Ask yourself these questions:  how many times have you refused to change course from a path that you knew was not going to lead to your desired results?  And once you got to the end of that path, did you acknowledge that you should have changed course back when you knew it was the right thing to do, but you didn't because you were afraid of looking bad?

I'd say this is a very normal and all too frequent human behavior.  And while it's bad enough when a person suffers from decisions taken to avoid looking bad, it can be a disaster when corporations or government agencies do the same thing.

Can we expect better from NASA? 

The title of this post comes from the following text in "NASA chief Griffin bucks Obama's transition team" in today's Orlando Sentinel.

Another set of talking points, presented during a Nov. 21 teleconference, was called "Staying the Course on Constellation." Among the points: Ares I had been thoroughly studied "and is sound" -- and any change would make NASA look bad.  "If NASA appears to be wavering by not staying the course . . . this would cause a loss of public and stakeholder confidence in NASA," it said.

Unfortunately, history is full of disastrous examples of "staying the course."  And if NASA stays the course and Constellation is a failure or is delayed even further, how much public and stakeholder confidence will that create?

It's amazing how many leaders fail to understand, or refuse to act on the knowledge, that people generally respect open and honest admission of errors when lessons are learned and better decisions are made as a result.  I know this is harder to do when billions of dollars are at stake, but ignoring this principle is a contributor to being in this situation in the first place.  So, regardless of whether Constellation is a good idea or not, can we at least avoid decisions being made primarily to avoid looking bad?

Probably not. 

Ultimately, even cold, calculated engineering decisions come down to human ego and fear of being wrong.