[twh270]

Correction -- at least for Challenger, engineers did not think there was margin, and argued against the launch.

At the technical level, both tragedies were caused by design flaws. Organizationally and culturally, multiple factors contributed, but an attitude of "nothing has happened yet, so this is fine" (normalizing risk) was a major one.

[Aeolun]

Normalization of deviance is how my professor described it. At least it’s taught in school now.

[kqr]

In my mind I have stored this phrase that "production pressures move the Overton window of acceptable shortcuts closer to disaster."

I think it captures several important nuances, like how it's a gradual process, how it ecpnomises/improves things at first, that there is a destination, that it covers even things such as discussions about shortcuts and not just their usage.