Sounding a warning about our dangerous reliance on technology and its complex infrastructure, this intriguing study of the Challenger tragedy argues that the disaster was inevitable because of the perilous interrelationship among politics, big business, and science.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
When the Challenger space shuttle exploded in 1986, killing all seven crew members, the U.S. Air Force may not have been surprised?its experts' confidential report issued just three months earlier had concluded that the shuttle was one of the most dangerous technological systems ever built. In a gripping narrative that comprises a strong cautionary tale, Jensen, a Danish professor of literature, views the Challenger disaster as a prime example of the crippling bureaucracy of large organizations. Documenting a series of hair-raising technical failures, accidents, mishaps and near-disasters that plagued NASA from the late 1950s onward, Jensen shows how infighting between government agencies, bureaucratic inertia and NASA's fear that the armed forces would withdraw support for a civilian space program all contributed to the Challenger tragedy. Although Jensen relies on secondary sources and on the Presidential fault-finding commission led by physicist Richard Feynman, this is nevertheless a significant study of the Challenger disaster and of NASA's corporate culture.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Ten years ago, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing its crew of seven. The disaster also destroyed NASA's reputation as the "can-do" agency that put men on the moon?the competent exception among its fellow federal bureaucracies. This narrative by a Danish professor of literature long fascinated with the space race traces not only the history of the Space Age but also places the story of the Challenger disaster in a broader social and political context, concluding that such high-tech catastrophes are inevitable as the organizations and systems that sustain today's technology grow increasingly complex and unmanageable. Jensen's use of the Rogers Commission hearings that examined the accident with a particular focus on the late physicist Richard Feynman's role as devil's advocate highlight his analysis and serves to frame the story as a cautionary tale of how organizations court disaster when unrealistic goals?in this case an impossibly heavy flight schedule?conflict with reality. Recommended for academic and large public libraries. [Also coming in January is Diane Vaughan's The Challenger Launch Decision from Univ. of Chicago.?Ed.]?Thomas J. Frieling, Bainbridge Coll., Ga.
-?Thomas J. Frieling, Bainbridge Coll., Ga.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
-?Thomas J. Frieling, Bainbridge Coll., Ga.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not For Space Buffs Only,
By A Customer
This review is from: No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time (Hardcover)
Well written. Jensen does a nice job of avoiding sappy emotionalism and technical speak. Excellent job of showing how the Challenger explosion was less a technical failure and more of a management failure. Vividly describes how the how the culture at NASA had devolved from the heights of Apollo into the bloated, compartmentalized bureaucracy that exisited in 1985. In the chapter about the tele-conference on the night before launch you can really sense the fear in the engineers as it dawns on them that NASA is going to launch anyway. Finally, Jensen's look at Richard Fennyman and the Rogers Commission is brilliant...brought back the stunning moment when I saw the o-ring in the ice water. This is the best book on the Challenger explosion.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not the Definitive Book on the Subject,
By
This review is from: No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time (Hardcover)
I read this book because it seemed to be the only book in print that most closely approximated the one for which I was looking: a straight-forward history of the Challenger disaster. (Another, similar leading book about the disaster seemed to reduce the subject to a risk management study, or so I surmised from its descriptions and reviews, which is not at all what I wanted!) While the sections of this book that are actually about the shuttle disaster are riveting, they only make up about one-half the book, the remainder being a history of rocketry and space exploration up to the time of the shuttle. I could have done without this extra information, not that it was dull, but it was superfluous in the context of a book that seemed on the surface to be primarily about the Challenger disaster. I think an editor should have advised the author to squeeze the first half of the book into a single chapter or introduction, and then to go directly into the shuttle disaster. Also, because the book was originally written in a non-English language and then translated into English, there seem to be some odd or awkward phrases throughout the work. The translator's most peculiar habit is to switch from past to present tense, which I found distracting, along with the author's tendency to use incomplete sentences, which, while I understand was a stylistic choice on his part, forces careful readers to stop and re-read sentences in order to make sure they didn't miss something. It's a book worth reading, but I don't think the definitive book on this subject has yet to be written, especially since the author did not rely on any of his own interviews with persons close to the subject (such as NASA personnel and astronauts' families).
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good general account of Challenger and NASA culture...,
This review is from: No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time (Hardcover)
One of the first books of the Challenger disaster, this is a good general discussion of that event as well as a decent analysis of NASA's perceived "downfall" from the heights of the Apollo program to the stressed, over-ranging attempts at cheap, monthly launches of the Shuttle. Jensen gives a balanced account of the Launch decision making (although, I agree with the previous reviewer that he could have provided much more technical detail) and subsequent investigation(s) and does a fair job at blaming the right people without seeming to point the finger. Overall, a good starting point for details of the accident, it'll probably make you pursue other accounts (like D. Vaughn's "Challenger Launch Decision").
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