Engineering ethics: principles and professional responsibilities

Space Shuttle Ethics

The Challenger Space Shuttle's final flight ended in disaster nearly 30 years ago in early 1986. This fateful journey ended the lives of 7 brave astronauts and provided the revelation of the vulnerability of NASA and the ability for humans to safely travel outside this planet's atmosphere. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the facts of this case as well as the engineering ethical issues that are related to this incident. Ultimately this essay will argue that this disaster while tragic, may be ultimately beneficial for future efforts if the lessons learned are taken seriously and applied in new developments

The purpose of NASA and the space program appears to have always been rooted in a political effort. The roots of the Cold War put America and the U.S.S.R. In a competition for space dominance and large amounts of resources became allocated to NASA to prove to the world that American technology is superior. This idea contributed to the Challenger disaster as the importance of this mission, in retrospect seems very minimal .

The failure of the booster rockets during the take off of this mission is pinpointed as the reason as why the shuttle exploded. Specifically the O-ring sealing gaskets are further identified as the point of failure for the impetus of the explosion. The leaking of the gas from the solid rocket boosters into the other areas of the vehicle eventually caused the explosion according to the final reports.

While the O-ring failures provide a hint of why there were failures, the human engineering aspect of this mission and the ethical missteps are more to blame than the rubber gaskets that failed. The rush to have Challenger take off on time to provide poltical and economic relief seems hazardous in the end, but the engineers had failed long before this decision was made.

The cold weather during the launch time seriously contributed to the O-ring failures and ultimately the destruction of the shuttle. It is inexcusable that these rings were never tested at low temperatures, and the ideas wasn't even considered until the night before the launch. If ever haste made waste, it was certainly in this case.

The confusion and debate about the pre-launch activities in relation to the threat of cold weather further reveals the lack of ethical guidance on many involved with the mission. Ethically, engineers are responsible for providing the best and most accurate scientific information that can be used to make larger decisions. The responsibility of the engineers is not total but their ability to influence the experience needs to be taken into consideration.