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The Challenger Disaster

NASA is a government agency responsible for science and technology related to air and space. On January 28th, 1986 the United States launched the space shuttle, The Challenger. This was monumental for NASA as they were sending a high school teacher as the first American civilian to go into space. NASA relies on group work, and in order to launch the shuttle, they have to rely on others to approve that everything will go as planned. The engineers who built the shuttle’s rocket booster warned the team that the temperature for the day of the launch could affect its performance. [1]

The Challenger case was subject to a more quantitatively oriented test of Janis's groupthink model performed by Esser and Lindoerfer, who found clear signs of positive antecedents to groupthink in the critical decisions concerning the launch of the shuttle.[2] The day of the launch was rushed for publicity reasons. NASA wanted to captivate the attention of America. Having Christa McAuliffe on board to broadcast a live lesson, and the possible mention by president Ronald Reagan in his State of the Union Address was not an opportunity NASA could pass up on in order to get more interest on its potential civilian space flight program. The schedule NASA set out to meet was, after all, self-imposed. It seemed incredible that an organization like NASA, with a history of successful management, could have locked itself into a schedule that it had no chance of meeting.[3] [1] Janis, I. (1991). Groupthink. In E. Griffin (Ed.) A First Look at Communication Theory (pp. 235 - 246). New York: McGrawHill.

[2] Hart, P. T. (1991). Irving L. Janis' victims of groupthink. Political Psychology, 12(2), 247-278.

[3] Schwartz, H. S. (1987). On the psychodynamics of organizational disaster: The case of the space shuttle Challenger. Columbia Journal of World Business, 22(1), 59-67.