Thank you for correcting my statement Jim 0216. You got it right. NASA management could readily measure Faster and Cheaper with days and dollars. NASA management could not easily measure Better. This deficiency resulted in an accumulation of the risk of a major failure in the Columbia space exploration shuttle System.
There is an excellent book on the Challenger Disaster by Dianne Vaughn: “The Challenger Launch Decision - Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA,” published by The University of Chicago Press. I met several times with Dr Vaughn when she was writing the chapters that addressed the effects of the ‘Engineering Culture’ on causation of the Challenger Disaster.
Based on what I have learned about causation of the failures of the recent Oroville Dam Primary and Emergency Spillways, there are many important similarities with those factors that caused the Challenger Disaster. Key similarities include the “Normalization of Deviance” and the effects of the Engineering Culture addressed in this excellent book.
“Normalization of Deviance”
Sadly, that sounds fairly descriptive of our society these days.