The article seeks to explain the disaster that occurred in 1986 following three approaches. It was during the launch that the space challenger exploded killing a teacher and six astronauts, a disaster that if carefully looked into could have been prevented following the application of preventative ethics. The author explains that a disaster occurs when certain standards are not observed. In his first explanation for why the challenger failed, the problem was in engineering whereby certain engineering standards were violated citing the flaws in the design of the field joints, in the booster. The second problem lied in management practices of NASA or the manufacturer of the booster while the third was in ethics citing that NASA or the private contractors engaged in unethical practice (Harris, 1995). Despite each approach being capable of offering sufficient explanation depending on one’s area of expertise, the author believes that the three are not mutually exclusive. The bottom-line for the author is that people should always be informed of the potential dangers that they may be subjected to whenever they engage in risky assignments and be given a chance to either consent or not to consent to the dangers so as to avoid playing blame games whenever disasters occur. It is important to note that the author does not rule out other explanations for the disaster following unanticipated series of events that also play a significant role in the same.
Reference
Harris, C. E. (1995). Explaining Disasters: The case for Preventative Ethics. Pg 89-94.Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/eng/current-students/ugrad/freshmen/ek100/faculty/materials/ethics/documents/Challenger.pdf on 27/1/2014.
