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A TALE OF TWO ACCIDENTS

Chun Wei Choo

in The Knowing Organization: How Organizations Use Information to Construct Meaning, Create Knowledge, and Make Decisions

This chapter analyzes two organizational disasters that led to the loss of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia in 1986 and 2003. These decision and information failures highlight interactions ... More

This chapter analyzes two organizational disasters that led to the loss of the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia in 1986 and 2003. These decision and information failures highlight interactions between meaning, knowing, and acting that can impede learning in any organization. Thus, sensemaking driven by beliefs and past actions can be a way of seeing as well as a way of not seeing problems and risks. Knowledge creation can be compromised when vital knowledge is not transferred, and when knowledge use is controlled by organizational agendas. Repeated patterns of decision making can entrench rules, induce overconfidence, and lower vigilance.Less

Challenger

Ned O'Gorman

in The Iconoclastic Imagination: Image, Catastrophe, and Economy in America from the Kennedy Assassination to September 11

Chapter four looks at a second American iconoclasm in the Cold War era, the Challenger disaster. Approaching the disaster in the context of Ronald Reagan’s America, where both television and ... More

Chapter four looks at a second American iconoclasm in the Cold War era, the Challenger disaster. Approaching the disaster in the context of Ronald Reagan’s America, where both television and neoliberal policy were reaching crescendos, the chapter argues that Reagan’s “Challenger Address” was a means of negotiating broader crises in political representation in America’s Cold War. Consistent with the iconoclastic tradition and its cultural, political, and indeed civic religious legacies, the “Challenger Address” pits “America” against the image. The nation, Reagan argues, like outer space, is uncontainable. But Reagan’s iconoclastic text is not strictly a matter of nationalist ideology; it concerns crises in representation that have both cultural and economic dimensions, in the form of television and deregulation respectively.Less

From Legacy to Legend

Megan Taylor Shockley

in The Captain's Widow of Sandwich: Self-Invention and the Life of Hannah Rebecca Burgess, 1834-1917

This chapter details how Rebecca's story had reached a wider audience and from there, had encouraged her to shape her own legend for the community. During the 1870s and beyond Rebecca added to her ... More

This chapter details how Rebecca's story had reached a wider audience and from there, had encouraged her to shape her own legend for the community. During the 1870s and beyond Rebecca added to her story significantly, in a way that made her appear even more the exciting, romantic heroine in her own maritime tale. By making a point to recount her version of her maritime experience to the wider community, Rebecca ensured the perpetuation of her persona, not only as William's loving wife but also as a woman who “saved” the Challenger's ship and crew from “certain peril” as William lay dying.Less

Women of the Moon

Daniel R. Altschuler and Fernando J. Ballesteros

in The Women of the Moon: Tales of Science, Love, Sorrow, and Courage

For each of the “Women of the Moon”, a biography and the reason for receiving the honor are described. The women included are Hypatia of Alexandria, Catherine of Alexandria, Nicole-Reine de la Briere ... More

For each of the “Women of the Moon”, a biography and the reason for receiving the honor are described. The women included are Hypatia of Alexandria, Catherine of Alexandria, Nicole-Reine de la Briere Lepaute, Caroline Lucretia Herschel, Mary Fairfax Greig Somerville, Anne Sheepshanks, Catherine Wolfe Bruce, Maria Mitchell, Agnes Mary Clerke, Sofia Vasílyevna Kovalévskaya, Annie Scott Dill Russell Maunder, Williamina Paton Fleming, Annie Jump Cannon, Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Maury, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Mary Adela Blagg, Mary Proctor, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Lise Meitner, Amalie Emmy Noether, Louise Freeland Jenkins, Priscilla Fairfield Bok, Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori, and the astronauts/cosmonauts Judith Arlene Resnik, Sharon Christa McAuliffe, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Blair Salton Clark, and Valentina Vladímirovna Nikolayeva Tereshkova.Less

Now, Voyager

Ellen Willis

in No More Nice Girls: Countercultural Essays

This chapter considers outer space as a metaphor for liberation and loneliness by focusing on the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. For both proponents and detractors, the military model of ... More

This chapter considers outer space as a metaphor for liberation and loneliness by focusing on the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. For both proponents and detractors, the military model of space flight coats the strangeness and terror of the enterprise with a deceptive familiarity. However the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) may define the conditions and the symbolism of space travel, it is ultimately dealing with the unpredictable and unknown. However space flight may be pressed into the service of nationalism and militarism, the nature of the journey is anything but parochial: it allows, for the first time, the possibility of literally seeing the world from another perspective. The potential effect on human life and culture is equally limitless. One of the seven crew members killed in the Challenger disaster was Christa McAuliffe, whose death humanized NASA.Less

Emancipating Structures and Cognitive Styles

Karen A. Cerulo

in Never Saw It Coming: Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst

This chapter investigates the role of emancipating structures in the development of negative asymmetry. It compares high-profile cases involving worst-case scenarios including the SARS outbreak of ... More

This chapter investigates the role of emancipating structures in the development of negative asymmetry. It compares high-profile cases involving worst-case scenarios including the SARS outbreak of 2003, the Y2K threat of 2000, the Federal Bureau of Investigation's handling of the “Phoenix memo” in 2001, and the Challenger disaster of 1986. The analysis reveals that certain structures play a pivotal role in nurturing the cognitive deviance needed to anticipate and avoid disaster. This chapter shows how emancipating structures can loosen the hold of dominant cultural practices and free groups and communities to pursue both unanticipated problems and creative solutions.Less

Discovering the Ocean: Of Fish and Ships and People

Wolf H. Berger

in Ocean: Reflections on a Century of Exploration

This chapter discusses the impact of human activities on the ocean and provides a brief history of the expansion of ocean research. It begins by discussing the major causes of fishery decline in the ... More

This chapter discusses the impact of human activities on the ocean and provides a brief history of the expansion of ocean research. It begins by discussing the major causes of fishery decline in the North Atlantic. This is followed by a discussion on the history of early oceanography and the contributions of the Challenger Expedition and other expeditions that led to the progress of oceanographic science. The chapter then describes the history of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a research center concerned with the study of nearshore and deep-sea organisms, as well as the geophysics of the seafloor and life-support systems of the planet.Less

Voyager Redux, Galileo, and Magellan

Peter J. Westwick

in Into the Black: JPL and the American Space Program, 1976-2004

This chapter shows that despite the failure of the SSEC plan—the bloated Mars Observer, the deferral of Mariner Mark II—the decade of the 1980s closed on a generally upbeat note. The optimism of ... More

This chapter shows that despite the failure of the SSEC plan—the bloated Mars Observer, the deferral of Mariner Mark II—the decade of the 1980s closed on a generally upbeat note. The optimism of 1985, dashed by Challenger, returned. Mars Observer and CRAF/Cassini, although expanding beyond austerity, were still under way. Voyager meanwhile continued to sustain the lab with encounters with Uranus in 1986 and Neptune in 1989, and together with Galileo and Magellan it combined to restore confidence at JPL. Amid the drought in planetary launches, the main sustenance for planetary scientists in this period came from Voyager 2's encounters at Uranus and Neptune, which extended Voyager's triumphal tour of the outer solar system. The encounters, however, did not simply entail sitting back and waiting for the spacecraft to get there but required much new work.Less

The Information Sharing Crisis that Does Not Go Away

Alon Peled

in Traversing Digital Babel: Information, E-Government, and Exchange

The chapter illustrates the severity of public sector information sharing failures with five tragic events where information sharing failure was decisive: the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion; the ... More

The chapter illustrates the severity of public sector information sharing failures with five tragic events where information sharing failure was decisive: the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion; the 9/11 terror attacks; Hurricane Katrina; the 2010 Haiti earthquake; and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. The chapter defines public agencies as big data owners and shows that the volume of big data processed and stored in the public sector far surpasses that of the private sector. The chapter then describes the massive cost of public sector information sharing failures in terms of wasted funds, lives lost, fraud, low data quality, and ineffective governance.Less

Twentieth-Century Space

Claude A. Piantadosi

in Mankind Beyond Earth: The History, Science, and Future of Human Space Exploration

This chapter explains the evolution of our knowledge of the problems of putting people into space and how the remaining issues can be resolved through perseverance, continuity, and international ... More

This chapter explains the evolution of our knowledge of the problems of putting people into space and how the remaining issues can be resolved through perseverance, continuity, and international cooperation. It begins with a short synopsis of the development of the key twentieth-century concepts that built on the requirement for hard-shell engineering covered in Chapter 3. It discusses Project Apollo which culminated on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 carrying Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin landed on the Moon's Sea of Tranquility. It describes two major shuttle disasters: the Challenger explosion on January 28, 1986 and the Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003. The final section focuses on the decision to build the International Space Station (ISS) in 1993.Less

Astronauts: Reinventing the Right Stuff

Valerie Neal

in Spaceflight in the Shuttle Era and Beyond: Redefining Humanity's Purpose in Space

The third chapter, “Astronauts: Reinventing the Right Stuff,” examines how the astronaut as icon embodied new meanings of spaceflight. A salient distinction of the shuttle era was the broadening, ... More

The third chapter, “Astronauts: Reinventing the Right Stuff,” examines how the astronaut as icon embodied new meanings of spaceflight. A salient distinction of the shuttle era was the broadening, diversity, and democratization of the astronaut corps through new roles and new selection criteria. The nature of the job (engineering and scientific research) contrasted with the public’s ingrained perception of astronauts as pilots, especially in the wake of the two shuttle tragedies. Two memes coexisted in a shifting balance: the astronaut as exceptional and heroic, and the astronaut as an extraordinarily capable “ordinary” person.Less

The National Security Agencies Abandon the Shuttle

James E. David

in Spies and Shuttles: NASA's Secret Relationships with the DoD and CIA

It soon became evident after the Shuttle's long-delayed first flight in 1981 that it could neither meet the estimated flight schedule nor achieve the original performance specifications needed for ... More

It soon became evident after the Shuttle's long-delayed first flight in 1981 that it could neither meet the estimated flight schedule nor achieve the original performance specifications needed for the heaviest national security payloads. Other problems plagued the program as well. The DoD abandoned its policy during the first two years of Shuttle operations of having backup expendable launch vehicles (ELVs) for all payloads and assigned the few remaining ones to launch specific satellites. Over the strenuous objections of NASA, it obtained permission in 1984 to build ten new launch vehicles for the heaviest payloads that the Shuttle could not carry. After the secure command and control system and the upper stage became operational, the DoD flew unclassified and classified payloads until the Challenger accident in 1986. The Challenger accident seriously disrupted the DoD's launch schedule, and it quickly began acquisition of several new classes of ELVs. Because performance-enhancing measures for the Shuttle were soon cancelled, the unused West Coast launch complex was mothballed. The DoD flew its last Shuttle missions from 1988 to 1992, presumably with payloads that could not fly on ELVs or that were too expensive to reconfigure to permit this. Its participation in the Shuttle program came to a premature end at an immense cost and with few benefits to show for it.Less

Judith Arlene Resnik (1949–1986)

Daniel R. Altschuler and Fernando J. Ballesteros

in The Women of the Moon: Tales of Science, Love, Sorrow, and Courage

This chapter focuses on the life of the American astronaut Judith Resnik, who died in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

Sharon Christa McAuliffe (1948–1986)

Daniel R. Altschuler and Fernando J. Ballesteros

in The Women of the Moon: Tales of Science, Love, Sorrow, and Courage

This chapter talks about the life of the Sharon Christa McAuliffe, a teacher who, when participating in the Teacher in Space program, died in the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

The saxophone as symbol and icon

Stephen Cottrell

in The Saxophone

This chapter examines the saxophone's status as a symbol and an icon within culture. From its inception, the instrument has been identified with modernity, innovation, and a sense of exploration and ... More

This chapter examines the saxophone's status as a symbol and an icon within culture. From its inception, the instrument has been identified with modernity, innovation, and a sense of exploration and enquiry. Its unusual shape and timbre were harnessed to great effect and have thus garnered it an audience whose minds were to view it as something new and exotic. The saxophone slowly and eventually penetrated art music genres later on, its supporters pushing the serious qualities of the instrument and its great contribution to music. Clay Smith was one who promoted this in the early 1900s, noting the saxophone as quintessentially American especially since it was perfected and improved in America. Its symbolic role began with astronaut Ron McNair, making it the first musical instrument to be taken into orbit on the space shuttle Challenger in February 1984. The chapter thus illustrates other examples of the saxophone's status and symbol in culture.Less

Income Tax Evasion, the Death Penalty, the Environment, the AIDS Epidemic, Desegregation, and Voting and Employment Discrimination, 1980–1988

James M. Denham

in Fifty Years of Justice: A History of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida

This chapter addresses a number of issues that found their way into the courts of the Middle District from 1980 to 1988. Included are income tax evasion, environmental and wrongful death litigation, ... More

This chapter addresses a number of issues that found their way into the courts of the Middle District from 1980 to 1988. Included are income tax evasion, environmental and wrongful death litigation, prison-overcrowding, and voting and employment discrimination. The chapter also chronicles some of the first handling of disputes arising out of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. In 1982 after Profitt v. Wainwright, the state of Florida resumed executions under the state’s new death penalty statutes. This chapter documents the increased burden the death penalty habeas litigation exerted on the court, and provides examples of several important cases. The chapter then covers desegregation litigation from 1968 to 1980. After summarizing relevant higher court cases since Swann, the litigation in Manatee, Orange, Marion, and Polk is discussed. The chapter then turns to employment and voting rights litigation the Middle District courts. Cases involving the City of Apopka, Florida, Lake County, Nassau County, and the City of Jacksonville are discussed.Less

Challenges and Transitions: Shifting Identities

Megan Taylor Shockley

in The Captain's Widow of Sandwich: Self-Invention and the Life of Hannah Rebecca Burgess, 1834-1917

This chapter depicts a shift in Rebecca's character as detailed in two journals that hold information of her time aboard the clipper ship, Challenger. Her prose describes a woman whose main concerns ... More

This chapter depicts a shift in Rebecca's character as detailed in two journals that hold information of her time aboard the clipper ship, Challenger. Her prose describes a woman whose main concerns are for her own health, the safety of the crew and ship, the condition of her own soul, and her family at home. Rebecca no longer wrote herself as a character who loved the sea, but as a woman extremely homesick and burdened with worries. The log Rebecca kept during her voyage from London to Chile tracks William's health, which most likely consumed both her time and attention in the summer and fall of 1856. Together these two journals suggest that Rebecca perceived herself as a woman in deep spiritual and personal crisis who felt she had to maintain control over the ship in late 1856.Less

A New Era, a New Narrative

Megan Taylor Shockley

in The Captain's Widow of Sandwich: Self-Invention and the Life of Hannah Rebecca Burgess, 1834-1917

This chapter reveals how Rebecca used the Challenger journal and rituals of public and private mourning in order to construct and reinforce her new identity. Having spent the past two years almost ... More

This chapter reveals how Rebecca used the Challenger journal and rituals of public and private mourning in order to construct and reinforce her new identity. Having spent the past two years almost entirely in William's company, Rebecca now looked toward what she perceived to be a bleak and lonely future. Since she made a promise never to marry again, the young woman perhaps saw nothing before her but solitude. The 22-year old woman's writings suggest that she was overcome by despondent feelings immediately upon William's passing, and she recorded these feelings for years after William's death. She also used her journals to begin creating a narrative about what happened to William in his last days, setting a dramatic scene in which she figured as a prominent actor and the object of William's undying love.Less

AFP-731 or The Other Night Sky: An Allegory

Trevor Paglen

in From Above: War, Violence, and Verticality

This chapter discusses shuttle missions and why they receive little press. After the Columbia’s first few missions in the early 1980s, shuttle launches had become rather banal affairs, virtually ... More

This chapter discusses shuttle missions and why they receive little press. After the Columbia’s first few missions in the early 1980s, shuttle launches had become rather banal affairs, virtually unnoticed outside specialised aerospace journals such as Aviation Week and Florida Today, Cape Canaveral’s hometown newspaper. Public interest in the shuttle was briefly revived in the aftermath of the 1986 Challenger explosion, but by 1990 shuttle missions had once again receded into the dim corners of the public imagination. The space shuttle was designed in large part as a secret spacecraft. It conjoined two Cold War space races. On one hand was the public race to demonstrate state virility and generate nationalistic zeal by putting men in orbit. The other was a ‘black’ space race conducted with similar vigour outside public view.Less