Living History: How NASA Rebuilt after the Challenger Tragedy
How NASA's Response to Tragedy Redefined Leadership and Safety in Space Exploration
The second installment from an interview series with Colonel Athens - the former Director of the U.S. Naval Academy’s James B. Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. He is a retired Marine, having served in significant command and staff positions in all four Marine Aircraft Wings, as a Space Operations Officer with the U.S. Space Command and as an instructor at Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron-1. Additionally, he was a White House Fellow under President Ronald Reagan and the Special Assistant to the NASA Administrator following the Space Shuttle Challenger accident.
How did you make your way to NASA?
“I don't know how familiar you are with the White House Fellowship program, but it's a small group of people. Once you get selected, you interview at a lot of different agencies and departments in the federal government, and they're kind of looking to see who they would like and you're looking to see where you'd like to be. One of the places I interviewed during that process was at NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This was during the recovery from the Challenger accident at that point. The work experience, which was fantastic at NASA. I can't even begin to describe how much I learned there. Watching the recovery from the Challenger accident was an amazing experience. They had to get programs back up and running, getting integrity built back up in the organization, etc. I was lucky to be able to contribute to NASA with some of my background. Eventually, part of my reserve time in the Marine Corps was as a Space Operations Officer for the US Space Command. And that would have never happened if I didn't have the experience with NASA.”
What was it like having to rebuild the integrity of NASA after the Challenger accident?
“January 28, 1986 is when the space shuttle Challenger was going to launch from Florida. It was very cold that day. There were solid rocket boosters that were on the two sides of the external tank in the Shuttle, but they didn't have enough data to really know if these O rings that are preventing gasses from escaping will work in the lower temperatures. The NASA executives kind of pushed it to the side and said, “we’ve got to get this thing flying.” They thought they didn't have enough evidence to show that there was going to be a problem. Well, there was. The shuttle explodes. Seven astronauts killed in space. This was the first time astronauts had ever been killed in space. Now, in the Apollo era, there was a fire in Apollo, one that killed three astronauts, but it was on the ground. This was the first time that this had actually happened in space. It was devastating to NASA. As the investigation unfolded, it was clear that there was a bad culture that was building up in NASA. I watched how they rebuilt, and they did it by focusing on integrity and safety. They focused on getting NASA back on track, so that launches could happen again. But NASA was very, very depressed after that. You know, it hurt badly to see what had happened. They were able to rebuild the motivation and the vision for the organization, and I got to be a part of that, and watch some of it, and also be involved. It was a very unique time to be there.”
You've had a very diverse career, whether it be NASA or the White House or the military. How are those three fields different?
“I mean, when I think about this, I start with the leadership, right? That leadership is different in different types of organizations, but I think those fundamentals still hold true. It doesn't matter whether you're leading a governmental agency or you're leading a military unit, or you're leading a corporation, really, those same traits are what's very, very important for leaders to be successful. Obviously, one of the things that drives the differences in organizations is their mission, because their missions are going to take them in different directions, and the type of people that might be attracted to that particular mission. So you take the example of NASA. There's a lot of scientists and engineers throughout NASA, because that's what they do. You know, they're in the science and the technical areas. The Marine Corps is more oriented towards a different mission. Again, the type of person that's going to be attracted into that field is going to be a bit different, but how they lead, and how they establish a vision, and how they set standards, all those kinds of things are very, very similar from organization to organization.”