Inside NASA

High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program
Erscheinungsjahr 1994
ISBN: 978-0-8018-4975-6
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 390 g

Reihe: New Series in NASA History

Winner of the Henry Adams Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mccurdy, Howard E.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Technische Wissenschaften Sonstige Technologien | Angewandte Technik Weltraumforschung
• Naturwissenschaften Astronomie Astronomie: Allgemeines
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technikgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: NASA's Organizational Culture
1. Building Blocks
2. Root Assumptions
3. Breaking Barriers
4. Becoming Conventional
5. Losing the Technical Culture
Conclusion: Governmental Performance and Cultural Instability
Appendix: NASA Culture Survey
Essays on Sources
Notes
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Mccurdy, Howard E.
Howard E. McCurdy is a professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University and the author of Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program; Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program; and the coauthor of Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel, all published by Johns Hopkins.

Howard E. McCurdy is professor of public affairs at the American University. He is the author of The Space Station Decision: Incremental Politics and Technical Choice, also available from Johns Hopkins.