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NASA Finally Looks to Sociologist
By Marcia Dunn
Associated Press Aerospace Writer
posted: 08:00 pm ET
30 August 2003
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Untitled WASHINGTON (AP) -- The first time Diane Vaughan heard from anyone at NASA was in April, two months after the Columbia tragedy and seven years after the publication of her book, ``The Challenger Launch Decision.'' The Boston College sociologist assumed it was a request to share her views on the similarities between the two space shuttle accidents, which she had just presented at a public hearing before the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Instead, she said, it ended up being ``a two-hour soliloquy'' by a NASA official who informed her the space agency had mended its ways following Challenger, that there were no parallels and her analysis was wrong. Michael Greenfield, associate deputy administrator for technical programs at NASA, now admits that he was wrong. He is a recent convert to Vaughan's premise -- and investigators' conclusion last week -- that the space agency did not fix its institutional problems after Challenger and that a broken safety culture doomed both shuttles. "I certainly have gotten the message,'' Greenfield said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``We really have no choice'' but to reform and to reinforce the cultural alarms. Vaughan grabbed NASA's attention -- and everyone else's -- when she told investigators that after her Challenger book came out in 1996, she was contacted by numerous organizations interested in reducing risks and errors. "Everybody called. My high school boyfriend called. But NASA never called,'' she said before the board and TV cameras. Greenfield called the next day -- to complain. Call Two came two weeks ago; a Johnson Space Center representative in Houston invited her to ``come and help them straighten some things out.'' She questioned the timing of the request, just days before the release of the accident report, and put the whole thing on hold. Call Three came this past Thursday. O'Keefe and other top NASA officials want to meet with Vaughan over dinner this week. She'll be there and she'll undoubtedly be getting more NASA calls.
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