NASA still working to reshape attitudes
by tour93 | March 21st, 2005
James Wetherbee has flown the space shuttle six times. But as he pilots his Honda Civic through traffic, he brakes gently at the hint of a yellow light. “I don’t like taking risks,” says the first man to lead five shuttle flights.
Now
he has taken a big risk. In January, Wetherbee retired from a 20-year
career at NASA’s Johnson Space Center here, though he had no job to go
to and a daughter less than two years from college.
Wetherbee
says he left out of disappointment at NASA’s lack of change and out of
hope that he could do some good if he no longer worked there.
“It
became clear to me … that upper-level managers did not want to
change,” he says. “I realized I was ineffective on the inside, so maybe
I’ll be able to speak out and be more effective on the outside.”
Change
at NASA became an issue 18 months ago, when an independent panel
released a blistering report on events leading to the disintegration of
shuttle Columbia during re-entry in 2003. All seven crewmembers died. (Related
story:
target=”">Ex-astronauts say culture still poses danger)
The
report, by the independent Columbia Accident Investigation Board,
pinned much of the blame on NASA’s “self-deception” and “overconfident”
culture. It led to agonized soul-searching at the agency, especially at
Johnson, the home of the shuttle program. And it triggered a massive
effort to shake up the agency’s values.
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