Reading 05: The Challenger and Whistleblowing

The root technical cause of the Challenger disaster was the failing of an O-ring in the shuttle, which resulted in a fuel tank igniting. This O-ring failed because of low temperatures on the morning of the launch. However, this was a known problem and could have been prevented, so part of the reason for the failure is really just poor communication and bad judgement. Engineers at Morton Thiokol warned executives at both Morton Thiokol and NASA of the danger, but were unable to convince them that the danger was real. Part of the problem here was that the executives were already behind schedule and were too eager to have the mission start. In addition, they could have been part of a “groupthink” in which their confidence was bolstered by the group mentality. Another potential issue in why this problem was not taken seriously is that the engineers who thought it was a problem may have done a poor job expressing the danger, as Edward Tufte argues. While this is definitely a possibility, I don’t think its accurate to point to that as the point to blame.

I think Roger was ethical in sharing the information he had with the public. People, especially those who knew the astronauts who were killed, deserve to know the truth of what happened. When it became clear that this truth wasn’t going to come out on its own and that NASA would like to obscure the truth, Roger did the right thing. Not only was it important to get the truth out for the sake of truth, it was also important as it may have prevented a similar issue from happening. With Roger sharing his information on the O-rings with the public, they may have never been properly chosen as the source of the issue, and a future launch may have made the same mistake.

I don’t think his company was justified in retaliating. While it is understandable that they might prefer to have released that information themselves, it seemed clear that they weren’t going to divulge or properly examine the truth. Ethically, the company should have done a proper investigation and exposed where the fault lay in the accident. However, they appeared to not want to do this, preferring to cover up the incident instead.

Even if whistleblowing “destroy[s] [your] career, [your] life, everything else", it still has value. Roger Boisjoly’s whistleblowing was worth it as it exposed the truth, and many people would thank him for that. In addition, while Roger may have lost his career and life, he preserved his morality and his dignity. If a company is doing something immoral and you can bring that to light, then you have a moral obligation to do so. Not only should you do it to expose the current truth, but also as an example so that others might do the same. If everyone is scared to expose immoral actions by companies, then companies will not feel accountable.