. The Titanic had been built a lot differently than most of the ships back then. For example, a normal ship was built with three funnels but the Titanic had four. The fourth funnel did not serve the same purpose like the other three; its use was for steam to be released from the kitchen. Another example was that the Titanic was the biggest ship at the time. The ship had received ice warnings at least six different times from ships but Captain Smith had ignored
Everyone knows or has at least have heard of the Titanic in some way. We know that it was supposed to be an unsinkable ship, and that is was just supposed to go on a voyage to New York before it hit an iceberg and sunk in the Atlantic on April 15, 1912. The Titanic plans and designs were accepted on the 29th of July in 1908. They immediately went to work shortly after on creating the ship. The ship was not entirely finished until March 31st in 1912 that on April 2nd they tested the boat on the sea. As the vessel was sailing towards the Southampton to pick up passengers, it was still on its test course. The ship only contained about 16 lifeboats that could hold about 65 people each. The number of people that were on the vessel was estimated to be about 2,227. On the way to New York, the seas were calm and clear but as they went on there were at least seven warnings for icebergs. Unfortunately, as they sailed on they hit an iceberg that caused a tear in the ship and water started to flood in. They began to evacuate the boat trying to get everyone off. Unfortunately, the boat sunk on the 15th of April in 1912 around 2 am. Many lives were saved that night, but there were many lives that were also lost.
On Feb. 1, 2003, space shuttle Columbia broke up as it returned to Earth, killing the seven astronauts on board. NASA suspended space shuttle flights for more than two years as it investigated the disaster. An investigation board determined that a large piece of foam fell from the shuttle's external tank and breached the spacecraft wing. This problem with foam had been known for years, and NASA came under intense scrutiny in Congress and in the media for allowing the situation to continue. The Columbia mission was the second space shuttle disaster after Challenger, which saw a catastrophic failure during launch in 1986.
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.