Challenger Shuttle Research Paper

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Michael Squillacote 9/28/11 Professor Blum Business paper Challenger Shuttle The Challenger space shuttle was set off to launch on January 28th 1987. This turned into a tragic day for NASA and the United States. At 11:38 am Challenger took of from the launch pad. Everything was going smoothly until 73 seconds into the flight the shuttle disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean killing seven astronauts. There are a few different theories on what went wrong to the shuttle. NASA believe strongly in one reason, that a simply O-ring let loose. A little more than a half of a second, video recording captured a grey puff of smoke on the right side rocket boaster. The grey smoke indicated that there was not a complete seal of the joint on the rocket. The leaking area of the boaster tank was facing the external tank of the shuttle. There were eight more puffs of smoke continuously getting blacker. This was cause by rubber and grease burning away in the joint of the rocket. With the upward velocity increasing the last puff of smoke was seen at 2.77…show more content…
This could have been avoided by a simple routine inspection. The shuttle was on its 25th mission and should have been more thoroughly inspected before being launched. There was another factor that may have caused the O-ring to fail. It was colder than predicted on the morning of the launch and adjustments were not made to the shuttle to account for this. Again another human error that could have been avoided that saved seven lives that changed many families. Human error of either laziness or over looking the simply thinking in technical mission is what showed up to cause disaster. The challenger disaster remained everyone why its important to take great detail in what we do in our lives. NASA and the government have implicated more stringent regulations on NASA and individual workers. Inspections have also become more detailed and

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