(This was written in response to press reports in August 2003.)
Many recent stories and opinion pieces on NASA refer to a bureaucratic culture that contributed to the Columbia disaster. Apparently, the desire to adhere to the publicly announced schedules and not to admit that anything was wrong led many in management to not give sufficient weight to the available danger signals. The stories have not addressed, however, just how deeply embedded this attitude is within the NASA culture, and how difficult it will be to change.
Shortly before the Challenger accident, almost 20 years ago, I was a Special Assistant to President Reagan and chairman of an interagency task force to promote the commercial use of space. After the accident, I was a member of a highly classified group to assess the condition of America's space effort and to outline the options available to restore a space capability to the US. In both cases, senior NASA personnel acted as if anything that portrayed the Space Shuttle as less than perfect, or not capable of meeting all U.S. needs in space, was a direct attack upon their agency and budget. Information submitted by the agency to support the Presidentially-directed analyses was so obviously and clumsily skewed to support NASA's self-image of the shuttle, that in some cases it was an out-right fabrication. Other, more reliable, sources had to be found to develop the recommendations submitted to the President.
It is quite common for government agencies to "promise the moon" and ignore doubts and problems when they compete for budgetary resources before the Congress. If they over promise, so what, it is just money that's wasted.
Although NASA must operate in this political environment to obtain funds, it carries out its missions in a universe in which the iron laws of physics--and not political promises--rule. Twenty years ago, NASA managers forgot this simple fact, and nothing has happened since then to change the culture of politics over science.
The famous line from Apollo 13 was, "Houston, we have a problem." Unfortunately, today the message would be: "Houston, you are the problem".
NASA can't fix itself. A total overhaul is needed from the outside.
Many recent stories and opinion pieces on NASA refer to a bureaucratic culture that contributed to the Columbia disaster. Apparently, the desire to adhere to the publicly announced schedules and not to admit that anything was wrong led many in management to not give sufficient weight to the available danger signals. The stories have not addressed, however, just how deeply embedded this attitude is within the NASA culture, and how difficult it will be to change.
Shortly before the Challenger accident, almost 20 years ago, I was a Special Assistant to President Reagan and chairman of an interagency task force to promote the commercial use of space. After the accident, I was a member of a highly classified group to assess the condition of America's space effort and to outline the options available to restore a space capability to the US. In both cases, senior NASA personnel acted as if anything that portrayed the Space Shuttle as less than perfect, or not capable of meeting all U.S. needs in space, was a direct attack upon their agency and budget. Information submitted by the agency to support the Presidentially-directed analyses was so obviously and clumsily skewed to support NASA's self-image of the shuttle, that in some cases it was an out-right fabrication. Other, more reliable, sources had to be found to develop the recommendations submitted to the President.
It is quite common for government agencies to "promise the moon" and ignore doubts and problems when they compete for budgetary resources before the Congress. If they over promise, so what, it is just money that's wasted.
Although NASA must operate in this political environment to obtain funds, it carries out its missions in a universe in which the iron laws of physics--and not political promises--rule. Twenty years ago, NASA managers forgot this simple fact, and nothing has happened since then to change the culture of politics over science.
The famous line from Apollo 13 was, "Houston, we have a problem." Unfortunately, today the message would be: "Houston, you are the problem".
NASA can't fix itself. A total overhaul is needed from the outside.
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