Having watched Seconds from Disasters from documentary Okto channel, it made me realize how important spilt seconds can lead to life and death.
The show was about the explosion of a space shutter, to be precise, the explosion of the oil rig (due to cold weather and ice forming around the base of the launching pad), nitrogen tank and thanks to the air turbulence in that specific air layer in the atmosphere which caused the slag (aluminum a by pass product which aids in the fuel burning of the rocket for the space shutter boosting the power by as high as 50%.
What caused the disaster wasn’t the technical faults with neither the oil rig nor any of the factors as mentioned above but was primarily due to bad decisions by the management leading to the deaths of 7 astronauts. Despite having warnings and advices presented to management team, they proceeded with the launch by confirming it with NASA with 4 out of 5 votes, and guess what, NASA on the other phone waiting for their response and upon hearing the verdict although not unanimous but decided to go ahead with the launch anyway without taking into considerations of why there’s still an crucial opposition vote against the launch of the space shutter back in June 1986 if I didn’t remember wrongly that is.
What I learn from this documentary show is poor decisions caused lives to be lost, and what’s the best part, the culprit was promoted while the adviser (the opposition) quit due to inability to stop it from happening and suffered nervous breakdown for a period of two whole years.
What is this? That’s the real working society, under pressure; people tend to give in to situations that are in favor of what they like at the expense of the astronauts who are putting their lives on the line in return for a cue from the management to go ahead.
The lack of control and a unanimous agreement that is crucial before any risky assignments are being carried out is extremely important. When delivering the product is important but safety aspects are being compromised, it will lead to regrets at later part.
In business, risking is a part of expansion for profits but it has to be calculated risks. Better to have temporary and short disappointments than to have a life time of regrets for safety reasons – that’s what I believe in since I have had regrets which I hope If given the chance to reverse it, I wish I could slightly change the choice I have made in the past. It all boils down making the right choices for short, mid and long period of time to come.
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