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Inside NASA:

High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program

ISBN-13: 9780801849756
Publisher: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Imprint: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
By Howard E. McCurdy
Price: AUD $73.99
Stock: 0 in stock
Availability: This book is temporarily out of stock, order will be despatched as soon as fresh stock is received.
Local release date: 14/11/1994
Format: Paperback 232 pages Weight: 0g
Categories: History of science [PDX]

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

""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.""

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Inside NASA:

High Technology and Organizational Change in the U.S. Space Program