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The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, by Diane Vaughan
Free Ebook The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, by Diane Vaughan
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When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986, millions of Americans became bound together in a single, historic moment. Many still vividly remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the tragedy. In The Challenger Launch Decision, Diane Vaughan recreates the steps leading up to that fateful decision, contradicting conventional interpretations to prove that what occurred at NASA was not skulduggery or misconduct but a disastrous mistake.
Journalists and investigators have historically cited production problems and managerial wrong-doing as the reasons behind the disaster. The Presidential Commission uncovered a flawed decision-making process at the space agency as well, citing a well-documented history of problems with the O-ring and a dramatic last-minute protest by engineers over the Solid Rocket Boosters as evidence of managerial neglect.
Why did NASA managers, who not only had all the information prior to the launch but also were warned against it, decide to proceed? In retelling how the decision unfolded through the eyes of the managers and the engineers, Vaughan uncovers an incremental descent into poor judgment, supported by a culture of high-risk technology. She reveals how and why NASA insiders, when repeatedly faced with evidence that something was wrong, normalized the deviance so that it became acceptable to them.
No safety rules were broken. No single individual was at fault. Instead, the cause of the disaster is a story not of evil but of the banality of organizational life. This powerful work explains why the Challenger tragedy must be reexamined and offers an unexpected warning about the hidden hazards of living in this technological age.
- Sales Rank: #984006 in Books
- Published on: 1996-01-28
- Ingredients: Example Ingredients
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.70" w x 6.00" l, 2.03 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 592 pages
From Publishers Weekly
The loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 is usually ascribed to NASA's decision to accept a safety risk to meet a launch schedule. Vaughan, a professor of sociology at Boston College, argues instead that the disaster's roots are to be found in the nature of institutional life. Organizations develop cultural beliefs that shape action and outcome, she notes. NASA's institutional history and group dynamics reflected a perception of competition for scarce resources, which fostered a structure that accepted risk-taking and corner-cutting as norms that shaped decision-making. Small, seemingly harmless modifications to technical and procedural standards collectively propelled the space agency toward disaster even though no specific rules were broken. While Vaughan's complex presentation will daunt general readers, her conclusion that the "normalization of deviance" builds error into all human systems is as compelling as it is pessimistic.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Scientific American
Vaughan gives us a rare view into the working level realities of NASA. . . . the cumulative force of her argument and evidence is compelling.
From Booklist
Had Margaret Mead studied the NASAns instead of the Samoans, this anthropological story of the shuttle catastrophe might have resulted. We see the bureaucratic culture that shaped the behavior of the rocket scientists: they launched Challenger expecting some damage to the now infamous O-rings. How they reached that position of tempting fate infuses Vaughan's account. Making arguable constructions about the engineering mentality and group-think, Vaughan focuses on the fateful teleconference the night before the launch, in which executives of the rocket manufacturer first resisted then caved into NASA's pressure to launch. For exerting that pressure, the space agency's managers were pilloried, but personalizing the blame, Vaughan believes, ignores the acculturated rules they followed--which emanated from the political and funding compromises that created the shuttle design. Though Vaughan's scholastic diction acts as narrative speed bumps, her sociological interpretation helps explain the seemingly inexplicable. This complements the dramatic and popular orientation of No Downlink, by Claus Jensen . Gilbert Taylor
Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Normalization Of Deviance
By Robert I. Hedges
As a sociological explanation of disastrous decision making in high risk applications, this book is without peer, exceeding even Charles Perrow's work by a fair measure. Vaughan, a sociologist, obviously worked very hard at understanding the field joint technology that caused the "Challenger" accident, and even harder at understanding the extremely complex management and decision making processes at NASA and Morton Thiokol.
The book ultimately discards the "amoral calculation" school of thought (which she was preconditioned to believe at the outset of her research by media coverage of the event) and explains how an ever expanding definition of acceptable performance (despite prior joint issues) led to the "normalization of deviance" which allowed the faulty decision to launch to be made. The sociological and cultural analyses are especially enlightening and far surpass the technical material about the actual physical cause of the accident presented.
This is a masterful book, and is impeccably documented. The reference portion of the book in the back is especially useful, in that she reproduces several key original documents pertinent to the investigation which are difficult to obtain elsewhere. My only objection to the book is the extreme use of repetition, which I think needlessly lengthened the book in several areas, and obfuscating sociological terminology like "paradigm obduracy" which not only fails to illuminate the non-sociologists among us, but makes for somewhat tortured prose.
In praise of the book, however, it is a brilliant analysis of how decisions are made in safety-critical programs in large institutions. Chapter ten, "Lessons Learned," is particularly noteworthy in its analysis and recommendations. It's a shame that managerial turnover has ensured that few of the "Challenger" era managers were still at the agency during the "Columbia" accident era. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
This book makes for very weighty and difficult reading. Having said that, I highly recommend it to technical professionals, particularly engineers and managers involved with high-risk technologies. Likewise, it is absolutely imperative reading for safety professionals, consultants, and analysts.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Thought Provoking
By Mike Cataldo
I have purchased this book several times in different formats. This book goes into the culture behind NASAs Challenger Launch. While that is the primary focus the deeper focus is on why many modern companies fail because their culture dooms them. When companies become so focused on moving forward that they will not listen to any dissenting voices in the ranks disasters happen. It is especially significant that when a disaster happens many companies immediately "react" to it - however their culture brings them right back into another disaster because change cannot really take place. Many companies talk about the need to change or grow, yet often look on people who have different opinions or ideas as outsiders who "poison" the company culture. Instead of getting rid of these people or alienating them companies should look at ways to investigate even the wildest claims with open minds instead of instant dismissal. In the case of NASA, their culture fell right back into their old ways resulting in the loss of the second shuttle something this book made clear was a possibility - before it happened.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Challenger Review
By The Engineer
This was my first Amazon download.
The download was very simple and easy.
The book is interesting and technically accurate, providing an "outsiders retrospective" of the management processes of a large technical project.
Most large technical projects have similiar issues to be assessed and managed.
The seal failure and the assessments associated with it are only one of hundreds of such technical decsions before a launch. I suspect NASA has learned a lot from this disaster.
I found the book interesting but needing some balance in the assessment of the totality of the project and its associated risks.
Bearing in mind the frontier expanding nature of the project
I suspect, having met and spoken to Andy Thomas, the astronaunts have a very detailed understanding of these risks.
A good read.
Only problem was the countless spelling errors and syntax mistakes, caused I suspect by the digital conversion. It really should not happen. What happened to the simple proof read process, this would have fixed it.
Thanks The Engineer
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