Morton Thiokol was not the name of one of the astronauts aboard the Challenger spacecraft that blew up twenty-five years ago today (January 28, 1986). But that name is as important as any associated with the mishap \/ tragedy.<\/p>\n

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Morton Thiokol was the name of the company based in Ogden, Utah that manufactured the \u2018O\u2019 rings on the solid-fuel rocket booster, one of which failed at 11:39 AM that morning, 73 second after lift-off. If you want more of the unpleasant details of the malfunction, you\u2019ll have to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n

There were lessons to be learned after and even before that fateful day. There are still new ones to learn. One concerns Morton Thiokol.\u00a0 First, I must give a slight spelling correction by adding a hyphen, make it Morton-Thiokol.\u00a0 This clarifies that we are talking about a company, not an individual.<\/p>\n

The O-rings manufactured by Morton-Thiokol had worked on all previous twenty-four shuttle flights. But all of those launches took place with a\u00a0 temperature of at least 51 degrees Fahrenheit.\u00a0 At 11:38 AM that morning, the temperature and Launch Pad 39B was 36^{o<\/sup>.<\/p>\n}

An egregious mistake had been made by at least two parties: the government-run NASA and the private company Morton-Thiokol. Morton-Thiokol knew that there was risk in maintaining the integrity of the O-ring at such a low temperature, but so did NASA which had ultimate responsibility for the launch and oversight of the work done by Morton-Thiokol.<\/p>\n

Following the disaster, there was a great deal of finger-pointing between the two entities.\u00a0 Today, the argument goes on, but on a much broader playing field.\u00a0 On one side is the public sector as represented by NASA and on the other side is the private sector as represented by Morton-Thiokol.<\/p>\n

We often talk in positive terms about a public-private partnership, but the Challenger disaster was a partnership of mutual responsibility and negligence.\u00a0 We can argue until the cows come home as to who was \u201cmore to blame,\u201d Morton-Thiokol or NASA.\u00a0 The bottom line is that human beings in each organization made decisions that had disastrous consequences.\u00a0 There is no evidence that anyone operated with malice, just negligence.<\/p>\n

As President Obama and others have pointed out, our dialogue has frequently become debate without civility.\u00a0 Ironically the last period of time in which people with honest disagreements minimized the personal attacks may have been during Ronald Reagan\u2019s presidency, which was when the Challenger disaster occurred (remember Ronald Reagan and Tip O\u2019Neill being true friends).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s quaint that Democrats and Republicans sat with one another during President Obama\u2019s State of the Union Speech, but unity that goes beyond symbolism is what we really need. A good place to start is from what we can learn from the Challenger disaster. What happened on and before that cold January day was a series of human errors. Some of the individuals who made mistakes were in the private sector; others were in the public sector. What they had in common was that they were human beings who were fallible and subject to the pressures of achieving excellence while working within deadlines. It\u2019s quite likely that if the Morton-Thiokol people had been working for NASA and the NASA people for Morton-Thiokol, the exact same mistakes would have been made.<\/p>\n

The partisan debates seem to overlook the reality that all of us, including those who are pontificating, make mistakes. We screw up; it\u2019s part of the human experience.\u00a0 A little less certainty and a little more humility might be helpful. This does not mean that we should drowse off into a bi-partisan kumbaya; besides being impossible it would take a lot of the spice out of life.<\/p>\n

The public \u2013 private issue is important, fundamental to the decisions we make.\u00a0 I prefer to err on the side of public because its constituency is everyone as opposed to stockholders and executives.\u00a0 But if businesses were taken out of the mix, it would stifle an enormous amount of individual initiative and fulfillment.<\/p>\n

We lost some wonderful people on the Challenger.\u00a0 While Concord, New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe is most remembered, the other six crew members were also exceptional.\u00a0 Fortunately we remember Christa McAuliffe and we honor others such as Ronald McNair, one of the first African-American astronauts.<\/p>\n

Besides the brave astronauts, it is important to remember that the accident reflected the omnipresence of human fallibility.\u00a0 Sometimes we forget that; sometimes we forget the flip side of Challenger; the dreams that the astronauts and others had to further explore space. The twenty-fifth anniversary is particularly poignant because American manned space is about to enter a hiatus of undetermined length.\u00a0 As irony would have it, the scheduled commander of the final shuttle flight is Mark Kelly, husband of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords whose shooting represents so many of the unresolved issues in our country.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s alert and thinking and I bet she\u2019d be thrilled to hear that a new public-private partnership has been forged without acrimony to continue the space program.\u00a0 What a fine way to try to mend so many of our wounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morton Thiokol was not the name of one of the astronauts aboard the Challenger spacecraft that blew up twenty-five years ago today (January 28,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[128,172,241],"tags":[866,868,867],"yoast_head":"\n