Challenger Diaster Case

The Challenger disaster is one that highlights how risks can be managed in a project. Particularly in this incident, loss of human life, perhaps the biggest risk factor of all, is shown to been put in a state of risk that most rather appalling. While those involved in the project planning and management of the Challenger obviously believed that they had good intentions that that no one would be hurt they nonetheless allowed factors such as the low cost of Morton-Thiokol Incorporated’s bid to take precedence over their lack of experience as well as Thiokol’s lower technical design and safety ratings. The impact of politics and pressure are undeniable in this project situation. Most people consider any options that put unnecessary risk of human endangerment truly unacceptable, however on this project, which was hoped to be a truly groundbreaking project, certain aspects were grandfathered into acceptance due to waivers for identified risk factors which had passed in previous space projects. While it is technically not a violation the waivers due show that certain physical safety factors were consistently identified but passed on an almost unconditional basis for the sake of saving time and money in order to keep the project in motion. Moreover, once the project was in motion there was a lack of confidence in anyone standing up to abort or change processes even though major issues were identified (such as not having an abort plan for up to two minutes of the flight). Finally, during this period there was a strong push for success in shuttle flights and unfortunately NASA received almost more media attention due to delays or mission abortions that for actual successful flights. The Columbia disaster not only followed numerous delays that gave the public a negative view of the shuttle program and NASA in general. Therefore, many on the project management team were frustrated by the four delays that Challenger underwent and the poor media attention the delays