Columbia Accident Investigation Board - Echoes of Challenger

Echoes of Challenger

One board member, Dr. Sally Ride, served on both the CAIB panel and Rogers Commission and noted remarkable similarities between the two tragedies. She questioned why the shuttle was allowed to continue flying with known problems that were, eventually, catastrophic.

Since no machine is perfect, the problem comes down to identifying which known problems are an acceptable risk and which are not. In these two examples, shedding foam and failing o-rings, the organization failed to react correctly to the seriousness of the problem: in both cases, whereas engineers recognized the seriousness of the problem, NASA management dismissed both the evidence and the engineers' expertise and ultimately decided to continue with the mission, with catastrophic results.

To illustrate the organizational problems of safety awareness, Richard Feynman attached a personal appendix to the Rogers Commission Report. It is equally relevant to the CAIB report. In it, he wrote: "It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management. What are the causes and consequences of this lack of agreement? … we could properly ask, 'What is the cause of management's fantastic faith in the machinery?'"

The CAIB report found these same misperceptions by management and concluded that they contributed to the accident. Both reports also examined the ability of schedule pressures to influence safety-related design decisions.