Title: Organizing the Space Age
1Organizing the Space Age
- Bureaucratic and Systems Management Development
from 1958-1968
2Thesis
- The Success of Apollo was critically dependent
upon the integration of three competing
interests. - Technical
- Organizational
- Political
3Evolution
- NASA began as a loosely connected group of
independent research and development centers. - NACA
- JPL
- Redstone/Huntsville
4Political / Technical rational
- In the white heat of the early post Sputnik era,
technical achievement was the primary guage of a
space program success, and political leaders left
control in the hands of the engineers who
promised technical success. - Stephen Johnson, The Secret of Apollo 2003
5James Webb / Political
Chief Administrator Focused on keeping the
organization, as a whole, politically
responsive. Space Age America
6Robert Seamans / Systems Management
Seamans coordinated the efforts of the field
centers through the application of systems
management
7Hugh L. Drydan / Technical
Drydan, an aerospace scientist, focused on
ensuring the technical competence of the
organization.
8Short Honeymoon
Despite extraordinary initial latitude given to
NASA by Congress to help fulfill geopolitical
goals, massivie cost overruns and schedule
slippages forced intervention. Gemini Estimate
531,000,000 1962 Cost 1,354,000,000 -
1964
9Program Management
OMSF gains enhanced power as top priority
program. George E. Mueller imports significant
personnel from the Air Force.
10Organizational Cultures
Competency culture Engineering based
technocratic RD inherited culture. Informal
oversight, excellence over cost Single point
oversight Control culture- Technocratic
committee leaders become Bureaucrats Documentation
as a method. Design Freezes, SOPs, Work
Packages Interactive oversight.
11Organizational Cultures
Team based culture History Success record Immune
to change Informal oversight Note passing
12Technical Competence
Bottom-up technology drivin decision
process Lunar Orbit Rendezvous All-up
Testing Contractor technologists are unlikely to
challenge the hand that feeds even when it
unbounds competence.
13Apollo 1
14Apollo 1
15Technological Development
Increased system complexity requires methods of
mitigating against interactive failures. Technocr
ats Redundancy, High Quality Bureaucrats
Design Freezes, Configuration management Contract
or Oversight Technocrats Disassembling,
incremental testing. Bureaucrats Direct
Contractor Penetration, Insentive contracting
16Political Accountability
Use of 90 Contractors, for politics vs.
technical merit. National Foreign Policy
Objectives Space Age America
17End of an Era
Competition between the political, organizational
and technical priorities of NASA both enabled and
constrained the development of the Apollo
program.