Technology informs many aspects of our lives. Many critics perceive technology as a system of values, seeing it as an incomplete "ethic". I explore the converse. Using Ellul's (1990) technique (translated as "technologism"), I ask, "Can ethics be technologized?" I show how the Challenger disaster delimits the range of technologism with regard to ethics. Collecting additional technical information cannot of itself prevent ethical lapses. Furthermore, the investigations implicitly show the assumption that technologism can apply to ethics in their call for additional procedures. The recognition that procedures already in place were adequate, however, shows this assumption to be fallacious. I also show that trying to technologize ethics is a recent instance of an old reductive fallacy. The ancient sophists were criticized for trying to technologize both rhetoric and ethics. In recent philosophy, too, many critics insist that ethics cannot be reduced, systematized or technologized. Ethics then is innately problematic, so ethical choices must always be continually deliberated among people in an indeterminate way.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

It is pointed out that, both in methodology and in findings, the investigations of the Challenger disaster by a Presidential Commission and by a Congressional committee demonstrate that even in highly technical matters meaning is socially constructed. The author examines the evidence and testimony before the investigating bodies and finds that, before the launch, NASA officials construed information about O-ring charring in socially contingent ways and ultimately pressed engineers to work under similar assumptions in declaring the shuttle flightworthy. Although the two investigations examined much the same evidence, differing methodological assumptions led them to different conclusions and recommendations. It is found that both investigations emphasized procedural concerns while largely neglecting personal judgment and responsibility, even though the evidence suggests a key role for personal and social judgment. It is concluded that the field of professional communication needs to become more alert to the role of social factors in technical matters.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>