The Participation Blog

The Catastrophic Consequence of Communication Failure

Time flies. It’s hard to believe that it was 33 years ago – just last month – that STS-51-L, the Space Shuttle Challenger, exploded 73 seconds after launch, taking the lives of seven astronauts, including Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher from New Hampshire. Much has been written, documented, re-enacted and produced detailing the events leading up to that disaster, and a new film explores the events leading up to that cold Florida morning. I doubt there’s ever been a more prominent example of engineering, management, group-think, public perception, politics and communication failures and consequence. Will we ever learn.