The space shuttle Challenger disaster was brought on by a faulty design and a misunderstanding of reliability. The purpose of this article is to illuminate some shortcomings in the design and interpretations of the systems reliability. It will be shown that the evidence was in place, waiting for discovery long before the disaster, and the tools been available to better evaluate the reliability of the shuttle, the disaster may have never taken place. One such tool that will be discussed is the use of model perturbation with Monte Carlo simulation analysis to yield a better understanding of the structural physics that were at play during the disaster.
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