The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASAUniversity of Chicago Press, 2016 M01 4 - 680 pages “An in-depth account of the events and personal actions which led to a great tragedy in the history of America’s space program.” —James D. Smith, former Solid Rocket Booster Chief, NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, millions of Americans became bound together in a single, historic moment. Many still vividly remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the tragedy. Diane Vaughan recreates the steps leading up to that fateful decision, contradicting conventional interpretations to prove that what occurred at NASA was not skullduggery or misconduct but a disastrous mistake. Why did NASA managers, who not only had all the information prior to the launch but also were warned against it, decide to proceed? In retelling how the decision unfolded through the eyes of the managers and the engineers, Vaughan uncovers an incremental descent into poor judgment, supported by a culture of high-risk technology. She reveals how and why NASA insiders, when repeatedly faced with evidence that something was wrong, normalized the deviance so that it became acceptable to them. In a new preface, Vaughan reveals the ramifications for this book and for her when a similar decision-making process brought down NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003. “Vaughn finds the traditional explanation of the [Challenger] accident to be profoundly unsatisfactory . . . One by one, she unravels the conclusions of the Rogers Commission.” —The New York Times “A landmark study.” —Atlantic “Vaughn gives us a rare view into the working level realities of NASA . . . The cumulative force of her argument and evidence is compelling.” —Scientific American |
Contents
The Eve of the Launch | 1 |
Learning Culture Revising History | 33 |
Risk Work Group Culture and The Normalization of Deviance | 77 |
The Normalization of Deviance 19811984 | 119 |
The Normalization of Deviance 1985 | 153 |
The Culture of Production | 196 |
Structural Secrecy | 238 |
The Eve of the Launch Revisited | 278 |
Lessons Learned | 387 |
CostSafety Tradeoffs? Scrapping the Escape Rockets and the SRB Contract Award Decision | 423 |
Supporting Charts and Documents | 432 |
On Theory Elaboration Organizations and Historical Ethnography | 456 |
Acknowledgments | 465 |
Notes | 469 |
| 533 | |
| 551 | |
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The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at ... Diane Vaughan No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
19 March acceptable risk actions administrators Al McDonald April Ben Powers blow-by booster Challenger launch charts concerns construction of risk contractor disaster engi engineering analysis erosion failure field joint Flight Readiness Review Ibid ignition interview transcript Investigation Jack Buchanan Jack Kapp January January 28 Launch Constraint launch decision leak check Leon Ray Level Marshall and Thiokol Marshall Space Flight Marshall's McDonald memo mission Morton Thiokol motor Mulloy NASA NASA's National Archives neers normalization of deviance norms nozzle joint O-ring problem organization organizational original technical culture participants position Presidential Commission primary O-ring procedures production pressure Project Managers putty recommendation redundancy Report response Roger Boisjoly rules safety schedule seal secondary O-ring Shuttle Program signals of potential sion social Space Shuttle Space Shuttle Challenger Space Shuttle Program SRB joint SRB work group structural secrecy teleconference tests Thiokol engineers tion U.S. Congress worldview