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Abstract:This paper is about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the practice of professional ethics. It has been eleven years (Jan 28, 1986) since the Challenger accident and the past decade has been a time of investigation, assessment, and finger-pointing, as well as a time for introspection and internal reform. While there has been a lot of rhetoric about ethical commitments at NASA there has also been a dearth of empirically-based knowledge about what NASA and its various contractors are doing about professional ethics and what decision-making criteria are being used. It has also been a decade of cost-cutting and personnel cut-backs. This paper contributes to knowledge about NASA and ethics by reporting on the results of a comprehensive literature and web-site review along with phone interviews and e-mail correspondence with NASA ethics officers. Based on the research for this article, NASA ethics guidelines seem to be minimalist and insufficient. NASA officials are focusing only on the requirements of 5 CFR Part 2635, Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch and its mandate to provide one hour of ethics training per employee per year. NASA needs responsive and responsible decisionmakers who are able to define the ethical dimensions of a problem and to identify and respond to an ethic of public service as well as one of risk management. Where ethics at the space agency is concerned, to abide by the law is absolutely necessary, but it is woefully insufficient. References, 16 p.
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