Background

The Columbia shuttle disaster presents some challenges for engineers. The accident analysis that followed the Challenger disaster almost 20 years earlier resulted in everyone having a pretty good idea of the reliability of the system. Since the Success/Failure of a mission is a binary outcome, the Binomial distribution would govern our understanding of the future outcome so the system is based on expected reliability.

Discussion

Discuss the ethics of the circumstances that resulted in the Columbia shuttle disaster. Considering the predictions that were made years before thedisaster, as well as the reliability of the Binomial distribution and its implications, what could or should the engineers associated with the program have done differently? What obligations do we have as engineers when we find ourselves in this kind of position? Ultimately, why did the system fail, and who shares the responsibility?