Fixing NASA Culture May Be Hardest Task

[newyawker99]

Fixing NASA may be harder than fixing the space shuttle.

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board included in its 29 recommendations a call for fundamental changes in the "culture" of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a way of doing business that has resisted change for more than two decades.

In the report, the board found a continuation in the modern NASA of characteristics that were blamed 17 years ago for the accident that destroyed space shuttle Challenger and killed seven astronauts. NASA had pledged to change, and did for a while, but eventually drifted back to its old ways, the report found.

By the time Columbia was launched last January, "NASA retained too many negative ... aspects of its traditional culture," according to the report, which was released Tuesday.


NASA

[newyawker99]

1. kick

[Kbowe]

2. Not any harder than changing the neo-con culture of the rest of the

government. Political appointees rule...rank and file scare to blow the whistle on anything...even when they can prove accusations without a doubt.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

3. Not quite.

The NASA managerial culture has been in place for a good deal longer than neocons have existed. It's not just a matter of swapping one appointee for another.