The National Aeronautics and Space Administration began as a civil space exploration program with the role of dominating space exploration for the United States. The program was named because NASA was created in 1958 and by 1969 the Apollo crew had walked on the moon. However, due to budget constraints, the program became part of the Air Force. In 1970, Nixon approved the Space Transportation System (STS), the shuttle program that took the first steps toward becoming a dominant force in space exploration. To help reduce costs a new fuel system was developed which consisted of a mix of solid and liquid fuel system. This created a three-part flight assembly consisting of the rocket, external fuel tank, and orbiter. This new system allowed NASA to reuse the orbiter which became known as the shuttle. This new flight system required teams from different organizations to work together, with each area playing a key role in the success or failure of the space program. Morton Thiokol won the contract to build the solid-fuel rockets in Utah and ship them to Florida for assembly. The SRBs were 149 feet long and weighed two million pounds (Edmondson, 2003). The design relied on O-Rings to seal joints between components to eliminate gas leaks during lift-off, leakage and reduce joint rotation. NASA was tasked with developing the shuttle that would serve as a means of transportation for the crew, experiments, and items needed for delivery into space. This reusable model could then return to Earth and be sent back into space by connecting fuel systems made by Thiokol. Morton Thiokol had problems with the design of SRBs from the beginning. In 1977 it was discovered that joint rotation was not ...... middle of paper ......y (2003). Group process in the Challenger launch decision. Harvard Business School, 356-376Gerstein, M. S., & Shaw, R. B. (2008). Organizational standards. People & Strategy, 31(1), 47-54. Jackson, R., Wood, C. & Zboja, J. (2013): The unraveling of ethical decision making in organizations: A comprehensive review and model. Journal of Business Ethics, 116 (2), 233-250. Management of group-level factors and social processes. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.betheluniversityonline.net/mba/SectionFramework.aspx?SectionID=654O'Toole, J. & Bennis, W. (2009). What we need next: a culture of candor. Harvard Business Review, 87(6), 54-61Shore, B.(2008). Systematic bias and culture in project failures. Project Management Journal, 29(4),5-16Von Bergen, Jr., C.W. & Kirk, R.J. (1978) Groupthink: where too many heads ruin decision making. Management review, 67(3), 44