Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy

Chapter Four

Making It Safe to Team

On January 16, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia was suc­cessfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a sixteen-day research mission. The next day, shuttle engineer Rodney Rocha reviewed a video of the launch and became deeply concerned about the size and position of a chunk of insulating foam that appeared to have fallen off the shuttle’s external tank and struck its left wing. The video images were grainy, and it was impossible to be sure what had happened. To determine whether damage had occurred, Rocha hoped to obtain photographic images of the shuttle’s wing from spy satellites. Although the photos would have to be authorized by the Air Force, the request would require neither a technical nor financial ...