Are we all irresponsible?

Purpose of this log is not totally to journalize today. A purpose here is to bring together [register] stuff writ back in the day. In 1986 I wrote an editorial at Digital Design magazine on the Challenger Shuttle crash, actually about the report of the presidential commission that followed later. Thought I would post that. And, although reluctant to jump at this issue when it is still so fresh, confused, and inappropriate for analysis, look at some of these day’s Columbia Shuttle-related dispatches.

There are few points made in the piece. A primary one has to do with engineering as a profession. If engineering is a profession, than there are principles to adhere to, and professional censure to face if those principles are not met. What I found incommodious back then was the Rogers Commission’s refusal to say, well, the Flight Director, or the Asst Flight Director, or Morton Thiokol Corp  management, or someone didn’t  live up to their duty.

That sounds kind of harsh I guess. But there is such a thing as responsibility, especially when people take on the role of professional. Behind the curtains, here, I had a feeling that people with ties did not want to judge people in ties. [They still wore ties back then.].

Are we all irresponsible?

Shuttle Explodes! That’s what the headlines read. Soon, the nation’s editorial writers cleared their editorial throats, struck their most sonorous tones, and tried to cope in words with the greatest disaster in the history of the U.S. space program. It seems the editor’s unfortunate lot to look for hidden meanings while the debris is still falling. Now, we can look with a little more objectivity at the Challenger’s last flight. We have the report of a presidential commission, which has deftly zeroed in on many flaws n a program that has been a source of national pride.

Given its brief charter, the Rogers Commission was very thorough. In the broadcast portions of the hearings, one encountered the high drama of the ignored whistle blowers and the occasional stonewalling of engineers who seemed to have devolved to the level of the bureaucrat. What is bothersome is the commission’s refusal to name names.

The Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident has plentiful characters, an they are identified. Particularly dramatic is the well documented O-ring teleconference on the eve of the flight. Here, characters emerge nearly heroic an nearly villainous. When the Rogers Commission reaches its conclusions, however, ‘departments’ and ‘processes’ are blamed, rather than the pople who were responsible. This technique – concrete evidence from which thee reader is left to draw conclusions- is not unlike the ambiguity that the Commission derides as it observes behavior of prime Shuttle contractors leading up to the accident.

This shortcoming could spring from the perception that the program was fatally flawed by design – a design that was graphically drawing in the project’s very name. A veritable frequent flyer, the NASA shuttle was to mimic the Eastern shuttle! I buying this concept, Congress and the media were also culpable. One failed flight has proved that the idea that the shuttle could pay for itself was patently ludicrous. At least one of the nation’s best science writers, John Noble Wilford of the New York Times, forcefully concluded last year that the shuttle’s launch goals were unattainable. His cautions were no more heeded than were the cautions of several project engineers. If the shuttle was a time bomb waiting to go off, was anyone to blame?

Likely, some were. Most of us have taken part in ill fated projects. Often, someone waves the figurative warning flag, while another might lead the group down the proverbial garden path. But, the errors of the civil and aeronautical engineer are out there for all to see. The bridge collapses; the wing falls off; the O-ring leaks. We can sympathize, knowing that the unrealistic schedules would finally catch up with safety. Yet, the role of the engineer is that of a professional who assumes responsibility for  his or her work as some shared in the shuttle’s glory, some must share equally in it shame. The Rogers Commission didn’t do a favor for the space program as a whole by being vague. Now the whole program is suspect.

In the commission’s recreation of the aborted effort of Morton Thiokol Inc engineers to delay the challenger’s launch, Allen McDonald of MTI says he woudl not want to have to explain to a board of inquiry if anything happens. If that is negative reinforcement, so be it. As the space shuttle stood as a symbol for advanced technology, it also will stand as a warning of the limits of technology, until the events that let up to its explosion are squarely faced, and names are named.

Jack Vaughan, Digital Design, August 1986

Last update: 4/12/2003; 11:47:36 AM.