Live support chatEngineering Ethics: The Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster
In Engineering Ethics: The Columbia Space Shuttle Disaster, you'll learn ...
- The root cause of the shuttle Columbia’s breakup during re-entry on February 1, 2003
- Warning signs that were not heeded
- How NASA reverted back to the culture that existed 17 years earlier at the time of the Challenger disaster
- Multiple ethical lapses viewed through the lens of the NSPE Code of Ethics
Overview
Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.
Credit: 1 PDH
Length: 19 pages
The world of human space flight paused—first to mourn, then to discover what had happened to the space shuttle Columbia when it broke apart upon re-entry on February 1, 2003, killing all seven crew members. By sheer luck, the shuttle crashed in a sparsely-populated area of Texas that day, sparing the loss of even more lives.
In this course, you’ll learn what caused this disaster. You'll see how NASA allowed culture problems from the Challenger to creep back into the shuttle program, ultimately contributing to the Columbia disaster. You’ll learn about the frantic efforts of engineers and management to determine whether the damage sustained to Columbia during liftoff rose to the level of a “Safety of Flight” issue.
Finally, you will explore the decisions and actions of NASA officials and engineers involved in the shuttle project from an ethical point of view.
Specific Knowledge or Skill Obtained
This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:
- The shuttle's technical problems and why they were not corrected
- NASA engineers' efforts during the mission to assess whether they were dealing with a "Safety of Flight" issue
- The concept of “Normalization of Deviance” and how it contributed to the disaster
- Major findings contained in the investigation of the disaster
- The impact of the shuttle Columbia’s demise on safety standards, NASA engineering and the community as a whole
Certificate of Completion
You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 10 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.
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Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.
Credit: 1 PDH
Length: 19 pages
