The History Of The Space Shuttle Program

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On February 1, 2013, the second major tragedy in the history of the space shuttle program occurred when the space shuttle Columbia dismembered while trying to re-enter the atmosphere over the state of Texas, all crew members on board were killed and questions were asked on how a normal procedure as the landing of this spacecraft became such a disaster. This tragedy occurred minutes before the shuttle was scheduled to land at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. A later investigation determined that the catastrophe was caused by a problem that took place shortly after liftoff on January 16 when a piece of insulating foam disassociated from the Shuttle’s propellant tank and damaged the edge of the Columbia’s left wing. This case study tries to explain the decision making process, organizational culture, and organizational learning that NASA used during the entire Space Shuttle Program and led to this major failure.
The main problem that caused this disaster was the lack of care for an issue that previously was considered as a threat which is the debris made from the dismembering of the insu...

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