Lessons from the Columbia Disaster

Ocasio, W. (2005) The opacity of risk Language and the culture of safely in NASA s space shuttle program , in W. H. Starbuck and M. Farjoun (eds.) Organization at the Limit Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Malden, p. 103-115. 

We thank the participants in the Management Lessons from the Columbia Disaster workshop held at NYU on October 1-3, 2004 for their comments. We also thank Moshe Faqoun for his... 

Organization at the limit lessons from the Columbia disaster / edited by William H. Starbuck and Moshe Farjoun. p. cm. 

Vaughan, D., 2005. System effects on slippery slopes, repeating negative patterns, and learning from mistake In Starbuck, W.H., Farjoun, M. (Eds), Organization at the limit. Lessons from the Columbia Disaster. Blackwell Publishing, pp. 41-59. 

This book enlists a diverse group of experts to review the Columbia disaster and to extract organizational lessons from it. Thanks to the documentation compiled by the CAIB, as well as other NASA studies, this endeavor involves a rich and multifaceted exploration of a real organization. Because disasters are (thankfully) very unusual, we need to use multiple observers, interpretations, and evaluation criteria to experience history more richly (March et al., 1991). Some contributors to this book draw conclusions very different from the CAIB s. 

Chapter 17 was written by Henry McDonald, who served as a center director at NASA and who headed the Shuttle Independent Assessment Team (SIAT) that was formed to study increases in shuttle failures around 1999. The SIAT report anticipated many of the contributing factors of the Columbia disaster. Based on his review of all the other chapters in this volume, Henry McDonald offers his observations on NASA and on the lessons it should draw from this volume. He offers a view of the events preceding the disaster, and he particularly discusses the extent to which NASA has implemented the SIAT report. He comments on how the different chapters in this book reinforce or deviate from the CAIB report, and discusses potential lessons NASA could and should have drawn from organization and management theoiy. 

DRAWING LESSONS FROM NASA S EVOLUTION, INCLUDING THE COLUMBIA DISASTER... 

Woods DD (2005) Creating foresight lessons for resilience from Columbia. In Starbuck WH, Fatjoun M (eds) Orgaiuzation at the Limit NASA and the Columbia Disaster. BlackweU, Hoboken, pp 289-308... 

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