Lessons Unlearned

I awoke this morning to a video news bit on Yahoo, remembering the Challenger Tragedy of 25 years ago.

The authors of this video considered the central problem behind the disaster - a disconnect between 'lower level' engineers and their managers, in which the engineers feared a problem with the integrity of critical O-rings in cold weather, but were not listened to by their supervisors - as a 'lesson learned'.

And the authors claimed the learned lesson lead to changes in NASA culture which made space travel safer for all that followed.

I guess the producers of the video weren't thinking about the much more recent burnup of the Shuttle Columbia on reentry, which resulted from damage from a foam strike at launch. Lower level engineers feared a problem then too, but were not listened to by their managers.

Lesson Learned? Only for a short time, then forgotten again - at the cost of more lives.

That may be human nature, or just NASA nature. Either way, we can expect the pattern to continue as memories of disaster fade, and flawed human nature working in a rigid power structure inflicts its damage.