ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

¶Organizational culture refers to the basic values, norms, beliefs, and practices that characterize the functioning of a particular institution. At the most basic level, organizational culture defines the assumptions that employees make as they carry out their work; it defines "the way we do things here."

¶An organizationʼs culture is a powerful force that persists through reorganizations and the departure of key personnel.

¶The human space flight culture within NASA originated in the Cold War environment. The space agency itself was created in 1958 as a response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy charged the new space agency with the task of reaching the moon before the end of the decade, and asked Congress and the American people to commit the immense resources for doing so, even though at the time NASA had only accumulated 15 minutes of human space flight experience. With its efforts linked to U.S.-Soviet competition for global leadership, there was a sense in the NASA workforce that the agency was engaged in a historic struggle central to the nationʼs agenda.

¶The Apollo era created at NASA an exceptional "can-do" culture marked by tenacity in the face of seemingly impossible challenges. This culture valued the interaction among research and testing, hands-on engineering experience, and safely launch people into space.15 As will be discussed later a dependence on the exceptional quality of the its workforce in this chapter, as well as in Chapters 6, 7, and 8, the Board and leadership that provided in-house technical capability to views this cultural resistance as a fundamental impediment oversee the work of contractors. The culture also accepted to NASAʼs effective organizational performance. risk and failure as inevitable aspects of operating in space, even as it held as its highest value attention to detail in order 5.3 AN AGENCY TRYING TO DO TOO MUCH to lower the chances of failure. WITH TOO LITTLE

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¶The dramatic Apollo 11 lunar landing in July 1969 fixed A strong indicator of the priority the national political lead- NASAʼs achievements in the national consciousness, and ership assigns to a federally funded activity is its budget. By in history. However, the numerous accolades in the wake that criterion, NASAʼs space activities have not been high of the moon landing also helped reinforce the NASA staffʼs on the list of national priorities over the past three decades faith in their organizational culture. Apollo successes created (see Figure 5.3-1). After a peak during the Apollo program, the powerful image of the space agency as a "perfect place," when NASAʼs budget was almost four percent of the federal as "the best organization that human beings could create to budget, NASAʼs budget since the early 1970s has hovered at accomplish selected goals."13 During Apollo, NASA was in one percent of federal spending or less. many respects a highly successful organization capable of achieving seemingly impossible feats. The continuing image 4.0 of NASA as a "perfect place" in the years after Apollo left NASA employees unable to recognize that NASA never had 3.5 been, and still was not, perfect, nor was it as symbolically 3.0

¶Percent of Federal Budget important in the continuing Cold War struggle as it had been 2.5 for its first decade of existence. NASA personnel maintained a vision of their agency that was rooted in the glories of an 2.0 earlier time, even as the world, and thus the context within 1.5 which the space agency operated, changed around them. 1.0

¶As a result, NASAʼs human space flight culture never fully 0.5 adapted to the Space Shuttle Program, with its goal of rou- 0.0

tine access to space rather than further exploration beyond 1959 1962 1965 1968 1971 1974 1977 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 — 2001

¶low-Earth orbit. The Apollo-era organizational culture came to be in tension with the more bureaucratic space agency of the 1970s, whose focus turned from designing new space- Figure 5.3-1. NASA budget as a percentage of the Federal bud- craft at any expense to repetitively flying a reusable vehicle get. (Source: NASA History Office) on an ever-tightening budget. This trend toward bureaucracy and the associated increased reliance on contracting neces- sitated more effective communications and more extensive Particularly in recent years, as the national leadership has safety oversight processes than had been in place during the confronted the challenging task of allocating scarce public Apollo era, but the Rogers Commission found that such fea- resources across many competing demands, NASA has tures were lacking. had difficulty obtaining a budget allocation adequate to its continuing ambitions. In 1990, the White House chartered a In the aftermath of the Challenger accident, these contra- blue-ribbon committee chaired by aerospace executive Nor- dictory forces prompted a resistance to externally imposed man Augustine to conduct a sweeping review of NASA and changes and an attempt to maintain the internal belief that its programs in response to Shuttle problems and the flawed NASA was still a "perfect place," alone in its ability to mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope.16 The review found execute a program of human space flight. Within NASA that NASAʼs budget was inadequate for all the programs centers, as Human Space Flight Program managers strove to the agency was executing, saying that "NASA is currently maintain their view of the organization, they lost their ability over committed in terms of program obligations relative to to accept criticism, leading them to reject the recommenda- resources available–in short, it is trying to do too much, and tions of many boards and blue-ribbon panels, the Rogers allowing too little margin for the unexpected."17 "A reinvigo- Commission among them. rated space program," the Augustine committee went on to say, "will require real growth in the NASA budget of approx- External criticism and doubt, rather than spurring NASA to imately 10 percent per year (through the year 2000) reaching change for the better, instead reinforced the will to "impose a peak spending level of about $30 billion per year (in con- the party line vision on the environment, not to reconsider stant 1990 dollars) by about the year 2000." Translated into it," according to one authority on organizational behavior. the actual dollars of Fiscal Year 2000, that recommendation This in turn led to "flawed decision making, self deception, would have meant a NASA budget of over $40 billion; the introversion and a diminished curiosity about the world actual NASA budget for that year was $13.6 billion.18 outside the perfect place."14 The NASA human space flight culture the Board found during its investigation manifested During the past decade, neither the White House nor Con- many of these characteristics, in particular a self-confidence gress has been interested in "a reinvigorated space program." about NASA possessing unique knowledge about how to Instead, the goal has been a program that would continue to produce valuable scientific and symbolic payoffs for the nation without a need for increased budgets. Recent budget al- locations reflect this continuing policy reality. Between 1993 and 2002, the governmentʼs discretionary spending grew in purchasing power by more than 25 percent, defense spending by 15 percent, and non-defense spending by 40 percent (see Figure 5.3-2). NASAʼs budget, in comparison, showed little change, going from $14.31 billion in Fiscal Year 1993 to a low of $13.6 billion in Fiscal Year 2000, and increasing to $14.87 billion in Fiscal Year 2002. This represented a loss of 13 percent in purchasing power over the decade (see Figure 5.3-3).19

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¶1.50

¶Change from Base Year 1993

¶1.40

¶1.30

¶1.20

Discretionary 1.10

1.00 NASA 0.90 FY 1993 FY 1994 FY 1995 FY 1996 FY 1997 FY 1998

¶Figure 5.3-2. Changes in Federal spending from 1993 through 2002. (Source: NASA Office of Legislative Affairs)

Real Dollars Fiscal Year (in millions) 1965 5,250

¶1975 3,229

¶1985 7,573

¶1993 14,310

1994 14,570 1995 13,854

¶1996 13,884

¶1997 13,709

¶1998 13,648

¶1999 13,653

¶2000 13,601

¶2001 14,230

¶2002 14,868

¶2003 15,335

¶(requested)

¶15,255

¶Figure 5.3-3. NASA Budget. (Source: NASA and Office of Man-

The lack of top-level interest in the space program led a 2002 review of the U.S. aerospace sector to observe that "a sense of lethargy has affected the space industry and community. Instead of the excitement and exuberance that dominated our early ventures into space, we at times seem almost apologetic about our continued investments in the space program."20