Columbia’s Final Mission
This paper about Columbia’s Final Mission Case.
Putting yourself in the shoes of the managers or engineers in the case (Ron Dittemore, Linda Ham, Don McCormack, Rodney Rocha, Pamela Madera, Calvin Schomburg), consider the following questions?
• What prior assumptions and beliefs shaped the way that you thought and behaved during the Columbia mission?
• What pressures affected your behavior? Where did these pressures originate?
• In what ways did the culture impact your actions?
• If you were in that person’s shoes during the Columbia mission, would you have behaved differently? Why or why not?
a) Rodney Rocha Rodney Rocha is a NASA engineer and co-chair of Debris Assessment Team (DTS). When possibility of wing damage appeared he requested an additional imagery to obtain more information in order to evaluate the damage. This demonstrates that he actually tried to resolve the issue. However, due to absence of clear organizational responsibilities in NASA those images were never received. Since foam issue was there for years and risk for the flights was estimated as low management decided not to proceed with this request. After learning of management decision Rocha wrote an e-mail there he stated that foam damage could carry grave hazard and have to be addressed. At the same time this e-mail was not send to the management team. Organizational culture at NASA could be described as highly bureaucratic with operations under standard procedures only. Low-end employees like Rocha are afraid to bring any safety-related issues to the management due to delay of the mission. They can be punished for bringing “bad news”. This type of relationship makes it impossible for two-way communication between engineers and managers, which are crucial for decision-making in complex environment like NASA. In my opinion, it is very hard to change the communication system from the lower side of organization. However, the e-mail concerning imagery should be send to the
Putting yourself in the shoes of the managers or engineers in the case (Ron Dittemore, Linda Ham, Don McCormack, Rodney Rocha, Pamela Madera, Calvin Schomburg), consider the following questions?
• What prior assumptions and beliefs shaped the way that you thought and behaved during the Columbia mission?
• What pressures affected your behavior? Where did these pressures originate?
• In what ways did the culture impact your actions?
• If you were in that person’s shoes during the Columbia mission, would you have behaved differently? Why or why not?
a) Rodney Rocha Rodney Rocha is a NASA engineer and co-chair of Debris Assessment Team (DTS). When possibility of wing damage appeared he requested an additional imagery to obtain more information in order to evaluate the damage. This demonstrates that he actually tried to resolve the issue. However, due to absence of clear organizational responsibilities in NASA those images were never received. Since foam issue was there for years and risk for the flights was estimated as low management decided not to proceed with this request. After learning of management decision Rocha wrote an e-mail there he stated that foam damage could carry grave hazard and have to be addressed. At the same time this e-mail was not send to the management team. Organizational culture at NASA could be described as highly bureaucratic with operations under standard procedures only. Low-end employees like Rocha are afraid to bring any safety-related issues to the management due to delay of the mission. They can be punished for bringing “bad news”. This type of relationship makes it impossible for two-way communication between engineers and managers, which are crucial for decision-making in complex environment like NASA. In my opinion, it is very hard to change the communication system from the lower side of organization. However, the e-mail concerning imagery should be send to the