Understanding the Columbia Shuttle Accident

Note: The Benson T. Chertok Lecture; Joint Colloquia with MSE
Speaker: Douglass Osheroff, Nobel Laureate, Stanford University

When: March 30, 2012 (Fri), 03:00PM to 04:00PM (add to my calendar)
Location: PHO 205
Hosted by: David Bishop
View the poster for this event.

This event is part of the Physics Department Colloquia Series.

Abstract: The NASA Space Shuttle program began in April, 1981 and is scheduled to end in May, 2011. During this time NASA will have flown 134 missions. Nearly all of these missions have been flown successfully, but two spectacular disasters have blemished an otherwise perfect record. These, of course, were STS 51L, resulting in the Challenger Accident on January 28, 1986 and STS-107, the Columbia Accident on February 1, 2003. I was a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the 'CAIB', and in this talk I will discuss the origins of this accident, and the investigation that resulted in a report showing that both accidents were organizational in origin, and that both could and should have been avoided. This is an interesting talk, as it gives the audience an insider's look at the investigation of a spectacular accident. It has been most popular when given for large organizations, as large organizations are more likely to suffer from the deficiencies that led to both of these accidents.