CASE NASA Essay

High employee turnover, where workers frequently leave and must be replaced, leads to increased spending on recruitment and training and can indicate management problems. Employees often have good reasons for moving on but if too many are leaving an organisation, can be very disruptive.

In the past 50 years, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has sent out many planned space exploration missions which have lead to numerous advantages in society and culture. NASA’s technologies benefit American lives with the innumerable important breakthroughs by creating new markets that have spurred the economy and changed countless lives in many ways. NASA is a federal agency and receives its fundings from the annual federal budget passed by the United States Congress. However, there are conflicting opinions that consider whether or not funding for NASA is a waste of government spending.

Reagan then reassured that the space program would continue to operate and “what happened today does nothing to diminish it”. This message sought to protect the ongoing space programs and was dedicated to the last sub-audience of his speech: the NASA people. He acknowledged their hard work and expressed sympathy for their loss of friends and coworkers.

In this paper Team C has discussed the issue of poor employee retention concluding in a high employee turnover rate. This is an issue that can be common among some companies and that is a great example of

The push of the Reagan administration to declare the shuttle ‘operational’ before the ‘developmental’ stage was completed created uncertainty and low NASA employee morale

Researching the topic of NASA’s budget presented alarming evidence about the shrinking government funding that the agency receives. According to “NASA Budget”, published in 2012, the following monetary amounts show the decrease in the amount of funding the National Government is providing NASA “$553.8 million in fiscal 1995, $155.5 million in fiscal 1996, $131.7 million in fiscal 1997, $61 million in fiscal 1998, $51.3 million in fiscal 2000, $10.8 million in fiscal 2004”. The article shows how the funding drastically decreased over a series of nine years. The source gives a different perspective, not from an individual that works out at

There are two types of turnover, voluntary turnover happens when the employee makes the decision to leave and involuntary turnover is when employees has no choice in their termination (Schmitz, 2012). Every month or sooner managers experience some of their exceedingly qualified employees leave the company. After realizing that their company is becoming less profitable is when they begin to wonder why and brainstorm on ways to retain them. In Information Technology, “the cost of recruiting new staff is high and the loss of continuity when staff leave can also be very expensive” (Bott, 2005, p. 111). In IT, human resources strive to maintain their highly skilled employees while employees’

In 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger launched from Kennedy Space Center people watched in awe for a little more than a minute before the shuttle exploded in flight. This was the first of only two major accidents that occurred during over two decades of NASA’s shuttle program and many would consider it to be a fluke that could not have been prevented or predicted. In truth the Challenger disaster was an accident waiting to happen and was a symptom of systemic problems that were occurring at NASA during that era. The 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster was cause by a number of factors including structural failure of the shuttle, a change in NASA’s work environment from the days of the

The first space shuttle, Enterprise, launched in 1977. NASA couldn’t have been more proud of their accomplishments and looked forward to the years to come with many new ideas, experiments to try and space to explore. While this might have been the case for a few years following, NASA couldn’t have predicted what was to happen on the mornings of January 28, 1986 and February 1, 2003… or could they? Disaster struck for both the Challenger and the Columbus space shuttles. Even though both scenarios were different, they were one in the same when it came to the reasoning behind why it happened. The ideas of cultural change, ethics of organization and decision making were all to blame.

On the icy morning of January 28, 1986, seven brave people boarded the Challenger space shuttle. All of America sat around their televisions watching and waiting for the space shuttle to finally lift off. One of the seven people aboard this shuttle was Christa McAuliffe, a teacher in the Teachers in Space program and would have been the first civilian to go into space. Her students were invited to come to NASA and watch. The engines roar sounded loudly and the shuttle finally left the ground. It was an illuminating sight to see, until a flame started at the base of the shuttle. The space shuttle caught on fire what seemed like instantly, and exploded within seconds. Due to this tragedy, the NASA space program has made several improvements to prevent tragedies like this one from ever happening again (Carreau). NASA may have made improvements, but the horrifying memory of this disaster will be embedded in the minds of the people of America and Christa 's class for the rest of their lives.

While driving frantically through the lush farmland of the Livermore Valley to rescue a 9-year who, along with her classmates had just witnessed the destruction of the Challenger on live television, the question of why was all consuming. Growing up in the sixties and witnessing the moon landing led many to believe NASA was infallible. However, nearly twenty years before Challenger, this proved untrue, as the dangers of space travel were tragically demonstrated when the crew of the Apollo 1 died in an onboard fire during a test run (Howell, 2012). Following the Challenger tragedy, President Reagan (1986, para. 8) stated, ‘We will never forget them, nor the last

Nevertheless, these methods cannot predict employees’ turnover. Morrell et al. (2001) discuss about two key concepts: voluntary and involuntary turnover. Voluntary turnover relates to the employee’s decision to leave such as illness or personal reasons. While, involuntary turnover relates to company related problems such as the need to cut costs or to downsize. Even if organisations develop means to identify the characteristics that influence turnover, neither of these two types can be successfully foreseen during the recruitment process. As a result, employers need to secure long term employment since a labour turnover will have a high cost both in terms of recruitment and selection and in terms of training sessions meant to enhance the employees’ soft skills. (Beardwell and Claydon, 2010).

There are some, however, who are neither side of the argument. Rather they are fighting merely to have the issue resolved. One person in particular is the director at NASA, Ralph Hall. With President Obama’s plan, NASA’s budget would be increased by 6 billion dollars over the next five years (Achenbach), but because of the way the law is written, NASA is required to continue spending money however congress has legislated. Currently the only legislation that is governing NASA’s actions is Constellation Program.

High Turnover Rates within the Human Service Industry Must be Addressed - According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some of the highest employee turnover rates occur within the human service industry and applied behavior analysis therapy rests directly in the center of this arena. For this reason, ABA business owners must accept the fact that employees will leave. However, this undeniable reality can be prepared for through the creation of a comprehensive plan designed to address unexpected employee turnover. Furthermore, employee absenteeism due to unpredictable life events (i.e., illness, injuries, emergencies, etc.) can also be prepared for while creating this plan.

We referred www.nasa.gov and many other websites to learn more about the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster and gather domain knowledge. We referred the NASA report “http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/genindex.htm” to go in depth of the Space Shuttle concept and development phases. We understood the need for reusable Space and how it became the focus of NASA's near-term future. We studied the elements of the Space Shuttle and how all parts are sealed together. We studied the stakeholders which were involved in the project. After gathering all the necessary information and information to identify the root cause of the Challenger space shuttle explosion, we assumed that the information about the project was measured