1 . Why did NASA decide to launch Challenger?
How safe is safe enough? How does one determine what is an acceptable risk?
Is is possible to develop a methodology for quantifying risks, or must each particular situation be addressed individually?
Were NASA administrators justified in writing Launch Commit Criteria Waivers for Challenger and previous shuttle flights?
At the time of the Challenger accident there was a general feeling among both NASA and the public that the space shuttle was no longer an experimental vehicle, but was now a fully operational vehicle, in the same sense as a commercial airliner. Was this a correct perception and why was it common?
Should someone have stopped the Challenger launch? If so how could an individual have accomplished this?
If you were on a jury attempting to place liability, whom would you say was responsible for the deaths of the astronauts? Are several individuals or groups liable?
How might the Morton-Thiokol engineers have convinced NASA and their own management to postpone the launch?
How might an engineer deal with pressure from above to follow a course of action he knows to be wrong?
How could the chains of communication and responsibility for the shuttle program have been made to function better?