Columbia Space Shuttle
The Columbia Space Shuttle was the oldest and most flown spacecraft in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Columbia was destroyed over east Texas on its landing descent to Kennedy Space Center on Feb. 1, 2003, at the conclusion of microgravity research mission STS-107. The disastrous failure resulted in the deaths of all 7 crew members. One of the most important causes of the disaster is NASA’s poor project management practices. Lessons learned: Do not let budget and schedule pressures dominate the project over safety and do not oversimplify technical information in decision-making as this might end the project catastrophically.
This is part of a series of blogs about recently completed projects, thanks to my University of Toronto Master of Engineering students for their much more detailed reports.