NASA managers were anxious to launch the Challenger space shuttle because of economic considerations, political pressures, and scheduling backlogs. They decided to approve the launch despite the engineers' concerns that the air temperature was outside of the shuttle's operational specifications. On January 28, 1986, seven astronauts were killed when the space shuttle exploded just over a minute into flight. The failure of the solid rocket booster O-rings to seat properly allowed hot combustion gases to leak from the side of the booster and burn through the external fuel tank. The accident was later attributed to faulty design of the solid rocket boosters, insufficient low temperature testing of the O-ring material and the joints that the O-ring sealed, and lack of communication between different levels of NASA management. Operational changes have since been made at NASA in response to this accident.
Texas A&M Engineering Ethics Website (http://ethics.tamu.edu)
Fledderman, C.B. Engineering Ethics. New Jersey, Prentice Hall, 1999.
Schinzinger, R., M.W. Martin. Introduction to Engineering Ethics. McGraw-Hill, 2000.
Harris, C.E., M.S. Pritchard, M.J. Rabins. Engineering Ethics Concepts and Cases. Canada, Wadsworth, 2000.