Features
ISBN Number: 9780801849756
Subtitle: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program
Written by: McCurdy, Howard E.
Written by: McCurdy, Howard E.
Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
Subject: Science
Subject: History
Subject: United states
Subject: U.S. Government
Subject: Aeronautics & Astronautics
Subject: Astrophysics & Space Science
Subject: Astronomy
Subject: Government, U.S. Government
Date of Publication: September 1994
Cover Type: Paperback
Written in: English
Number of Pages: 232
Book Size: 9.12x6.22x.60 in. .77 lbs.
Inside NASA explores how an agency praised for its planetary probes and expeditions to the moon became notorious for the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and a series of other malfunctions. Using archival evidence as well as in-depth interviews with space agency officials, Howard McCurdy investigates the relationship between the performance of the American space program and NASA's organizational culture. He begins by identifying the beliefs, norms, and practices that guided NASA's early successes. Originally, the agency was dominated by the strong technical culture rooted in the research-and-development organizations from which NASA was formed. To launch the expeditions to the moon, McCurdy explains, this technical culture was linked to an organizational structure borrowed from the Air Force ballistic-missile program. Changes imposed to accomplish the lunar landing — along with the normal aging process and increased bureaucracy in the government as a whole — gradually eroded NASA's original culture and reduced its technical strength. Synopsis:
This text explores how an agency praised for its planetary probes and expeditions to the moon became notorious for the explosion of the space shuttle "Challenger". It investigates the relationship between the performance of the American space programme and NASA's organizational culture.
