Evaluating Decision-Making Modalities and Risk Acceptance Behavior after a Major Mishap: The Case of NASA and the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident

The February 2003 loss of the space shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 was a mishap that stunned both NASA and the world. This research examines the pre-NASA and post-NASA decision-making modalities and risk acceptance behavior for the safe and reliable operation of the space shuttle through the lens of hazard analysis. Interviews with NASA administrators and senior Space Shuttle Program managers bring back to life their views from the 2003 through 2005 timeframe, during which NASA returned the space shuttle back to a flight status. Lessons from their effort have broad applicability to other organizations recovering from—and attempting to prevent—a major accident.     

Producing Provincial Space: Crown Forests,the State and Territorial Control in British Columbia

This paper presents three ways in which Crown forest administration in British Columbia at the turn of the 20th century helped to facilitate effective provincial control of territory. First, officials discursively constructed timbered spaces as a shared trust for British Columbia's citizens. Secondly, they produced useful geographical knowledge and a spatial architecture that would facilitate on-going surveillance. Finally, officials constructed resource spaces of sustained production, monitored and controlled by trained experts. Thus, Crown forest administration solidified provincial claims to vast swaths of territory. The analysis highlights the importance of considering the on-going geographies of land and resource management as a fundamental part of processes of dispossession and reterritorialisation.     

Viewpoint: The Evolution of Access to Space as an Idea and Technology

The focus of this paper is on the evolution of access to space from its beginnings as an idea to its implementation as a usable technology. This evolution takes place through the policy process that encompasses agenda setting, formulation, implementation and change. Agenda-setting is where the idea for access to space emerges. Formulation concerns the concepts and policies that then allow for implementation of launch vehicle technology. Implementation generates specific outcomes. These outcomes are initially characterized by rapid technological innovation followed by a steady state of development. The path of development is one of how access to space became wedded to national security. Changes occur as commerce and economics begin to play a role in access to space. The policy process evolves through the actions of the pertinent actors. An examination of the ways in which these pertinent actors interpreted, formulated and implemented the idea and technology of access to space is discussed. The interactions among actors take place on the basis of political, organizational and technical decisions that actors make in regard to access to space.     

Access to Space: A Strategy for the Twenty-First Century

The United States (US) launch infrastructure is at a crisis point. Human access to space embodied in the Space Shuttle is due to be phased out by 2010. Currently, there are no heavy lift, 100 ton class launchers to support the US national vision for space exploration. Medium and large expendable launch providers, Boeing's Delta IV, and Lockheed-Martin's Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles are so expensive that the Delta no longer carries commercial payloads and the Atlas is unlikely to show significant growth without equally significant cost reductions and commercial traffic growth. This set of circumstances questions US dependence on these launch vehicles for national security purposes. High cost growth also exists with small launch vehicles, such as Pegasus, and the promising new field of small and microsatellites is little developed in the US, while foreign efforts, particularly European, are expanding largely on the availability of low-cost Russian boosters. One bright point is the emerging private sector, which is initially pursuing suborbital or small lift capabilities. Although such vehicles support very limited US Department of Defense or National Aeronautics and Space Administration spaceflight needs, they do offer potential technology demonstration stepping stones to more capable systems needed in the future of both agencies. This article outlines the issues and potential options for the US Government to address these serious shortcomings.     

The Brazilian Space Industry: Geostationary Satellite of Defense and Strategic Communication Program

Autonomy in satellite communications is a major defense issue for peripheral countries, a problem increased by the difficulties in investing in the construction, launching, and operation of satellite platforms. Indeed, the objective of the present article is to evaluate the Geostationary Satellite of the Defense and Strategic Communication Program as a starting point for the Brazilian space industry, a subsector of the aerospace industry. Thus, the article evaluates the opportunities this program generates for a dormant sector in the country. The goal-attainment model is used to assess whether the policy attained what it prescribed and the impacts of those achievements. In addition, the side-effects model is applied to verify the opportunities prompted by policies and private sector investments outside the determinations of the main regulations and how they help to strengthen the Brazilian space industry. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion of the current situation of the Brazilian space industry and defends the main argument that the creation of Visiona as an integrator company, responsible for contracting firms to execute the satellite project, is of strategic importance for the Brazilian space industry.     

Reforming the Westminster Model of Agency Governance: Britain and Ireland After the Crisis

Conventional understandings of what the Westminster model implies anticipate reliance on a top‐down, hierarchical approach to budgetary accountability, reinforced by a post–New Public Management emphasis on recentralizing administrative capacity. This article, based on a comparative analysis of the experiences of Britain and Ireland, argues that the Westminster model of bureaucratic control and oversight itself has been evolving, hastened in large part due to the global financial crisis. Governments have gained stronger controls over the structures and practices of agencies, but agencies are also key players in securing better governance outcomes. The implication is that the crisis has not seen a return to the archetypal command‐and‐control model, nor a wholly new implementation of negotiated European‐type practices, but rather a new accountability balance between elements of the Westminster system itself that have not previously been well understood.     

Military Dimensions of the Indian Space Program

The Indian space program is increasingly militarized. A clear policy shift in this direction has taken place. The transformation is happening because of international cooperation, especially in the civilian domain. In order to get foreign support, India projects the civilian image of its space program by arguing that there are bureaucratic and organizational barriers between civil and military programs that control internal diversion. At the same time, there exists evidence of civilian technology acquired through foreign sources being diverted for military use.     

North Korean Space Program Legitimization Efforts: Review and Policy Recommendations

With much attention being concentrated on containing North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programs, the North Korean space program also faces objections from the international community. This article claims that identifying North Korea’s space program developments with its ballistic missile program is unjustified and even undermines the space program’s potential for hastening a successful Korean unification. The goal of the article is to suggest a departure from a current hostile attitude toward the North Korean space program and to make alternative policy recommendations. The first part of the article focuses on a literature review of sources devoted to the North Korean space program, emphasizing the existence of alternative views of it other than the common view of it being a threat to international security. The second part describes efforts made by North Korea on the international and domestic scenes to confirm its space program’s legitimacy and make it more transparent, amidst continuing condemnations and sanctions by the United Nations, concluding with the positive dynamics of North Korean space efforts. The final part is dedicated to possible alternatives to current international policy towards the North Korean space program, underscoring a potentially mutually beneficial cooperation between North Korea and Southeast Asian prospective spacefaring nations. It is claimed that such cooperation might raise the technological level of the North Korean economy and narrow the gap between the two Korean states, offering more possibilities for eventual unification.     

Scraping by: Income and Program Participation After the Loss of Extended Unemployment Benefits

Many Unemployment Insurance (UI) recipients do not find new jobs before exhausting their benefits, even when benefits are extended during recessions. Using Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) panel data covering the 2001 and 2007 to 2009 recessions and their aftermaths, we identify individuals whose jobless spells outlasted their UI benefits (exhaustees) and examine household income, program participation, and health‐related outcomes during the six months following UI exhaustion. For the average exhaustee, the loss of UI benefits is only slightly offset by increased participation in other safety net programs (e.g., food stamps), and family poverty rates rise substantially. Self‐reported disability also rises following UI exhaustion. These patterns do not vary dramatically across household demographic groups, broad income level prior to job loss, or the two business cycles. The results highlight the unique, important role of UI in the U.S. social safety net.     

Navigating Limited and Uncertain Access to Subsidized Housing After Prison

An emerging literature has documented the challenges that formerly incarcerated individuals face in securing stable housing. Given the increasingly unaffordable rental market, rental subsidies represent an important and understudied source of stable housing for this population. The existing literature has described substantial discretion and a varied policy landscape that determine former prisoners’ access to housing subsidies, or subsidized housing spaces that are leased to members of their social and family networks. Less is known about how former prisoners themselves interpret and navigate this limited and uncertain access to subsidized housing. Drawing on data from repeated qualitative interviews with 44 former prisoners, we describe the creative and often labor-intensive strategies that participants employed to navigate discretion and better position themselves for subsidized housing that was in high demand, but also largely out of reach. Our findings also illustrate the potential costs associated with these strategies for both participants and members of their social and family networks.     

Chinese Geopolitics: Space Program Cooperation among China,Brazil, and Russia

With the Obama Administration’s foreign policy pivot to Asia, the Chinese government is concerned about the possibility of new challenges in their foreign policy sphere of influence. Since the 1990s, many political and military analysts have explored the eventual rivalry between these two states. However, events in the Middle East preoccupy U.S. attention, leaving China moderately free in Southeast Asia, though it is uncertain for how long this will persist and if the United States will reallocate its attention to contain China. In this case, the Chinese government will need to develop countermeasures to sustain its geopolitical interests. There are two focuses in this analysis: (1) the Chinese geopolitical naval situation, exploring the problems in the geosphere surrounding China and the eventual competition with other regional powers and the United States in East Asia; and (2) the potential for space program cooperation with Russia and Brazil, which, in turn, dramatically changes the balance of power in outer space through positive aspects of Russian technical capabilities and strategic Brazilian geographic (Alcântara launch site).     

The Imprisonment Crisis in America: Introduction

This article provides an overview of recent trends in imprisonment rates in America and introduces the articles in this issue of The Review of Policy Research. Incarceration rates have increased by more than 500 percent since the early 1970s and have now reached a rate of almost 700, higher than anywhere else in the world. The impact has been particularly hard on racial minorities, especially women (whose incarceration rate went from around 8 in 1975 to 59 in 2001). The “war on drugs” has been one of the main reasons behind the increases in imprisonment, along with the more general “get tough on crime” movement that began in the late 1970s. The articles in this issue center around how this recent trend in incarceration impacts the entire society, but especially poor communities. Several of the articles focus on race, age and gender as important variables, in addition to the tendency of the parole system to sort of “recycle” released prisoners back into the prison system.     

论当代资本主义的两难困局:从“滞胀”危机到“次贷”危机

当代资本主义在坚守资本主义根本制度的前提下进行了多次自我调整.凯恩斯主义"挽救"了资本主义,也给资本主义带来"滞胀"危机;新自由主义克服了"滞胀"危机,却加剧了贫富两极分化,引发了社会危机和次贷危机.当代资本主义两难困局表明,资本主义的自我调整不可能"医治"资本主义的"病症",社会根本制度的变革是解决问题的唯一路径;调整不是在强化"正统"资本主义的"元素",而是在为"新社会因素"的产生发挥着催生作用.     

Weapons in Space: The Need to Protect Space Assets

Space assets represent the most critical undefended resource of the United States. Though the government has clearly been aware of this weakness for over a generation, little appears to have been done about it. Every day these assets become more critical, and the threats against them are growing in kind. The United States must address these threats in order to prevent potential future issues in regard to military command and control, as well as the American way of life. This article not only outlines threats to space assets but proposes means by which U.S. space assets could be protected. Such protection comes not only from technology, which has been capable for years of doing the job, but from policy choice as well. In regard to policy, increasing research and development for space-based weapons, reevaluating existing treaties, and increasing interagency cooperation are all needed to better protect U.S. space assets.     

Space Situational Awareness in Europe: The Fractures and the Federative Aspects of European Space Efforts

ABSTRACT

One part of the massive US intelligence effort to learn about Soviet missile and space programs during the Cold War was acquiring and analyzing Soviet space debris that had returned to Earth. Equally important was retrieving US fragments that had landed in foreign nations to prevent the Soviets from recovering and exploiting them. At times bitter jurisdictional battles among the interested government agencies plagued the undertaking. Additionally the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 limited the ability to obtain foreign debris in some circumstances. Despite these problems, however, the available record shows that in many cases the United States acquired and tested important Soviet fragments and also was able to retrieve its own.