Central Issue: Why wasn’t the tragedy of the Columbia prevented? This was the 3rd “galvanizing event” as noted by Donahue and O’Leary (2012) for NASA. A host of organizational failings, coupled with extreme external pressures, led to ineffective administration which costs the lives of seven astronauts and millions of dollars (a dwindling budget unsatisfactory to support proper protocol/design).
Some background: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in 1958 in response to compete with the Russian launching of Sputnik. In the 1970s, the focus of NASA shifted to the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) and the International Space Station Program (ISSP); the function of the former being to create a fleet of shuttles to transport materials and crew to the International Space Station. To this end, NASA maintained over 15 research, testing, and development centers across the US with multiple private sector contractors, e.g., Boeing, Lockheed Martin, etc. These two contractors formed the United Space Alliance whose job it was to meet the contractual obligations of the Space Flight Operations Contract of 1996, while providing oversight with shuttle contractors. Two prior galvanizing events suggest NASA did not learn from prior failures—an Apollo capsule incinerated on the launchpad killing three astronauts in 1967 and the Challenger disaster in 1986, killing seven astronauts; numerous other near misses had occurred intermittently (Bohmer, Edmondson, & Roberto, 2010).
The Columbia tragedy: In 2003, after a flight spanning 16 days…
Major Factors in the Development of Policy/Management Problem: Where to start with this one? The problem stemmed from…
Alternatives for Resolving the Problem: Some alternatives to the scenario…