Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program (New Series in NASA History) [Paperback]

Howard E. McCurdy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1994 | Series: New Series in NASA History

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

McCurdy is surely on the right track. His valuable book makes the literature on organizational cultures accessible and reveals new ways to look at high-technology agencies.

(Nature )

About the Author

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (September 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801849756
• ISBN-13: 978-0801849756
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #975,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What was the Secret of NASA's Success with Apollo, and What Happened to It in the Decades Since the Moon Landings?, December 30, 2005

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program (New Series in NASA History) (Paperback)

Howard E. McCurdy, Professor of Public Affairs at the American University in Washington, D.C., offers a significant response to that question. This study of NASA's organizational culture over the course of its entire history broke new ground in analyzing the manner in which a small, insular federal agency rose to accomplish the Apollo Moon landings at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, as well as its devolution since that time. McCurdy covers such topics as the rise of the NASA technical culture, the Apollo fire, the success of the landings, the Apollo 13 near-disaster, the lunar orbit rendezvous, approaches to contracting, the relationships between NASA's centers and the headquarters, and much more. He attributes NASA's success during the Apollo period to a number of factors including extensive testing, technical capabilities maintained within the agency, and a willingness to accept risk and failure. Then he shows how with age, the agency's performance tended to decline. This is an important and provocative study with which, naturally, not everyone will agree.

This work takes as its core mission the identification and tracing of the evolution of the organizational culture of NASA from its founding and expansion during the Apollo era through the changes in the 1970s and 1980s. Although sponsored by NASA, this book is far from being court history. It analyzes the reasons for what the author calls the "decline of NASA's technical culture" in the post-Apollo era, shedding new light on the agency's overall difficulties in recent years. Because of the book's provocative thesis and use by NASA management as a means of better understanding the agency, it received the Henry Adams Prize awarded by the Society for History in the Federal Government for the best interpretive history sponsored by a federal agency. In addition, since the publication of "Inside NASA" McCurdy has been asked to testify numerous times before various congressional committees concerned with NASA oversight about the agency's organizational culture and his expertise has been tapped by the agency to help reform its bureaucracy. This was especially true in the aftermath of the "Columbia" accident in 2003 when McCurdy served as a consultant to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB). His expertise in organizational culture was present throughout the report as the CAIB found considerable fault with the agency's approach to doing business ensconced in its institutional culture.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that Howard McCurdy and I are close friends and we have worked together on several historical projects over the years. I do not believe my friendship with him, however, changes the assessment of this important book, one which has found a central place in the historiography of NASA and spaceflight since its publication more than a decade ago.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A scholarly study of the history of NASA's Management, August 21, 2001

By 

Richard Frantz Jr. (Cheshire, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program (New Series in NASA History) (Paperback)

NASA is a particularly well documented example of a high profile organization with a history of successful management, so students of management study it. In fact, NASA studies itself. Particularly after several recent spectacular failures there is interested in studying how NASA is managed and comparing it to how it was managed during its heyday. This is such a study, drawing on NASA's internal records.

This is not a light or casual read. This book is intended as a serious study of management operation and evolution. Suitable to people studying a course in management it is not something you would choose to read in bed.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decline of NASA long term...?, December 17, 2008

By 

R. Bagula "Roger L. Bagula" (Lakeside, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Inside NASA: High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program (New Series in NASA History) (Hardcover)

They are government jobs:

people who could when the spending cuts of the 70's came,

held on to their jobs. Some of them have moved up and haven't retired yet.

So it is an agency that hasn't really renewed itself over the years.

The 60's bunch are mostly too old to be much good anymore ( I hate to say

that but it seems true).

The only way you can get anything useful out of a government agency

is to start fresh?

As you get older you see that there is no reformation or revolution

built into human organizations

and the result is usually they get worse as they get older.

War, revolution and depression seem to be built in

to counter that kind of trend.

Corporate shake-ups are the free enterprise version

that makes corporate structure a little better:

but looking at Ford and GM, you have to say it doesn't work well long term either?

The original idea for a space station and a shuttle

was a means to planetary exploration.

All the ideals of early NASA seem gone

and you are left with an empty structure of government employees.