>
> "Sylvia Else" wrote in message
> news:458cad1f$0$5747$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...

>> Liam O'Shea wrote:
>>

>>> On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 13:45:32 +1100, Sylvia Else
>>> wrote:
>>>

>> This document
>>
>> http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1ch6.htm
>>
>> mentions the point I made:
>>
>> "Morton Thiokol, Inc., the contractor, did not accept the implication of
>> tests early in the program that the design had a serious and unanticipated
>> flaw.1 NASA did not accept the judgment of its engineers that the design was
>> unacceptable, and as the joint problems grew in number and severity NASA
>> minimized them in management briefings and reports. 2 Thiokol's stated
>> position was that "the condition is not desirable but is acceptable." 3
>>
>> Neither Thiokol nor NASA expected the rubber O-rings sealing the joints to be
>> touched by hot gases of motor ignition, much less to be partially burned.
>> However, as tests and then flights confirmed damage to the sealing rings, the
>> reaction by both NASA and Thiokol was to increase the amount of damage
>> considered "acceptable." At no time did management either recommend a
>> redesign of the joint or call for the Shuttle's grounding until the problem
>> was solved."
>>
>> As regards the temperature at launch
>>
>> http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1ch3.htm
>>
>> "The ambient air temperature at launch was 36 degrees Fahrenheit measured at
>> ground level approximately 1,000 feet from the 51-L mission launch pad 39B.
>> This temperature was 15 degrees colder than that of any previous launch."
>>
>> And in
>>
>> http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v1ch5.htm
>>
>> "The decision to launch the Challenger was flawed. Those who made that
>> decision were unaware of the recent history of problems concerning the
>> O-rings and the joint and were unaware of the initial written recommendation
>> of the contractor advising against the launch at temperatures below 53
>> degrees Fahrenheit and the continuing opposition of the engineers at Thiokol
>> after the management reversed its position."
>>
>> So they'd been told, though the managers may not have been aware of it, that
>> they were about to launch when the temperature was 17 degrees Fahrenheit
>> below what the manufacture said was the minimum.
>>

>>> Perhaps management complacency is too light a term - maybe criminal
>>> negligence causing death would be more appropriate.

>>
>> Gross managerial incompetence, for sure. The problem with calling it
>> negligence is that you'd have to show that these people knew what they should
>> be doing, but didn't do it. I doubt that that's the case.
>>
>> I don't think many managers understand the nature of risk. If an engineer
>> says something's not safe, but the manager does it anyway and get away with
>> it 50 times, the manager is inclined to think that the engineer is just being
>> an old woman.
>>
>> I myself have raised issues about a practice being unsafe, only to be told
>> that they'd done it hundreds of times without accident, as if that proves
>> something.
>>
>> Sylvia.

>
> I first came across it doing my post-grad as an exercise in communication and
> group decision making in the text "Organisational Behaviour" by Robbins.
>
> Have not looked at the ref Robbins cites but it is Marx, Stubbart, Traub and
> Cavanaugh "The NASA Space Shuttle Disaster, A Case study" Journal of
> Management Case Studies, Winter 1987 pp 300-18.
>
> The text quotes 53 deg F was the minimum safe temp considered. Temps at the
> launch site were "well below freezing".
> Brian