Space Shuttle Ethics The Challenger Space Shuttle's final flight ended in disaster nearly 30 years ago in early 1986. This fateful journey ended the lives of 7 brave astronauts and provided the revelation of the vulnerability of NASA and the ability for humans to safely travel outside this planet's atmosphere. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the facts of this case as well as the engineering ethical issues that are related to this incident. Ultimately this essay will argue that this disaster while tragic, may be ultimately beneficial for future efforts if the lessons learned are taken seriously and applied in new developments

The purpose of NASA and the space program appears to have always been rooted in a political effort. The roots of the Cold War put America and the U.S.S.R. In a competition for space dominance and large amounts of resources became...

This idea contributed to the Challenger disaster as the importance of this mission, in retrospect seems very minimal .
The failure of the booster rockets during the take off of this mission is pinpointed as the reason as why the shuttle exploded. Specifically the O-ring sealing gaskets are further identified as the point of failure for the impetus of the explosion. The leaking of the gas from the solid rocket boosters into the other areas of the vehicle eventually caused the explosion according to the final reports.

While the O-ring failures provide a hint of why there were failures, the human engineering aspect of this mission and the ethical missteps are more to blame than the rubber gaskets that failed. The rush to have Challenger take off on time to provide poltical…