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The Challenger Launch Decision, Risky Technology, Culture and Deviance at NASA
By Diane Vaughan. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996, 575 pages, $24.95
Painstaking labor and dedication is required in order to produce a book of such prolixity and complexity, one which is so extensively documented and based on a substantial number of written and interviewed sources. It makes it all the more regrettable that, despite such a momentous effort and product, key points and important sources are not included, and relevant issues emphasized in included sources are not discussed. In the last sentence of this book, the author writes, "What matters in developing an anthropology of organizations is that we go beyond the obvious and grapple with the complexity, for explanation lies in the details." But which details? The details that the civilian passengers, captain and crew of the Challenger were not informed of the dangers of the O-rings, and that a crew module equipped with a parachute descent system would have saved their lives are not to be found in the 575 pages. The most important detail, that a decision to launch was made in the face of strong opposition from the two engineers who knew the most about the structure of the O-rings, is lost in the forest of expository and explanatory complexity.
The author states in her preface that, "The explanation presented in this book explicates the sociology of mistake. It shows how mistake, mishap and disaster are socially organized and systematically produced by social structures." In addition, she states that "The practical lessons from the Challenger accident warn us about the hazards of living in this technological age." It seems that the general thesis is that social determinism, and not individual moral responsibility, is the overriding explanation for the Challenger disaster and the general and unknown risk of living in a technological age is confused with the specific and known risk of launching a space shuttle with design defective equipment.
The author appears to posit approximately eight separate but sometimes overlapping sub-theses which state her opinions of the causes of the Challenger disaster: (1) it was an inevitable product of the interaction between two complex systems; (2) it was an inevitable result of the use of risky...