It turns out that NASA engineers really were sounding the alarm about potential damage to Columbia; it’s just that their managers were actively resisting, or passively ignoring, their claims. I saw a lot of boneheaded, turf-protecting, politically-motivated decisions when I worked at a NASA subcontractor, but nothing like this. My favorite part of the story is this:
Since the accident, Mr. Rocha said, engineers and other colleagues have thanked him enthusiastically for speaking up, saying things like, “I can’t imagine what it was like to be in your shoes.” His immediate supervisor has been supportive as well, he said, But from management, he said: “Silence. No talk. No reference to it. Nothing.”
Except, that is, from the highest-up higher-up. One day Mr. Rocha read an interview with the NASA administrator, Sean O’Keefe, who wondered aloud why engineers had not raised the alarm through the agency’s safety reporting system. This time, Mr. Rocha broke the rules: he wrote an e-mail message directly to Mr. O’Keefe, saying he would be happy to explain what really happened.
Within a day, he heard from Mr. O’Keefe, who then dispatched the NASA general counsel, Paul G. Pastorek, to interview him and report back. In a recent interview, Mr. O’Keefe said Mr. Rocha’s experience underscored the need to seek the dissenting viewpoint and ask, “Are we talking ourselves into this answer?”
Indeed.
