According to a film called " Challenger : The Untold Story " The Space Shuttle Challenger disaster was a fatal incident in the United States space program that occurred on January 28 , 1986 , when the Space Shuttle Challenger ( OV - 099 ) broke apart 73 seconds into its flight , killing all seven crew members aboard . The crew consisted of five NASA astronauts and two payload specialists . The mission carried the designation STS - 51 - L and was the tenth flight for the Challenger orbiter . The disaster resulted in a 32 - month hiatus in the Space Shuttle program and the formation of the Rogers Commission , a special commission appointed by United States President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident . The Rogers Commission found that NASA 's organizational culture and decision - making processes had been key contributing factors to the accident , [ 3 ] with the agency violating its own safety rules . NASA managers had known since 1977 that contractor Morton Thiokol 's design of the SRBs contained a potentially catastrophic flaw in the O-rings , but they had failed to address this problem properly . NASA managers also disregarded warnings from engineers about the dangers of launching posed by the low temperatures of that morning and failed to adequately report these technical concerns to their superiors .

Q1 ) Were the Morton-Thiokol Engineers right to be silent during the last teleconference call when NASA asked for dissenting opinions? Defend your answer.

Q2) What is 1 way that groupthink could have been avoided in terms of making the final decision to launch? Explain with a film example.