As time wore on, NASA began to make compromises on safety and reliability. Its quality-assurance staff was cut by more than two-thirds, from roughly 1,700 in 1970 to 505 in 1986, the year that the Challenger was launched. Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama—which is responsible for rocket propulsion—was the hardest hit, with a reduction from 615 to 88 staff members. The reductions meant “fewer safety inspections… less careful execution of procedures, less thorough investigation of anomalies, and less documentation of what happened.”25
