Ethical Obligations and Decision-Making in Accounting 2nd Edition by Steven Mintz, Roselyn Morris

Exercise 16

On the evening of January 27, 1986 the temperature outside the Kennedy Space Center in Florida dropped below freezing. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had a dilemma. In discussions with executives from the Morton Thiokol Corporation that produced the solid rocket boosters for the space shuttle program, it was decided there was insufficient evidence and specific testing about how the cold weather would affect the rocket booster seals even though engineers assigned to the launch thought otherwise. The engineers recommended not launching because of the cold temperature. The temperature had dropped to 27 degrees at launch time. It took only 75 seconds after the launch for tragedy to strike. Eleven miles above the earth fire leaked from one of the booster seals and the Challenger erupted into flames killing all aboard including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, America’s first private citizen in space. Did NASA do the right thing by allowing the launch to go on? Be sure to support your answer with ethical reasoning.

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Ethics:

Ethics is the set of some moral values and principal that differentiate right and wrong morally.