The Investigative Techniques Used by the Challenger Commission to Address Information System Failures as They Related to the Space Shuttle Accident

Abstract

Soon after the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident was appointed (February 6, 1986), Commission hearings revealed that the decision making process which lea to the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28, 1986 was “flawed” (Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Accident, 1986, Chap. V, pp.82-119; hereafter “Report”). Moreover, the Commission eventually concluded that the information system used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to track problems had also failed. The purpose of this paper is to describe the techniques utilized by the Commission to investigate information system failures as possible contributing causes to the accident.