NASA Ethical Dilemmas

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In the modern world, the role of engineers and engineering as a profession has an enormous impact on our everyday lives. Almost everything we touch was designed by engineers; from the cars we drive to the houses we live in. It is essential, then, that a system is in place to ensure engineering decisions are handled with moral integrity and safety in mind. This is known as ethics. On some level, all engineering decisions are governed by an overarching code of ethics in the form of a code of conduct put in place by engineering institutions. These require the professional engineers under their authority to act in the best interest of the public and public welfare.
The purpose of this essay is to discuss the NASAs handling of ethical issues in …show more content…

NASA’s engineers were of the opinion that liquid fuel boosters were the best, and more importantly safest, design as they were controllable, among other factors. It was eventually decided by the Office of Management and Budget, however, that the cheaper solid rocket boosters (SRBs) would result in lower production costs and were therefore the best choice. [2] This initial decision presented an ethical dilemma in that keeping costs down took priority over potential safety concerns, but it was a calculated risk that was not directly to blame for the accident. A company named Morton-Thiokol won the contract to build the SRB for the …show more content…

The known cause of the explosion was the erosion of O-rings in the SRBs due to combustion gases which then contacted the adjacent tank, causing structural failure. In a design review by McDonnell Douglas in 1971, it was suggested that it would not be possible to abort if a burnthrough of the O-rings occurred, which was exactly what happened. Further testing of field joints (the joints between each SRB section in which the O-rings were located) by engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center also suggested that the design of the field joints was unacceptable. Despite repeated warnings, the manager of the SRB project, George Hardy, did not pass on these concerns and the design was finalised and accepted for flight in 1980. [3]
As part of the presidential commission responsible for investigating the disaster, Richard Feynman famously demonstrated the effect of freezing temperatures on the O-rings. He found that, upon placing the material in ice water, it became less resilient to pressure and did not return to its original shape when pressure was removed [4]. This is crucial because, on the day before the eventual launch, engineers and managers from Morton-Thiokol had a conference call with NASA managers to discuss the unusually cold forecast for the following day. Thiokol engineers (and managers, initially) re-expressed their

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