The Board is convinced that the factors that led to the
Columbia accident go well beyond the physical mechanisms
discussed in Chapter 3. The causal roots of the accident can
also be traced, in part, to the turbulent post-Cold War policy
environment in which NASA functioned during most of the
years between the destruction of Challenger and the loss of
Columbia. The end of the Cold War in the late 1980s meant
that the most important political underpinning of NASAʼs
Human Space Flight Program – U.S.-Soviet space competition
– was lost, with no equally strong political objective to
replace it. No longer able to justify its projects with the kind
of urgency that the superpower struggle had provided, the
agency could not obtain budget increases through the 1990s.
Rather than adjust its ambitions to this new state of affairs,
NASA continued to push an ambitious agenda of space
science and exploration, including a costly Space Station
Program.
The Board is convinced that the factors that led to theColumbia accident go well beyond the physical mechanismsdiscussed in Chapter 3. The causal roots of the accident canalso be traced, in part, to the turbulent post-Cold War policyenvironment in which NASA functioned during most of theyears between the destruction of Challenger and the loss ofColumbia. The end of the Cold War in the late 1980s meantthat the most important political underpinning of NASAʼsHuman Space Flight Program – U.S.-Soviet space competition– was lost, with no equally strong political objective toreplace it. No longer able to justify its projects with the kindof urgency that the superpower struggle had provided, theagency could not obtain budget increases through the 1990s.Rather than adjust its ambitions to this new state of affairs,NASA continued to push an ambitious agenda of spacescience and exploration, including a costly Space StationProgram.
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