Ethical Pitfalls of Columbia

The Columbia incident was one of the biggest catastrophes of the modern era. The question is, how did something so tragic happen when some of the world's most intelligent people worked for NASA? Reviewing the case, it is easy to see how the culture of NASA affected the outcome, and the ethical pitfalls that occurred because of that culture. Had anyone stepped out of the norm, this could have been avoided. Unfortunately, these ethical traps are not always easy to see when in the present time.

NASA's Culture

The culture of NASA had a large impact on everyone involved in the incident. One piece of information and rationale that must be examined, is the following comment made by Linda Ham in one of the simulated meetings regarding the damage to the shuttle's left wing resulting from a documented foam strike: "I don't think there is much we can do, so you know it's not really a factor during flight, because there isn't much we can do about it." To explain the reasoning behind this comment, it is crucial to analyze the bureaucratic and time-pressured culture of NASA, as well as the ethical pitfalls.

Bureaucracy

One of the most obvious factors was the bureaucratic nature of the organization. Managers seemed to be the only members allowed to make any decisions, and that decision was final. For example, there was tremendous pressure on Pam Madera and the rest of the Debris Assessment Team to not object when photo requests were denied. Don McCormack was pressured to see things the way Linda Ham did, regarding the debris, even though the debris assessment team has noted that they did not have a complete report noting the extent of the damage. Most fell to the tactic of Obedience to Authority. Linda was quick to cut managers off in the meeting, and even highly suggested to numerous people that the damage was similar to the STS-112 mission where the anomaly was not deemed a safety issue. Also, Linda cancelled the meeting with the DOD that Rodney Rocha (debris assessment team lead) had requested via management. Having a culture where manager's opinions are the only source of influence on a decision truly backfired during the Columbia mission.

Burden of Proof

The company also had a backward culture on how it viewed issues and problems. Engineers worked using theories and testing hypotheses. In most companies, if an issue put someone's life in danger, you would want the burden of proof to be on the side of proving something is working, in order to be safe. Instead, NASA had a culture where engineers had to prove that something was wrong. Due to the culture factor above, the debris assessment team had the giant task of proving something was wrong with the tiles. Unfortunately, this process does not allow for the issue to be considered important. Pam Madera had a strong intuition that there were serious safety implications with the foam panels and that the science they were using to dismiss it as a safety risk were inadequate. It simply wasn't acceptable, or at best was a poor career move, to raise objections when you were not absolutely sure or had undeniable scientific basis for raising an objection.

Time Pressure

Linda Ham and other managers were pressured to adhere to strict NASA deadlines, which caused them to brush aside a number of problems, risks, and potential dangers simply to move things along and keep the team on schedule. As the Space Shuttle Program Manager, Ron Dittemore was held accountable for the program's budget and schedule. NASA had dealt with scheduling issues in the past and was under intense pressure to meet deadlines set for the International Space Station Program. The pressure was so great, Dittemore even overlooked safety concerns during the launch day meeting. Because of these pressures, the Mission Management Team (MMT) was not too worried about the tile debris problem. Instead, they were focused on their strict schedule they had to follow, not only for the present mission, but for an upcoming mission as well. Everyone seemed too busy with his or her own jobs to worry about this mission.

Deadlines were so important that safety issues were only taken seriously when a manager deemed it worth their time. In order to be taken seriously by the MMT, and be allowed to take up precious time in the meetings, the debris assessment team would have to prove the damage was not an ordinary maintenance issue. Unfortunately, the requests made by Rodney Rocha to evaluate the issue in order to determine the severity were denied by his manager and Linda Ham, which would have been needed to show the issue was important enough to address in the meetings, thus causing a an unstoppable loop.

Ethical Pitfalls

Slippery Slope

It is this type of culture that allowed Bazerman's pitfalls to occur so many times, and so easily. The largest pitfall was the slippery slope. In this case it referred to the way in which NASA and its officials had classified and treated foam strikes in the past. The first time that this type of incident had occurred, it was analyzed and classified as a maintenance issue, which would be easily fixed once the shuttle had landed safely. Foam strikes were common among the flights of the space shuttle missions and this was no different. Even