Some Factors that May Have Contributed to the Challenger Disaster

External factors:

• Media attention.

- Teacher in Space program

• Timing of Reagan’s State of the Union Address on launch day.

Internal factors at NASA:

• Potential for loss of economic and political support for program as a result of delays.

• Cost of re-designing boosters and delaying the program.

• “Can-Do” culture of NASA.

• Protection of NASA’s reputation.

• Lack of previous failures; false confidence; arrogance.

• Autocratic style of key administrator, William Lucas, emphasized loyalty over organizational and public interest goals.

• Over-reliance on data and criteria-driven analysis over expert judgment; belief that the existence of criticality analysis and other constraints on decisions meant that the analysis and constraints would be meaningful and given sympathetic and understanding compliance.

Internal factors at Morton Thiokol:

• Intimidation by NASA managers.

• Fear of contract loss; recent announcement of proposal to seek a second source for the boosters.

• Ability to shift burden for judging risk to the NASA managers, who are supposed to be in a good position to judge the risk, as well as to be expert at doing that.

• Uncertainties about the likelihood of catastrophic seal failure.

• Status differences between engineers and managers; the ability to assert managerial authority.

• Perceptual differences between the outlooks of managers and engineers, including their perceived values, the manner in which they assess risk, and so on.

• Questions of ethics in conduct; the replacement of the safety values of engineers with the efficiency and bottom line values of managers.

Structural factors in the system of action

• Geographic dispersion of the decision makers.

• Lack of communication between levels and between units, e.g., the different parts of NASA.

• Excessively vertical as against horizontal and collaborative decision making.