Engineering Ethics

74 Engineering Ethics: An Industrial Perspective

Accident. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987. www.history.nasa.gov/

rogersrep/genindex.htm.

Rogers Commission, Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle

Challenger Accident, vol 1. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986.

www.history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/genindex.htm.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Of the eight ethical dilemmas presented in Chapter 1, which were present

in the events leading to the Challenger explosion and its aftermath?

2. Conduct a cost-benefit analysis regarding whether the Challenger should

have launched on the morning of January 2, 1986.

3. Should an engineer ever take off his or her management hat?

4. According to the Rogers Commission,

The Commission was surprised to realize after many hours of testimony

that NASA’s safety staff was never mentioned. No witness related the

approval or disapproval of the reliability engineers, and none expressed the

satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the quality assurance staff. No one thought to

invite a safety representative or a reliability and quality assurance engineer to

the January 27, 1986, teleconference between Marshall and Thiokol. (Rogers

Commission, 1986)

How would a strong safety program within NASA have affected the

launch discussions on January 27?

5. For many Americans in their forties, the Challenger explosion is the

“Kennedy assassination” of their generation. They remember what they

were doing when they first heard about the explosion. Why wasn’t this

disaster enough to prevent the subsequent explosion of the Columbia in

2003?

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