Thirteen years after independence from the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, Slovenia has become one of the most advanced transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe and will become a member of the EU in May 2004. This publication examines the country's recent political and socio-economic history, its transition to a market economy and the challenges that lie ahead. It includes contributions from Slovenia's president, a former vice prime minister, the current and previous ministers of finance, the minister of European Affairs, the current and former governors of the Bank of Slovenia, as well as from leading development scholars in Slovenia and abroad.

List of Figures and TablesPreface1: The Eve of the Launch 2: Learning Culture, Revising History 3: Risk, Work Group Culture, and the Normalization of Deviance 4: The Normalization of Deviance, 1981-1984 5: The Normalization of Deviance, 1985 6: The Culture of Production 7: Structural Secrecy 8: The Eve of the Launch Revisited 9: Conformity and Tragedy 10: Lessons Learned Appendix A. Cost/Safety Trade-Offs? Scrapping the Escape Rockets and the SRB Contract Award Decision Appendix B. Supporting Charts and Documents Appendix C. On Theory Elaboration, Organizations, and Historical EthnographyAcknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

Effective software is essential to the success and safety of the Space Shuttle, including its crew and its payloads. The on-board software continually monitors and controls critical systems throughout a Space Shuttle flight. At NASA's request, the committee convened to review the agency's flight software development processes and to recommend a number of ways those processes could be improved. This book, the result of the committee's study, evaluates the safety, oversight, and management functions that are implemented currently in the Space Shuttle program to ensure that the software is of the highest quality possible. Numerous recommendations are made regarding safety and management procedures, and a rationale is offered for continuing the Independent Verification and Validation effort that was instituted after the Challenger Accident.

On a cold January morning in 1986, NASA launched the Space Shuttle Challenger, despite warnings against doing so by many individuals, including Allan McDonald. The fiery destruction of Challenger on live television moments after launch remains an indelible image in the nation’s collective memory. In Truth, Lies, and O-Rings, McDonald, a skilled engineer and executive, relives the tragedy from where he stood at Launch Control Center. As he fought to draw attention to the real reasons behind the disaster, he was the only one targeted for retribution by both NASA and his employer, Morton Thiokol, Inc., makers of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters. In this whistle-blowing yet rigorous and fair-minded book, McDonald, with the assistance of internationally distinguished aerospace historian James R. Hansen, addresses all of the factors that led to the accident, some of which were never included in NASA's Failure Team report submitted to the Presidential Commission. Truth, Lies, and O-Rings is the first look at the Challenger tragedy and its aftermath from someone who was on the inside, recognized the potential disaster, and tried to prevent it. It also addresses the early warnings of very severe debris issues from the first two post-Challenger flights, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Columbia some fifteen years later.