Challenger shuttle

Unfortunately these variables and problems exist in all industries. As an example a major situation occurred that was catastrophic in the aerospace industry. (Nothing is perfect on earth.) The Challenger shuttle spacecraft exploded 28 January 1986 above Cape Canaveral, FL. (Fig. 8-79)... 

In 1984, the AMPTE mission launched the first carbon-foil TOF-MS into space, which would have been the second, had the Challenger shuttle disaster not delayed the Ulysses launch until 1991 (Fig. 11.2) [23]. The photons were filtered out by a traditional blackened deflection system, which directed the ions toward the 2 p,g/cm2 thick foil mounted on an 85% transparent grid almost a square centimeter in area. The grid provided the support needed to survive the launch. The foil thickness permitted >2keV/nuc ions to pass through and hit a SSD some 10 cm away. To ensure that the ions made it through the foil and also through the dead layer on the SSD (caused by the upper electrode), the foil and the entire TOF section were floated at 20 kV to post-accelerate the ions. Electrons sputtered off the carbon foil became the start, whereas electrons sputtered off the SSD became the stop pulse for the TOF. 

Schwarz, J., and Wald, M. Echoes of Challenger. Shuttle Panel Considers Longstanding Flaws in NASA s System. New Tbrk limes, Apr. 13, 2003, p. A15. 

A company s culture can make or break even a well-designed data collection system. Essential requirements are minimal use of blame, freedom from fear of reprisals, and feedback which indicates that the information being generated is being used to make changes that will be beneficial to everybody. All three factors are vital for the success of a data collection system and are all, to a certain extent, under the control of management. To illustrate the effect of the absence of such factors, here is an extract from the report into the Challenger space shuttle disaster ... 

Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident. (1986). Washington, DC U.S. Government Printing Office. 

Richard Feynman loved to play the bongos. He also loved solving problems. He figured out the reason for the space shuttle Challenger s 1986 explosion by showing that cold weather caused the rubber seals of the booster rocket to fail. Feynman was one of the twentieth century s great theoretical physicists, a Nobel Prize winner who spent much of his career studying atoms. He knew as much about atoms as anyone in the world, and this is what he said about them in his book Six Easy Pieces ... 

During the past two decades, the redox shuttle mechanism has been influencing researchers as the most promising solution to the challenge of cathode overcharge, and among the limited number of publications, most of the additives were selected based on their redox potentials. 

The Challenger space shuttle disaster (January 1986) was the culmination of a series of occurrences each with its own root cause. 

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