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The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (Paperback)

~ (Author) "NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger originally was scheduled for launch January 22, 1986..." (more)
Key Phrases: Presidential Commission, Leon Ray, Project Managers (more...)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
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  Hardcover, January 27, 1996 $35.00 $21.99 $3.71
  Paperback, April 14, 1997 $16.50 $13.60 $8.43

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The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA + Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies + The Logic Of Failure: Recognizing And Avoiding Error In Complex Situations
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  • This item: The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA by Diane Vaughan

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986 is usually ascribed to NASA's decision to accept a safety risk to meet a launch schedule. Vaughan, a professor of sociology at Boston College, argues instead that the disaster's roots are to be found in the nature of institutional life. Organizations develop cultural beliefs that shape action and outcome, she notes. NASA's institutional history and group dynamics reflected a perception of competition for scarce resources, which fostered a structure that accepted risk-taking and corner-cutting as norms that shaped decision-making. Small, seemingly harmless modifications to technical and procedural standards collectively propelled the space agency toward disaster even though no specific rules were broken. While Vaughan's complex presentation will daunt general readers, her conclusion that the "normalization of deviance" builds error into all human systems is as compelling as it is pessimistic.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


From Scientific American

Vaughan gives us a rare view into the working level realities of NASA. . . . the cumulative force of her argument and evidence is compelling.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 592 pages
  • Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (April 15, 1997)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0226851761
  • ISBN-13: 978-0226851761
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #197,603 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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More About the Author

Diane Vaughan
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
NASA's Space Shuttle Challenger originally was scheduled for launch January 22, 1986. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Presidential Commission, Leon Ray, Project Managers, House Committee, Roger Boisjoly, Ben Powers, Brian Russell, Acceptable Risk Process, George Hardy, Larry Mulloy, Morton Thiokol, Air Force, Kennedy Space Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, Launch Commit Criteria, Arnie Thompson, Jim Smith, Mission Management Team, White House, Chief Engineer, Marshall's Larry Wear, State of the Union, Von Braun, Keith Coates, Marshall's Mulloy
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Customer Reviews

23 Reviews
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4.3 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating account, tortured writing, February 29, 2004
By GST "Reader" (Santiago) - See all my reviews
Penetrating account of the organizational causes of the Challenger disaster. The author shows that the engineering mistake that led to the disaster was not the result of intentional wrongdoing ("amoral calculator" thesis = managers overruling engineers due to economic and/or political pressures) but that quite on the contrary that the NASA and contractor teams played by the rulebook to a fault and that the mistake was "systematic and socially organized". A must read for everybody interested in organizational dynamics or in how to manage risk in the development of technological innovations.
Given the fascinating subject matter and revisionist thesis it's a pity that the writing is very uneven. Most of the "thick description" of the decisions around the booster joint from the early design days to the post-mortem by the Presidential Commission is quite readable. This core of the text, however, is embedded in an unbearably repetitive and plodding overall narrative flow (the account could probably be reduced in length by 50%) which in places degenerates into (sociological?) opaque language. Taking a cue from the author's concept of "structural secrecy" (things are hidden not on purpose but due to organizational compartmentalization), the argument of the book loses a lot of its force due to the undisciplined way of telling it; the author could profit from a strong editor.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Who would have thought...., May 15, 2001
By "ifrman" (Houston, tx USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (Hardcover)
Who would have thought that the most cognizant explanation of the Challenger accident would be written from an industrial psychology perspective? I've worked for NASA contractors for 24 years and have dealt with all of the types of various reviews and "overhead chart" engineering and management discussions and telecons she studied. I read this book when it first came out and have referred others to it as one of the best texts on management, technical decision making, and quality assurance that I can think of. Years of education led me to think that I was a "professional" but, as Ms Vaughn so eloquently demonstrates, there is no real aerospace engineering profession in the context of the NASA/Industry partnership.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Reliability/Maintenance/Refinery Engineering Application, August 5, 2002
By Kenneth P. Bloch (Saint Paul, Minnesota United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (Hardcover)
I started reading this book to improve my Root Cause Failure Analysis skills after hearing that it covers, in fine detail, a failure that cost the lives of 7 astronauts and destroyed a multi-billion dollar asset. We are first presented with the popular media viewpoint that describes how performance-driven NASA administrators aggressively pursued production, political, and economic goals at the expense of personal safety. How a mechanical flaw formally designated as a potentially catastrophic anomaly by NASA and Thiokol engineers became a normal flight risk on the basis of previous good launches. How a last minute plea from subject matter experts to halt the countdown on an uncommonly cold day in January 1986 was ignored by engineering managers on the decision chain so the launch schedule would not be compromised.

I remember an early feeling of relief in knowing that while similar performance, production, and scheduling pressures exist in my career, the attitudes that were mostly at fault for the Challenger incident are absent from my refinery and violate all 10 of my parent company's business principles starting with #1 (conduct all business lawfully and with integrity).

The author then proceeds to shatter every element of this popular emotional impression by presenting a credible account of the failure based on public record. This is an important point because unlike with Enron's collapse, there is no shredding of pertinent documents behind the Challenger incident. And it is this matter of public record that can benefit anyone having reliability or production engineering responsibilities within a refinery. Here we find evidence that NASA's best friend - a reliable system built to assure the utmost safety in engineering - was to blame for the tragedy. A system that encourages the challenging of engineering data to validate its meaning. A system that prioritizes safety above any other initiative. A system that requires operation within specified safety limits in order to function. A system that requires vendor/customer interaction. A system with multiple departments, requiring effective communication between each.

I soon realized that the book that I was reading was not a book about a tragic point in American history, but a book about managing risks we routinely encounter in a refinery, using the Challenger incident as the case history to relate them to. Like so many case histories in industry, we benefit by understanding what went wrong and taking proactive measures to prevent against it from happening again.

If I owned this refinery and someone came to me saying, "Hey, I'd really like to work here" I would send him or her off with a copy of this book. If that person returned still interested, chances are he or she would get the job.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Deep insights for those willing to take the time
A thick and rich sociological study of NASA and the organizational factors that led to the destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger back in January 1986. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Michael F. Murphy

5.0 out of 5 stars Normalization of deviance
Now twenty years later we are currently seeing how human organizations will tend to normalize deviance to the point of disaster. Read more
Published 11 months ago by P. Hoff

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning safety book - though written by accident
This is the book that in 1998 convinced me to change from a career in aviation design to one in avation safety. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mr. Andrew Evans

2.0 out of 5 stars Took too long to reach a very logical conclusion
It was a well-researched book but it seemed to me that she spent a lot of time repeating herself regarding the decision-making process. Read more
Published 20 months ago by D. E. W. Turner

3.0 out of 5 stars could that really be the whole story?
I was excited to read a new book by the author of Controlling Unlawful Organizational Behavior, one of my favorite books and a must read for anyone hoping to make it in the... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Ransom Carroll

5.0 out of 5 stars The Challenger Launch Decision
This is a theoretically profound book and it is highly readable. Wonderful book! I enjoy it very much!
Published on September 16, 2005 by Tian-jia Dong

3.0 out of 5 stars Good information, but too long
I found this book very informative on the Challenger accident and the "culture of risk" at NASA. However, I feel the author drags on too long with her NASA-bashing. Read more
Published on September 2, 2005 by P. J. Williams

5.0 out of 5 stars Normalization Of Deviance
As a sociological explanation of disastrous decision making in high risk applications, this book is without peer, exceeding even Charles Perrow's work by a fair measure. Read more
Published on December 23, 2004 by Robert I. Hedges

5.0 out of 5 stars Institutions Create and Condone Risk
The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded on January 28, 1986. To millions of viewers, it is a moment they will never forget. Read more
Published on June 23, 2004 by Craig L. Howe

5.0 out of 5 stars great analysis-must read for managers in high risk industry
This is the most comprehensive, thorough and believable analysis of the Challenger shuttle disaster that is available. Read more
Published on June 17, 2004 by William L. Johnson

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