Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Richard Feynman, the Challenger, and Engineering

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the this-is-not-warm-fuzzies-on-a-cold-morning dept.

An anonymous reader writes "When Richard Feynman investigated the Challenger disaster as a member of the Rogers Commission, he issued a scathing report containing brilliant, insightful commentary on the nature of engineering. This short essay relates Feynman's commentary to modern software development."

4 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. External Pressures Ruin Engineering by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I'm a software developer. I would like to think of myself as an engineer but to me that's a higher title that belongs to people who actually engineer original ideas.

    The problem with the shuttle disaster (both of them, really) is external pressures that are not in anyway at all scientific. The pressure from your manager at Morton Thiokol to perform better, faster and cheaper. The pressure from the government to beat those damned ruskies into space at all costs.

    So this is really a case of engineering ethics, when do you push back? As a software developer, I never push back. Me: "There's a bug that happens once every 1,000 uses of this web survey but it would take me a week to pin it down and fix it." My Boss: "Screw it--the user will blame that on the intarweb, just keep moving forward." But could I consciously say the same thing about a shuttle with people's lives at stake? No, I could not.

    So when an engineer at Morton Thiokol said that they hadn't tested the O-Ring at that weather temperature that fateful day and that information was either not relayed or lost all the way up to the people at NASA who were about to launch--it wasn't a failure of engineering, it was a failure of ethics. External forces had mutated engineering into a liability, not an asset.

    And there's a whole slough of them I studied in college:

    * Space Shuttle Columbia disaster (2003)
    * Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (1986)
    * Chernobyl disaster (1986)
    * Bhopal disaster (1984)
    * Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse (1981)
    * Love Canal (1980), Lois Gibbs
    * Three Mile Island accident (1979)
    * Citigroup Center (1978), William LeMessurier
    * Ford Pinto safety problems (1970s)
    * Minamata disease (1908-1973)
    * Chevrolet Corvair safety problems (1960s), Ralph Nader, and Unsafe at Any Speed
    * Boston molasses disaster (1919)
    * Quebec Bridge collapse (1907), Theodore Cooper
    * Johnstown Flood (1889), South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club
    * Tay Bridge Disaster (1879), Thomas Bouch, William Henry Barlow, and William Yolland
    * Ashtabula River Railroad Disaster (1876), Amasa Stone So I agree with Feynman's comments in relationship to engineering and the further comments to software development. But I don't find them to be a fault in the nature of engineering, just a fault in our ethics. What does capitalism and competitiveness drive us to do? Cut corners, often.
    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:External Pressures Ruin Engineering by Vicious+Penguin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > What does capitalism and competitiveness drive us to do? Cut corners, often.

      Maybe, but remember what your own example shows -> What is the cost/benefit of fixing/preventing an error? Is a week of debug time worth missing your target ship date? Maybe, maybe not - depends on the error.

      A blanket indictment of capitalism is quite unfair. You would still have the same cost/benefit analysis regardless of economic system you toiled under.

      Is is not possible to engineer against all eventualities; trying to do so will usually keep you from ever getting off the ground.

  2. Faster, Better, Cheaper by Protonk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To be fair, the Challenger disaster actually preceeded NASA's slogan and procurement policy of "faster, better, cheaper" by a bit. More to the point, Feynman's article should be a cautionary tale to ANYONE in a engineering field. It isn't a matter of one field being subject to unscientific pressures and another field being immune. No technology or industry is immune from the pressures and problems that caused the challenger disaster. Anyone who claims to be well adapted to safety concerns enough to not spend lots of time and effort on fixing them is foolish. The nuclear industry still has to practice strong QC on parts, procedures and maintenance and CONTINUE that practice. Same with commercial aviation, acute medical care, etc. Constant vigilance is rewarded only with another uneventful day. That is the fundamental problem. Vigilance is expensive and time consuming. these are not pressures from the profit motive. They apply to government as well as civilian ventures.

  3. Hm. by gardyloo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The blog post makes a nice contribution by linking to Feynman's original thoughts (for example, here: http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/feynman.html ), ones I haven't read for a long time (and was happy to be reminded of). However, the author makes the mistake of thinking that the original thoughts need to be interpreted and summarized for the reader. Feynman's words by themselves are simple to understand, are concise, and contain just the tone for which geeks go gaga. Anyone interested in the subject will be able to make his or her own judgements about the engineering and politics involved in the Shuttle development, engineering in general, and the extensions to software development.