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An organizational history of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: A critical comparison of administrative decision making in two pivotal eras
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Content
AN ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY
OF THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS
AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION:
A CRITICAL COMPARISON OF ADMINISTRATIVE
DECISION MAKING IN TWO PIVOTAL ERAS
by
John D. Kelley
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE SCHOOL OF POLICY, PLANNING,
AND DEVELOPMENT
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
August 2002
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UMI Number: 3094346
UMI
UMI Microform 3094346
Copyright 2003 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company
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P.O. Box 1346
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
SCHOOL OF POLICY, PLANNING, AND DEVELOPMENT
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089
This dissertation, written by
............................ John. J D . . Kelley;..............................
under the direction o f h.Xs.... Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its
members, has been presented to and
accepted by the Faculty o f the School o f
Policy, Planning, and Development, in
partial fulfillment o f requirements for the
degree o f
DOCTOR OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Dean
Date.
0~L—
EO N COMMITTj DISSER'
Chairperson
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Acknowledgments
My sincerest gratitude is offered to Professor Joseph Wholey and Professor Chester
Newland and to my family, friends and associates whose understanding was unfathomable. A
special note of thanks to Alexis Hailey and Robert Carter of the Dissertation Committee and to
June Muranaka of the University of Southern California.
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iii
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ii
List of Tables vi
List of Figures vi
Abstract vii
PARTI. THE FOUNDATIONS
Chapter 1. Introduction, Purpose, and Models 1
Purpose 1
The Two Models of Decision Making 2
Assumption: Rational Actor or Classical Model of Decision Making 5
Assumption: Governmental or Bureaucratic Politics Model
of Decision Making 7
Research Hypothesis and Methodology 10
Conclusions 16
Hypothesis T esting 17
The Structure of This Dissertation 26
Chapter 2. NASA Historical Foundations 28
Building NASA in the 1960s 28
Mission, Goals, and Vision in the 1990s 35
Chapter 3. The Evolution of NASA’s Organizational Structures 37
Overview 37
Administrative Control: 1958-1965 and After 40
Program Offices and Their Relationship to Field Centers 43
The Balance Between Program Offices and Functional Offices 45
The Evolution of Staff Offices 46
The Planning and Policy Offices 47
From Office of Business Administration to Office of Management 48
PART II. THE 1960S AS THE DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION
Chapter 4. Building the NASA Organization of the 1960s 50
NACA to NASA: October 1958 to January 1961 51
NASA Under Webb: 1961-1963 60
The Future Programs Task Group: 1964— 1965 74
In the Wake of the Reorganizations: 1966-1967 85
The Consultant Culture of NASA 94
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iv
Chapter 5. Institutionalizing Organizational Change, 1967-1969 100
The Office of Organization and Management: The Last Major
Change of the 1960s 100
The Adequacy of NASA’s Planning 104
Program Breakdown: Holding on at Decade’s End 122
PART III. THE 1990s AS THE DECADE OF THE INSTITUTION
Chapter 6. Transition to a New NASA: Challenger, Hubble, and
the Political Environment 128
Challenger and How It Changed NASA’s Strategy 128
The HubbleTelescope’s Flaws and NASA’s Political Stability 138
Chapter 7. Roles, Responsibilities, and Organizational Structure of the 1990s 145
Agency Management and the Administrator’s New Role 146
NASA’s Councils 147
Internal Senior Management Boards 151
Functional Offices and Staff Offices 152
Crosscutting Process Owners 153
Enterprise Management: Headquarters and the Field 153
Managing Enterprise Programs 159
Chapter 8. New Methodologies for Management: Planning and
Performance in the 1990s 162
The Effect of the Government Performance and Results Act 163
The Strategic Management Process 164
The Process Elements 165
The Strategic Plans of the 1990s 168
The Business of Investment and Budget Planning 169
The Business of Implementation Planning 172
Integrating and Adjusting the Agency’s Plans 177
Establishing Commitment 179
Crosscutting Processes: The Business of Serving Customers 180
Performance Evaluation 185
Chapter 9. The Commercialization of NASA and the Transfer of Technology 188
Contracting Out NASA’s Mission 188
The Legal Framework 189
Commercialization’s Vision and Goals 191
The Benefits of Technology Transfer 193
Chapter 10. The 1989 and 1996 Space Policies of Presidents Bush
and Clinton 199
Evolving from Disarray 199
The Two Presidents’ Policy Statements 200
Significant Elements of the Two Policies 201
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V
PART IV. CONCLUSIONS
Chapter 11. Summary, Analysis, Observations, and Conclusions 209
The Rational Actor and NASA Decision Making 210
Applying the Rational Actor Model to Administrator Goldin’s Era 217
Bureaucratic Politics and NASA Decision Making 218
Lessons for Future Public Administrators 225
Bibliography 229
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vi
List o f Tables
Table 1.1. Comparative Application of Allison’s Decision-Making Models 5
Table 7.1. Field Center Mission and Center of Excellence Assignments 158
Table 10.1. The 1989 and 1996 Space Policies of Presidents Bush and Clinton 202
Table 11.1. The Rational Actor Model and NASA Decision Making under
Administrators Webb and Goldin 210
Table 11.2 The Bureaucratic Politics Model and NASA Decision Making under
Administrators Webb and Goldin 219
List o f Figures
Figure 3.1. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Organization, 1958 38
Figure 3.2. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Organization, 1991 39
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Abstract
One of the most important reasons for the success of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, a public-sector organization established in 1958, has been the historic
ability of NASA’s successive administrators, the agency’s leaders, to sense the boundaries of
their power and the political environment in which they have had to maneuver. This dissertation
compares how NASA’s leaders maneuvered the organization toward success during the 1960s
and the 1990s. Using a known set of decision-making models and a comparative administrative
chronology of the 1960s and 1990s, this dissertation demonstrates that the principal leaders in
those two decades—with their differences in leadership styles and methods—functioned to
achieve success in two organizational environments.
NASA’s service to the public has led to many manifest benefits for mankind. Lunar
landings, Mars explorations, space shuttles, and space stations connote its strong technological
prowess. This dissertation discusses expectations NASA has faced from the Congress, changing
presidential administrations, and executive branch pressures, as well as more consensual
political environments, with their unique challenges to a science-oriented agency. The
dissertation describes the context in which NASA’s leaders were challenged during two critical
eras to care for the agency’s organizational well-being, to know their bounds of power, and to
act accordingly.
The study examines the radically different approaches that NASA leadership used to
carry out its missions in varying decision-making environments. President Kennedy’s lunar
mandate clearly allowed for rational actor/classical decision making and the dominating
leadership style of James Webb. In contrast, the diverse set of political interests at work during
the tenure of Dan Goldin forced NASA to the bureaucratic politics decision-making model.
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1
Parti. The Foundations
Chapter 1
Introduction, Purpose, and Models
Purpose
This dissertation is the product of my research into and analysis of the conditions under
which a public leader acts to achieve success for an organization. The dissertation has two
purposes. One is to present chronologically the administrative organization and reorganization
of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) at the enterprise level during the
1960s and 1990s. The other is to explore the consistency of two decision-making models with
NASA’s decision-making processes during the 1960s and 1990s.1 By comparing NASA’s
administrative chronology in the 1960s and its administrative chronology in the 1990s, I am able
to demonstrate how the agency’s top leadership functioned in those two very different eras. The
result of my work is, first, an extensive analysis of NASA under the leadership of James Webb,
whose decade of leadership was marked by a clear and simple national mandate for a lunar
landing. The dissertation also shows that NASA under the leadership of Daniel Goldin was
characterized by attempts to respond to the competing goals of a broad-based political
constituency.
From the literature review I conducted in order to analyze senior-level decision making
in the two NASA eras, I hypothesized that two of Graham Allison’s decision-making models
could be used in my research: (1) the rational actor or classical model of decision making and
(2) the governmental or bureaucratic politics model. To use these two models to analyze NASA
Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, The Essence o f Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2n d
ed. (Boston: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999).
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2
decision making, I assumed several things. The most salient assumption was the premise each
model made about the importance of the broad context or external environment of public
administration. The models assume that national public policy and management decision
making are multidimensional, highly complex, and always subject to multiple interpretations and
perspectives. Finally, the concepts (propositions, units of analysis, organizing concepts,
dominant inference patterns) that these models use for analysis and generating hypotheses
seemed best to capture my 15 years of experience as a NASA senior manager. In this
dissertation research, I thus explore the fit and consistency of established analytic models of
decision making with my comparative chronology of NASA’s decision making across two
pivotal eras in its history.
The Two Models of Decision Making
I was led to assess the utility of several models from public administration by my
research into the volatility of the nation’s space program and my comparison of NASA’s
organizational history across the two critical decades. I sought a conceptual paradigm that
would allow me to analyze two epochs in a federal organization whose environment was
characterized by dynamic change. I settled on two of the decision-making models Allison
described in The Essence o f Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Early in his
studies, Allison had examined the 1962 Cuban missile crisis by applying organizational and
political theory to events. He based his models of decision making on the work of several well-
known theorists in public administration, among them the work of presidential researcher
Richard E. Neustadt.2 Allison’s models took shape during the escalation of nuclear forces
2See, for example, Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the M odem Presidents (New York: Free
Press, 1960; rev. 1991), and Robert F. Kennedy, Thirteen Days: A Memoir o f the Cuban Missile Crisis,
edited by Richard Neustadt and Graham T. Allison (New York: Norton, 1971).
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3
between the United States and the Soviet Union. Theorists and strategists attempting to explain
or predict the actions of the Soviet Union figured prominently in the theoretical development of
his decision-making models. The outcome of his analysis was a rich analytic description of
perspectives or paradigms operating to influence national decision makers during the Cuban
missile crisis. I based my analysis on his research.
Two of Allison’s models are the rational actor model and the bureaucratic politics
model. Four noteworthy theorists who contributed to the foundations of the rational actor model
were Hans Morgenthau, Thomas Schelling, Stanley Hoffman, and Herman Kahn. Morgenthau’s
notable contribution was his development of the concept of the rational statesman. In Politics
Among Nations, he attempted to demonstrate how a set of rational decisions among a set of
activities creates an intellectually sound basis for action, regardless of the motives, preferences,
and politics of the leadership assuming the leadership role.3
Schelling, a game theorist, also influenced Allison heavily. In Schelling’s major work,
The Strategy o f Conflict, he portrayed a maze of national-level actions and reactions, or moves in
a game of interdependencies.4 Hoffman, who also influenced Allison through game theory,
viewed each action of a central actor as the best choice among several options that depend on
what the actor expects the opponent to do rather than solely evaluating his own position.5 Kahn
incorporated much of the work of Morgenthau and Schelling into scenarios that focused on
economic actions of narrowly defined ways of determining qualitative profit or loss.6
3Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, 6th ed., edited by Kenneth W. Thompson (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1985).
4Thom as C. Schelling, The Strategy o f Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, repr. 1980).
5See esp. Stanley Hoffman, Contemporary Theory in International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1960), pp. 178-79, and “Restraints and Choices in American Foreign Policy,” Daedalus, Fall
1962, p. 171.
6Herman Kahn, Thinking about the Unthinkable (New York: Horizon Press, 1962).
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Fundamental to Allison’s development of his first model was his linking the rational
behavior of an individual and rational action as a goal-oriented, consistent pattern of selection
that maximizes the optimal alternative. Rational decision making, as Allison conceived of it,
reduces to a selection from among alternatives, each with consequences and payoffs. A decision
maker’s rational choice becomes, in the rational actor model, the selection of the alternative that
offers the greatest beneficial consequence. The rational actor model originated with Allison’s
attempt to answer the perplexing questions surrounding the actions during the October 1962
Cuban missile crisis. Under this model, decision making flows as a rational choice from the
national interests and the primary consideration given to how the specified goals are to be
achieved. Decision choices are determined by responses to strategic problems.
The bureaucratic politics model is characterized by nonlinear activity that results from
political bargaining. Allison attributed the source of his thinking about the bureaucratic politics
model to Neustadt’s research on presidential power and to the characterization of such power as
the resultant of political bargaining among independent players with unequal levels of power.7
In the bureaucratic politics model, the observed output is a political resultant in the sense that
what happens does not occur from choosing the best solution to a problem or maximizing return;
it results from a complicated mixture of conflict and compromise.
Under this model, output is leveraged by political entities that have diverse interests and
unequal influence. Allison described the powerful entities in this model as “players” rather than
officials or institutional representatives. Players in the world of the bureaucratic politics model
often have parochial organizational, domestic, international, or even personal interests.
Table 1.1 identifies key analytic features of Allison’s decision-making models (such as
environment studied and number of time periods) and contrasts Allison’s application of them
7 Neustadt, Presidential Power.
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with their application in this dissertation. An acknowledged limitation of this dissertation is that
it is limited to two of the decision-making models identified by Allison and others. A
discussion of the limitations of the dissertation is provided later in this chapter.
Table 1.1: Comparative Application of Allison’s Decision-Making Models
Feature compared Allison’s original application3 Application to NASA
Model Three: Rational actor
Governmental politics
Organizational process
Two: Rational actor
Governmental politics
Policy environment
studied
Foreign policy:
Cuban missile crisis
Space policy:
NASA decision making
Time period Thirteen days of October 1962 Two decades 1960s and
1990s
Decision maker U.S. president NASA administrator
Theory tested Yes Yes
Context Highly political, highly technical Highly political, highly
technical
Outcome Highly visible Highly visible
“Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow, The Essence o f Decision: Explaining the Cuban
Missile Crisis, 2n d ed. (Boston: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999)
Assumption: Rational Actor or Classical Model of Decision Making
Allison’s rational actor model is a paradigm that focuses on the aims and
calculations of an individual leader or on a leadership group whose function as sole decision
maker is maximized.
Premise: Government Action as Choice
Allison defined action as a rational choice with the interplay of four factors. First
are the goals and objectives of the nation. The actor conceives of the national interests that
feed a set of strategic goals and objectives. From this set of strategic goals and objectives
comes a set of relevant options or alternatives. Which alternative the actor chooses is
determined by its value-maximizing effect. The rational actor selects the alternative that best
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fulfills the nation’s strategic goals and objectives. A repeating theme in this model is the
nation’s choice of means to an end, implying that where there is a successful end, it is the
result of a value-maximizing means.
Summary of the Model
In this paradigm, organizational decision making is consistent with that of a rational,
sole decision maker. This individual has one set of specified goals, one set of perceived
options, and a single estimate of the consequences that follow from alternatives.
The Problem
Action is chosen in response to a national-level strategic problem compared to a
programmatic or internal agency problem.
Static Selection
Action is conceived of as a choice among alternative outcomes. This leader’s
personal weighting of goals and objectives, perceptions of available options, and analysis of
the cost or consequences that follow from each option form the framework for decision
making—for action. Action reflects a rational response to a strategic problem that the
nation is facing.
.Action as Rational Choice
The model represents a value-maximizing method of decision making in which the
national interest is the category in which the strategic goals are conceived. The components
of this model include goals and objectives of the central agency strategy, options that define
various courses of action relevant to a strategic problem, consequences produced as a result
of selecting certain alternative courses of action, and choices such that the rational actor
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selects the alternative that has consequences of the greatest magnitude in achieving the goals
and objectives.
Dominant Inference Pattern
The dominant inference pattern of rational actor decision making is that
government action equals choice with regard to objectives (analogous to the actions of
individuals).8
Examples o f Questions the Rational Actor Model Suggests
Among the general questions posed by the rational actor model are
□ What is the problem?
□ What are the alternatives?
□ What are the strategic costs and benefits associated with each alternative?
□ What is the observed pattern of national (governmental) values and shared axioms?
□ What are the pressures in the “international strategic marketplace”?9
Assumption: Governmental or Bureaucratic Politics Model of Decision Making
The primary source of the paradigm underlying Allison’s bureaucratic politics model is
the model implicit in Alfred Chandler’s description of one element of the bureaucratic paradigm
as “presidential actions that have been generalized to a concern with action as a resultant of
political bargaining among a number of independent players, the President being only a
superpower among many lesser but considerable powers.”1 0 Other authors whom Allison cited
in support of his argument echo the concept of players in positions of varying power and
g
Allison and Zelikow, p. 255.
g
Allison and Zelikow, p. 257.
1 0 Alfred D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History o f American Industrial Enterprise
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962), chs. 1 and 2.
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influence that resemble legislative assemblies bargaining through a system of hierarchical
structures.
Premise: Government Action as Political Resultant
Government action is a political resultant in that what happens is not chosen as a
solution to a problem but, rather, results from stakeholder conflict, compromise, and confusion
among officials with diverse interests and unequal influence.1 1
Summary of the Model
If we look at NASA from the perspective of the governmental (or bureaucratic) politics
model, we should find decision making to be more consistent with a gaming model. The
elements found in the previous model, such as the problem and static selection of alternative, are
not present in this model. There is no real one-for-one correlation because of the very different
nature of the two types of model. NASA bargaining positions and agenda, in a gaming model,
would be made from elements such as the
□ principals, or agency players;
□ idea of who played;
□ problem-solving process;
□ “rules of the game,” or decision rules;
□ increased complexity of agency decisions;
The concept of who plays is key to understanding the governmental (or bureaucratic)
politics model of decision making. The factors that shaped how the agency framed its agenda
have a lot to do with the perceptions of the players and their personal preferences. A careerist
might view the overall health of the organization as an overarching goal, while a political
appointee might focus just on an action’s domestic political effects. And so the stakes and
stands, as Allison referred to them, fuel the determination of agency decisions. Stakes and
1 'Allison and Zelikow, p. 162.
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stands often sound a cacophony of interests as individual players decide issues. They combine to
form “stakeholders,” as this term was popularized in the vernacular of total quality management
of the 1980s.
Dominant Inference Pattern
The resulting action is the result of bargaining among individuals and groups within the
agency or government. Action channels, positions, preferences, and relative power relationships
yield a political resultant. Touching on the element of power as used in this model, Allison and
Chandler agree that a person’s effect on the resultant is a function of power. Power is described
as an elusive mixture of bargaining advantages that stem from position, skill as a practitioner,
and sheer will to affect an issue’s outcome. This describes how the action channels are formed
and how, through manipulation, the stakes and stands bring people into an action channel. The
action channel is the means through which organizational decisions are made. Ultimately, the
resultant of this politically driven activity is a function of the influence and power of action
channel members using shared power, where the power is shared somewhat but judgments are
made separately.
Examples o f Questions the Government
or Bureaucratic Politics Model Suggests
Allison states that the central questions posed in this model include
□ What are the existing action channels for producing actions on this kind of
problem?
□ Which players in what positions are centrally involved?
□ How do pressures of job, past stances, and personality affect the central
players on this issue?
□ What deadlines will force the issue to resolution?
□ Where foul-ups are likely?1 2
,2Allison and Zelikow, p. 257.
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Research Hypotheses and Methodology
This dissertation tested two hypotheses. (1) Hypothesis 1 was that NASA’s decision
making and organizational changes in the 1960s (Webb era) were strongly consistent with the
tenets of the rational actor or classical model of decision making. (2) Hypothesis 2 was that
NASA’s decision making and organizational changes in the 1990s (Goldin era) were strongly
consistent with the tenets of the governmental (or bureaucratic) politics model of decision
making.
I conducted the research to test these hypotheses in six phases:
1. Collect qualitative data by decade on NASA’s administrative history.
2. Refine the scope of the data collection to the most senior decision making within
each decade.
3. Review public administration literature for appropriate models to evaluate NASA’s
administrative decision making and select models to compare eras
4. Select pivotal NASA eras to compare.
5. Develop a narrative chronology for each era.
6. Compare and evaluate the eras.
Phase 1: Collect Qualitative Data by Decade
on NASA’s Administrative History
During the early data collection in phase 1, my work was guided by the work of
sociologist John Lofland and the work of Michael Patton on qualitative evaluation. Using this
approach, it was necessary first to get close enough to the people and situations under study to
personally understand in depth the details of what transpired. Second, the data collection was
aimed at capturing what actually took place and what people actually said: the perceived facts.
Third, the qualitative data to be collected had to include pure descriptions and, fourth, the data
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had to include actual statements I could quote from persons significant to the situations of the
two eras.
With this approach, I started to collect data on projects, programs, and historical
meetings of senior NASA officials. I used several groupings of internal reference materials,
including NASA internal references works, management histories, project histories, center
histories, published diaries, and several volumes of work published in the late 1980s by John
Hopkins University Press on specific topics pertinent to NASA programs. Additional annotated
bibliographies from the George Washington University series edited by John Logsdon were a
valuable source of validation for some of my raw data.
The data collection was a huge task. My first source of data was the NASA archives,
which initially proved to be disappointing. Contributions of unedited sources of programs,
projects, and resources were later published as NASA historical data books, volumes I through
IV. The vast majority of data held in the archives was engineering-related data, not documents
critical to the understanding of agency-level issues. An unexpected outcome of the data
collection was a significant contribution within the NASA archives of a wide variety of
program-level and administrator-level documents. In many cases, these contributions filled in
missing gaps in the historical collection of NASA history. One such case is the use of the data in
1994 by Joseph Tatarewicz and J. D. Hunley in their assembling the annotated bibliography of
the Apollo program.
The data collection for the 1990s was more robust than that for the 1960s. Having
worked as a senior executive at NASA headquarters for more than a decade, I was positioned to
collect first-person data on a wide range of subjects. I perceived this type of data to be high in
quality, because I was able to communicate with individuals with direct experience of that
decade, to collect first-person quotations from the people in the situations under study, and to
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personally come to understand in depth the details of what transpired. It was difficult, however,
to observe and collect qualitative data that would be unaffected by personal biases.
The authors, reference material, and other archives are cited throughout this document
and recorded as a group in the bibliography to this dissertation.
Phase 2: Refine the Scope of the Data Collection to Only
the Most Senior Decision Making Within Each Decade
In meetings with Chester Newland and in contacts in NASA’s history office, it became
clear that the data set collected was too large and unwieldy to be easily evaluated in a
dissertation. Phase 2 of the data collection effort consisted, therefore, of culling out only the
most significant data on a very tightly defined element of NASA decision making. Only data
pertinent to the administrators of NASA, or the senior decision-making bodies of the agency,
would be considered in the study. This altered two dimensions of the data collection
simultaneously. First, the concept of decades was modified to include a more descriptive body
of work limited to data that clearly had a role in guiding the agency’s goals and objectives. The
data would be tied more to the actions of NASA’s administrators and their senior governing
bodies than to programs and projects. This negated the value of much of the data at the level of
programs and below. While programmatic data were of value, I observed that they were below
the threshold of most interactions carried on by NASA’s senior leadership. Programmatic data
could be better characterized as inputs to a period review where such data contributed to a larger
scheme of decision making.
The quantity of data that helped describe the decision making of NASA’s top
leadership in the 1960s and beyond varied from administrator to administrator. In this phase,
indications began to emerge from the data that some administrators were transformational
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decision makers while others were merely transactional. To obtain a sufficient set of data
pertinent to NASA’s early years, I visited the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and conducted
research in the oral histories section. In this area, I found a rich set of data composed of
conversations with James Webb and Lyndon Johnson as vice president and president. Another
series of visits to the Kennedy library outside Boston provided additional documents relative to
the early Apollo program.
A review of the array of data for each administrator suggested that Daniel Goldin was,
like James Webb, a person of similarly transformational characteristics. Although Goldin’s
visionary leadership was apparent in the data, the outcome of his efforts through decision
making was not so apparent. I was inclined to look for validity problems in the data but could
not find any major problems with collection methodology. The data were consistent with the
collection method and yet the effectiveness of Administrator Goldin was not the same as that of
Administrator Webb. I assumed that something else was causing the difference in the outcomes
of these two transformational NASA administrators, so I started the search for an analytic
scheme or more abstract language to characterize the decision-making data.
Phase 3: Review Public Administration Literature
for Appropriate Models to Evaluate NASA’s Administrative
Decision Making and Select Models to Compare Eras
After conducting a type of meta-analysis of the data with my committee members, I
decided to model the process of decision making at NASA. This effort was unsuccessful, and I
elected to find an appropriate model for senior-level decision making and, if necessary, adapt it
to my needs. I read and evaluated relevant literature in administrative theory and behavior to find
models that would help isolate an appropriate decision-making model. After several trial and
error applications of, for example, Bolman and Deal, Graham Allison, Tannenbaum and
Schmidt, Vroom and Yetton and others, and after numerous reviews with NASA experts such as
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Chester Newland , I concluded that Allison’s two decision models would be used to form the
central hypothesis of the research.1 3
Phase 4: Select Pivotal NASA Eras to Compare
As stated above, a review of data for each NASA administrator suggested that Daniel
Goldin, administrator during the 1990s, was a person of transformational characteristics similar
to those of James Webb, who led NASA in the early 1960s. Both men achieved great things for
the agency during their tenure. Both faced extremely difficult challenges and both guided
NASA to effectively accomplish those challenges. Although Goldin’s visionary leadership was
apparent in the data, the outcome of his decision-making efforts was not as apparent. At each
stage of winnowing the data, I synthesized them to minimize the effects of judgment.
The synthesis was described above as first an assembly of data by decade and by
administrator and then their stratification on the basis of the organizational level at which the
documentation applied. Finally, a threshold was imposed on the data to allow only the top-level
decision-making data to be brought forward for comparison. Drawing on the literature of
administrative theory and organizational behavior, I tried to highlight the two most pivotal
decades of NASA’s administrative history. I concluded that the decades of the 1960s, James
Webb’s era, and the 1990s, Daniel Goldin’s era, stood out as pivotal to the agency’s evolution.
Phase 5: Develop a Narrative Chronology for Each Era
The sixth phase of the study produced the narrative chronology of decision making and
change in the agency during the 1960s and 1990s. To produce this chronology, I organized the
l3Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal, Modem Approaches to Understanding and Managing
Organization (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 1989); Robert Tannenbaum and Warren Schmidt, “How
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documentation identified in the bibliography of the dissertation, and then I wrote an
administrative history of each decade. To do this, I drew both from this documentation and from
my own experience and perspective on the agency.
Phase 6: Compare and Evaluate the Two Eras
In the sixth phase, I used two of Allison’s decision-making models to compare and
contrast NASA’s decision making in the 1960s and 1990s on their own terms. I also applied my
own judgment of the strength of each ideal type of decision-making model in order to account
for the dynamics and results tested in both decades.
Conclusions
After comparing the evidence of the Webb and Goldin eras of decision making with the
attributes of the two applied decision-making models, a conclusion may be made that strongly
confirms, confirms, or does not confirm the research hypotheses. The conclusions of this
dissertation are grouped in to three categories, as follows:
□ strongly confirms a hypothesis;
□ confirms a hypothesis;
□ does not confirm a hypothesis.
For the research to strongly confirm a hypothesis, the data must exceed the performance
standards—that is, the dominant trend that emerges from the analysis of relevant data shows a
clear relationship between decision making by NASA leadership and elements of a specific
decision-making model. This data should reflect a consistent decision-making process
throughout the duration of the era under analysis. The evidence that supports the hypothesis
to Choose a Leadership Pattern,” Harvard Business Review, September 1989; Victor H. Vroom and Philip
Yetton, Leadership and Decision Making (Pittsburgh, Pa: University o f Pittsburgh Press, 1973).
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should be prevalent throughout the era to the extent that it would appear that a nearly exclusive
relationship existed in this process.
The research confirms a hypothesis when the data reflect the performance standard but
do not demonstrate an exclusive relationship to the decision-making model.
The research does not confirm a hypothesis when the data fail to reflect the
performance standard.
Hypothesis Testing
The two hypotheses of this dissertation were derived from the initial data collection and
review of the literature. How hypotheses are conceptualized varies between quantitative and
qualitative studies. According to Kerlinger and Newman and Benz, quantitative study follows a
common pattern of deductive reasoning that contributes to knowledge by theory testing.1 4 The
motivating purpose of qualitative study is somewhat different, in that it is commonly thought of
as theory building rather than theory testing. In the conceptual stages of this dissertation, a
hypothesis was formed in concert with a prototypical data collection. As data collection
proceeded, the hypothesis was modified to account for the diverging of the data into what
appeared to be two distinct groups. The first group was characterized by indications of NASA
decision making as the weighing of strategic costs and benefits associated with well-defined
alternatives relative to the lunar landing epoch. Some of the data in this group provided insights
into an observed pattern of national values and shared axioms. The focus of agency decision
makers was the president, the vice president, and the Congress.
1 4 Frederick Kerlinger, Foundations o f Behavioral Research (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,
1964), and Isadore Newman and Carolyn R. Benz, Qualitative-Quantitative Research Methodology:
Exploring the Interactive Continuum (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998).
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A second set of data was clearly distinguishable from the first because of its many
agency players. As important as the content of decisions was the the idea of who in NASA
participated in the problem-solving process. Another distinguishing factor was that there was no
clear national or shared axiom within the agency; meanwhile, the data reflected an increased
complexity of agency decisions. The focus of these data had clear linkages to the Congress and
subcommittees chartered to oversee NASA, but very little interaction could be discerned that
demonstrated a presidential influence. Data having to do with projects and programs tended to
fall below the threshold of the collection effort. Ultimately, only the seniormost decision making
at NASA headquarters came to guide the dissertation.
The selection of Allison’s models of decision making as a conceptual foundation for
decision-making at NASA was the result of a search for simple and explanatory means of
reflecting the early ideas of what was thought to be a bimodal grouping of the data. As I state
elsewhere in this dissertation, several models and authors were reviewed, and the Allison model
was selected as the best among many alternatives.
To guide and enhance the validity of my hypothesis development and testing, I used
several strategies to enhance validation and legitimization from, among others, Newman and
Benz. They suggested several themes I considered while conducting the study.1 5
□ The first of these was neutrality, or the objectivity of the data. Through discussion
and self-evaluation, I became satisfied that the inquiry was as unbiased as possible.
Throughout the data collection effort, a satisfactory degree of consistency was
found in the interpretation of the data.
□ Prolonged engagement on site, another theme, was satisfied in that the dissertation
took several years to complete. NASA as the subject was observed over a period
long enough to obtain an accurate reflection of its culture and history.
□ Persistent or consistent observation: Observing the 1960s was accomplished
through historical files and other documents, enhanced with oral histories and
videotapes from NASA’s archives in order to get an adequate picture of behavior.
l5Newman and Benz, chs. 3 and 4.
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The majority of data collection in the 1990s could be validated in the first person
because of my position in NASA headquarters.
□ Peer debriefing: During the dissertation process, I frequently consulted with other
NASA professionals to obtain other perspectives.
□ Triangulation of data: While not all data were amenable to triangulation
techniques, satisfactory efforts were made to use a variety of data sources.
□ Member checking: Because the inquiry was qualitative in nature, I frequently
rechecked or revalidated the interpretations of the data to ensure that there was
sufficient consistency across each data set.
□ Reference materials: The quality and scope of documents was extremely important
to guarantee sufficient diversity of sources to strengthen the data sets.
□ Structural relationships: The logical consistency between different data sets was
used mainly to provide a framework for revisiting and replicating data
interpretation.
□ Theoretical sampling: My research followed where the data led. While gathering
data, I started to form explanations of their meaning. Sampling data in qualitative
research is determined by the existing data, and this served as one way to test the
hypotheses.
□ Leaving an audit trail, or good documentation to replicate the research. The data
collection of this study is catalogued in several areas of NASA’s archives and
associated publications. Extensive use of NASA’s archives established my
confidence in the quality of the audit trail.
□ Generalizability: What underlies the science of this research can be broadened to
include a diversified portfolio of applications and constituents.
Naming the Performance Standard
The performance standard is defined as the dominant trend that emerges from the
collection of instances, showing a clear relationship between decision making by NASA
leadership and elements of the two decision-making models.
Defining the Criteria
During phases 1-3 of the hypothesis testing, criteria were required to filter each data
element. The criteria for selection were as follows:
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□ Data were selected because their originating source was a known and reputable
collection point, such as NASA headquarters historical archives.
□ Data used in the analysis were firsthand data—such as a letter with an original
signature or an original agency document. Such letters were found in registered
portions of historical archives like the Truman Library, the Johnson Library, the
Kennedy Library, and the NASA headquarters historical archives.
□ Data from publications such as biographies and published authors were considered
suitable for citation. Where possible, such citations were used in order to enhance
the replication of data and the audit trail.
In several instances, the criteria required several stages before an acceptable level of quality was
achieved. For example, a page from the administrator’s daily calendar, when analyzed, led to
data documenting meetings between the administrator and President Lyndon Johnson, with
accompanying notes and briefing materials. Data were available from published NASA histories
and NASA-sponsored publications such as John Lodgson’s series of volumes entitled Exploring
the Unknown}6 Data from external publications were also considered viable sources as long as
they could be traced to a recognized work having to do with NASA.
Supporting information from NASA project or field center chronologies was not
particularly useful because of the level at which most of it was focused. Some was valuable as a
method of validating headquarters initiatives and restructuring efforts.
Newspaper articles did not typically meet the criteria because of the difficulty of
corroborating their sources. However, many articles did serve in triangulating data collection
efforts that resulted in first-hand data sources.
l6John M. Logsdon, ed. Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History o f the U.S. Civil Space
Program. Vol. I. Organizing fo r Exploration. NASA SP-4407 (Washington, D.C.: 1995).
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Using the Criteria for Qualitative Judgments
Two methods dominated the judgment process. The first was just stepping back and
looking at the volume of qualified data sets. Exemplifying the basis of this top-level judgment
were the hundreds of memos and meetings recorded during the Webb era with President
Kennedy and President Johnson on matters of NASA and space, compared to the far smaller
number of meetings Goldin had with the president on matters concerning NASA and space.
With some further analysis of the documents, a difference in decision-making preference
between the two administrators was apparent. In like manner, the abundance of information
available on Administrator Goldin’s meetings with senators and other congresspersons and other
NASA-centric interest groups clearly demonstrated his use of an alternative decision-making
preference. Further analysis showed that Administrator Webb’s interaction with members of the
Congress and other NASA-centric interest groups was far less than Goldin’s. These data
contributed, in part, to the finding that later confirmed Webb’s preference for the rational actor
model and Goldin’s preference for the bureaucratic politics model.
In some cases, the volume of the data under analysis was insufficient to determine
whether a relationship to the two decision-making models existed. When this occurred, a
content analysis of the information was conducted, and a qualitative assessment of the data was
made to determine whether they reflected a decision-making theme or model, message, or
strategy. If the assessment provided the basis forjudging whether the data applied to the rational
actor or bureaucratic politics models, the data were retained and citations were made to their
source and to the topic area and model they appeared to support.
An example of this appeared in the public speeches of Webb and Goldin. A speech by
Webb predominantly dealt with telling the public how NASA was going to achieve the objective
of its national mandate. Goldin’s speeches predominantly demonstrated the multidisciplinary
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abilities of NASA to meet Americans’ everyday needs. The classic differences in decision
making models stood out as Webb relied on a mandate and single-focused mission of national
importance while Goldin adopted the ubiquitous philosophy that NASA was somewhat broken
but now faster, better, and cheaper to fund and more relevant to improvements in everyday life.
Another test of the data was the process of implementing policies and high-level
decision making. When the volume and content of the data failed to yield anything of
significance, a process assessment was conducted. In this way, the data could be compared to
the organizing concepts of the models, and a qualitative judgment could be made as to which
model, if any, these data represented. The comparative science policies of Webb and Goldin are
examples. In the case of Webb, Webb and three close NASA executives privately constructed,
internally reviewed, and published a NASA science policy. The science policy of Goldin,
released in July 1995, was developed with a great deal of input from interest groups outside the
agency, reviewed internally by the science enterprises, and released to the general public for
comment before its official adoption. In the judgment of this analyst, these process data were
further evidence supporting the dissertation’s hypotheses.
A recognized shortfall of qualitative research is the need to provide a detailed audit
trail. To minimize the shortfall, this researcher took steps to make the research replicable
through good documentation. Replication is defined in this dissertation as the ability to repeat
the study and to make it possible to confirm or contradict the interpretations based on its data.
Each piece of data was catalogued by date, source, description, and notes (such as
model compatibility) and retained on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for reference during the
dissertation process. It did not seem practical to replicate all the spreadsheets, so where possible
I used easily accessible citations that are published in NASA-sponsored works. These works are
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listed in the bibliography; citations to the works referencing these data indicate their location in
NASA-published archives and to specific articles within the archives. All data used in this
dissertation are located in one central repository that is open to the public at the NASA
Headquarters Library, 300 E Street S.W., Washington, D.C.
A significant effort was made to cite from NASA’s published sources and to ensure that
these sources are publicly available. For example, the seven volumes of published archive
edited by John Logdson of the Space Policy Institute are superb reference sources in the public
domain. Because of the expert maintenance and excellent control of documentation at the
NASA historical archives and the Johnson Library and the oral histories at NASA, I am
confident that this study can be replicated and that its findings can be confirmed.
Limitations and Strengths of the Methodology
Several limitations to the methodology should be noted. Limitations can be identified
with respect the analyst making the findings, the dissertation’s qualitative approach, the use of
Allison’s decision-making models, and the lack of an examination of rival or disconfirming
explanations of the results.
The analyst’s conduct of the dissertation’s research had strengths and limitations. The
greatest strength was that I have long been a well-respected senior employee at NASA
headquarters. However, this closeness to the subject matter can also be viewed as a limitation.
While my analysis and conclusions are mine alone, as a single analyst, this limitation has been
offset by the reviews of the dissertation committee, by several colleagues in leadership positions
at NASA, and by my peers and experts outside NASA. In addition, I endeavored to synthesize
the perspectives of many NASA observers in my review of the NASA literature. Nevertheless,
an important next step would be to subject the results of my research to replication and to critical
review by other analysts of decision making and space policy.
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Another area of methodological limitation is related to approaches to qualitative, or
naturalistic, inquiry.1 7 Naturalists believe that an event must be studied in its own context before
it can be fully understood; they believe that “design” will emerge as they begin interaction with
the setting, and they will normally select a method (such as interviews, documentary analysis,
observation) that can accommodate and explicate realities that are multiple and conflicting and
that often are inherently incapable of aggregation.1 8 Arguments for and against naturalist inquiry
are many. A major limitation is external validity, or the ability to generalize from study
findings, as well as subjectivity. The research for this dissertation was confined in its
generalizations to the agency being studied, and it documents the elements of subjectivity that
constitute strengths and limitations. With respect to the latter, the theories of Schon and
Sherwood support the aim of this dissertation to demonstrate disciplined reflection on practice.1 9
A third limitation might be seen in the number and nature of ideal decision-making
models posed in the research hypotheses. That is, the dissertation tested the consistency of only
two of Allison’s three models with respect to decision making at NASA. Using two rather than
all three models, however, was also a strength. Allison’s organizational process model defines
the basic unit of analysis in government action as an organizational output. Actual occurrences
are organizational outputs, with existing organizational routines defining the limited range of
effective choice. A great need for structuring organizational outputs further narrows the
1 7 See, for example, E. G. Guba and Y. S. Lincoln, The Countenances o f Fourth Generation Evaluation:
Description, Judgement and Negotiation, paper presented at the meeting o f the Evaluation Network,
Toronto, Canada, October 1985.
l8Guba and Lincoln, Fourth Generation Evaluation (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publishing, 1989), p. 143.
1 9 Donald A. Schon, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (New York: Basic
Books, 1983).
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constraints on choice. Goals are defined in terms such as acceptable performance. The
aggregation of an organization is a summing up of standard operating procedures from lower
levels of power and access. Finally, the dominant inference pattern is limited flexibility and
incremental change.
My using this model, so defined, might have made my research more complete but it
would not have added substantively to the dissertation’s quality. As described above, the
organizational process model was most apropos to the program and project interactions that
required clear internal guidelines called standards operation procedures. A second factor in
dropping the organizational process model was its lack of continuity with either decade under
study. Allison described this model as a model having a dominant inference pattern with limited
flexibility and incremental change. In the era of Webb, as well as that of Goldin, limited
flexibility and incremental change were never considered to be a satisfactory source of decision
making. The periods studied in this dissertation describe turbulent times of change and
challenge to the country as a whole and, later, an agency negotiating a congressionally
dominated agenda. The poor fit and inconsistency with the periods of interest contributed
significantly to removing the organizational process model from consideration.
Finally, my research concentrated on testing two research hypotheses but excluded
consideration of rival or disconfirming ideal-type explanations. Competing explanations clearly
should be examined in future research. It is important also to note, however, that I examined
several ideal-type decision-making models in the early phases of this study and that this
examination is reflected in the creation of my two research hypotheses.
The contribution this dissertation makes is that it organizes and synthesizes a body of
practice that can be subjected to extensive reliability and validity testing by subsequent
researchers.
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The Structure of This Dissertation
Two history chapters following this one complete part I, “The Foundations.” Chapter 2
outlines NASA’s historical foundations, beginning with its basis in 1958 in the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, and presents chronologies of the administrators and
administrative structures in the 1960s and 1990s, the two decades analyzed in this dissertation.
Chapter 3 details the organization of NASA’s offices and their relationships in those pivotal
eras.
Part II, “The 1960s as the Decade of Transformation,” begins with chapter 4, which
describes NASA’s organization and reorganization under its first two administrators, Keith
Glennan and James Webb. Chapter 5 then presents the results of my research into NASA’s
actions as they related to strategic planning in the Apollo period. These two chapters provide
evidence of how the rational actor or classical model of decision making describes NASA’s
efforts to achieve the agency’s national goal.
Part III, “The 1990s as the Decade of the Institution,” consists of chapters 6-10, which
describe the dramatic changes in the agency’s political environment after the Space Shuttle
Challenger exploded, the Hubble space telescope’s flaws were revealed, and the Blue Ribbon
Commission results were issued. These changes fostered the need for a new agency leadership
model. These chapters provide evidence of how the governmental (bureaucratic) politics model
of decision making describes NASA’s efforts. The next two chapters are devoted to how the
changes at NASA in the 1990s pointed it in its current direction. Chapter 9 explains the
development of commercialization and the transfer of technology at NASA. Chapter 10 steps
back briefly to tabulate the space policies enunciated by President George Bush in 1989 and
President Bill Clinton in 1996 in order to set the stage for part IV, “Conclusions.”
In part IV, chapter 11, “Summary, Analysis, Observations and Conclusions,”
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brings together evidence from chapters 4-10, tests the hypotheses on the relationships between
the rational actor and bureaucratic politics models and NASA decision making, and summarizes
the conclusions of the research.
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Chapter 2
NASA’s Historical Foundations
Building NASA in the 1960’S
Manned Space Flight: 1958 and the Beginnings
NASA began operations officially on October 1, 1958, under the management of Dr. T.
Keith Glennan and Dr. Hugh L. Dryden. NASA absorbed programs, projects, personnel, and
installations from existing government organizations, most prominently the National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). After absorbing these activities, its earliest management
challenges were initiating large new programs in aeronautics and space and preparing for the
very large buildup of resources and people required for the development of a manned space
flight program.
NASA’s first official organization chart emanated from organizational proposals made
by the Ad Hoc Committee on NASA Organization, chaired by Ira Abbott, and an organizational
study performed by the consulting firm of McKinsey and Company, reporting to Glennan.
Between these two working groups, a total of eight organizations were proposed and discussed
before NASA’s first official organization was agreed to on January 29,1959.
The major structural components of NASA’s first organizational arrangement included
the position of an associate administrator to serve as the general manager of all internal
operations plus staff offices that included a general counsel as well as its first Office of Public
Information, Office of International Programs, Assistant Administrator for Congressional
Relations, and Office of Program Planning and Evaluation to conduct long-range planning. Two
other organizational components were created by the Space Act of 1958—the National
Aeronautics and Space Council and the Civilian-Military Liaison Committee.
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NASA had two program offices to start with—the Office of Aeronautical and Space
Research and the Office of Space Flight Development. The primary administrative and
functional office was the Office of Business Administration, which included not only budgeting,
accounting, and financial management but also personnel, procurement and supply, technical
information, security, and facilities management. A total of eight field installations, designated
either research or space project centers, reported through their program offices to the associate
administrator. In addition to inheriting the existing research activities of NACA, NASA
absorbed Project Vanguard from the Department of Defense (DOD), projects from the
Advanced Research Projects Agency, and all the nonmilitary activities of the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory.
Coordinating Flight Activities: The Developments
of 1959 and 1960
Four organizational changes were made to NASA’s initial organization chart in 1959,
in 1960 three more. Early in 1959, the staff office of the Inventions and Contributions Board
was added, along with the research advisory committees. A Program Coordination office was
added to the Office of Space Flight Development to coordinate and review various flight
activities. In December 1959, several program office changes were made. Instead of one
program office in the area of space flight, two program offices emerged—the Office of Space
Flight Programs and the Office of Launch Vehicle Programs. The Office of Aeronautical and
Space Research was changed to the Office of Advanced Research Programs. In addition, the
associate administrator or general manager position focused more on NASA’s program offices,
and the Office of Business Administration was clearly separated from the Office of the
Administrator. Plans also began for developing the Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA’s field
installations continued to report through the program offices to the associate administrator.
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In 1960, the Army Ballistic Missile Agency’s Development Operations Division was
transferred to NASA to become the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. The transfer
included the Launch Operations Directorate, which later became the John F. Kennedy Space
Center.
The Office of Life Sciences Programs was also created in 1960 to increase NASA’s
participation in basic biological, medical, and behavioral science research. In addition to these
changes, an Office for United Nations Conference was established on an ad hoc basis to support
the administrator and the deputy administrator’s participation in an international conference on
the peaceful uses of outer space. NASA contracted with McKinsey and Company to work with
the Advisory Committee in Organization in performing an organizational analysis. The report
that this study generated became known as the Kimpton Report, after the committee’s chairman,
Lawrence Kimpton. The study’s conclusions and recommendations contributed to the 1961
reorganization.
The Major Reorganizations of 1961
President John F. Kennedy announced the national goal of making a manned landing on
the moon before the end of the 1960s. James E. Webb became NASA’s second administrator,
and a number of significant organizational changes were made in 1961.
Three separate organization charts were created, one authorized by Glennan and two by
James Webb. The Glennan reorganization added responsibility for the Office of Program
Analysis and Control and the Office of Reliability and Systems Analysis to the associate
administrator. In addition, the associate administrator created an assistant administrator for
programs and another for resources. These changes were intended to strengthen the associate
administrator’s role in controlling NASA’s overall program. A new program office was also
created—the Office of Technical Information and Educational Programs—to provide a higher
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focus to the Space Act’s requirement that NASA “provide for the widest practicable and
appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities.” The functional Office of
Research Grants and Contracts was added to the Office of Business Administration.
Webb authorized two reorganizations in his first year as the agency’s administrator.
The first reorganization created the Office of Programs and renamed the Office of Business
Administration the Office of Administration. Both offices reported to the Office of the Associate
Administrator. The Office of Programs altered the relationship between the field centers and
headquarters. Rather than the field centers reporting through the program offices for both
program and institutional management, the field centers now reported and looked to NASA’s
general management or associate administrator for resources. While the field centers continued
to receive program direction from their program offices, they were no longer subordinate to the
program associate administrators. The Office of Programs had responsibility for integrating
NASA’s program planning, facilities coordination, management reporting, resources
programming, and project reviews. The renamed Office of Administration maintained its
functional responsibilities, but now it reported to the associate administrator rather than serving
as a staff office to the administrator.
Later, several major changes occurred during Webb’s second reorganization of 1963.
The agency’s four existing program offices—Advanced Research Programs, Launch Vehicle
Programs, Life Sciences Programs, and Space Flight Programs—were abolished and four new
program offices were established—Advanced Research and Technology, Applications, Manned
Space Flight, and Space Sciences. In addition, an agencywide support Office for Tracking and
Data Acquisition was created. The Office of Technical Information and Educational Programs,
which had reported to the associate administrator, was realigned with the Office of Public
Information and became the Office of Public Affairs, a staff office to the administrator. The
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Office of Research Grants and Contracts, previously located in the Office of Business
Administration, was placed in the Office of Space Sciences. The position of chief scientist
appeared for the first time and was also placed in this program office. The Office of
Congressional Relations became the Office of Legislative Affairs, and the secretariat function
was renamed the Office of the Executive Assistant.
Other developments in 1961 included the decision to build the Manned Spacecraft
Center in Houston, Texas. NASA also acquired an unused government manufacturing facility in
Michoud, Louisiana, and established a testing facility in Mississippi. Additionally, the agency
selected Cape Canaveral as its launch facility for manned space flight. With these acquisitions,
NASA now had plans for a manned spacecraft control center, as well as facilities for vehicle
preparation, engine testing, and launching.
Program and Field Office Organization:
1962 and 1963
Four deputy associate administrators were appointed in 1962. Two were responsible for
the field centers, which were divided into two distinct groups—manned and nonmanned space
flight. A deputy associate administrator for defense affairs was also appointed to improve
NASA’s overall relationship with DOD. The fourth deputy associate administrator managed
industry affairs. The Procurement Division was removed from the Office of Administration and
placed in the Industry Affairs Office. However, headquarters procurement remained in the
Office of Administration.
A larger reorganization effort in 1963 returned the institutional management and
control of the centers to the program offices. This arrangement was similar to the organizational
structure that had been established in 1961. Responsibility for both program and institutional
management of the field centers was placed in the program offices. The program office that field
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centers reported to was determined by the primary program activities the centers conducted.
Also, the Office of Applications was merged with the Office of Space Sciences, creating the
Office for Space Sciences and Applications. The title of the managers of these program offices
changed from director to associate administrator. However, the manager of the Tracking and
Data Acquisition Office remained director and served as a staff arm to the associate
administrator, with responsibility for coordinating these support activities with the program
associate administrators.
Two functions were added to the new position of deputy associate administrator for
industry affairs: the Reliability and Quality Assurance Division from the Office of Programs and
the Inventions and Contributions Board, transferred from its staff position to the administrator.
The Office of Programs was also renamed the Office of Programming. Several changes were
also made in the staff offices of the administrator. The Office of Program Planning and
Evaluation, in existence since 1958, was abolished. A Policy Planning Board consisting of
senior NASA officials from headquarters and the field centers was established. It received
assistance in planning and policy formulation from a new staff office—Technology Utilization
and Policy Planning. A new staff office was created as liaison with the Space Science Board of
the National Academy of Sciences. In addition, on November 29,1963, President Lyndon
Johnson signed an executive order renaming the facilities at Cape Canaveral the John F.
Kennedy Space Center. On December 20, 1963, Administrator Webb redesignated NASA’s
Launch Operations Center the John F. Kennedy Space Center, NASA.
Strengthening the Administrator: 1964-1966
The Office of the Administrator was created in 1964 with both an executive officer and
executive secretary to support greater activity by the administrator and his deputy in the
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agency’s daily operational affairs. In addition, a deputy associate administrator within the
Office of the Associate Administrator was created to handle procurement matters and liaison
activities with the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). In 1965, the administrator’s capacity
to oversee operational matters was enhanced by the addition of two staff offices—the Office of
Management Development and the Office of Policy Planning. The associate administrator and
his five deputy associate administrators now served a more supporting role in the administrator’s
management of the agency. The Inventions and Contributions Board became a staff arm of the
Office of Industry Affairs, and the head of the Office of Tracking and Data Acquisitions was
given associate administrator status.
The associate administrator, Dr. Robert Seamans Jr., was appointed Deputy
Administrator following the death of Dryden in 1965. The associate administrator position and
the general manager concept were replaced by a stronger Office of the Administrator, with an
associate deputy administrator and a deputy associate administrator to support him. As a result,
all the program and functional offices reported directly to the Office of the Administrator and,
with the exception of the general counsel, were managed by assistant administrators. Field
centers continued to report to their program offices for program direction and institutional
support. All offices that previously served as staff support to the associate administrator position
were now staff offices to the administrator. In addition, the Office of Tracking and Data
Acquisition was removed as a staff arm to the associate administrator and given full program
office status. The Office of Policy Planning was renamed the Office of Policy Analysis.
Recouping After Disaster: 1967 and 1968
The year 1967 was turbulent for the agency. NASA experienced budget reductions,
criticism of its personnel management by the Civil Service Commission, and a GAO
investigation of its support services contracting practices. The Gemini program was completed,
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34
but tragedy struck the beginning of the Apollo program. On January 27, the first three-man
Apollo crew died on the launch pad when a fire swept through the Apollo spacecraft. The Apollo
204 Review Board, chaired by Floyd Thompson, Director of Langley Research Center, failed to
pinpoint the exact source of ignition but did identify a number of engineering and design defects
in the spacecraft. In August 1967, the Congress established the Aerospace Safety Advisory
Panel to review safety studies and operations plans and to advise the administrator on the
hazards of proposed or existing facilities.
Numerous organizational changes were made in 1967 and 1968. One month before the
Apollo fire, a management task force that Harold Finger chaired was established to perform a
NASA organizational analysis. As a result of this study, an Office of Organization and
Management was formed and Finger was selected as its first associate administrator. A number
of the functional responsibilities once performed by staff offices to the administrator were
relocated to this new office—the offices of Administration, Industry Affairs, Special Contracts
Negotiation and Review, Technology Utilization, and University Affairs, each managed by an
assistant administrator. The Office of Administration was responsible for performing budgetary
and financial management activities, reviews, audits, and inspections; for administering
headquarters matters; and for providing an agencywide focus for resources management.
The administrator further reduced his direct span of control by placing the offices of
DOD and Interagency Affairs, International Affairs, Legislative Affairs, and Public Affairs
directly under the control of the associate deputy administrator. These offices were also
managed by assistant administrators. The general counsel and the Office of Management
Development remained as staff offices and were joined by a Personnel Management Review
Committee, the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, an Executive Secretariat, and an Office of
Special Assistants and Consultants. Liaison relationships with the National Academies for
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Sciences, Engineering, and Public Administration also appeared in the organizational structure.
Field centers continued to report to their program associate administrators.
Mission, Goals, and Vision in the 1990s
Richard H. Truly was appointed administrator in May 1989; in May 1991, he refocused
the agency away from project-specific support toward a broad-based, highly institutionalized
agency. The key to Truly’s reorganization lay not in the number of boxes on the chart
describing NASA’s key areas but in a two-tiered structure whose areas of prime importance
were led by associate administrators and where the agency’s support functions were led by
assistant administrators. This distinction was a significant change in the overall approach to
management within the corporate culture of NASA. Just coming into its own also was the Small
and Disadvantaged Business Utilization Office, led by Eugene Rosen. While Rosen was
considered the director of this office, its importance to him and the role it played in government
elevated it to a major office at NASA headquarters. Renewed attention was also paid to the
Office of Commercial Programs and the Office of Public Affairs because of NASA’s faltering
budget and a perceived lack of public support in the wake of problems with the Space Station
and Hubble space telescope mirror and the remaining scars from Challenger.
Daniel S. Goldin arrived on the scene in 1992, appointed by Vice President Dan Quayle
in the last years of the administration of President George Bush. Unique to Goldin was his
ability to enable NASA to survive change in the White House from Republican to Democratic
orientation. NASA changed rather dramatically under Goldin’s early tenure. In concert with the
national performance review, he enthusiastically reinvented NASA. Over approximately 2
years, there was a dramatic change in leadership philosophy and a wholesale replacement of
senior management. Total quality management, “continual improvement” methods, and the
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Government Performance and Results Act dominated Space Shuttle, Space Station, and science
missions.
The era of Goldin was more about “how” NASA did things than “what” NASA did.
Organizational changes were intended to reinvent NASA as an investment in America’s future.
NASA has attempted to become the good in every technological and space-related advance
America has made. While budgets have remained nearly flat, the application of funding to a
highly diverse set of missions has left agency missions to adopt a deficiency mindset of planning
requirements to the budget rather than the other way around.
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Chapter 3
The Evolution of NA SA ’s Organizational Structures
Overview
When NASA began, it incorporated functions of NACA, absorbing large programs in
aeronautics and space as well as resources and people required for developing the nation’s
manned space flight program. By 1991, the agency had been refocused away from project-
specific support to become a highly institutionalized two-tiered structure whose areas of prime
importance were led by associate and assistant administrators. Emphasis was now on offices
such as Commercial Programs, Public Affairs, and Small and Disadvantaged Business
Utilization, because of NASA’s faltering budget and a perceived lack of public support after
problems with the Space Station, Hubble telescope, and Challenger.
NASA has always been decentralized, its philosophy driven to giving field centers and
their project managers the greatest possible freedom to perform their work. This philosophy has
presented management with difficult issues of control, coordination, reporting, and
communication. How to balance relationships between program offices, field centers, and
institutional management has always been a challenge.
The relationship between functional and program offices, how best to organize the
agencywide management of programs and institutional and human resources, and how to plan
for the future are all organizational issues that every NASA administrator has faced, each
resolving them differently, depending on external and internal variables. While NASA has been
restructured nearly continuously throughout its history, its dynamic mission and the importance
of its work have created an environment of adapability critical to its success. The successes
NASA has achieved—and the nation’s significantly expanded aeronautics and space horizons—
attest to the effectiveness of the management philosophies and organizational arrangements that
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NASA’s administrators have chosen. The extent of NASA’s change can be compared in the
March 1958 and October 1991 organization charts in figures 3.1 and 3.2.
Figure 3.1: National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Organization, 1958
Committee on
Aircraft, Missile, and
Spacecraft
(Aerodynamics)
Industry Consulting
Committee
Subcommittees
Subcommittees Subcommittees Subcommittees
Assistant Director
for Research
(Aerodynamics)
Executive Officer
Special Committee
on Space
Technology
High-Speed Flight
Station
Edwards, CA
Assistant Director
for Research
(Propulsion)
Committee on
Aircraft Operating
Problems
Ames Aeronautical
Laboratory
Moffett Field, CA
Assistant Director for
Research
(Aircraft Construction)
Lewis Flight
Propulsion Laboratory
Cleveland, Ohio
Committee on Aircraft,
Missile, and
Spacecraft
(Construction)
Committee on Aircraft,
Missile, and
Spacecraft
(Propulsion)
Pilotless Aircraft
Research Station
Wallops Island, VA
Western Coordination
Office
Los Angeles, CA
Langley Aeronautical
Laboratory
Langley Field, VA
National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics
Hugh L. Dryden
Director
Director
Executive Secretary
Associate Director for
Research
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Liaison
Office
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio
Source: Director Hugh L. Dryden, March 3,1958.
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Figure 3.2: National Aeronautics and Space Administration Organization, 1991
Aerospace •
Advisory Panel f
NASA Advisory •
Council !
Ames Research
Center
Lyndon B.
Johnson Space
Langley
Research
Goddard
Exploration Public Affairs
Management
Systems &
Facilities
Equal
Opportunity
Programs
Human
Resources &
Education
Safety & Mission
Quality
Commercial
Programs
Chief Financial
Officer/
Comptroller
Procurement
Aeronautics &
Space
Technology
General Counsel Legislative Affairs
Space Science &
Applications
Space
Communications
Space Systems
Development
Space Flight
Inspector General
Small &
Disadvantaged
Business Utilization
Policy Coordination
& International
Relations
Administrator Richard H . Truly
Deputy Administrator
Associate & Assistant Deputy Administrators
Executive Officer
Flight Center
Jet Proplision
Laboratory
Center |
John F. Kennedy
Space Center
Center
Lewis Research
Center
Marshall Flight
Center i
John C. Stennis
Space Center
Source: Administrator Richard H. Truly, October 20,1991.
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An important objective has always been to structure a research and development organization
that fosters creativity in NASA’s human resource base. That is the focus of this chapter. In the
sections that follow, the history of NASA’s administrative structure is outlined, along with the
establishment of its program offices and their relationship to the field centers, the functional
offices, the staff offices, the planning and policy offices, and finally the institutional activities of
business administration and agency management.
Administrative Control: 1958-1965 and After
Under the Space Act of 1958, the administrator is “responsible for the exercise of all
powers and the discharge of all duties of the Administration, and shall have authority and
control over all personnel and activities thereof.” Two general trends emerged from the
consequent authority to personally direct all NASA’s activities. Hugh L. Dryden served as
deputy administrator from 1958 until his death in 1965, while T. Keith Glennan and James E.
Webb, the two administrators during that period, created an Office of the Associate
Administrator to direct internal management activities. The administrator and his depuy
formulated policy and represented the agency before the Congress, the White House, clientele
groups, and other organizations interested in NASA’s activities. The associate administrator
functioned much like a general manager, handling day-to-day operations.
Since 1965, the trend has been for the administrator to direct day-to-day operations
through associate deputy administrators and associate administrators, each managing
programmatic, institutional, functional, or administrative activities and reporting to the
administrator. In addition, the Office of the Administrator has increased its direction of the
agency’s daily operations through supporting staff offices such as External Relations, General
Counsel, Legislative Affairs, and Procurement. In addition to this formal structure, a number of
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management councils, internal advisory boards, planning groups, and ad hoc task forces have
been formed over the years to serve the administrator and his office.
The Policy Review Committee (formerly the NASA Council) is one of the most
important of these groups. As currently formed, the Policy Review Committee provides for the
coordination and integration of agencywide management policy. Chaired by the administrator
and meeting twice a month, the committee includes the deputy administrator, associate deputy
administrator, associate administrators, comptroller, and chief scientist. The administrator also
uses a number of advisory committees under the auspices of the NASA Advisory Council to
discuss and reach decisions regarding a variety of programmatic and policy issues.
Program Office Adaptability
The program offices, located at headquarters, have operational responsibility for
planning, developing, and managing the programs that have enabled the agency to achieve its
aeronautic and space goals. These goals, arising from NASA’s unique government, industry,
and university team concept, have changed constantly because of changes in technology. In
large measure, NASA could not have achieved its scientific and technical successes without the
ability the program offices and their structures have had to adapt smoothly and efficiently to
change throughout the agency’s history.
Structural change in the program offices has been required as the scope and content of
specific program objectives have been redefined, national priorities have shifted, and new
technologies have emerged. In general, organizational change has focused on the merging of
program offices, the subdivision of a single program office, the creation of an entirely new
program, the transfer of project responsibility from one program office to another, or the
removal or addition of institutional management responsibility.
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Programs associated with manned space flight have been among the most dynamic. In
1961, the Office of Space Flight Development was renamed the Office of Manned Space Flight
and restructured by absorbing the Office of Launch Vehicle Programs, reflecting the increased
emphasis and pressure for a manned landing on the moon. By 1978, this mission having been
long completed, the development of the Space Shuttle became the agency’s top priority, and the
Office of Manned Space Flight was renamed the Office of Space Transportation Systems. In
1980, this office was divided into the Office of Space Transportation Systems and Office of
Space Transportation Operations. In 1982, at the end of the shuttle’s developmental flights and
the beginning of initial operations, the two offices were consolidated.
The Office of Space Science and the Office of Space and Terrestrial Applications have
also seen frequent structural change. They have used similar technology and, depending on
NASA’s program goals, priorities, and resources, have merged and separated frequently—
merging in 1964, separating in 1972, and being consolidated in 1982 as a result of program
reductions. The Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology and the Office of Tracking and
Data Acquisition have also been internally reorganized several times to accommodate emerging
technologies and changing agency needs. In 1984, the Office for Space Station was newly
created.
Although individual program offices have changed considerably in their organization
(and managers’ titles in these program offices were changed in 1963 from director to associate
administrator), the agency’s basic programmatic profile has remained relatively stable. Its
mission has consistently focused on four or five program offices. NASA’s original program
offices were the Office of Space Flight Development and the Office of Aeronautical and Space
Research. By 1960, the Office of Launch Vehicle Programs and the Office of Life Sciences
were added. With these two additions and the elevation of the tracking and data acquisition
function to program office status in 1965, the agency has carried out its mission within
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approximately the same programmatic framework and with the same effectiveness in
performing its technically complex missions.
Program Offices and Their Relationship
to Field Centers
Field centers perform the research, development, testing, and execution of NASA’s
aeronautics and astronautics projects. They also provide valuable information for planning new
projects, and they are the key resource for defining a project’s technical content, risks,
schedules, costs, and performance standards. One of NASA’s continuing challenges is how to
shape the organization so that the field centers have the institutional management, resources,
and freedom to perform the agency’s programs without becoming too independent and
separated from the agency’s priorities and goals. Coordinating field centers, the field and
headquarters offices, and program and institutional management has always been critical to the
agency’s success.
In the past, coordination has been sought through a variety of structural relationships.
The most common arrangement has had the field centers reporting to the administrator, an
associate administrator acting as a general manager, or deputy associate administrators in the
program offices for whose projects they are primarily responsible. In some cases, field centers
have reported to two headquarters levels—a program office on programmatic issues and an
office for agencywide management on institutional questions and resources. At times, field
centers have reported directly to an Office of Programs serving as a staff arm of the
administrator. In some cases, they have reported directly to the administrator.
A number of organizational and environmental conditions govern the selection of
structural options. One is the degree to which a field center’s project activities can be identified
with a single program office. When a field center has engaged in projects that are closely
aligned with one program office, it is easier and often more logical for that center to report
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solely to the program office for both institutional and programmatic leadership. For example,
during NASA’s Apollo program, the three flight centers were deemed to be more effectively
supervised by the Office of Manned Space Flight because their primary focus was on manned
space flight activities. However, when field centers have projects that are associated with more
than one program office, direct supervision and control by one program office may cause
confusion, particularly when the priorities of one project are balanced against those of another.
Direct supervision by one program office over a field center with multiple project and
program responsibilities has been achieved by having the field center report to the program
office for which it performs the bulk of its program responsibilities. In general, field centers
have been able to trace a large share of their activities to a single headquarters program office,
despite having multiple program responsibilities. Careful coordination and communication
between program offices that use a center’s resources have reduced confusion and logistical
problems.
At times, however, NASA management has enhanced the field centers’ ability to
interact with top headquarters management and has encouraged their creative freedom by
having them report directly to an institutional office, center operations group, or even the
administrator. While the program offices have continued to supply a program’s general
planning, management, and support under this arrangement, the field centers have reported to
another headquarters office for institutional leadership and resources. Resolving the issue of
who the field centers report to at headquarters has always focused on how to most effectively
support the agency’s field installations—the key to fulfilling NASA’s mission and goals.
The Balance Between Program Offices
and Functional Offices
Functional offices provide coordination, assistance, and management direction over
specific tasks and activities across the agency, such as procurement, personnel, or facilities.
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NASA field center personnel performing functional activities receive direction from the
headquarters functional office and the program office or field center organization in which they
work. How properly to balance this matrix arrangement, dual reporting requirements, and levels
of authority and influence appropriate for functional managers over program and project
management has also been an important issue in the agency’s reorganization efforts.
NASA’s philosophy has been to give the program and project managers as much
autonomy and decisionmaking authority as possible. Under this philosophy, balancing
relationships between the functional office specialists, generally located outside the reporting
relationships of program and project managers, and headquarters program offices has always
been critical. A balanced matrix structure would enable NASA’s program and project managers
to control their particular programmatic effort with considerable freedom while providing the
functional offices sufficient authority to coordinate and manage their functional counterparts at
the program and project levels. However, a matrix structure is generally more complex to
manage than a simple hierarchical structure. It creates dual reporting lines and overlapping
authority between program and functional offices, and it can cause confusion.
Too much authority in the functional offices might reduce the essential technical
freedom and flexibility of the program and project managers. Too little authority might
jeopardize the success of a program or project. For example, safety is one functional area that, if
left unattended, could reduce a program’s effectiveness or, more seriously, cause loss of life.
The facilities function is another critical activity in a center’s ability to perform its mission or to
conduct future projects.
NASA’s reorganizations have been sensitive to these issues. Throughout the years, it
has been considered more effective to place the majority of the functional activities under an
Office of Administration, Management, or Business Administration. However, some functional
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activities, such as procurement or equal opportunity, have been considered more sensitive and
have generally served the administrator directly in a staff role.
The Evolution of Staff Offices
Staff offices directly support the administrator and his deputy in an administrative or
nonprogrammatic area. The staff offices that have continuously supported the administrator
have been responsible for maintaining relationships with organizations outside the agency—the
General Counsel’s office, the Office of Legislative Affairs, and the Office of External Relations.
At times in the agency’s history, disseminating NASA’s scientific and technical information has
been managed at a similar level. Other offices playing a consistent staff role are financial
management, audit and investigations, and others engaged in external relations with DOD, the
international community, or the agency’s industrial clientele.
Each NASA administrator has arranged these staff functions differently, depending on
individual executive need. During NASA’s early history, the administrator’s staff consisted
largely of offices that dealt with legal and external affairs. During that period, budgetary,
financial, and resource activities were grouped under an office of business administration that
reported directly to the associate administrator, the agency’s early general manager. From 1967
to 1974, most staff offices did not report directly to the administrator; they reported through an
associate deputy administrator, an associate administrator for organization and management, or
a deputy associate administrator. Over the years, the requirements for staff offices have
changed, depending on the level and type of activities the administrator has expected. For
example, in 1984, the Office of Commercial Programs was created to encourage the commercial
use of space by expanding opportunities for U.S. private sector investment in civil space and
space-related activities; also, a Productivity Office was formed to establish NASA as a leader in
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developing and applying advanced technology and management practices that contribute to
significant increases in both agency and national productivity.
The Planning and Policy Offices
When NASA was established in 1958, an Office of Program Planning and Evaluation
reported to the associate administrator. Later, this office served as a staff office to the
administrator. At first, the policy and planning functions were more visible and formally
structured; for example, in the early 1960s, NASA worked within a formal long-range planning
process, but it soon discarded this as a resources management tool. The original Office of
Program Planning and Evaluation was abolished in 1963 and relocated under an Assistant
Administrator for Technology Utilization and Policy Planning. With this reorganization,
planning was principally performed by a Policy Planning Board of senior NASA officials from
headquarters and field centers, with the board reporting to the administrator and deputy
administrator. The board was assisted by the Technology Utilization and Policy Planning group.
In 1964 and 1965, NASA used a Future Programs Task Group in addition to special studies and
planning groups that functioned within the Manned Space Flight and Space Science
Applications programs. In 1983, because of the emerging international policy effect of NASA
programs, an Office of Associate Administrator for Policy was established.
While some administrators have had central planning groups to provide an integrated
planning and policy focus, a great deal of agency planning has originated at the field centers and
within the program offices. Advanced planning groups have existed at the program level
throughout the agency’s history. NASA’s decentralized organization has not generally lent
itself to integrated planning, but various groups have formally existed to fulfill this role and to
support the administrator and his deputy. In 1968, the Planning Steering Group and Planning
Coordination Steering Group provided such integration. Between 1970 and 1972, when Dr.
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Wemher von Braun was Deputy Associate Administrator for Planning, there existed the Office
of Analysis and Evaluation, the Office of Long Range Plans, the Office of Plans Integration,
and the Office of Policy. By 1974, this formality and centralization had been replaced, and
planning once again took place within advisory groups, management councils, and programs.
The nature of the technology base that NASA has developed and used, and the
complexity of its research and engineering efforts, have created an environment in which its
planning efforts have often predicted the state of the art at a particular time in a program’s
history. In NASA’s history, long-range plans have been developed by offices created
specifically for this purpose, while intermediate and shorter-range planning have been
accomplished more through the budget preparation process or within program review and
management activities. In support of these nearly continuous efforts, the agency has used the
knowledge and skills of outside groups, the university community, and numerous study
committees, task forces, and advisory panels to provide counsel on the agency’s purpose,
direction, and goals.
From Office of Business Administration
to Office of Management
The Office of Business Administration was created in 1958 to perform primary
financial management activities such as accounting and budgeting. With a status equal to the
agency’s program offices, it carried out a number of functional tasks such as procurement,
personnel, security, and safety, reporting to the associate administrator. At one time or another,
the Office of Business Administration has included most of NASA’s functional activities. In
1958, it even included an Office of Programs, although this function was relocated in 1961 to a
staff group of the associate administrator with responsibility for management reporting,
resources programming, project review, and facilities coordination. Until 1974, when the
agency’s budgetary and financial management responsibilities were placed in the comptroller’s
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49
office, the Office of Business Administration and the subsequent Office of Administration
performed a much larger institutional role than the traditional tasks associated with preparing
and managing the budget.
In 1961, the Office of Business Administration was renamed the Office of
Administration, reporting directly to the associate administrator, to perform functional tasks
such as administrative services, procurement, supply, security, inspections, personnel, and
management analyses. In 1967, the office was relocated to the newly formed Office of
Organization and Management with responsibility for integrating an agencywide system of
resources management and budgeting.
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Part II. The 1960s as the Decade of Transformation
Chapter 4
Building the NASA Organization of the 1960s
NASA’s internal administrative history is much more difficult to write about than its
external affairs are. Bureaus rose and fell. The functions of one office were often parceled out
among several, and the functions of several offices were sometimes lodged in one. Bureaus with
imposing titles sometimes had little real power, while others with little formal authority had
much say in how management decisions were made and carried out. Furthermore, the larger
NASA has become over the years and the greater its rate of change, the more complex internal
relations have become, with more opportunity for jurisdictional conflict and a greater need for
specialized units to prepare and enforce agencywide rules. A final reason for the complexity of
NASA’s internal history is that many agency practices have been worked out through informal,
unwritten understandings. Such unwritten agreements might have appeared because of a
tendency for institutional reality to outrun its formal documentation or because officials
preferred that certain relationships not be formalized, for fear that it might prove impossible to
draft a management statement acceptable to everyone.
These features of the complexity of jurisdictions, the network of informal relationships,
the shifting of functions between offices, and the blurring of lines of authority highlight the
problem of explaining NASA’s management. A logical way to begin is with an account of
headquarters organization in general and of “top management” in particular—that is, with the
three or four positions at the top. This approach is attractive because top management was the
only group who could represent the entire agency to the outside world, particularly during
NASA’s early history. NASA’s decentralized structure is best understood as a series of
delegations of authority from top management to the program offices and from headquarters to
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the field centers. The major reorganizations of the 1960s, while they affected all NASA, began
as changes at headquarters in its relationships with the field installations.
In this chapter, headquarters administration is analyzed primarily as it changed from
the beginning of 1961, while James E. Webb was administrator, to his resignation in October
1968. There follows a summary account of the problems confronting management in organizing
headquarters functions and the cycles of reorganization of the 1960s. Why they occurred and
what they affected are discussed. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the functions that
top management performed. To set the background, however, the chapter starts with NASA’s
formation and its initial organization under T. Keith Glennan, its first administrator from August
19, 1958, until January 18, 1961.
NACA to NASA: October 1958 to January 1961
The Formation of NASA
To understand NASA, it is necessary grasp the role and nature of the National
Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. From as early as 1915, NACA had been the agency
responsible for the research and development of aeronautics. From the earliest development of
U.S. aeronautics, the nation had been committed to fostering the growth of the airplane in
commercial and military applications. Through industry and government partnerships, federal
aviation employees worked with industry employees to build and mentor the fledgling aircraft
industry. NACA and industry jointly directed the development of wind tunnels, government
research and development facilities, and test ranges. NACA led the much awaited consumer
market for aeronautics services.
Organizationally, NACA was structured as a consultative committee. Its executive
levels of management were composed of five committees and four subcommittees. The single
implementation link was through the executive secretary for research, a position that interfaced
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with all the national aeronautics laboratories. The organization of NACA in 1958 (as reflected in
figure 3.1 on page 38) is reminiscent of the way the committees of the Congress were formed.
NACA’s choice of closely emulating the federal method of governance was adopted also by
several other organizations of the early 1900s. The committee structure ensured the use of
consensus rather than direction to reflect decisions that were national in scope.
When NASA began its official existence on October 1, 1958, Administrator Glennan
and his deputy, former NACA Director Hugh L. Dryden, faced the problem of pulling together
the programs inherited from NACA and those to be transferred from DOD. The new
organization reflected the new dimensions of space and science in addition to its traditional role
as the agency directing aeronautics research. Significant changes took shape in NASA under
Glennan, changes that directly reflected President Dwight Eisenhower’s moderate philosophy
toward government actions and bureaucracy. It is evident in the biographies and papers in the
NASA archives that Eisenhower and Glennan shared the same philosophical themes and that
these were reflected in NASA’s formation and in the implementation of its programs.
Dryden had at first seemed to be the logical choice to head the agency. Before coming
to NACA in 1947, he led notable efforts in aeronautical research at the National Bureau of
Standards, where he rose to deputy director. At NACA, as later at NASA, Dryden had earned
almost as much respect for his ability as an administrator as he had earlier for his research on
aeronautical research in boundary-layer air flow. He was not the detail-centric manager in the
sense that Glennan and Webb were. As one colleague remarked,
he really wasn’t the guy to bang away morning, noon, and night on keeping
programs and projects going on schedule and within funds and that kind of
thing. What he was, rather, was a man with very good judgment on what
objectives we ought to have in NASA, on what relationships were really
important. He had a very good understanding of how things got done or might
get snarled up in the Government.1
1 J. D. Hunley, ed., The Birth o f NASA: The Diary ofT. Keith Glennan, NASA history series SP-4105
(Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993), ch. 1.
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Yet the same firmness, methodical approach, and caution that those who knew him well were
not likely to appeal to the Congress. Dryden was considered unacceptable as the next NASA
administrator, primarily because of remarks he had made about setting the pace of the space
program that seemed to imply a lack of aggressiveness.
Glennan’s combination of experience and political loyalties made him acceptable. He
was an engineer, not a scientist. Before World War II, he had worked as a sound system
engineer in the motion picture industry, and during the war he had been in charge of the Navy’s
Underwater Sound Laboratories. His Republican politics made him acceptable to the White
House, while his great success in making the Case Institute of Technology, of which he was
president, a leading technical institute, and his experience as a member of the Atomic Energy
Commission, the Institute for Defense Analyses, and the National Science Foundation
confirmed that he understood the problems of managing a science-based agency.
Early Leadership
Glennan and Dryden between them had the mixture of scientific and administrative
experience to preside over the transition from an agency doing most of its work in-house to one
expected to contract out for most of its research and development. Nevertheless, the transition
proved so difficult that it was not completely effected until the end of 1963. The many
interrelated problems they faced in 1958 and 1959 included (1) planning for an extended period
of growth in funding and manpower, not as though these were grafted onto a preexisting agency
but as the foundation for a national space program, and (2) maintaining a proper
balance between in-house and contractor capabilities, since in-house work would be necessary
both to attract and retain the most talented scientists and to keep them available to furnish
management with objective technical advice, or at least technical advice not biased in favor of
the corporations NASA might do business with. They had to (1) develop and update a
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long-range plan that could justify the agency’s programs internally and to the Congress, (2)
refine the systems management reporting techniques used in developing Polaris and Atlas and
transfer them to the fabrication of civil launch vehicles and spacecraft, (3) strike a balance
between headquarters and centers that would be neither too rigidly structured nor too
decentralized, and (4) run the agency day by day. Their work was further complicated by the
way in which any one problem impinged on all the others. For example, perfecting management
reporting systems depended on authorizing projects ambitious enough and complex enough to
justify their use.
The problem of headquarters organization logically preceded the resolution of the other
major problems for three reasons. First, Glennan and Dryden had to decide which functions to
reserve for themselves and which to delegate to the centers. Second, they needed expert staff to
assist them in formulating policy. Third, they acted as if agencywide functions like procurement
and financial management were best handled by central offices. While the Space Act had not
written them a blank check, it had given the administrator considerable freedom to decide
NASA’s organizations. Starting from scratch, Glennan had more reason than his successor to
turn to outside consultants and committees to study management problems. It was not that he
actually hired more consultants than Webb, who sometimes seemed to have many hundreds of
special consultants and advisers. Rather, Glennan specifically used them to set up the entire
headquarters structure.
At a time when NASA was tending toward something very different from what its
predecessor had been, the last thing Glennan needed was an internal task force that would
recommend establishing an agency modeled on NACA. For this reason, Glennan hired a
consulting firm, McKinsey and Company, as early as October 1958 to help him organize
headquarters functions and, again, in 1960 to study contracting systems and provide staff for the
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Advisory Committee on Organization.2 Glennan’s choosing outside experts was also influenced
by the lack of NASA personnel skilled in management analysis and by his knowledge of the
potential advantages of forming ad hoc study committees whenever substantial changes had to
be made. A committee legitimized open discussion of the fact that a problem did exist, created
an arena for bargaining, and served as a conduit for ideas and policy suggestions.
The specific advantage of a committee external to the agency was that members could
raise issues and suggest improvements without fear of jeopardizing their positions. The danger
did exist, however, that such committees would simply rubber stamp decisions; that in searching
for consensus, the members would rub away sharp differences, leaving only smooth agreement;
and that by being outside the organization, they had no real stake in whatever conclusions they
might reach. The committees Glennan appointed certainly did justify decisions already made—
that is, they rationalized Glennan’s intuitive ideas. This may well have been their principal
contribution and the reason why Glennan made such extensive use of them.
Early in Glennan’s tenure, he tackled a problem inherent in the administration of an
organization like NASA. To make the best use of his time as head of an agency that was about
to expand greatly, Glennan had to subdivide the duties of management. To Dryden fell the
responsibility of dealing with the universities and the national and international scientific
communities, while Glennan attended to matters of planning, budgeting, and interagency
coordination that affected the totality of NASA. In Glennan’s first year as administrator, he put
forward the notion of a general manager to handle agency routine (somewhat along the lines of
the administrator of the Atomic Energy Commission), freeing himself and Dryden to formulate
policy and conduct external relations. Having carried his point in the teeth of considerable
opposition, Glennan named Richard Homer, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research
and Development, as associate administrator in April 1959. This office came to have
2 Hunley, The Birth o f NASA,.
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fundamental importance in the development of NASA’s policy: The organizational history of
the next decade can to a degree be charted by the extent of the associate administrator’s program
planning, monitoring the centers, and, through his management of daily operations, freeing the
administrator for long-range planning.
The essential problem in establishing the position of associate administrator was that it
set up a layer between the line organization and the two top officials. A conflict of roles was
unavoidable, given that the organization antedated the office:
The top program and administrative directors .. . were powerful individuals in
their own right. All were on the scene several months before the position of
Associate Administrator was filled . . . the former NACA laboratories had had
a history of partial autonomy and resistance to central controls.3
To prevent the laboratories and program offices from breaking off and becoming autonomous,
certain changes were called for. For example, the associate administrator’s office needed staff
to enable him to pull the agency’s programs together, especially in submitting the annual budget
requirements as a standard procedure for authorizing specific programs, updating these
authorizations, and integrating them with the long-range plan. And a procedure was needed for
bringing program managers face to face with top management so that they could discuss areas
that concerned both groups. None of these had been fully achieved before 1961.
Glennan tried a compromise among his powerful laboratory directors by establishing a
platform for their executives’ agencywide communication. The most powerful of the platforms
took the form of a semi-annual management conference, held usually at one of the centers;
biweekly meetings chaired by the associate administrator and attended by officials from the
major program development offices; and a Space Exploration Program Council attended by
high-level officials that served as a kind of agency super council. All these reviews and
committees represented steps in the right direction, but none went very far. Their effectiveness
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was directly proportional to the frequency with which they met, the precision with which an
agenda could be prepared, and the authority that those attending could exert in enforcing
whatever decisions were reached. Where meetings were infrequent and where problems were so
general and broad that nothing emerged beyond a vague sense of the meeting, little of
consequence resulted. This was largely the case with the semi-annual conferences and the
Space Exploration Program Council.
Setting Up Operations
Program authorization was yet another problem that took several years to work out.
Before 1961,
some projects had been approved verbally only, some had been in the budget
but no formal approval action could be found, some were contracts implying a
type of formal approval, some were commitments made in letters to outside
organizations, some had appeared in a variety of places . . . and could be
presumed to have been approved.4
One early problem NASA faced was the lack of a standard project approval procedure, which is
attributable in part to the number and variety of programs inherited or started up. They ranged in
size from the development of the F-l engine for the Saturn rocket to the small-scale Explorer
spacecraft. No one procedure covered them all. Developing a standard authorization procedure
presupposed agreement on official definitions of “program,” “project,” and “systems
integration.” NASA also had to recruit a staff able to match programs against budgets and to
extrapolate future programs from present resources. To formalize a sound management and
budgeting process, it was essential that NASA adopt or develop data processing systems to track
resources from their appropriations by the Congress to program completion.
3 Robert L. Rosholt, An Administrative History o f NASA, 1958-1963, NASA SP-4101 (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1966), p. 148.
4 Rosholt, An Administrative History o f NASA, p. 164.
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While there had to be standardized procedures for promulgating management
directives, few procedures were more useful for establishing a headquarters organization than
the development of a NASA Management Manual that would distinguish between ad hoc
circulars, directives that stated general policy, handbooks of detailed procedure, and instructions
intended as standard descriptions of powers and authorities for the time being. (The extent to
which the manual actually made policy or lagged behind is discussed separately.) Ultimately,
the success with which NASA created a uniform authorization procedure would depend on
having a single official, a final point of contact, responsible for approving project plans. That
official was the associate administrator, the key figure around whom all agency programs would
ultimately turn in a period when the rational actor paradigm was dominant.
Glennan and Dryden worked quickly and effectively to build an agency able to handle
large, complex programs. By the summer of 1960, NASA had acquired many of the people and
facilities that would prove indispensable to a greatly expanded mission a year later. In the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, NASA had a research installation superbly equipped to design and track
deep-space and lunar probes such as the Ranger and Surveyor series. In the George C. Marshall
Flight Center, it had a team with a long in-house tradition and competence in developing large
launch vehicles. In the Naval Research Laboratory were scientists who formed the nucleus of
the space science program, a pool of capabilities with few rivals in other government
laboratories. Finally, in the Space Task Group, located at Langley but an autonomous
subdivision of Goddard, was the core of what would become in 1962 the Manned Spacecraft
Center in Houston. In fact, by the end of 1960 almost all NASA’s programs for the next decade
had either begun or were under study.
The failure of Glennan and Dryden to go still further in establishing a stronger
headquarters organization was only partly administrative; it was political as well. Glennan,
appointed well into President Eisenhower’s second term, had taken a leave of absence from the
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Case Institute of Technology. He had neither the authority nor the inclination to lock his
successor into organizational arrangements established in NASA’s formative period. Moreover,
he had to contend with the uncertainties of a national space program at a time when no manned
space flight projects had been approved beyond Mercury. The overlapping mission areas of
NASA and the Air Force had yet to be clarified, and the mechanism for placing and supervising
large research and development contracts still had to be worked out. Until NASA’s mission in
space had been enunciated, there was only so much that Glennan could do to mold the
organization at headquarters.
Nevertheless, Glennan had established the associate administrator as the agency’s
general manager for day-to-day operations. He set up an Office of Plans and Program
Evaluation to prepare and revise an official 10-year plan. Issued as one of his last official acts, it
was a management instruction that provided a uniform mode of project authorization and
established an Office of Launch Vehicle Programs that separated the fabrication of launch
vehicles from their ultimate use. Finally, in March 1960 he appointed an Advisory Committee
on Organization to evaluate NASA on the assumption that “the opportunity to make
comprehensive changes in NASA’s organization and procedures would not exist too much
longer.”
Chaired by Lawrence Kimpton, former chancellor of the University of Chicago, the
Advisory Committee on Organization consisted of corporate and foundation executives, men of
Glennan’s type. This fact almost automatically deprived the committee of any influence in
NASA below the highest level. The Kimpton committee’s conclusions were mundane, and that
its report had few original ideas was not surprising. Perhaps the lesson of the Kimpton
committee was that the problems it was invited to address—the proportion of work that should
be done in-house, the functions of the associate administrator, the responsibilities of
headquarters staff for monitoring the centers—went too deep to be disposed of on the basis of
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an ad hoc committee’s recommendations. Significant structural changes would be determined by
the content of NASA programs, which in mm would be determined from the outside, by the
executive branch and the Congress.
NASA Under Webb: 1961-1963
During the months following John F. Kennedy’s election, Glennan received no
communication from the president-elect or his staff. This disturbed Glennan because he viewed
the continuity of NASA’s leadership as a matter of major importance. In the months before the
election, he had gone to great lengths to prepare NASA for the transition. Nevertheless, when
Glennan left Washington, on the day President Kennedy was inaugurated, the nature, scope, and
even future of NASA’s mission were in doubt.
Kennedy’s appointment of Webb to succeed Glennan on February 7, 1961, did not
resolve these questions. While the president’s advisers had recommended that he name a
scientist to head NASA, Kennedy had wanted someone with experience in the political culture
of Washington, someone who could handle the Congress, the Bureau of the Budget, and the
elements in DOD that wanted NASA to be essentially a supporting agency for the Air Force. As
former director of the Bureau of the Budget and as under secretary of State, Webb had the
experience, the energy, and the desire for the job.
Webb embodied Allison’s rational actor decision-making model. On being offered the
job, Webb demanded the authority to run the agency as he saw fit while not altering everything
at once. Fie insisted that Dryden remain as deputy administrator and that both Dryden and
Associate Administrator Robert C. Seamans Jr., who had succeeded Richard Homer in
September 1960, serve with him as multiple executives, making the most important decisions
together and otherwise working in the spheres for which each was best qualified. This
arrangement lasted until Dryden’s death in December 1965. Administrator Webb represented
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NASA to other agencies, to the Congress, and to the White House; Dryden kept open the lines
of communication to the international scientific community and to the National Academy of
Sciences, of which he was home secretary. Seamans, as a general manager, prescribed internal
policy, served as co-chairman of the Aeronautics and Astronautics Coordinating Board, and
until 1967 was the official to whom most of the so-called functional offices reported.
Very soon after Webb’s appointment was confirmed, it became apparent within NASA
that headquarters structure, especially as it pertained to the centers, would have to be changed.
As an outsider, Webb had no stake in any existing arrangements. Like his predecessor, he could
have decided to call in an outside group to evaluate NASA as a whole. Instead, he began by
working with a very small group of insiders, none of whom had been part of NACA—Director
of Business Administration Albert Siepert, who had come to NASA from the National Institutes
of Health; Alfred Hodgson, Siepert’s special assistant; and Jack Young, who had earlier been
involved in the McKinsey studies of NASA before becoming Deputy Director of the Office of
Administration. Without any management instruction or directive, the settled practice became,
in Siepert’s words, to reserve to NASA officials rather than to outside consultants the
continuous study of NASA’s management policies. Appearing before a House committee in
1962, Webb explained that one of the Kimpton Report's conclusions had been that “NASA has
reached a period of maturity in its young life where it should definitely strengthen its
management analysis staff. It ought to be able to appraise with its own in-house competence
most of the operating problems as they develop.”5 This shift, before the major changes that it
helped effect, remained standard procedure during the next 7 years.
The Procedural Changes of 1961
5 James Webb, NASA, and Robert McNamara, Secretary o f Defense, memorandum to the Vice President,
May 1961, “Recommendations for Our National Space Program: Changes, Policies, and Goals,” NASA
Historical Archive, Washington, D.C.
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Between February and August 1961, the Webb team carefully laid the ground for the
October reorganization in a series of staff papers that set forth available options. The campaign
of self-evaluation, which began with a “Summary Look” in February, made the transition to an
April 14 staff study (on the eve of the lunar landing decision) and culminated in a June 12 paper,
“Reappraising NASA’s Organizational Structure to Achieve the Objectives of an Accelerated
Program.” Each paper represented an advance toward the eventual solution. Whereas the
February paper analyzed problems and listed alternatives without recommendations, the
subsequent papers began by recommending procedural changes to the way in which decisions
were implemented—as a means of making substantive decisions.
Undoubtedly the most important procedural change was the establishment in June 1961
of a “programming” office as a staff arm of the associate administrator, charged with
management reporting, budget preparation, and preparation of budgetary guidelines for the
program offices. Its loyalty was to the associate administrator rather than to any program or
group of programs or program offices or to any combination of field installations. The
responsibilities of the new Office of Programs were agencywide; its staff, several of whom were
recruited from Abe Silverstein’s Office of Space Flight Programs, were charged with checking
the tendency of any single headquarters bureau to become semi-autonomous or to grow at the
expense of the others. DeMarquis Wyatt, the head of the Office of Programs, had worked for
many years at NASA’s Lewis Research Center before coming to NASA’s headquarters in
Washington but had most recently been in charge of program planning and coordination in
Silverstein’s office. Wyatt was quick to grasp the possibilities of the new office—namely, that
there had to be some single person or office to ensure that “on-going actions, new actions, and
future plans were fitted into an identifiable work plan.” The basic premise of the office was that
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“a simultaneous technical and fiscal evaluation must be made of plans and actions in order to
best accomplish the objectives of the program.”6
Wyatt’s office became the bureau where all NASA planning converged, and its four
divisions—Facilities Coordination, which oversaw all NASA construction; Management
Reporting, which supplied data for scheduling and reporting to all levels of management;
Project Review, which evaluated requests for new projects or changes in old ones; and
Resources Programming, which prepared the data for NASA’s budget—provided the staff
services that Seamans needed as the agency’s general manager. A danger was that the new
office might become something more than a staff arm, injecting itself between the program
directors and the administrator. This seldom happened, however. For several years, the Office of
Programs served principally to expedite decisions reached at the program office level.
Following organizational changes in 1967, the Office of Programs (under a different name)
surrendered its budgetary functions to prepare studies on which long-range planning was
intended to be based.
The Substantive Changes of 1961 and Why They Failed
A full-scale reorganization of headquarters announced on November 1, 1961, was both
procedural and substantive. That is, it prescribed what the program offices were to do as well as
how they were to do it. The principal change, under which the center directors were to report to
the associate administrator, was the most difficult to carry out; its importance may easily be
overestimated, and it was dropped 2 years later. During the interim, the program directors at
headquarters remained responsible for program budgeting and funding. They set up the
technical guidelines, established milestones for reporting monthly progress, and retained the
6 DeMarquis Wyatt, report o f the Director o f the Office o f Programs, June 12, 1961, “Reappraising NASA’s
Organizational Structure to Achieve the Objectives o f the Accelerated Program,” NASA Archives,
Washington, D.C.
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authority to reprogram funds to the centers. The 1961 reorganization purported to provide
Seamans with direct observation of the centers, to bring the center directors into the planning
process, and to guarantee control of the $2 billion to $3 billion in capital investment anticipated
for center facilities. It was not aimed primarily at bringing about a smooth functionality. Rather,
this change was made in frank recognition that the lunar landing decision had made manned
space flight the dominant activity within the agency, that the lunar landing mission was
something to which all the centers would have to contribute directly, and that because all the
centers had responsibilities in space science, applications, and advanced research, there ought to
be one official with agencywide responsibilities to whom they should report.
The other major change was the realignment of headquarters program offices. The
previous four—Advanced Research, Launch Vehicles, Life Sciences, and Space Flight—were
abolished, and four new ones were created—Advanced Research and Technology (OART)
under Ira M. Abbott, Applications under Morton J. Stoller, Manned Space Flight (OMSF) under
D. Brainerd Holmes, and Space Sciences under Edgar M. Cortwright.7 An Office of Tracking
and Data Acquisition headed by Edmund C. Buckley was established for agencywide support in
telemetry and automatic data processing. The responsibilities for developing and using hardware
were once again united. The tendency of these changes was to separate the broad areas of the
space program that required greater autonomy.
In particular, by stressing the importance of advanced research and technology, the
1961 reorganization marked a reaffirmation of the NACA concept of research in fundamental
aspects of aeronautical and space vehicle design and systematic testing “to obtain data for
aeronautical and space vehicles of the future.” But OART was now required to go beyond this,
and, by reducing theory to design, it was to produce real prototypes of advanced subsystems,
7 James Webb, Administrator, “Memorandum for NASA Program Offices, Headquarters; Directors of
NASA Centers and Installations,” July 5, 1961, NASA Historical Archives, Washington, D.C.
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whether or not the hardware would ever be used. OART was to stand in relation to NASA very
much as NACA had stood in relation to the services. OART would have to anticipate problems,
do preliminary studies, and carry investigations to the point at which the research could be
usefully applied—in this case, by NASA itself.
In sum, the 1961 reorganization was a response to problems, certain of which stemmed
from the circumstances of NASA’s establishment, others from the prominence of the manned
space program, while still others existed by virtue of NASA’s status as a large organization
involved in research and development. The changes discussed so far bound the headquarters
offices and the centers more tightly together and at least temporarily checked the tendency of
either to become autonomous. The changes confirmed the role of the associate administrator as
the official responsible for authorizing projects and approving budgets, while providing him
with a staff to review and evaluate all NASA programs, both those in progress and those for
which approval was sought. Nevertheless, the reorganization left certain problems in abeyance
and created new ones.
The role of the Office of Programs reduced that of the Office of Plans and Program
Evaluation, with its 10-year plan, to something of a fifth wheel. The substance of planning, top
management came to believe, lay less in stating new objectives and more in getting the
maximum return on the total dollars invested in programs already approved. The 10-year plan
provided no real guidance. Moreover, the budgetary process, for NASA as for any federal
agency, required that funds be sought on a year-to-year basis, with later years always being
treated as less important. By 1962, relatively few new projects were being started; the funds
requested were for work in progress. The cancellation of the 10-year plan early in 1963 resulted
from the logic of the situation. Planning had to be integrated into the budgetary process, not
superimposed on it. The budgetary process became, in Seamans’ words, “the mechanism by
which new projects, or major reorientation of current projects, may be proposed.”
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One difficulty of this reorganization was that neither the centers nor headquarters was
really prepared for it. Holmes and the other program directors complained that they could not
“task” the centers effectively enough for the work in hand. Many of the directives required to
spell out the details of the changes were too time absorbing. The crucial instructions on the
responsibilities of the program directors and the functions of the Office of Administration
(responsible for financial management, personnel, security, and the like) were first drafted in
July 1961, issued in “informational” form in June 1962, and promulgated authoritatively only in
June 1963. But the most serious problem was that neither center directors nor headquarters
program directors were quite certain of their functions and responsibilities. The management
instruction on “Planning and Implementation of NASA Projects,” which Glennan issued in
January 1961, was already out of date. By September 1962, the situation had deteriorated to the
point at which one official wrote to Seamans to complain of
gross inadequacies in major management systems . . . [and] confusion over
the respective authorities of the Associate Administrator and Program
Director. . . . The situation ranges from a lack of systems to duplicative
systems and in some instances conflicts or disregard of established systems.8
He was especially disturbed because the center officials, feeling the agency working toward a
bureau type of organization, were uncertain about how they should act and react to their
different and multiple “bosses” and the extent to which program directors held them accountable
with respect to top management: “Waste is inevitable . . . if Program Directors can delegate or
withdraw program authorizations to Centers without serious consideration of the related impact
such actions may have on manpower, facility, and related general resource requirements.”9
At the crux of the problem was an inadequate and unrealistic management structure. At
the semi-annual management conference that October at Langley, several center directors,
8 Robert Seamans, NASA Administrators Office, correspondence, September 16,1962, official papers o f
Robert Seamans, NASA Historical Archives, Washington D.C.
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especially those under the Office of Space Sciences, complained that the various organizational
changes had made their work much more difficult. While the centers under Holmes had been
given much greater operating authority, Goddard and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory found their
positions worse than before. The internal communications problem cut across all other
organizational levels. It affected relationships between headquarters and the centers, the
program and functional offices, and the centers themselves. As Harry J. Goett, Director of
Goddard, pointed out, five centers were engaged in designing and fabricating spacecraft with
almost no exchange of information between them. Headquarters was too eager to involve itself
in relationships with contractors, too slow to approve projects submitted by the centers, and too
reluctant to encourage intercenter coordination. Furthermore, the center directors had almost no
direct contact with Seamans, although the intended reason for having the centers report to him
was precisely to foster such contact. Changes in organization inevitably affected the way in
which programs were carried out, the approval of contracted advanced studies, the management
of approved projects, or the field center negotiations with contractors.
In summary, the 1961 changes failed for three reasons. They tended to create a “free
for all” between the program offices at headquarters and the field centers. The headquarters
program director had authority only over specific, discrete projects. Often a center was working
on projects in several program areas. Any one field center could be involved in projects under
the supervision of all five headquarters program offices. This tended to obliterate each center’s
orientation toward its specific mission. Moreover, the role assigned to Seamans was extremely
demanding, leaving him little time to visit the centers, confer with project managers, or grasp
what was going on in the field. The problem was how to relieve him of part of this crushing
workload and free him to take a broader view of his responsibilities.
9Seamans, correspondence, September 16, 1962.
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Reducing the scope of his office might have been too drastic; delegating his authority,
although less disruptive, would be easier to recommend than accomplish. Until 1963, there was
no set pattern for top management to meet with the program directors and functional staff to
discuss operating problems as they arose. To be sure, there were semi-annual conferences
organized around some central theme, staff meetings that Webb chaired, and program reviews
that Seamans chaired from time to time. But no real format had evolved by which Webb,
Dryden, and Seamans could grasp and evaluate program developments before they advanced so
far that change they directed from above would be difficult to carry out.
Yet it would be too facile to interpret the 1961 changes as part of an experiment that
could not be made to work. The arrangement under which the centers reported to Seamans
rather than to the program directors was probably never intended as a lasting solution. Seamans
would later remark—although perhaps with wisdom after the fact—that he realized that it would
not be desirable to maintain this structure as a lasting arrangement. It had served its purpose
reasonably well in reminding the centers that NASA had a single mission to which all local
interests must remain subordinate. The 1963 reorganization was in no sense a return to the state
of affairs as they were before 1963, although the centers once more reported to the heads of the
program offices. That NASA was once more “decentralized” signified almost nothing, unless
one adds that there were now central functional offices for Defense Affairs, Industry Affairs,
Public Affairs, and the Office of Administration. For the first time, a Technology Utilization
Division reporting to Webb was set up to work out means by which the technical by-products of
space research and development, “spin-off,” “fallout,” “second-order consequences,” or
“technology transfer” could be disseminated most effectively to private industry and other
users.1 0 This was a major undertaking, involving the identification of useful technology,
I0 “The Reorganization Plan o f 1963,” NASA Historical Data Book, vol. 2, Program and Projects 1958-
1968 (Washington, D.C.: 1997), app. A, NASA Historical Archives, Washington, D.C.
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evaluation of its potential, support of research on technology transfer (often through grants to
universities and research institutes), and matching data collected with potential users.
Organizational Maturity
The 1963 changes marked NASA’s arrival at organizational maturity. The significant
change under which the centers once again reported to the program offices had been anticipated
in October 1962 when Holmes was named Deputy Associate Administrator for Manned Space
Flight Centers. The role envisaged for the program directors, now the associate administrators
for their several offices, was new, however. As Webb put it several years later, the purpose of
this reorganization was to emphasize that the program director was running his show as an
associate administrator and that he ought to think of himself as nearly as possible as doing the
total job. He too had to present his program to the Congress. Not just an internal manager, he
had, subject to supervision, responsibility for his area almost as broad as the administrator did
for the total organization and for evolving his own relationships with functional staff and line
staff.
The enhanced power of the program directors was, for Webb, only half the story. The
other half was the concept of “functional management,” which had been official NASA policy
since the 1961 reorganization but was not formulated in a comprehensive policy statement until
1966. Basically, Webb tended to distinguish between program and functional offices—between
those who prepared and carried out the substantive programs and those who provided
centralized, agencywide services in a specific professional discipline. The functional staff
offices, most of them reporting to Seamans, had two responsibilities—to serve as central staff
for the three top officials and “to emphasize the agencywide importance of a particular area of
specialization,” or to check the tendency of the program offices to create their own supporting
groups with their own parochial interests.
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By 1969, however, Webb was complaining that the heads of the program offices had
not reached up to use the central staff, that each of the three associate administrators of
programs—in 1963, George Mueller in OMSF, Homer Newell in the Office of Space Science
and Applications, and Raymond Bisplinghoff in OART—tended to work in isolation from the
two others, and that while the three were to have been “associated with the triumvirate at the top
to serve as an overall group devoted to getting the total NASA job done,” this “never really
happened.” The program offices tended to build up their own functional staffs while the central
staff offices were discovering the limitations of their capacity to impose uniform policy,
especially at the center level.1 1
Three other features of the 1963 reorganization should be noted. The first entailed a
shift in emphasis, a return to the NACA concept of giving field installations responsibility for
technical decision making. Top management stressed, then and afterward, that project
management was the responsibility of the centers. For all flight projects except Apollo, there
was to be one lead center, regardless of how many installations actually participated. In the case
of Apollo, the major elements were given to lead centers—for example, the spacecraft to
Houston, the launch vehicle to Marshall, and the tracking system to Goddard. The tools for
getting the job done had to be grouped in a related fashion; thus, Applications, which used the
same launch vehicles and centers as Space Sciences, merged with the latter in 1963. This meant
that a particular center had the capacity to manage large development contracts, the skills to
integrate the subsystems of a project parceled out among two or three different centers, and the
ability to draw on the resources of other centers instead of needlessly duplicating them.
"U.S. Congress, House Committee on Science and Astronautics, Subcommittee on NASA Oversight,
Apollo Program Management, staff study (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, July 1969),
pp. 59-74.
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In 1963 even more than in 1961, there was an agency “program” instead of “programs”
and therefore the need for the cross-servicing of one center by another center. Only in 1963 was
NASA able to establish a unified Launch Operations Center at the Eastern Test Range, where
previously each center was represented by a Goddard team, a Marshall team, and a Jet
Propulsion Laboratory team. The Launch Operations Center, headed by Kurt Debus, was
renamed the Kennedy Space Center in December 1963. This system was not self-regulating. It
depended on a mixture of formal delegations of authority and a network of informal relations
too subtle to be put on paper. Neither was fully understood within the agency.
Under these circumstances, the general manager really had to be prepared to manage.
He had to know what was going on before problems got out of control. He had to make himself
visible to the heads of the program offices, and he had to be able to say, “we need more data on
this” or “this is something we can’t decide here; it must go to the administrator.” Another
feature of the 1963 reorganization was the creation of a mechanism that enabled the general
manager to do this. The NASA Management Committee, which met for the first time in October
1963 and was chaired by Seamans, was made up of nine key headquarters staff officials who
reported to him. Its terms of reference extended to the discussion and resolution of management
problems—relations with the centers, procurement policy, the format for project authorization.
At the same time, Seamans instituted an intensive “monthly status review” at which he
would sit down in turn with each of the program associate administrators for a searching
examination of each project he was responsible for. Reviews would cover all substantive and
administrative aspects: planned versus actual manpower allocations at the centers and at
contractor plants, planned versus actual expenditures, key milestones in program and
procurement schedules, and advanced studies before their completion. Each review was to be
preceded by staff discussions, and the preparation of a formal agenda by the Office of
Programming would be followed by presentations to Seamans. The drift of Seamans’ thinking
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was to make short-range planning more realistic by seeing that the program offices provided
him with the information on which key decisions had to be made.
Consider, for example, the official monthly launch schedule, which was the associate
administrator’s responsibility to update. The changes made in 1963 were in the direction of
greater realism and precision. All launches scheduled within 30 days of a Management
Committee meeting were to be scheduled by day, those within the ensuing year were to be
specified by month, and launches planned for the following year were to be specified by quarter.
Seamans wanted to eliminate unnecessary reporting while insisting that the program offices
assist him in making launch dates as realistic as possible.
On balance, the system of status reviews worked well. The principal recurring meetings
were the monthly status review Seamans chaired, the internal review of the program offices
themselves, and the annual program review attended by Webb that aided in bringing problems
to the surface. In the annual reviews, for example, specific program areas were reviewed in
depth from the standpoint of their overall objectives, scientific and technical content,
organizational structure, and interrelationships with other government agencies. The meetings
were held on Saturday and lasted all day. On the following Monday, the presentation was
repeated for NASA staff and senior officials of other departments. But shortcomings remained.
The monthly status reviews covered only substantive programs, omitting the work of
functional management, and the presentations for Webb outlined each program in a fragmentary
way, since the programs could be covered only a segment at a time. Still, the 1963 reforms were
a definite improvement over their predecessors. The Management Committee, the monthly
reviews, and the annual reviews of each program gave Webb and Seamans access to information
and views that had scarcely been tapped earlier. The meetings enabled top officials to use
overlapping sources of information, hear all points of view, eliminate some middlemen in
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channeling information upward, and define the purpose of each meeting so that those attending
would know precisely why they were there.
Long-range planning continued to be vexing and a burden to top management,
however. By early 1963, Webb had decided not to update the 10-year plan. In October, the
Office of Plans and Program Evaluation, which had played an equivocal role, not being quite in
on decision making nor entirely out of it, was abolished and replaced by a Policy Planning
Board that reported to Webb and a Planning Review Panel attached to Seamans’ office. Neither
the board nor the panel had effective authority, presumably because top management preferred
not to give them any. It was one thing to bring officials together to discuss NASA’s programs in
a general way; it was another, much more serious step to empower them to speak authoritatively
for NASA. Planning could be no more effective than its organizational location and status
allowed. Webb was reluctant to propose a long-range plan, not solely from a conviction that
NASA’s long-range mission could be spelled out only in the political arena but also because he
did not want to declare preferences that could set one part of the agency against another.
The plans of 1965-1968 were more in the nature of shopping lists than actual outlines
of what NASA intended to do. The Policy Planning Board was abolished in 1965 because, as
Webb disingenuously explained, nobody was using it.
The Future Programs Task Group: 1964-1965
The real point of departure for a survey of post-Apollo planning is the report of the
Future Programs Task Group. By the end of 1963, NASA had assumed the organizational shape
it was to retain into the 1970s, insofar as the field centers reported to the directors of substantive
program offices; NASA and DOD had staked out their respective jurisdictions; and the large
construction projects were under way. But there were also signs that the unchallenged mandate
of NASA, the Congress, and the nation’s president was coming to an end. The Congress had cut
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the administration’s budget request for 1964 by more than 10 percent and a NASA request for a
supplemental appropriation by half.
The Lunar Landing and Program Justification
A potentially more serious problem for NASA was the agency’s shifting position on
the purpose of the lunar landing. Was the investment in Apollo predicated on beating the
Russians to the Moon? On demonstrating American technological superiority? On inaugurating
the exploration of not only the Moon but also the near planets as well? Or was the Apollo
mission a means of creating the ability to operate in space for whatever purposes the United
States chose? In practical terms, three quarters of NASA’s work force was working on some
aspect of the manned space flight program. Unless NASA could sell a program to extend Apollo
beyond the lunar landing, it would have to start disbanding most of the work force by 1966,
when the major facilities would be completed and the Saturn V launch vehicle and the Apollo
spacecraft would be in production.
The Future Programs Task Group was created to prepare a reply to a January 30, 1964,
letter from President Lyndon Johnson to Administrator Webb. With the 1965 budget due to go
to the Hill, the President wanted to know what NASA was doing to lay the basis for future
programs. The reason for his letter pertained to the NERVA nuclear rocket program and the
absence of near-term missions that would require it. But for Johnson, NERVA was only an
excuse for what principally concerned him. President Johnson expressed his concern in the form
of several questions posed to Webb. Could NASA list possible space objectives beyond those
already approved? What planned supporting research and technology would these aims require?
How much of NASA’s current research and development work, especially in launch vehicles,
could be used in support of future programs? To prepare a reply, Webb named Francis Smith, a
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Langley engineer and future Assistant Administrator for University Affairs, to head a special
task force.
The summary report, dated January 1965, was released the following April. While the
task force was drafting its report, Webb sent interim replies to the President, of which the first
on May 20, 1964, outlined several possible future missions without choosing between them. But
in a February 16, 1965, letter, he endorsed two specific objectives—the exploration of Mars by
unmanned vehicles, already recommended by the Space Science Board in October 1964, and the
use of the Saturn booster and the lunar module for a variety of missions in Earth and lunar orbit
and for exploring the lunar surface.
In a sense, Webb’s letters and the final report were more significant for what they left
unsaid than for their explicit proposals, of which there were few. Indeed, the Senate Committee
on Aeronautical and Space Sciences seized on the lack of specific recommendations as a basis
for criticizing the report: “Alternatives are presented, but no criteria are given as to how a
selection would be made.” This, however, was beside the point, since the President had asked
only for “a statement of possible space objectives beyond those already approved.” More
serious criticisms were that the report contained little that was new and that it said almost
nothing about military applications and coordination with DOD.
In fact, the Senate committee had hinted at real weaknesses in NASA’s planning
structure. Although Smith and the task group adhered to the letter of President Johnson’s
instructions, one would suppose that if NASA had a specific post-Apollo plan, it would have
been presented. If NASA presented options without choosing among them, it was because there
was almost no agreement within NASA as to what should follow the lunar landing. But even if
there had been something approaching 85 percent unanimity, the climate in 1965 was
unfavorable to ambitious space programs. Webb or Mueller might have been able to carry the
agency with them. They were much less likely to carry the Bureau of the Budget, the Congress,
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or the public. Moreover, NASA planning was complicated by its relationship to military space
programs. NASA had come to accept the Air Force Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) as a
legitimate military program that in no way conflicted with Apollo.
Webb ratified the December 1964 memorandum of understanding on the scope and
purpose of MOL. But the Future Programs Task Group report was silent about the potential
conflict between a military MOL and a NASA space station in areas such as the experiments to
be flown, the availability of Apollo hardware for MOL, and the possibility of needless
duplication. Also, the 1961 Webb-Gilpatrick agreement required NASA to seek DOD’s
approval before proceeding to develop a new launch vehicle. The 1964 Aeronautical and
Astronautics Coordinating Board launch vehicle study demonstrated that NASA would save
almost nothing if it decided to switch from the Saturn to the Titan family of launch vehicles.
Nevertheless NASA engineers were seriously considering Titan III as the launch vehicle for
major programs listed as options for the 1970s: space stations in synchronous orbit or unmanned
payloads to the near planets. But NASA in 1965 had not arrived at any firm conclusions as to
how or whether it would modify Titan III for its own purposes.
To the extent that there was agreement, it was that Apollo had created the ability to
operate in space. But that was about the extent of agreement. Webb, for example, stressed
“capability” almost to the exclusion of the programs that capability made possible. In his view,
the lunar landing mattered because it was the most dramatic proof that the United States had
achieved the freedom to operate as it chose in space. At a 1965 briefing for him on “ Apollo
Extension Systems,” he dismissed the idea that the lunar landing was an end in itself. What
NASA was developing, his argument ran, was the “capability to fire, to launch, to get into
orbit”:
We have got a hypothesis . . . that the lunar landing is the most useful way to
do the development and to prove we have done it. But this could actually be
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displaced in terms of national objectives. Now I don’t want the argument to
center on whether we know that we are going in ’68 or sometime later. I want
it to center on the development of a capability which we have several
possibilities to use. I want to begin to talk about the true situation [rather] than
to continue so sharply to focus on that just because President Kennedy used
language that none of the three of us [Webb, Dryden, and Seamans]
recommended to him when he said “we will put a man on the moon.”1 2
At Apollo Extension Systems and other briefings, Webb was willing to accept
proposals that should percolate upward from the program directors. But no proposal would
become a budget line item until it met specified conditions. First, it must involve minimal
interference with the current Apollo mission. Second, it should make the fullest use of existing
hardware. Third, it had to define with precision the goals and experiments of the proposed
mission. Fourth, it had to avoid the appearance of duplicating military programs, especially
MOL. Finally, it must not commit the agency to funding levels appreciably higher than the
current approved budget. Unlike the administrator and general manager, the program directors
were free to defend interests that were something less than agencywide.
As Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, George Mueller had to tackle
three problems, each of which could be resolved on condition that the two others were handled
at the same time. He had to retain the funds and hold together the manpower assembled for
Gemini and Apollo, arrive at programs that he could sell to top management and the Congress,
and ensure that Apollo itself should somehow generate its sequel. Mueller’s design was nothing
if not ambitious. For the “mainline” Apollo program, he envisaged an annual flight schedule of
six Saturn IBs, six Saturn Vs, and six launches of the Apollo spacecraft—the “6-6-6” formula,
later changed to “6-6-8.” As for post-Apollo plans, Mueller enumerated five options:
Earth-orbital programs for long-duration space stations; lunar operations; planetary landings; an
all-out program in Earth-orbital, lunar, and planetary activities; and a balanced program that
i2T. H. Baker, “James Webb, An Oral History,” April 29, 1969, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library Oral
History Collection, Austin, Texas.
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combined other options in a cost-effective way.1 3 Each program would be directed to a precise
objective. If the nation should desire direct economic benefits, for example, the logical sequel to
Apollo would be a program of Earth-orbital operations.
In Mueller’s view, Apollo Extensions, which became Apollo Applications in August
1965 and Skylab in February 1970, was not so much one of the five program options as it was
an intermediate step from Apollo to future programs. It was his conviction that the agency had to
organize around one big mission rather than risk seeing its resources frittered away on a number
of smaller ones. To disperse what had been assembled, only to reassemble it, would be an
intolerable waste. Any new NASA goal required the same national priority as Apollo. Without
some precise goal, such as the lunar landing, Webb believed progress would have not been as
rapid or widely supported as it had been. By late 1965, Mueller had seized upon a national goal
that would more than equal Apollo: a manned landing on Mars and return to be launched by
1980.
Space Program Planning Processes
At headquarters, Mueller appointed William Taylor in May 1964 to head a special
studies office to design a post-Apollo program; in October, it was strengthened by the addition
of a thirty-man task force established to consider uses for Apollo hardware through 1970; and in
August 1965, Mueller moved from advanced studies to project definition by establishing a
Saturn/Apollo Applications Office at headquarters. At that time, OMSF planners considered
two kinds of program: one using surplus Apollo hardware and the other pointing to the
development of an Earth-orbital space station. Before the space station concept could become an
1 3 Walter A. MacDougall, The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History o f the Space Age (New York:
John Hopkins University Press, 1985), p. 385.
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approved program, NASA’s leadership would have to specify what such a project would
accomplish.
In general terms, the primary advocates, Directors Mueller and Edward Z. Gray, knew
they wanted a space station concept approved. The Space Station would have to support a
variety of experiments that would be developed in modules attached to the main station; it
would have to be deployable in a number of orbits, ranging from a 30’ inclination to
synchronous orbits; it would require a minimum lifetime of 3 years; it would be designed for
deployment in lunar orbit; and it should have modular growth potential to fully use the launch
capability of the Saturn V when the mission requirements develop to this size. But working out
the general principles was not easy. In late 1965, only three Apollo Applications experiments
were under development. OMSF plans had to satisfy two requirements—to furnish the Bureau
of the Budget with precise cost estimates and to establish working relationships with Office of
Space Science and Applications (OSSA), which would make space science an integral part of a
follow-on to Apollo.
Yet the differences between the program offices went deep. It was Newell’s contention
that “OSSA was established to be responsible for space science, not unmanned space science”
and that OMSF was mission oriented while OSSA was organized around research disciplines.
Hence, Newell’s office was not locked into fruitless, interminable arguments over the merits of
manned versus unmanned rights. To most outside scientists, the burden of proof that humans
were necessary to operate in space fell squarely on OMSF. Specifically, some scientists,
especially those working for NASA as principal investigators, thought that there was too little
science and too much engineering in NASA; that flight experiments assumed the presence of
people, whereas it was precisely their presence that had to be justified; and that the results
obtained from Mercury and Gemini could have been obtained with much less expense from
automated systems. It was not that manned programs were unnecessary. A case could be made
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and w as m ade that humans w ere needed as scientific observers, as subjects for m edical
experim entation, as technicians to maintain and repair equipm ent, and as astronaut-pilots, once
low -cost space transportation system s becam e available. The point w as to consider each case on
its merits and to decide, for instance, whether lunar exploration called for the trained astronaut-
scientist, a package o f scientific instruments left on the surface, or both.
While OSSA claimed the authority to plan space science for all NASA, OMSF had the
money to pay for and fly approved experiments. In practice, the issues between the two offices
had to be resolved by compromises that were not always acceptable to Webb. In November
1963, Newell established a Manned Space Sciences Division whose director, Willis Foster,
reported to him and to Mueller, and in January 1964 Mueller created a Manned Space Flight
Experiments Board to evaluate recommendations for experiments to be flown on Gemini and
Apollo. Under this arrangement, each program office was responsible for designing experiments
within its own sphere—OSSA for space science, OART for technological experiments, and the
OMSF Directorate of Space Medicine for medical experiments. Meanwhile, a DOD review
board would submit military experiments for NASA to fly. While the program offices had full
authority to design experiments, OMSF had the ultimate authority to accept and integrate them
with the flight hardware.
By July 1966, the only definite result of NASA planning was the existence of several
program alternatives, none of them authorized. At headquarters, planning was being done not
only by specialized divisions within the program offices but also by a Planning Coordination
Steering Group (PCSG) that had been established by the three program associate administrators
late in 1965. In a joint memorandum to Seamans, they had proposed creating ad hoc planning
groups to draw together the plans already drafted by the offices they directed. As finally
approved by Seamans, the PCSG would be supported by five working groups, each of which
would review the planning already under way, use that planning as its point of departure, and
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then develop programs within guidelines PCSG set. As a new entity with no independent base,
PCSG did not play an important role until 1968-1969, when, under Newell’s leadership, it tried
to develop an agencywide plan for the 1970s.
Meanwhile, OMSF and OSSA continued to do the most important planning. In OMSF,
planning centered on the space station and on the concept of an orbital workshop using the spent
upper stage (S-IVB) of a Saturn IB (later changed to Saturn V). The orbital workshop was
supposed to perform a number of missions, including lunar exploration, solar astronomy, and
experiments whose general purpose was to establish the usefulness of humans in space. The
basic Apollo Applications hardware would consist of the orbital workshop, a multiple docking
adapter for the command and service modules that would house the astronaut crew, an airlock
connecting the workshop with the modules, and an Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) that
attached to either the service module or the docked lunar module. The ATM was an observatory
to study the Sun’s structure in 1969 during the solar maximum. The ATM was intended to carry
out part of the mission of the Advanced Orbiting Solar Observatory (AOSO) that was canceled
in December 1965, but it would go beyond AOSO. The astronaut-scientist could orient and
point the ATM in the general vicinity of the Sun, determine and set camera exposures and the
sequences of the various experiments, recover exposed film and magnetic tapes, and select solar
events of interest.
But other considerations tended to complicate this scheme, and these program
discussions alone were the product of 2 years of designs, studies, and negotiations between
OMSF and OSSA. The ATM original plan, approved by Seamans in August 1966, called for
launching a fueled stage. After the fuel had been burned getting into orbit, the astronauts, who
would be launched separately, would outfit the stage as a workshop. This “wet” workshop
would enable NASA to use Saturn IB instead of Saturn V as the launch vehicle. But it also
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meant that the astronauts would have to assemble the workshop while working in space,
something that Gemini had shown to be cumbersome and difficult.
Difficulties involving Apollo Applications were considered to be technical as well as
programmatic. Organizational questions arose at the same time. Mueller wanted the entire
program under OMSF, and he and Newell came to a parting of the ways. Newell argued that the
ATM belonged on the service module, a proposal that even Manned Spacecraft Center Director
Robert Gilruth had trouble accepting. Eventually, Mueller managed to persuade Seamans to
assign the ATM to Marshall and to accept his proposal for placing the ATM on the lunar
module. Seamans signed the project approval document authorizing the ATM on August 29,
1966, 2 weeks after Mueller and the Management Council had worked out the “roles and
missions” of Apollo Applications in a series of meetings at Lake Logan, North Carolina.1 4
Apollo Applications would follow the same pattern as the program from which it grew. Marshall
was charged with developing the ATM and the workshop, while Houston was assigned the
ATM astronaut training, crew systems, and flight operations. The Lake Logan agreement
confirmed that Apollo Applications management would be concentrated in OMSF and that
experiments and proposals would be incorporated at the discretion of Mueller and his program
directors.
But the most serious problems dogging the program pertained to its underlying
assumptions: the human role in Earth-orbit operations. The risk of such missions was subject to
sharp criticism from NASA’s officials, the Congress, the Bureau of the Budget, and various
scientific advisory groups; most of them stressed the lack of well-defined flight experiments and
l4Edgar M. Cortwright, NASA Historical Reference Data Book, vol 2, Programs and Projects 1958-1968
(Washington, D.C.: 1997), NASA Historical Archives, Washington, D.C.
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the possibility that the program would only duplicate MOL. In June 1966, Newell and his
deputy, Edgar M. Cortwright, drafted a memo pointing to
the lack of a substantial, visible end product to serve as a focus for the effort.
After four or five years of activity, NASA will have spent many billions of
dollars and have relatively little to show for it in comparison with where we
could be in space for about the same amount of money. . . . [Apollo
Applications] as now configured just doesn’t seem to justify such high costs
for an extended period.1 5
In the Congress, critics of the program tended to seize on the possibility that Apollo
Applications would wastefully duplicate MOL and that NASA and DOD would come together
in a joint program. Budget Director Charles Schultze and Bureau of the Budget examiners were
skeptical that NASA needed more money. In negotiations with Webb, Dryden, and Seamans,
Schultze insisted that while the bureau had no wish to reduce U.S. manned capability in space,
neither did he believe that the space budget should be based on what could be done within the
limits of U.S. technical capability, on what the Russians were doing, or on the peak level of
industrial manpower for developing Apollo. With important decisions pending, the bureau
needed answers to certain pressing questions. Schultze and Webb locked horns as they wrestled
over the summer of 1966 with such questions as, Should the nation continue manned flight after
the lunar landing? Should NASA buy more launch vehicles and spacecraft to keep production
lines running? And what specific manned space flight capability did the United States need?
In the Wake of the Reorganizations: 1966-1967
November 1963 to November 1965 was not marked by changes as sweeping as those
already discussed. Top management, the heads of the line and functional offices, and the center
directors had worked out a system acceptable to them. Two successive reorganizations had
lsEdgar M. Cortwright, “MOL and Apollo Applications,” June 15, 1966, NASA Historical Reference Data
Book, vol. 2, Programs and Projects 1958-1968 (Washington, D.C.: 1997), NASA Historical Archives,
Washington, D.C.
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shaken up the agency, spotlighted values important to top management, and reduced the “this is
the way things have always been done around here” force that forms in an organization that
inherits so much from its predecessor. But it was not part of Webb’s philosophy to keep NASA
in a state of permanent revolution. Smaller (although not small) changes would serve just as
well. As he explained to one official, top management consciously decided “to make relatively
small changes on a fairly frequent basis. Thus we . . . have used our decisions on incremental
improvements to teach the organization to expect change rather than contemplate static periods
after a series of major changes.”
In his view, the 1963 changes, if carried to their logical conclusion, would free him and
Dryden to concentrate on the major issues, particularly where they impinged on other agencies,
the Congress, and the White House. But it was absolutely essential that NASA’s officials
understand their roles in what Webb called the total milieu. As a matter of policy, he believed
in transferring headquarters officials to the centers and vice versa, assigning executives jobs
outside their experience and beyond their area of proven competence, and using NASA’s
officials to present their programs before congressional subcommittees. For all the shifts and
turns in NASA’s organization during Webb’s tenure, there is a definite consistency of intent
toward reducing the layering of authority so that fewer officials and fewer documents would be
needed to authorize projects and toward bringing as many senior officials as possible into
decision making.
The goal having been defined, the means of attaining it had to be worked out in
periodic reviews, staff meetings, and presentations to senior officials—a system at once more
rigorous and less formal than a 10-year plan. Two examples of relatively small changes at
headquarters are the revision of the system of management instructions and the formal
establishment of the executive secretariat, both begun in 1964 and extending over several years,
both closely tied to the major changes of the previous October. The so-called issuance system
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had been a longstanding grievance. The NASA Management Manual instituted in 1959 could
not adequately document the changes taking place. Often, there were no instructions (or,
occasionally, there were conflicting instructions) covering a subject area. Instructions tended to
lose relevance within 2 or 3 years of their publication but not to the point of becoming totally
obsolete. Added to this, the coding scheme was inadequate, there was no indexing or
cross-referencing, and definitive instructions took too long to prepare. These problems,
recognized by 1962, had become acute following the 1963 reorganization, which, in its
delegation of maximum authority to the program offices and the centers, called attention to the
gap between the directives and the purposes they were intended to serve.
One of the first steps in revising the manual was taken early in 1963 when the Division
of Management Analysis in the Office of Administration based a study on an earlier report that
the General Services Administration prepared at NASA’s request. This study served as the
basis of a conversion of the old Management Manual to a new system of directives, entailing
rewriting and converting current directives, canceling others, and updating the remainder. The
job of revision included several sorts of change: eliminating the extraneous, issuing a new
coding system to distinguish ad hoc notices from policy directives and the management
instructions that supplemented them, and preparing a checklist to make cross-referencing
possible. A particularly important step related to these reforms was the publication of NASA
Basic Administrative Processes in February 1964. This manual, complete with flow charts,
official definitions, and the enumeration of basic policies and principles, established the
guidelines that agency officials were to follow and thus became the substratum from which the
issuance system was supposed to develop.
The history of the management documentation problem is interesting, less for its own
sake than for what it reveals of the workings of NASA’s management process. First, the changes
of 1964 through 1966 followed logically from the decentralizing tendencies of 1963. In line
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with management’s policy of delegating and dispersing authority, the new system authorized all
officials reporting to top management (and, of course, top management itself) to prepare and
sign directives outlining their powers and responsibilities. It gave the functional offices the
authority to determine the content of drafts and prepare their format and coordinate them with
other offices. Second, while this relieved general management of the responsibility for
preparing all the detailed instructions, the functional offices were given the onerous burden of
preparing directives that might affect nine or ten other offices as well as the centers.
Finally, the new system failed in its purpose almost as much as its predecessor. NASA
did not stand still, and no set of instructions or directives could possibly serve as a contemporary
record of operating procedures. At the Office of Administration, Young tried in vain to satisfy
Webb’s demand for precise, up-to-date “basic administrative processes,” or descriptions of
every responsible person’s job. The directive was already out of date by the end of 1966; it
could not be replaced until it had been studied by one task group, worked over by the Office of
Organization and Management, discussed by the NASA Management Council in January 1968,
and subsequently coordinated with the Office of Organization and Management. In the end,
agency officials found it impossible to summarize the processes in a small handbook. The
compromise was to replace the handbook one chapter at a time—a process that was never
brought to a formal conclusion.
The creation of an executive secretariat was as much the result of the 1963
reorganization as the enhanced authority of the program offices was. Although discussed for
some years before it was established, the concept of a central secretariat for handling
communications made little headway before 1963. It was not mentioned in the December 1958
McKinsey report on establishing headquarters functions or in the October 1960 Kimpton Report.
The 1961 staff papers Deputy Associate Administrator Jack Young prepared did mention and
elaborate on a “central secretariat,” but no such staff office was included in the changes that
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followed. The real catalyst for change was another staff study that came toward the end of 1963;
the management instruction establishing the secretariat was issued only on February 1, 1964.
Why it should have taken so long to recognize the need for a secretariat function in
NASA is unclear. Before 1964, the responsibility for handling communications between top
management and the rest of the agency had been delegated to an executive officer, usually one
detailed to NASA from the Army Corps of Engineers. The secretariat did not immediately
resolve the several administrative problems that had led to its creation. It was not clear whether
the executive officer would be inside or outside the secretariat, whether the secretariat would
serve the administrator alone or the deputy and associate administrators as well, whether its
function was complete when the secretary informed the administrator of what he needed to
know, or whether the secretariat had an additional responsibility to see that decisions the
administrator made were carried out promptly (the office became responsible for both).1 6
The functions of a secretariat really depended on the administrator’s view of his own
position with respect to the rest of NASA. Webb’s concept of a secretariat was not radically
different from the one the heads of other large federal agencies held, particularly in the State
Department and DOD. Webb needed and wanted a staff to handle all materials coming to his
office, sparing him matters that did not require his personal attention, while placing before him
everything that he had to know to meet his responsibilities. Webb’s knowledge of secretariat
functions was strongly influenced by his experience as under secretary of State; the State
Department secretariat was staffed by officials who frequently reported directly to the secretary
or deputy secretary. Webb envisaged a NASA secretariat that would help make or, more
precisely, implement agency policy, but it remained to be seen how it would follow up decisions
and work with and through the headquarters offices and field installations.
1 6 Albert Siepert official correspondence to James Webb, February 8, 1963, “Length o f Tours o f Certain
Military Detailees,” NASA History Office, Washington, D.C.
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At the end of 1965, the secretariat’s charter was conspicuously enlarged along with the
much broader changes brought about by Deputy Administrator Dryden’s death on December 2.
In failing health since 1961, Dry den had nevertheless managed to carry on with few
interruptions for nearly 3 years. By late 1964, however, he had become incapacitated, so that his
resignation or death was anticipated. Before Dryden’s death, it had been informally decided that
Seamans would succeed him. What this would mean did not become clear for several months.
During 1964-1965, Webb had started moving toward a more precise definition of his and
Seamans’ spheres. With Dryden gone, Webb decided to pull separate functions and offices
together into one unit. In a December 29 memorandum, which Seamans discussed with all top
headquarters officials the next day, Webb announced the creation of the Office of the
Administrator as a single, uncompartmented entity to afford maximum, direct contact between
himself and Seamans and associates. However, Seamans cautioned, this concept was
experimental and designed to help eliminate functional delays. But Webb had in mind that the
Office of the Administrator would do more than this.
First, Seamans remained general manager, overseeing the agency’s daily activity. He
continued to chair the monthly status reviews, update the NASA Right schedule, and sign
project authorization documents, but this did not exhaust his responsibilities. Webb wanted him
to take on several of Dryden’s functions, involving himself in international scientific programs.
He especially wanted Seamans to work closely with the Office of Legislative Affairs and Office
of Public Affairs in preparing NASA’s congressional statements and in meeting with
congressional staffs who had most to say in determining NASA’s authorizations and
appropriations. Seamans had been doing much of this before; he was now expected to carry it to
the fullest extent. All staff and program offices would report directly to Seamans.
Second, Webb intended that the secretariat become visible throughout the agency. As
the staff arm of the Office of the Administrator, it became responsible not only for reviewing
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incoming correspondence but also for establishing and maintaining a need-to-know reporting
system of items of significance to general management, a critical reports and correspondence
review system to keep general management current on significant matters covered in written
reports and communications by the heads of headquarters offices, and a codified policy
reference to provide for recording policy directives and making them available to appropriate
officials. By what Webb said and did, it is clear that he intended the secretariat to have a de
facto role in policy making. It became the secretary’s responsibility to prepare the agenda for
management reviews, attend major staff meetings and prepare a memorandum for the record
afterward, and, through his assistants, obtain copies of the internal papers of all the programs.
But the secretariat could assist in policy making in more direct ways. The executive
secretary could, for instance, remind each program office to coordinate an impending action
with the functional offices. He could coordinate the program office policies. It sometimes
happened that two offices, each unaware of what the other was doing, would prepare separate
policy statements on the same matter. The different approaches of OMSF and OSSA on the
coordination of outbound spacecraft converged only at the level of the executive secretary, who
intervened to bring the matter to Seamans’ attention and to gain a final resolution. Obviously, a
great deal depended on the willingness of program offices to cooperate, for example, to provide
the secretariat with copies of internal correspondence, to allow assistant executive secretaries to
sit in on their staff meetings, and to tolerate another level between themselves and general
management.
These changes were meant to reduce still further Webb’s burden of routine business.
Seamans was now completely responsible for NASA’s internal management and also many of
its external relationships. Moreover, even groups lodged in the Office of the Administrator did
not always report directly to Webb. The executive secretary, for example, reported to Willis H.
Shapley, who had joined NASA in September 1965 as associate deputy administrator. Shapley
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came to NASA from the military division of the Bureau of the Budget, where he had been
involved in making space policy since NACA days. He was one of the drafters of the Space Act
and had worked closely with Seamans to resolve issues between NASA and DOD. Arriving just
before Dryden died, Shapley had first been assigned responsibility for interagency relationships.
But following the December reorganization, it was Seamans’ notion to work out a three-way or
four-way division of labor between himself, Webb, Shapley, and Deputy Associate
Administrator Earl D. Hilbum.1 7
In the broadest terms, Webb and Seamans would be the top two officials running
NASA, and Shapley and Hilbum would run the agency day to day. According to Seamans,
Webb and Seamans “would have available to us two senior people, and you wouldn’t have a
very definite mle as to what Shapley did or what Hilbum did, but a general area defined, and
then I would work very closely with both of them.” In that sense, Seamans’ plan never got off
the ground. Webb would not buy it, preferring to have one person responsible for a given area.
He saw to it that Shapley was placed in immediate charge of the secretariat, with a kind of
overall responsibility for planning policy, to which the entire agency would be expected to
contribute. In sum, Webb was delegating his authority for daily operations in the hope that he
could involve himself totally in NASA’s key problems.
What Webb had in mind was rather complex and considered by some to be too
ambitious. At one end, he would delegate authority to Seamans and Shapley to run NASA on a
daily basis (Hilbum having left in the summer of 1966); at the other end, he was delineating a
sphere of policy planning. This division of authority could never be laid down with any finality
because no one knew precisely where managing gave way to policy planning or policy analysis.
Either might be used to determine that previously established policies were being carried out, to
1 7 “The Reorganization Plans,” NASA Historical Data Book, vol. 2, Program and Projects 1958-1968
(Washington, D.C.: 1997), NASA Historical Archives, Washington, D.C.
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document specific policy decisions, or to study how programs were put together year by year,
not only for the 5-year future but for 10 years and beyond.
Lack of definition was only one of Webb’s problems. Another was that key officials
were not defined by their positions. In his view, Seamans was not just the general manager any
more than Shapley was just the chief of staff or Mueller was just the Associate Administrator for
Manned Space Flight. They had to be able to grasp the total milieu, to understand what the
agency would be in years to come, when the compartmentalization of manned and unmanned
programs had broken down, when NASA was developing a technical capability that would
enable its officials to know enough to know what ought to be done in the world, and when
Webb or his successor would be involved as “exponents] of advanced technology and advanced
scientific thrust and the combining of the two for everything from agriculture to economics and
military.”1 8 To the engineer or program manager working full-time on Apollo Applications or
Voyager, Webb’s demand that he see the full spectrum of issues was exceptionally difficult to
fulfill.
The changes of 1965-1966 accomplished a great deal without disrupting the existing
roles of the program line managers. Webb had introduced the concept of a central staff to serve
the Office of the Administrator, whose chief of staff was Willis Shapley, and had created an
executive secretariat to handle internal communications flowing up to his office and policy
directives moving downward, and he had delegated to Seamans most of the authority for
mnning NASA. None of these changes had anything final about them; rather, Webb was
attempting to develop an agency that could run itself day by day while he, Seamans, Shapley,
and the four program directors worked to extend NASA’s influence into economic and political
spheres untouched by the space program. The question was, Would the agency accept this
interpretation of NASA’s mission? For that matter, would the Congress understand it? And
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finally, how far was it within NASA’s competence to determine its mission, since it had to go
outside for funds to sponsor it?
The Consultant Culture of NASA
NASA’s culture of 1966 sought the best technical minds in space and aeronautics
through consultants. They needed more firepower to deal with the Bureau of the Budget and to
maintain a critical talent base in industry. Long-range planning was equally complicated by
NASA’s need for outside scientific and technical advice. NASA’s various committees reflected
the diverse purposes of their members. Some, like the Space Science and Applications Steering
Committee (SSASC) and its subcommittees, were primarily source selection boards for
evaluating flight experiments. Others, like the missions boards established in 1967, were
intended, to map out long-range research and to serve all NASA in a particular discipline. The
Manned Space Flight Science and Technology Advisory Committee (STAC) was to design
future programs but, more importantly, to work out the details of programs already approved.
The same diversity applied to membership as to purpose. The administrator appointed the
members of the Lunar and Planetary Missions Board, for example, but they reported to the
Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications, the same official who appointed
all the members of the SSASC subcommittees.
What was the rationale for the advisory boards? Why did NASA seek outside
expertise? What use did it make of such advice, and to what extent did advisers merely respond
to the initiatives of NASA’s management? The principal reason for seeking outside advice was
NASA’s failure to provide it for itself. Unlike engineering, where NASA had talent comparable
to the best in industry, NASA could not attract scientists of Nobel laureate caliber. Indeed,
scientists of the highest rank were more valuable to NASA as consultants than as staff, since a
i8MacDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, pp. 100-34.
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scientist not actively involved in ongoing research might find himself out of touch in little more
than a year. Moreover, it was much more difficult to combine science with administration than it
was to combine engineering with administration. As Newell complained in 1965,
“We have not yet solved the problem of how to maintain the continuing scientific competence
of a professional scientist while at the same time asking him to devote his working hours to
administration.”1 9 Scientists Luis Alvarez, Charles Townes, and Harold Urey were prepared to
serve as consultants, as members of advisory panels, and as principal investigators, but they
were not willing to abandon lucrative consulting work or submerge their careers in the larger
goals of NASA’s programs.
The relationship between NASA and its principal investigators was strictly contractual.
The advisory bodies that passed on experiment proposals were, legally, source selection boards.
The NASA advisory panels served the same purposes as similar groups elsewhere in the federal
government. They provided independent appraisal by distinguished outsiders, they were sources
of new ideas, and to a degree they legitimized programs that NASA officials independently
decided the agency must address.
But whatever its virtues, the structure of NASA’s advisory process had serious
drawbacks, especially its extreme complexity. Writing in 1967, Newell observed that “so many
different types of institutions, organizations and relationships are evolving currently that it is
difficult even to enumerate, much less describe, the elements of the overall situation.”2 0 No
substantive body of policy set forth how or even why NASA had to draw on these groups for
advice, the Space Science Board and internal advisory panels had important jurisdictional
1 9 Homer Newell, official correspondence o f 1965, gray folder series 2qtr 65, NASA Historical Archives,
Washington, D.C.
2 0 W. Henry Lambright, Powering Apollo, Newell Studies (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1995), p. 194.
I
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overlaps, and the center planning groups and the agency advisory committees were virtually
insulated from one another.
To Webb and Newell, the problem with the advisory process was that it was
unsystematic and failed to involve scientists in policy making. Many scientists, including those
serving NASA as consultants or principal investigators, saw the problem as systemic rather than
incidental to NASA’s advisory process. Their most prominent spokesmen, such as Philip
Abelson, Bruce Murray, and Norman Ramsey, wanted autonomy in making science policy that
NASA was not prepared to give. Their argument boiled down to three propositions—that the
separation of power and responsibility was deadly for science; that NASA space science was
hit-or-miss, with little evidence of coherent planning; and that even a successful program like
Surveyor ended as “a shallow imitation of what it was intended to be, or what could have been
done with the enormous funds and extended time.”
The Lunar and Planetary Missions Board is illustrative. Webb established the Ad Hoc
Science Advisory Committee, called the Ramsey committee, in January 1966. Chaired by
Norman Ramsey, a Harvard chemistry professor, it was created not to advise on specific
projects but to examine how to conduct the program and suggest ways of involving outside
scientists to a greater degree in science policy making. So thoroughly did this committee do
what it was asked to do that all but two of its proposals had to be turned down. Its
recommendation for a general advisory committee of outside scientists was rejected because it
would have required a fundamental reorganization of the agency and because it might have
forced the administrator to choose between accepting the committee’s advice and supporting the
president’s program. In early April 1967, Webb and Newell rejected a Ramsey committee
proposal for strengthening the scientific competence of the laboratories at Marshall and for
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reorganizing the centers generally to give experimenters greater power. They did accept the
suggestion for a consortium of universities to manage the construction of space observatories.
Even the proposal that NASA did accept—for the creation of a Planetary Missions
Board—had been tentatively approved by NASA before the Ramsey committee completed its
work. One short month later, the Lunar and Planetary Missions Board was established on May
1, 1967, and this and the Astronomy Missions Board established in November were both
directed to be advisory committees of outside scientists appointed by Webb, although the
executive director, as required by law, was a NASA employee detailed from OSSA. LPMB’s
terms of reference were broader than those of any previous advisory body, while falling short of
the general advisory committee recommendations in the Ramsey report. It was chartered to
perform its functions for all NASA, not just OSSA, as the Space Science Board did. Its
members had access to NASA’s internal documents, and unique to this advisory body, LPMB
was to consider both general and specific NASA objectives.
LPMB’s performance could have had a greater effect on NASA’s policy had it been
created a few years earlier in Webb’s administration. The board’s members wanted an integrated
program as they conceived it with a balance between a few large missions and small-scale
spacecraft programs. It ultimately failed in its purpose, largely because its members could not
accept the cancellation of programs that they considered to be essential. Each program cut back
or terminated from 1967 through 1970 marked a stage in the deterioration of relations with
NASA—the cancellation of Voyager in September 1967, Mueller’s indifference to its
recommendations, the September 1969 report of the President’s Space Task Group, the
cancellation of two Apollo flights in 1970. Committed as they were to a vision of what was
scientifically desirable, LPMB’s members had little patience for the budgetary pressures that
shaped NASA externally and the internal forces that made it imperative to keep manned space
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programs alive at the expense of smaller unmanned ones. To them, as well as other scientists
who served as principal investigators, the agency was simply the only available means for
achieving certain important ends.
It should be emphasized that there was no basic difference between scientists who
supported NASA and scientists who publicly criticized it. Indeed, some of NASA’s severest
critics, like University of Iowa physicist James van Allen, often served as principal
investigators. What disturbed LPMB’s members was the sacrifice of programs like Surveyor and
Lunar Orbiter, what they regarded as engineering grand standing. When they learned the details
of the report of the President’s Space Task Group, which had recommended a manned mission
to Mars before the end of the century, their first reaction was to resign, and further decisions to
replace several Apollo missions with Skylab and move the Viking project to 1975 only added to
their frustration. The changes and cancellations strengthened their conviction that science had
second-class status and that the scheduling of the lunar exploration was matched to engineering
rather than to scientific requirements. The gulf between LPMB and NASA was unbridgeable,
and in August 1970 LPMB held its final meeting.
Rather than specific recommendations concerning future programs, the overriding issue
between NASA and the scientific community was governance—decisions on what programs
should be approved and at what level of funding and who should be charged with conducting
space science that was supported with public funds. Turning to the actual recommendations of
the advisory bodies on which NASA drew, one finds it surprising to see how cautious they were
in drafting post -Apollo programs. Most of them endorsed the validity of manned space flight
and all argued in favor of a “balanced” program. The governance issue was seldom raised
explicitly; for that, one must turn to the Ramsey committee or LPMB’s papers.
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In the papers of the Space Science Board, one finds some cautiously worded criticism
regarding the content, rather than the organization, of the space program. In 1965-1966, the
board released several reports bearing on long-range plans, three based on a summer study held
at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1965. The National Academy of Sciences sponsored the
study and NASA funded it. Two noteworthy conclusions were that the national space program
should embrace several goals rather than one overriding mission and that there should be a
gradual shift from manned to unmanned programs and from lunar to planetary exploration. In
July 1966, Harry Hess, a Princeton geologist and chairman of the Space Science Board,
explained in a letter to Webb that the board was not prepared to provide proposals. Aside from
repeating the proposals of the Woods Hole study, the board recommended “continued manned
lunar exploration with Apollo hardware but with decreasing allocation of resources toward the
end of the period.” The board was even more skeptical of the need for a manned space station in
Earth orbit. To be sure, not all scientists shared these views. Charles Townes, the chairman of
STAC and recipient of the 1964 Nobel prize in physics, emphatically disagreed, but his was
increasingly the minority view outside NASA.
The President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), many of whose members
served on NASA’s advisory bodies, showed the same mixture of praise for NASA’s
achievements, ambivalence regarding its program planning, and reluctance to touch on the
governance issue as the reports mentioned. In two 1967 reports, PSAC carried the proposals the
Space Science Board outlined several steps further. The first, The Space Program in the
Post-Apollo Period, released in February, represented the most ambitious survey of the space
program in several years. PSAC Joint Space Panels proposed an elaborate but balanced
program, “based on the expectation of eventual manned planetary exploration.” In common with
the earlier reports, the PSAC report stressed “a balanced program. . . integrating manned and
the most challenging ultimate objective for space exploration is the exploitation by man of the
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nearby planets.” 2 1 While the report endorsed several NASA objectives, it did so with
reservations; it recommended one or two annual manned lunar explorations for several years as
well as unmanned spacecraft “capable of landing significant scientific payloads anywhere on the
moon.” The report was not enthusiastic about NASA’s planning, either how it was conducted or
its results. PSAC sharply criticized the follow-on Apollo missions (not the concept itself but the
way in which NASA proposed to realize it). The committee also recommended a greater
integration of manned and unmanned mission planning.
The report of the PSAC Space Science and Technology Panel was completed in
December but not made public. Whereas the earlier report had surveyed prospects for the
ensuing decade, this report focused on the ensuing fiscal year. In general, its criticisms were
those of earlier PSAC and Space Science Board reports, although, if anything, its conclusions
were even more pointed and skeptical. Beyond the governance issue, the PSAC panels and the
Space Science Board wanted a different kind of program balance than NASA seemed able to
provide. What did their reports have in common? First, an emphasis on the importance of
stronger unmanned planetary programs, despite NASA’s assurances that it was doing all that
could be done. Second, a tendency to question the value of Apollo Applications because it was
competing with scientifically more valuable programs, because the human role seemed to be
inadequately justified and because MOL hardware, suitably modified, could be used instead.
Finally, the PSAC reports pointed to certain economies that might be achieved in planning space
programs such as using DOD launch vehicles and MOL hardware, using a separately launched
lunar-roving vehicle as an adjunct to manned missions, and combining unmanned
spacecraft with ground-based studies. The PSAC report was especially critical of one argument
of Apollo Applications: “Operational space systems for economic benefit are unlikely to be
2 1 President’s Science Advisory Committee, The Space Program in the Post-Apollo Period (Washington,
D.C.: February 1967).
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manned systems.” The overall effect of the reports was to cast doubt on the adequacy of
NASA’s planning.
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Chapter 5
Institutionalizing Organizational Change, 1967-1969
James Webb, at NASA’s helm for more than 8 years during the 1960s, described his
role as administrator:
What I want you to realize is that you are not on a nice ship steaming across
the ocean at a high speed with the flags flying. You are sort of on a raft that is
partly at the mercy of the currents and you are going to keep your feet wet and
have a real hard time getting all of it done, but you must consider the total
environment within which you operate.1
Nineteen sixty-seven was probably the most eventful year of that decade. Although the January
27 Apollo fire dominated NASA for months afterward, 1967 also marked Gemini's completion,
the first launching of Saturn V, the cancellation of Voyager for the exploration of Mars, further
reductions in NASA’s budget, a Civil Service Commission report that was highly critical of
NASA’s personnel management, and a GAO investigation of NASA’s support service contracts.
Even without the Apollo fire and the ensuing publicity, NASA’s officials would have had reason
to worry about the future. Questions asked at congressional hearings had a disturbing way of
recurring. What was NASA doing about post-Apollo planning? Why did the agency spend
comparatively little on aeronautics and applications and so much on manned spaceflight? How
could NASA guarantee that it could handle its contractors and not become their captive?
The Office of Organization and Management:
The Last Major Change of the 1960s
By the end of 1966, a month before the fire, Webb and Seamans had become
sufficiently worried about NASA’s managerial structure to ask Harold B. Finger to head a task
force to study the full spectrum of functional management with a view to restructuring it. He
was invited to recommend how changes might best be implemented, how they would affect the
'Arnold S. Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era, NASA History Series SP-4102 (Washington, D.C.:
1982).
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program offices and the centers reporting to them, and whether they should be phased in over
time. By February, Finger was preparing the charter for a management office, and on March 15
Webb named him Associate Administrator for Organization and Management, ushering in the
last major reorganization.
Webb chose Finger because he had succeeded as a research and development manager;
he was the very type of line operator Webb wanted to bring from the field to headquarters who
could understand the agency as a prelude to running it. As director of NASA’s Nuclear
Propulsion Office since it was established in 1960, Finger had done remarkably well not only in
handling the usual range of project management problems but also in carrying the added burden
of working with another agency, with the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, and with Senator
Clinton Anderson (D-New Mex.), a member of the joint committee and chairman of the
Aeronautical and Space Sciences Committee, which authorized NASA’s budget. Finger had the
experience and ability to win the respect of the program offices he would have to work with to
restructure the agency in the aftermath of the Apollo fire.
After March 15, 1966, the following functional offices reported directly to Finger: the
Office of Administration headed by William E. Lilly, the Office of Industry Affairs headed by
Bernhardt L. Dorman, the Office of Technology Utilization headed by Richard Lesher, and the
Office of University Affairs headed Francis B. Smith. Another change by which Wyatt, who
reported to Seamans, became Assistant Administrator for Program, Plans, and Analysis was
perhaps just as significant. In the process, the budgeting and programming functions previously
under Wyatt were transferred to the Office of Administration, reporting to Finger, as part of an
agencywide system for resource management, including programming, budgeting, personnel
management, and financial reporting. Within the year, several more offices were brought within
Finger’s control—the Office for Special Contracts Negotiation and Review, established in May
1966 to monitor certain important contracts, particularly the North American Aviation contracts
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for the S-II stage of the Saturn launch vehicle and for the Apollo command and service modules;
the Audit Division; the Inspections Division; and the headquarters Administration Office. By
spring 1968, the role of management and supervision had passed from Seamans, who left NASA
at the beginning of January, to Finger.
In certain crucial respects, however, Finger’s assignment differed from Seamans’.
Finger was brought in because self-policing had not worked and because, in Webb’s view, there
had been too much emphasis on programs and not enough on administration. In the past, he
argued, nobody minded how the job was done as long as it got done. The Apollo fire and the
attacks by congressmen had changed all that. The agency had been caught unprepared. Webb
now wanted the job done but done properly and through the approved chain of command. The
management instruction that established Finger’s office stated that all officials with leadership
and executive responsibility were expected to accomplish agency programs within the
prescribed systems and procedures. Furthermore, it was Finger’s responsibility to develop
criteria for selecting research and development personnel who demonstrated administrative
competence and for transferring to nonadministrative specialties personnel who could not grow
in both program and administrative areas.
In private, Webb was even blunter. Finger’s office was now to the rest of NASA what
the Bureau of the Budget was to the federal structure. The Office of Organization and
Management would be given, according to Webb, police authority over the system, as if to say,
You’ve got to prescribe the system, you’ve got to monitor the system, you’ve
got to audit performance under it, and these fellows can’t get the money to go
forward “Without you.” . . . I am giving them real teeth. I am saying to Harry
[Finger], “If these fellows don’t satisfy you with respect to the components to
the system, cut off the water. Don’t give them any money.” He’s got the
authority to allocate the money, he’s got authority to issue in his own right a
modification of a project approval document and say, “Boys, you used to
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think you’re going to do it this way, and even when you don’t like what I’m
proposing, here it is signed. Go do it this way.”2
Along with the Office of Program, Plans, and Analysis and the secretariat, the Office of
Organization and Management was to provide Webb with multiple layers of feedback; under
Finger’s leadership, it was expected to penetrate almost every facet of administration. Now the
heads of the program offices had to work through Finger in preparing and seeking approval for
their project approval documents (PAD). That is, Finger was expected to certify to the
administrator that a draft PAD was sound and that it had not only an updated launch schedule
attached but also a reference to the research and ongoing projects that should feed the project.
But Finger and his assistants were expected to do more than this.
During 1967 and 1968, they planned and carried out several important studies of
NASA’s management processes: an April 1967 report on the “functional review process,” or the
self-evaluations and internal reviews of the functional offices themselves; a task force review of
the actions and decisions leading to mission assignments and approved PADs; and the
preparation of detailed guidelines for phased project planning. The power to review, inspect,
establish management systems, deal with GAO, and allocate resources for research and
development made Finger the most powerful staff official at headquarters. Reporting directly to
Webb, a member of NASA’s Management Council, and the conduit through which all PADs
had to pass before arriving on Webb’s desk, Finger was both line and staff.
The creation of the Office of Organization and Management was only part of a larger
strategy, a wider frame of reference. It assumed importance only in relation to the other
functions and roles that constituted “NASA management.” Where the three top officials of
1961-1965 had been able to substitute freely for one another, the key officials at headquarters
after 1967 were charged with broad functional responsibilities that the administrator delegated.
2 John M. Lodgson, ed., External Relationships, vol. II o f Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in
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Finger was, so to speak, both inspector-general and administrative housekeeper. Shapley,
whose office was subject to the overall administrative system that Finger established, was once
more in charge of the offices clustered around external affairs, especially relationships with the
Congress and DOD. Newell, who became associate administrator in September 1967, was
charged with organizing and coordinating NASA’s long-range planning.
At the same time, the heads of the program offices were expected to become more like
group vice presidents. The more they had to deal with one or two officials like Finger and
Shapley, the more they were to shoulder responsibilities for getting their work done. That work
was principally coordination—coordinating their project planning with Finger, long-range
planning with Newell, congressional presentations with Shapley, and review of management
processes with one another, as if each one was the administrator having to make decisions
concerning and affecting all areas of the agency’s programs and operations.
The Adequacy of NASA’s Planning
A summary of NASA’s planning reveals its extreme complexity, the mixture of
technical and administrative considerations that guided it, and the inability of NASA’s planners
to design a plan that the entire agency could rally around. This section concentrates on how
NASA’s planning was done in the 1960s and who did it, how well it succeeded, and the lack of
attention NASA’s officials paid to the administrative consequences of substantive programs.
How Planning Was Perceived
NASA had at least four planning cycles in the 1960s, the last two of which overlapped.
Early in the decade, NASA prepared and then dropped a formal long-range plan. This was
followed by the Future Programs Task Group of 1964-1965 and then by the various special
the History o f the U.S. Civil Space Program, NASA SP-4407 (Washington, D.C.: 1996).
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studies and task forces OMSF and OSSA directed and the Program Coordination Group (PCG)
and Program Steering Group (PSG) planning exercises of 1968-1969. In a comparison of
features common to all NASA planning, the evidence suggests that planning was additive rather
than synthetic—that is, every agency plan tended to be the sum of its parts rather than an
integrated whole. Most planning, and almost all planning that mattered, was carried out by the
centers and program offices, not by headquarters staff offices reporting to the administrator.
There was a persistent tension in the plans drafted by the program offices and agency task forces
between what was technically feasible and what was politically acceptable.
No plan had any chance of success until it was acceptable to NASA’s administrator, the
Congress, and the White House. Lacking a rigorous analysis of the costs and benefits of each
plan, NASA officials below the level of the Office of the Administrator relied on what was
technically feasible. Feasibility means that something is possible, not that it is probable or that
the program in question is the most effective means of accomplishing a desired outcome. For
example, even OMSF center directors were skeptical of the ATM design and its location on the
lunar module.
What complicated the job of planning was the confusion between a “balanced” and an
“integrated” program in the various reports and studies dealing with post-Apollo planning. The
term “balanced” was almost always used by those who attacked, as well as those who defended,
NASA policy. The Space Science Board, the Space Task Group, PSAC, and the Townes
committee all believed that what they proposed struck the proper balance between manned and
unmanned programs, or lunar planetary exploration and Earth-orbital applications satellites. Yet
Webb, at least, was prepared to argue that NASA already had a balanced program within the
authorized funding. The concept of a balanced program had meaning only in terms of some
uniform standard all could refer to, the lack of which could be used to advocate whatever some
official or advisory body considered desirable.
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In theory, an integrated plan could be defined as the “framework that would meld many
separate program elements into a coherent whole.”3 Interpreted this way, however, the term was
ambiguous. NASA executives of the 1960s tended to confuse means with ends. The Space
Station was treated as a “mission” when it was only a “capability.” In an agency that was
organized around one overriding mission, the proposal to design an unmanned interplanetary
probe could be regarded from two quite different viewpoints—as either preliminary to a manned
mission or as an end in itself. The difficulties in drafting an integrated plan were part of the
failure to consider what such a plan would imply for NASA’s organization and management. It
is instructive to distinguish between the short-term and long-term difficulties NASA had in
drafting an integrated plan.
Integrated Planning and Problems in Communication
At the end of the 1969 planning cycle, Newell wrote a report to serve as a kind of
balance sheet of the strengths and weaknesses of NASA’s planning. Newell was remarkably
frank about the difficulty of getting all the agency divisions to participate. He noted that there
was not enough center participation; that the scope of the planning task, added to their other
responsibilities, had overworked many line officials; that some unnamed persons could not
separate their roles as heads of centers and operating divisions from their agencywide
responsibilities within PSG; and, finally, that fundamental conflicts over program priorities
between OSSA and OMSF had been aggravated by impending budgetary cutbacks. None of this
should have been surprising.
NASA’s decentralized structure was designed to carry out the Apollo mission, but it
was not calculated to lead to integrated planning. Because manned spaceflight took so large a
portion of the agency’s budget and manpower, planning tended to be mostly a matter of
3 James Webb on the Science and Technical Information Board 1969, NASA Historical Reference Books,
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devising a sequel to Apollo or moving as far from it as possible. Also, the very same problems
that Newell cited in getting the centers and headquarters to work together had been anticipated
in the problems that OMSF had in working with its operating divisions. What Seamans had
singled out as the chief faults in OMSF planning in summer 1967 were virtually identical to
those Newell was now discussing more than 2 years later.
Newell and Seamans had arrived independently at NASA’s common faults. These
were the absence of underlying estimates and assumptions, the centralized direction to planning
that precluded candid review and analysis of meaningful alternatives because only one program
view was provided for consideration, and the lack of the centers’ participation in the key
elements of the planning process that dealt with program objectives and realistic possibilities of
contributing to their achievement. The two men found that among these faults, the lack of
candid communication within OMSF and between OMSF and other organizational elements
frustrated most the possibility of developing and implementing the best total agency program.
Lack of communication between NASA’s divisions made the long-term success of any
planning exercise doubtful. Webb had successfully accomplished the NASA lunar missions, but
as the decade moved into its final years, the political environment changed. Without his
mandate, Webb became increasingly unsuited to lead an agency of multidisciplined science
programs. As Newell observed,
We found that some of the centers would not discuss the question of their
staffing because they were afraid that if they indicated that they could take on
a new project that they wanted to get, the availability of people would be
signaled for headquarters to take those people away and put them somewhere
else.4
The attitude of having nothing to gain by speaking up meant, almost inevitably, that a proposal
that a working group presented could be shown to have more certainties than challenges and that
vol. 3, Papers o f Townes (Washington, D.C.: 1995). See also Levine, Managing NASA in the Apollo Era.
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each element could be shown to be feasible in terms of projected time and effort but that the
total effect was likely to be negligible in terms of forward motion.
Planning and NASA’s Post-Apollo Structure
The integrated plan in post-Apollo 1968 had three related elements: aeronautics to
space technology, a rationale for unmanned systems to manned systems, and substantive
programs for the realization of institutional change. Organizationally, the NASA of 1969-1970
was almost unchanged from the NASA of November 1963. The situation in 1968-1969, in
contrast, was fundamentally different in two respects: The agency no longer had an overriding
mission comparable to Apollo, and in a period of declining budgets, the agency needed greater
flexibility to adjust to change.
In fact, the phase-down of Apollo had raised questions that were basically
administrative. What should the division between advanced research and development be?
Should each center belong to a designated program office, or should emphasis on
multifunctionality become a standard? Should responsibility for applications remain with
OSSA, be assigned to a separate program office, or be dispersed throughout the agency? Should
NASA maintain a separate Office of University Affairs despite the virtual demise of NASA’s
support for university research? How should NASA avoid excessive dependence on DOD’s
support? In the area of manpower planning alone, some questions could not wait for new
programs before they were resolved, questions such as: Should work be moved from centers
that had too much to centers that had too little? Could “wasteful duplication” be defined so as to
eliminate unnecessary, overlapping facilities at the centers? And how could NASA best
4 Lodgson, Exploring the Unknown, p. 494; Homer Newell, official correspondence o f 1965, gray folder
series 2qtr 65, NASA Historical Archives, Washington, D.C.; Office o f Manned Space Flight document
1969, Washington, D.C., 1969.
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maintain its in-house competence and promote employees with management skills to more
responsible positions?
In 1968-1969, no key official dared discuss publicly the organizational shifts that a
post -Apollo program would entail, although task forces like the one that wrote the 1966
Hjomevik report had already done some of the thinking. Organizational restructuring matters,
even if it only ratifies existing power relationships. A restructuring of field center to
headquarters relationships was potentially the most explosive issue facing NASA’s
management. A major reorganization could easily have tom NASA apart, since it would almost
certainly have meant that some centers would gain at the expense of others. Although no official
discussed the scope of organizational change publicly, a few had ideas on what NASA ought to
become.
Mueller, for instance, proposed restructuring NASA in a way that would have left it, in
organizational terms, where it was before 1961. He proposed a stricter demarcation between
research centers like Langley, development centers like Marshall, and operational centers like
the Kennedy Space Center. In view of the availability of manpower at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory and Marshall Space Flight Center, he suggested transferring development projects to
these installations. He went further in advocating clearer statements of roles and missions for
the centers, withdrawing research centers from project management, separating research
functions from development and contract administration at the research laboratories, creating a
separate headquarters office to manage projects once they became “operational,” and delegating
responsibility for planning to the program offices, with a separate policy staff for general
guidance. Finally, he urged that officials recognize that NASA’s competence was in applied
research and that NASA should rely on universities. In effect, Mueller proposed a radical
simplification of NASA at a time when there was no consensus on the post-Apollo organization.
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Some of Mueller’s proposals, like the one for an “Office of Operations,” were
workable. As Mueller observed at the end of 1969,
At some point . . . we will be faced with the need for 24-hour-a-day,
365-day-a-year operations with several manned and unmanned space vehicles
in operation at the same time. This will mean greatly expanding and
integrating launch and mission control capability on one hand, and simplifying
and cost cutting of systems on the other. At some point we will need to give
serious consideration to a total operations organization here in Headquarters to
manage an agency-wide operations program.5
Meanwhile, an attempt to work out a strict division of labor between the centers would have
been fraught with risk, especially if a center’s original reason for being should end. Also, some
of NASA’s centers like Langley welcomed the assignment of flight projects, because
development work generated new research problems for their laboratories. The truth seems to be
that no center could survive simply as a job shop. As Marshall’s officials explained to the
Homevik task force, “A Center must have a central role and mission around which it builds its
competence and achieves its place in the world.”6 With a central role and mission firmly
established and operating, a center can take on related activities to fill in peaks and valleys in its
workload and can even work for other centers, if necessary. But in 1969, the issue of
reorganizing NASA was simply too divisive to be raised.
In sum, NASA did not produce an effective integrated plan, either for a future course
of action or as a means of adjusting to the actual funding levels the Congress authorized. Yet
there is evidence that a few centers were able to plan successfully, even in the absence of
headquarters guidance or top management’s knowledge that anything out of the ordinary was
happening. The evidence is fragmentary: Successful planning at Goddard or Langley was not
part of any agencywide plan, was as much a response to the logic of current programs as it was
5 Lodgson, Organizing fo r Exploration, vol. I o f Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the
History o f the U.S. Civil Space Program, NASA SP-4407 (Washington, D.C.: 1995).
6 MacDougall, The Heavens and the Earth, pp. 3 ,4 , and 13-20.
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to funding cutbacks, and has to be inferred from scattered documents. At a center like Goddard,
which by 1971 had 18 ongoing projects, the emphasis was on plotting manpower requirements
in order to maintain balance between the projects. All NASA center directors had broad
discretionary powers and the authority to control personnel assignments, to ask for more people
if necessary, and to reprogram funds from one research task area to another within the same
research subprogram.
Center management developed the ability to move employees from one project to
another, prevent imbalance in the mix of skills at the centers, and reduce or eliminate manpower
in areas that no longer demanded top priority. This was not so much planning in the PSG sense
as it was adaptation to a tight budget, stricter personnel controls, and the perceived need for a
new internal flight project that would have to be managed within available resources. This is
not to say, for example, that Goddard’s experience could be repeated elsewhere. This center was
unique for its mixture of large and small flight projects, the coordination of science and
engineering disciplines with those responsible for managing NASA’s tracking networks, and the
ability of its project managers to perform work that other centers usually contracted out. But it
was precisely this kind of restructuring at the field level that represented the most successful
planning within NASA at the end of the 1960s.
The space agency was created 2-1/2 years before President Kennedy made the decision
to commit the United States to a lunar landing, and it was still in business the day after Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down in the Sea of Tranquillity. Apollo marked a rare
convergence of technology and political support. NASA’s remarkable success in managing its
programs depended on the ability of its top officials to enunciate goals, maintain good
relationships with the White House and the Congress, shape the agency from within, and
delegate to the program offices and centers the authority they needed to get the job done.
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In 1961, NASA had been a new organization in a state of flux. When Webb was
appointed administrator in February 1961, and Seamans deputy administrator 4 years later,
NASA had been a loosely structured agency whose field centers worked in relative isolation
from one another and from headquarters. Webb’s unitary decision-making process when
coupled with the lunar landing mandate radically altered this state of relative isolation. One of
the most important aspects of the Apollo program was the speed with which the crucial program
decisions were made and the major prime contracts were awarded.
Except for the decision to go to testing, Apollo’ s major program decisions were made
between August 1961 and July 1962.7 It seems unlikely that if they had been stretched over a
longer period, they would have received the support they did. NASA announced its selection of
Houston as the site of the Manned Spacecraft Center after a brief survey, yet the creation of the
center generated powerful political support. The site itself was well located in relation to other
NASA centers, and the reasons given for establishing a new center were justified in relation to
the Apollo mission. NASA could not convince the Congress or the public that a capability in
electronics research was as vital to the agency as the ability to develop the Apollo spacecraft. In
other words, the agency’s top officials made the important decisions while there was time to do
so. The 1961 reorganization had had to be reversed 2 years later, but it gave NASA management
the opportunity to bring the centers under tighter control. Webb’s unifying and value-
maximizing behavior was central to the success of the agency in this time.
Another element in the success of the NASA organization was flexibility for the
administrator—flexibility to appoint staff to excepted positions, to award major research and
7 Homevik Task Force Papers, NASA Historical Reference Data Book, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: 1995).
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development contracts without competitive bidding, to reprogram within appropriation accounts
and to transfer between them, to devise and administer custom-tailored entrance examinations.
Examples such as these represent flexibility within the system, not a departure from it; for
example, the Congress, the Bureau of the Budget, and the Civil Service Commission allowed
internal variances from the norm. Such flexibility allowed for that “free play” without which
institutional lethargy sets in. The use of excepted positions, for example, served not only to
retain employees at NASA but also to bring new blood into the organization and to expose
NASA to outside influences. Similarly, without the authority to negotiate major contracts
noncompetitively, it is unlikely that the lunar landing would have occurred on schedule. Indeed,
this authority was probably more important for NASA than was the introduction of incentive
provisions in 1962.
Contract incentives were difficult for NASA to administer. They required a great deal
of manpower and paperwork, the criteria for incentive payments were hard to pin down, and a
contradiction was inherent in fixing targets for changing programs. NASA management might
have awarded development contracts without adding incentive provisions, but it is hard to
imagine Gemini or Apollo becoming operational had the agency been bound by competitive
bidding or other rules that would have constrained its ability to choose its sources. Apollo’ s
engineering support contracts are good examples of the agency’s freedom. The Apollo Technical
Integration and Engineering contract began as a letter contract and remained so for more than a
year, until NASA and Boeing negotiated definitive terms. In this and other cases, the flexibility
available to NASA’s administrator depended on congressional willingness to tolerate practices
that might have been disallowed elsewhere.
The Politics of NASA’s Strategic Planning
To maintain flexibility and to adapt to change, calculated reorganizations were
frequent, having been made in 1961, 1963, 1965, and 1967. This policy of calculated change
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had two purposes. Webb was unwilling to be rigidly bound by the agency’s own past policies.
More important, each reorganization went beyond simple corrections to improve
communications between decision-making staff and support staff or to refocus the agency as a
whole on a new phase of Apollo and its follow-on programs.
Webb’s executive team saw its responsibilities in political terms and took it upon itself
to justify NASA where it mattered most: to the President, to the Bureau of the Budget, and to
the Congress, which had the power to modify its funding requests. Politics was a systemic
requirement. What distinguishes government programs is not that some play politics and others
do not but, rather, that some are better at playing it than others. For instance, the history of
NASA from its establishment until 1969 can be charted in terms of the agency’s ability to
design its mandated programs, procure its hardware, and support its spacecraft without overt
interference from the Congress or the military space program.
The strategies of Webb’s leadership that emerge most clearly from the 1960s are
□ maintaining NASA’s independent status as a research and development agency,
□ curbing outside interference from advisory and coordinating groups,
□ seeking congressional approval for measures that the agency was about to take,
and
□ limiting NASA’s support of other agencies, the better to concentrate its resources
on Gemini and Apollo.
NASA’s relationship with DOD is an example of the first strategy. Conflicts with PSAC, the
Ramsey committee, and LPMB are examples of the second. The third strategy is exemplified in
NASA’s position on the supersonic transport, reflecting Webb’s and Dryden’s desire not to
strain NASA’s resources to the limit. As for the fourth strategy, Webb dismantled the
headquarters office that prepared the NASA Long-Range Plan in order to avoid premature
commitment to projects beyond the scope of the lunar mandate.
NASA’s relationship with its advisory committees illustrates Webb’s reasons for
denying outside scientists the role they demanded. Webb rejected the Ramsey committee’s
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proposal for a general advisory committee because it would have fettered his power to run the
agency and to defend the president’s budget. In NASA, the advisory process worked effectively
for designing experimental payloads or selecting principal investigators. Within rather narrow
limits, advisory groups could do even more; thus, the Astronomy Missions Board, established in
November 1967, proposed what became the High Energy Astronomy Observatory and may
have saved the Apollo Telescope Mount when NASA officials were seriously considering its
cancellation, but LPMB and the Astronomy Missions Board, the principal attempts to create
parallel advisory bodies for “strategic” scientific planning, lay outside Webb’s comfort zone,
and he considered them a threat to his power and decision-making process.
Other flaws in the advisory process were the overlapping of jurisdictions, the lack of
standard operating procedure, and the infrequent meetings of such groups as the Space Science
Board. Yet it seems clear that the comparatively ineffective role of the missions boards owed
something to management’s reluctance to give their members the responsibilities they had come
to expect. In general, NASA management was exceedingly wary of delegating authority to
outside advisory groups. Since NASA was decentralized for so large an agency, it might be
more accurate to say that programs such as Apollo or the Orbiting Observatories could not have
been managed without delegating authority. Authority to negotiate contracts up to a specified
amount, to transfer funds between programs, to start new research tasks without seeking specific
authorization, or to shift manpower from one division to another could be achieved only if it
were delegated to the field center that had the expertise and unique technical legacy. The
strategy of senior management was to give the centers what they needed to get the job done but
not so much that their work would lose its relevance to the agency’s mission.
During the 1960s, the research and development centers tended to become like one
another: Centers reporting to one program office began to work for others, while the centers that
had a mixture of projects weathered the budget cuts at decade’s end better than those that had
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one or two large development programs that were phasing down. One of Apollo's most
important by-products was the pressure it placed on mature NASA centers to enter into
development work, as with Langley’s management of Lunar Orbiter, Lewis’ of Centaur, and
Ames’ of Pioneer and Biosatellit e. Pressure from within the centers themselves brought about
this change. It should be added that many NACA engineers had adjusted rapidly to the new
agency’s style and rose to high positions within it—men who were then younger but became
NASA legends like Edgar Cortright, Harold Finger, and George M. Low.
Several lessons can be learned from efforts to delegate authority to NASA’s field
installations. One is the extent to which successful decentralization hinged on developing new
management devices for monitoring and control. A second is that reorganization in the field had
to be matched by change at headquarters. A third, the most important of all, is that in a large
agency, there can be no such thing as complete centralization or complete decentralization.
Agency leadership that has pursued a policy of centralization over the years may think that
minor relaxation of that policy constitutes a conversion to decentralization. Conversely, an
organization accustomed to liberally delegating authority and responsibility might view one or
two decisions to withhold some further delegation as a return to centralization. At NASA, as
more and more authority for a wide range of responsibilities was allowed in the regions, the
more the need for strong, centralized planning increased. This was particularly true in the
management of the agency’s resources. George Mueller once summarized the relationship
between headquarters and at least some of the centers this way:
One reason that the Manned Space Flight Centers are enthusiastic about the
MSF organization is that MSF has delegated authority to the centers to the
greatest extent possible. The centers have few documented-type constraints
placed upon them, but the constraints have been carefully chosen so that
MSFC has good control.8
8 Papers o f George Mueller, “Decentralization,” NASA Historical Archives, Washington, D.C. See also
NASA Historical Records Data Book, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: 1995).
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This may have been adequate during the era of Apollo, whose scope was such that
headquarters could coordinate, inspect, and develop standards for it but could hardly manage it
directly. By 1968-1969, the same centers were in the early phases of a withdrawal process
brought on by cuts in manpower and funds. The centers could alleviate the problem of new roles
and missions but only in part. Most of them were adaptable, and nearly all had gone through at
least one reorganization in the late 1950s or early 1960s, moving from aeronautics research to
launch vehicle development, as at Lewis, or from development work on guided missiles to lunar
and planetary probes, as at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. By 1969, another cycle of
reorganization was under way, as facilities that were no longer needed were closed, others were
modified to accommodate new programs, and new facilities like the Lunar
Receiving Laboratory at Houston’s Manned Spaceflight Center became accomplished facts. Yet
the more subtle changes in a center’s mission could occur only gradually. And here, it seems,
the failure of headquarters to draft a coherent long-range plan left the centers at a serious
disadvantage.
The advanced studies and task force reports of 1964-1969 were no substitute for an
agencywide plan. The difficulties of planning were real enough, as PCSG and the members of
its working groups found. There were too many planning groups with little coordination among
them, a lack of common interest among the centers, and an artificial forcing of the planning
process by the creation of the President’s Space Task Group (STG). Still, top management
might have done more to bring the process to some visible result inside the agency. In
particular, not enough was done to relate substantive programs to the institutional framework.
NASA thrived during the early 1960s and it survived the cutbacks of the late 1960s
because of four elements within, or conferred upon, the organization—administrative flexibility;
senior management’s ability to play the political game on Capitol Hill, at the White House, and
before the public at large; the decentralization of program management by dispersing authority
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into the field; and the timeliness with which the important decisions were made. Whether
NASA’s success in managing large-scale endeavors set a precedent for another Manhattan
Project or another Apollo is another matter. Apollo will always stand as a monument to the
ability of hundreds of thousands of widely dispersed men and women to accomplish a program
of staggering magnitude.
Why the Effort to Institute Group Management Did Not Work
The nature of administrative change in NASA from the beginning of 1967 to Webb’s
resignation on October 7, 1968, may be summarized as follows. First, Webb had a penchant for
pouring new wine into old bottles. He liked to retain the name while changing the format. Thus,
the Office of Management Development, established in 1964 to enable one of his consultants to
do some troubleshooting, was revived in February 1968 for the totally different purpose of
reviewing all NASA management documentation. Similarly, the Office of Programming became
the Office of Program, Plans, and Analysis and shifted from preparing and validating NASA’s
budget to long-range studies. Such changes tended to emphasize continuity within NASA’s
administrative system. Indeed, most of the changes at headquarters after 1965 represented a shift
in the functions of existing units rather than the addition of new ones.
Second, the changes of 1967-1968 were supposed to lead to group participation in
decision making. One way of effecting this was to have the top officials at headquarters meet
together periodically for discussion and task assignment. The concept was nothing new:
Seamans’ monthly status reviews and Webb’s attendance at an annual review of each program
have already been mentioned. There were also various in-house reviews by the program offices
and, from 1964, annual reviews of advanced mission studies in which each program office
discussed its study plans for the coming fiscal year. The changes of 1967-1968 fragmented
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Webb’s base of power and his decision-making process, which had been effective for the
environment of his time.
These administrative changes took the form of panels, committees, and councils set up
to focus on agencywide problems. Webb established a Management Advisory Panel composed
of NASA officials and part-time consultants to serve as a link with the public administration
community. As associate administrator, Newell chaired the NASA Management Council,
which—established in January 1968 and attended by representatives of all the program and
functional offices—was supposed to evolve into a top management team sharing responsibility.
That is, he was to assume the functions of a general manager like Seamans.
The most interesting changes in this respect were those involving the program reviews.
Each review suffered from serious flaws. The administrator’s reviews presented each program a
segment at a time, and the monthly status reviews mainly covered substantive programs,
although Seamans did attempt to include functional managers within the system. Neither
considered programs as whole entities. Worse, none of the meetings made it possible to take a
hard look at the total NASA program; none distinguished between program office reviews,
which would naturally concentrate on the technical aspects of each project, and top-level
reviews, which would examine a broader range of management problems. Such shortcomings in
the review system had been aired at several meetings, notably one Seamans chaired in
November 1967. On March 11, 1968, Newell announced that the project status reviews would
become general management reviews and would be attended by all key headquarters officials.
The important change was that instead of dealing with one program at a time, the
reviews would provide a regular forum for presenting issues, problems, and policy questions
that involved more than one element of the general management team. This was not to be an
arena for decision making. Rather, policy would be discussed in a manner such that when
formal approval channels were used on a particular issue, there would be a clear understanding
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of the nature and substance of that particular issue among all organizations involved. The
emphasis had shifted from the predictable to the unexpected, from what concerned one office to
what affected all. The NASA Management Council would stress that officials had the
responsibility both to make policy and to justify what they had done.
Third, the changes intensified the fragmentation of authority at headquarters. In
particular, the responsibility for planning and general management was now parceled out to
separate officials. The three-man team, each member of which was prepared to substitute for the
others, had been succeeded by interlocking councils and panels and by units like the Office of
Organization and Management, which were not so much offices as conglomerates of smaller
units. Take, for example, the way in which policy planning was handled from 1967 on. Earlier,
policy planning and policy analysis had been thoroughly ambiguous terms. If they were
understood to include long-range planning, then no office and no official could really claim full
responsibility for that activity. This was as true of the Planning Coordination Steering Groups
over which Newell presided as it was of the analytical staffs within the program offices, the
Office of Policy that reported to Newell or Wyatt’s Office of Program Plans and Analysis that
pulled together the so-called program memorandums and special analysis studies the Bureau of
the Budget required for the annual budget submission. Long-range planning admittedly
represents a rather extreme case, and the difficulties in preparing a long-range plan were not
only the result of fragmentation. Both the separation of planning from operations and the
incomprehension of NASA’s officials as to the kind of plan to be drafted stemmed from the
same source: Key officials, each preoccupied in his own sphere, could not be the general
managers that Webb demanded.
Fourth, functional management tended to run counter to broader interests in two
ways— one relating to the contact between the functional offices and the centers and the other
relating to program office use of the central functional staff. With respect to the former,
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functional offices like Procurement or Administration tended to work directly through their
counterparts at the centers without first consulting with the program offices. As to the latter,
there is evidence that the program offices did not use the functional offices to anything like the
extent that Webb had anticipated. At a meeting of the Management Advisory Panel in spring
1968, Webb complained that the program directors did not reach upward to use the general staff
and functional staff in the way that those at the top reached down to use them:
each one began to have around him his own people . . . [and] tended to be
autonomous, run things his own way, and you didn’t find him reticent to come
up when he had a problem—with a Senator or Congressman to get help at the
top.9
Finally, the new organizational philosophy failed to take, as new men and problems
appeared. Seamans left the agency at the beginning of 1968; Webb resigned that October;
Thomas O. Paine, who had been appointed deputy administrator, succeeded him in March 1969;
and Finger left to become Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development in April 1969. A number of new faces appeared at the end of 1969. Among them
were Dale D. Myers, general manager of North American Rockwell’s space shuttle program,
succeeding George Mueller, who had been Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight
since 1963 and who was now returning to private industry, and George M. Low, Apollo’s
spacecraft manager since April 1967, who now became NASA’s Deputy Administrator.1 0
As the decade closed, the organization that had been created painstakingly by NASA’s
general management during the 1960s was changing into something else. The various offices of
Administration, Industry Affairs, and University Affairs no longer reported to Organization and
Management, which would be dissolved in 1975. Similarly, the various policy offices and
panels kept going with ad hoc assignments, playing no central role in agencywide planning.
9 James Webb letter to Charles Shapely, September 19, 1967, NASA History Office, Washington, D.C.
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Phased project planning, by which each project was broken into discrete sequential steps, was
drastically modified in 1972 to permit the program offices to determine procedure case by case.
Program Breakdown: Holding on at Decade’s End
At a White House press conference on September 16, 1968, Webb announced his
resignation as NASA’s administrator, effective October 7. After nearly 8 years as administrator,
he was leaving to pursue interests in education and urban affairs. He was staying long enough to
smooth the transition to the next administration, as he assumed that President Richard M. Nixon
would be elected and would want his own administrator.
Politically oriented versions of the circumstances behind Webb’s resignation have long
been a part of NASA’s folklore. In one version, he sought in a meeting with the president to
restore various budget cuts and threatened to resign unless he had his way. At this, President
Johnson called in the White House press corps to announce that Webb had something to say,
whereupon Webb announced that he was leaving NASA.
Webb left NASA at a time when it was making visible progress toward the lunar
landing but had few approved programs beyond this and with the design of Apollo Applications
still in doubt. Webb’s prognosis for the space program was almost grim:
I am not satisfied with the program. I am not satisfied that we as a nation have
not been able to go forward to achieve a first position in space. What this
really means is that we are going to be in second position for some time to
come.1 1
In summer 1968, Apollo Applications was more than a year behind schedule because of
cuts the Congress had made. The $253 million that had been authorized was eventually reduced
to $150 million, and funds were reprogrammed from Apollo Applications to Apollo. In July
1968, the Thompson committee endorsed the concept of Apollo Applications but expressed
W NASA Historical Data Book, vol. 2, Programs and Projects 1958-1968 (Washington, D.C.: 1997),
NASA Historical Archives, Washington, D.C.
1 'Levine, Managing in the Apollo Era, p. 258.
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serious reservations about its design, which ranged from the planning of experiments to the
absence of backup hardware and the questionable nature of the ATM experiment. Webb’s
departure made a complex situation even more complex.
First as acting administrator and then, from March 1969, as administrator, Tom Paine’s
view of long-range planning was very different from Webb’s. Paine wanted an
ambitious post-Apollo program, specifically one that included a program of manned lunar
exploration after the first landing. And he believed that a large space station of long duration—
something that had been talked about but not acted on in NASA for almost a decade—must be
on the agenda.
Between October 1968 and June 1969, NASA’s planning apparatus slowly engaged.
Paine went beyond Webb in planning for the future, undeterred by the practical difficulties of
getting the White House to make funding available. He endorsed the Mueller and Townes
proposal for extended manned exploration. In December 1968, President-elect Nixon appointed
Townes to chair a special task force to consider the space program over the next two decades.
The Townes report, which the White House did not release, did in fact call for a vigorous,
multifaceted program, although it disapproved of any commitment to a large orbiting space
station. Paine dismissed what he saw as the report’s aversion to the word “commitment,” but
those who had drafted it, including Seamans, did not wish to commit the nation to anything. To
this, Paine replied that while he could understand reluctance to make commitments, he could not
sympathize with it. The great value of Apollo was that it had given meaning to the space
program because people identify more readily with men than with machines. And, he continued,
We have been frustrated too long by a negativism that says hold back, be
cautious, take no risks, do less than you are capable of doing. I submit that no
perceptive student of the history of social progress doubts that we will
establish a large laboratory in earth orbit, that we will provide a practical
system for the frequent transfer of men and supplies to and from such a
laboratory, that we will continue to send men to the Moon, and that eventually
we will send men to the planets. If this is true, now is the time to say so. . . .
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We in NASA are fully conscious of practical limitations. . . . In the light of
these considerations, we can be sensible and moderate about our requests for
resources—but we must know where we are going.1 2
By early 1969, two groups in addition to PSG were weaving the fabric of NASA’s
planning. Paine was meeting with his program and center directors to draft a specific plan for a
follow-on to the first lunar landing, which was scheduled for July. Mueller and his staff,
assisted by Bellcomm, were preparing their version of the shape of things to come. They had
one great advantage over the members of PSG and its working groups: They knew where they
were going. Mueller wanted both a space station and a low-cost transportation system. He saw
the station as a logical and necessary step in a national space program, as a way station to the
Moon, as practice for planetary missions, and as a step in reducing the costs of space operations.
The transportation system would have all the virtues of economy plus the added virtue of
changing the role of ground support from one of “being the senior partner in the operation into
a truly supporting role where it handles those things that require external coordination rather
than internal operations.”1 3
Almost as soon as Paine became acting administrator, he endorsed Mueller’s plan for
an orbital space station. In May 1969, Paine set up two task forces—one, headed by Charles
Mathews, Mueller’s deputy, to examine the concept of a manned space station in permanent
Earth orbit and another, headed by Mueller, to study the space shuttle, a low-cost transportation
system for supplying the space station. Then on July 22, 2 days after the Apollo 11 landing,
Mueller announced that NASA was switching from a “wet” to a “dry” workshop—that is, to an
unfueled system, outfitted on the ground and launched by a Saturn V. There were several
reasons for this change: the cancellation for budgetary reasons of MOL on June 10, which
ended the debate over wasteful duplication; the knowledge of OMSF officials that Saturn Vs
1 2 Reference papers o f Administrator Thomas Paine, 1968-1969, NASA Historical Reference Data Book,
vol. 2, Programs and Projects 1958-1968, gray books (Washington, D.C.: 1997).
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would be available for Apollo Applications after the lunar landing; and Mueller’s conclusion
that with the cuts in the 1970 budget, NASA would no longer be able to support the wet
workshop schedule with the funds available. As Mueller put it,
We decided that we had no choice. Obviously the Saturn-5 costs will be in
excess of the Saturn costs. But you will see the program that we have here is
one that predicates a space station and space tug coming up together. . . .
[0]ne of the forcing functions, in addition to the dollars, was the fact that the
weight of the workshop had been growing with time. It is a good illustration
of what happens when you put a program in a holding pattern. And we have
just recently gone out of that holding pattern and are now hopeful that we will
get approval to go forward with this dry workshop and to move out and finish
the job.1 4
All this time, Newell had been trying to persuade headquarters and center officials to
produce a long-range plan. What had been the Synthesis Group of the previous planning cycle
became the Planning Steering Group; what went by that name in 1968 was now the Planning
Review Committee and included the program and center directors. The working groups,
renamed planning panels, were to guide the planning activity but not attempt to do all the
planning. The flaws in the earlier planning structure manifested only within an assigned
category. PSG had the same inability to represent itself as spokesman for the entire agency, the
same lack of adequate staff support, and apparently the conviction of some members of the
planning panels that drafting an integrated plan was a futile exercise.
These difficulties were compounded by the unchecked decline in NASA’s budget and
by President Nixon’s establishing the Space Task Group in February 1969 to draft an overall
plan for the next decade of the U.S. space program. STG, chaired by Vice President Spiro
Agnew, included Thomas Paine as well as Robert Seamans, who became Secretary of the Air
Force that month, and Lee DuBridge, the president’s Science Adviser. The existence of a
high-level task force outside NASA meant that internal NASA planning would be done mostly
1 3 Lodgson, External Relationships.
1 4 Levine, Managing in the Apollo Era, p. 272.
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in terms of what that task force found acceptable. In effect, planning within the agency
proceeded along paths that alternately converged and moved apart. The various planning groups
were drafting programs that were intrinsically desirable for NASA. They were thinking in terms
of programs that were likely to be approved, given current and projected funding levels, and
they assembled the kind of program that could be sold to STG.
In the end, STG represented a partial victory for the views of Paine and Mueller. Its
September 1969 report to the president recommended a balanced program of manned and
unmanned space exploration and singled out as a primary goal a manned Mars mission before
the end of the century. This had been Mueller’s proposal for a long-term objective to succeed
Apollo, but the idea had remained dormant until virtually the launch of Apollo 11, when Vice
President Agnew advanced what he called a simple, ambitious, optimistic goal. This was all that
Paine, Mueller, and Von Braun had needed, and this goal, expanded into a plan of impressive
scope, became the cornerstone of the STG report.
In addition, STG sketched three possible NASA programs at three different funding
levels:
1. The first consisted of a manned Mars mission by the mid-1980s, an orbiting lunar
station, and a 50-man Earth-orbiting space base. Funding would rise from $33
billion in fiscal year 1970 to $8 billion to $10 billion in fiscal year 1980.
2. The second consisted of a Mars mission in 1986 at an $8 billion maximum funding
level in the early 1980s.
3. The third consisted of the initial development of a space station and reusable
shuttles, as in the first two options, but a deferral of the decision on a Mars landing
date, while maintaining the goal of a landing at some point after 1980 but before
the end of the century.
This was merely a statement of alternatives, like the NASA reports to STG had been or the
various PSAC and Space Science Board reports of 1965-1967, and it pointedly avoided setting
a specific date for a manned mission to Mars. In the event, it was as much as Paine could do to
hold on to what the agency already had.
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In 1969, NASA continued to lay off employees at the centers, and at the end of the year
Paine announced the closing of the Electronics Research Center, even as work on the unfinished
$60 million complex proceeded. By that time, it was becoming apparent that, as one journalist
wrote, there would be “no set goal for landing men on Mars, no plan to colonize the moon and
no sudden push to orbit a permanent manned space station above the earth in the next five
years.”1 5
The most ambitious goals of the STG report were tacitly dropped, and President
Nixon’s message of March 7, 1970, which endorsed the third and least expensive of the STG
options, made no mention of a Mars landing. The result of 4 years of studies and long-range
planning were one orbital workshop launched in May 1973, 4 years behind schedule; three visits
to the workshop by astronaut crews; and President Nixon’s January 1972 commitment that a
reusable space shuttle would be built. In the end, there was no post-Apollo space program.
Instead, there were discrete programs, some of which, like the shuttle and Skylab, were what
NASA managed to salvage from the manned programs of the 1960s.
1 5 Thomas O’Toole, “Nixon Rejects Big Outlay for Space in 70,” The Washington Post, January 11, 1970,
p. A l.
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Part III. The 1990s as the Decade of the Institution
Chapter 6
Transition to a New NASA: Challenger, Hubble,
and the Political Environment
NASA would not be what it is today without two watershed events. As after a
revolution, NASA was stunned by the incredible forces of change initiated by the explosion of
Space Shuttle Challenger on January 28,1986, and by the uncovering of gross technical
incompetence in the building of the Hubble space telescope in 1990. To understand the NASA of
the 1990s, it is necessary to understand the impact of these two defining moments on the
organization. The agency’s leadership surrounding its recovery from the Challenger and Hubble
disasters shaped NASA’s organizational strategy for the rest of the decade.
Challenger and How It Changed NASA’s Strategy
The second shuttle mission of 1986, to be flown by Challenger, generated unusually
high prelaunch interest because its crew included a personable, civilian high school teacher.
Christa McAuliffe, NASA’s choice as the first teacher in space, planned to transmit lessons to
thousands of school children on Earth. After several embarrassing launch delays, Challenger
finally took off on the cold winter morning of January 28.
The Explosion and Its Investigation
Seventy-three seconds after lift-off, Challenger exploded. The seven crew members
aboard were killed—Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith
Resnik, Francis Scobes, and Michael Smith. The tragedy, captured on film, was shown
repeatedly on television to a world deeply shocked and sorrowed.
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NASA was badly shaken. The Challenger explosion undoubtedly marked the nadir of
the agency’s history. It also served as the catalyst for a new strategy for the agency. NASA’s
dismay and that of the American public intensified when reports surfaced contending that the
accident could have been prevented. President Ronald Reagan appointed a panel to investigate,
called the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, chaired by former
Secretary of State William P. Rogers, better known as the Rogers Commission.
The Rogers Commission report sharply criticized NASA’s management and its safety
procedures, and it made numerous suggestions for changes in both the shuttle system and NASA
itself. The commission’s report received wide praise, although many observers doubted its
conclusion that NASA was under no demonstrable outside pressure to maintain its launch rate.
NASA Administrator James Fletcher, whom President Reagan had recalled to service after the
tragedy, welcomed the report and vowed to implement its recommendations.1
NASA’s Political Environment
Ironically, NASA’s political environment improved after the biggest disaster in its
history. Political support for NASA generally increased after the Challenger explosion and
seemed to continue to improve. Challenger did bring NASA some problems, in that the
Congress became increasingly skeptical of the agency and stepped up its oversight. But public
support for NASA and the shuttle program jumped considerably after the explosion and stayed
high in the following years. This wave of support was reminiscent of the “rally ’round the flag”
phenomenon, in which the public rushes to back the president in times of crisis. Indeed, the
1 Steve Blakely and John Cranford, “Lawmakers Weigh In on Shuttle Safety Issues,” Congressional
Quarterly, June 14, 1986, p. 1,324.
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accident seemed to rekindle the strong feelings of patriotism and national pride that Americans
have generally tended to associate with the space program.2
Polls archived in General Social Surveys, 1972-1989 showed that despite the accident,
most of the public still had confidence in NASA.3 An overwhelming majority wanted to
continue the shuttle program, despite the risks. For example, a New York Times news poll found
that 85 percent of the people believed the program should continue, and Market Opinion
Research Inc. found that an astounding 89 percent wanted shuttle flights to resume.4 Public
opinion on the issue did not substantially change over the next 2 years. The polls also reflected
higher percentages of the public believing that the shuttle was a good investment.
The Reagan administration’s support for NASA wavered somewhat in the post-
Challenger period. As ever, Reagan’s rhetorical support was strong; he spoke soothingly to the
nation just hours after the explosion and attended the memorial service for the astronauts a few
days later. Yet he delayed 7 months before calling for the construction of a replacement shuttle,
and even then his plan would have diverted funds from other NASA projects to pay for it.
Reagan’s stated space goals remained basically the same throughout his tenure in office. In his
1988 space policy, the military and commercial potential of space and his commitment to the
space station were reaffirmed. Despite his commitment, his administration responded to rising
cost projections for the station by scaling back and stretching out the program. Congressional
critics continued to charge that the Reagan administration lacked a coherent overall space policy.
2 Jon Miller, “The Challenger Accident and Public Opinion,” Space Policy, May 1987, pp. 126-39; The
Harris Survey, February 6, 1986.
3General Social Surveys, 1972-1989: Cumulative Codebook (Chicago: National Opinion Research Center,
1989).
4
Michael R. Kagay, “Poll Finds Increased Support for Nation’s Space Program,” The New York Times,
October 5, 988, and “Opinion Roundup,” Public Opinion, February-March 1986.
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The election of George Bush elevated some enthusiastic proponents of the space
program to high places. Both President Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle were strong
advocates of space exploration, as was budget director Richard Darman. Quayle was set to play
a major role in space policy in the 1990s. Bush delegated considerable authority over space
programs to the vice president, who reportedly saw space policy as an area where he could make
a substantive mark. Bush’s plan, announced in July 1989, that NASA build a manned base on
the Moon and pursue manned exploration of Mars excited NASA but elicited skepticism
elsewhere. Bush did not set a deadline or explain the plan’s financing, estimated to cost $500
billion or more. Aside from the tremendous fiscal obstacles, several observers wondered
whether NASA, beset by troubles from much less ambitious programs, had the technical
competence to attain such a lofty goal.
The Challenger disaster led to important changes in NASA’s relationship with the
Congress. The House Science and Technology Committee held its own hearings into the
disaster and reached generally harsher conclusions about NASA’s performance than the Rogers
Commission did. Numerous members, including some of the agency’s strongest supporters,
admitted that congressional oversight of NASA had been lax. As one legislator said, the
Congress “may have been too trusting of NASA.”
Challenger thus spurred the Congress to conduct more vigorous oversight over NASA.
Robert A. Roe, who chaired the House hearings on the accident, explained the change. Because
of NASA’s great success story, he said, the Congress had been too shy in finding fault with the
agency. As a result of the accident, the Congress and NASA must begin a new era, one in which
the Congress must apply the same strong oversight over NASA that it does over any other
government agency.5 The increase in congressional scrutiny, however, prompted NASA’s
5 John Cranford, “A New Tone Heard in Congressional Dealings with NASA,” Congressional Quarterly
Weekly Report, June 14, 1986, p. 1,325.
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officials to complain that the Congress was delving too deeply into the details of NASA’s
operations. Agency leaders contended that such micromanagement made it much harder to run
NASA. Fletcher remarked that this “is something that the country ought to be worried about.”
Aside from stricter congressional oversight, the attitude of the Congress toward post-
Challenger NASA was mixed. On the positive side, the Congress did appropriate funds to build
a replacement orbiter and, in general, funded the agency more generously than it had in the
recent past. But the Congress demonstrated considerable skepticism about NASA and the space
program in this period. While NASA had long faced some congressional opposition, the
Challenger catastrophe seemed to unleash a continuing wave of faultfinding. For the most part,
the Congress met President Bush’s proposal for a manned trip to Mars with incredulity rather
than support, and it criticized his lack of a funding plan.
The Congress may have been forced into the role of villain, however. According to one
observer, the “new reality” of American space policy at the end of the 20th century and the
beginning of the 21st is that the president makes exciting plans, leaving the Congress to handle
the financing and other dirty work, n addition, funding decisions for space programs have been
made more difficult, since NASA’s budget is considered in the same appropriations bill as that
for such politically appealing agencies as the Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD), the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Another important result of the Challenger episode was the decline in NASA’s
autonomy. The Congress and the executive branch, their faith in NASA shaken, placed
institutional restraints on NASA and invited other agencies to participate more in making space
policy. NASA’s officials protested the encroachment on their bureaucratic turf but were unable
to stop it. As a member of the Reagan administration put it, “NASA is upset because they can
see their empire being carved up.”
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Post-Challenger Strategy
The United States was deeply committed to the shuttle program long before 1986, so
there was little chance that the nation would abandon it after the explosion. Yet NASA still had
to be extremely concerned with the shuttle’s image because of the shuttle’s role in the agency’s
next big project—the Space Station. Plans called for men and women to be transported on the
shuttle and to assemble the station in orbit from material that the shuttle transported to them.
Thus, to some extent, selling the Space Station meant continuing to sell the Space Shuttle.
NASA therefore faced a serious problem, since much of the credibility of the argument the
agency had been using for more than 15 years to support the shuttle had blown up with
Challenger. Handling that problem fell to Fletcher on his second tour as administrator. Fletcher
described his strategy:
The initial strategy was to take the high ground, so to speak. Say that we had
an accident, it was a combination of errors that led to the accident, we’re going
to fix all the problems that we know about that led to the accident. . . . [A]nd
then, last but not least, we’ll not fly till we’re ready to fly, till we think it’s safe
to fly.6
Fletcher’s remarks on the Rogers Commission report exemplified that approach: Where
management is weak, we will strengthen it. Where engineering or design or process need
improving, we will improve them. Where our internal communications are poor, we will see
that they get better.7
This approach blunted overall criticism of NASA but did little to gain political support
for specific programs. When NASA did speak about its activities after Challenger, it referred to
the shuttle only infrequently. The agency constantly extolled the virtues of the Space Station but
said little about the shuttle’s benefits, which had been hailed throughout the 1970s and early
6 John Cranford, Congressional Quarterly Almanac, June 14, 1986, p. 328.
7Cranford, Congressional Quarterly Almanac, p. 328.
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1980s. Fletcher explained that the shift in emphasis away from the shuttle and toward the station
“wasn’t because of the accident so much as [because] we needed a new goal.”
In fact, when NASA did discuss the shuttle, it often used the station as a justification
for the shuttle. NASA argued that the country needed the shuttle since the station, with its
“enormous potential,” was not possible without it. The shuttle “underlies the very concept of a
Space Station,” which must depend on “an efficient, man-rated transportation system.”
Therefore, “the shuttle is the fundamental link in a transportation infrastructure which will carry
this Nation into the 21st century.”8 This tack was quite ironic, since many of the arguments used
to justify the Space Station, including its versatility, economic and commercial importance,
influence on technology, and scientific potential, were the same ones NASA had deployed to sell
the shuttle two decades earlier.
Otherwise, NASA’s justifications for the shuttle were somewhat diluted versions of
arguments it had made before the accident. NASA described many of the same benefits from
the shuttle it had enumerated before 1986, but it did so much more tentatively. The Challenger
disaster, of course, did force NASA to radically alter its stance on some shuttle issues. The
claim that the shuttle would make space flight routine and highly reliable, which had been at the
heart of NASA’s portrayal of the shuttle during the 1970s and early 1980s, was obviously no
longer credible, and NASA did not attempt to salvage it. After the disaster, the agency began to
admit the risk and complexity of the shuttle.
NASA reemphasized the inherent risk of its activities, as in a 1990 brochure: “Veteran
astronauts and engineers alike know that sending men and women into the space frontier will
continue to involve risk, just as it has since America’s first manned sub-orbital flight in 1961.”
In 1989, Fletcher described the shuttle to the Congress in terms that would certainly not have
g
James Fletcher, statement to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, House o f
Representatives, U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C., February 2, 1989.
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been used before the accident. He called the shuttle “a highly technical, highly research and
development, highly risky business, and we aim to make it as safe as we can, but it’s still going
to be a big risk. And some people are willing to take that risk, I applaud them for it. But it is not
routine.”9 Fletcher thus spumed the label “routine” and recoiled at the idea of the shuttle as a
“trucking operation,” an image NASA had relished in the early 1970s. Astronaut Bryan
O’Connor commented in 199Ion its complexity after technical problems twice delayed his
shuttle mission: “We all realize that there are millions of parts involved in this vehicle and that
it’s a miracle when we do launch.”1 0 To Fletcher’s dismay, the tracking analogy stuck.
NASA made repeated pledges to make the shuttle safe. It declared that safety and its
previous claims about performance were top priorities at the agency. In response to charges that
with Challenger NASA had sacrificed safety in order to maintain its ambitious flight schedule,
the agency also vowed not to fly a shuttle until it was as safe as possible, regardless of the
schedule. But its predictions about lower operating costs, high launch rates, and rapid
availability were less tenable after the explosion, and comparisons of the shuttle to commercial
aviation disappeared. A top agency official refuted them by asserting that the shuttle “will never
be ‘operational’ and it will never be an airliner . . . we can’t make it as safe as an airliner.”1 1
NASA maintained the position that the shuttle, the nation’s only means of sending
astronauts into orbit, was a valuable space transportation system. A 1988 NASA brochure read,
9Fletcher, statement to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, February 2, 1989.
1 0 “Shuttle Liftoff Again Delayed,” Nashville Tennessean, June 2, 1991, p. 13A.
1 'Richard Truly, Space Shuttle: The Journey Continues, NASA N P -117 (Washington, D.C.: Government
Printing Office, 1988), p. 4.
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To realize the vast potential of space and to achieve the benefit from space in
science, technology, and commerce, you must first get there. Transportation,
as always, is critical. Payloads must be placed in orbit. The Space Shuttle is
important because it carries these payloads into space.1 2
The image of the shuttle as a freight carrier survived to some extent. According to that same
brochure, the shuttle “is a truck to transport things into space.” The NASA Space Shuttle
described as a truck was partly an example of NASA’s survival in an environment of diversified
interests and political bargaining. The NASA administrator, who fought the truck analogy
adamantly in many forums, eventually succumbed to the emerging interest of the Congress in
commercialization.
NASA contended that the shuttle eased access to space. The agency noted that there
were twice as many shuttle flights in 5 years as there had been manned Apollo, Gemini, and
Mercury flights in 10 years and that the shuttle transported twice as many astronauts into space.
“By that measure,” NASA asserted, “the Space Shuttle fulfilled its goal of improving access to
space.”1 3 Fletcher told the Congress in 1986 that improved access to space, which “was always
the object of the shuttle program . . . has been achieved.”1 4 He went even further in his defense
of the shuttle in later testimony before the Congress:
Really, the space shuttle is a viable vehicle. It is a super flying machine. It
can do all the things it was advertised to do. The cost per flight is higher than
we used to think of it, but in every other respect, it is super machinery.1 5
1 2 Truly, Space Shuttle, p. 4.
1 3 Truly, Space Shuttle, p. 4.
u The Renewed Promise, NASA PAM-521 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1989), pp. 5 -
6.
1 5 James Fletcher, statement to the Subcommittee on HUD and Independent Agencies, Committee on
Appropriations, U.S. Congress, 1989 Appropriations, part 7, 100th Cong., 2d sess., April 19, 1988, pp. 43ff.
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Fletcher continued by saying that the shuttle would enable NASA to achieve its plan to “operate
an effective and efficient space transportation system and develop advanced space transportation
capabilities.”
Challenger grounded the U.S. manned space program for more than 2-1/2 years. In the
meantime, NASA modified the shuttle’s design and worked to fulfill the Rogers Commission’s
suggestions. To NASA’s great relief, the shuttle program resumed successfully in September
1988 with the flight of Discovery. But a new round of problems soon beleaguered the agency.
NASA’s design for the Space Station received harsh criticism on several points. First, critics
charged that NASA had not made a clear case of need for the station. Second was the enormous
cost of the project; estimates ballooned into billions of dollars. Finally, space experts were
aghast when a NASA study revealed that the station would require many more hours of space
walks, or extra-vehicular activity (EVA), for maintenance each year than the 130 hours that
NASA had planned. This finding was especially shocking since EVA had occupied only about
400 hours in the entire history of the American space program.
In addition to the problems with the Space Station, NASA suffered continued problems
with the shuttle program. After discovering potentially deadly hydrogen leaks in the spacecraft
fuel lines, NASA temporarily grounded the shuttle in 1990, prompting yet another round of
criticism. NASA seemed to be in a no-win situation. It was criticized after the Challenger
accident for not being cautious enough; now it was being criticized for being too cautious.
Administrator Truly complained: “it is very frustrating to be castigated, to end up in political
cartoons and to be made fun of when the agency . . . judiciously cancels flights to ensure the
safety of astronauts.”1 6
1 6 Nathan J. Broad, “NASA Funds Space Station Building Plans,” The New York Times, March 30, 1990, p.
C8; see also William Jaroff, “Sprung Out o f Orbit,” The New York Times, March 30,1990, p. 27.
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The HubbleTelescope’s Flaws and NASA’s Political Stability
Probably the biggest political disturbance, however, concerned the Hubble space
telescope. The $1.5 billion telescope, which NASA promised would be “the greatest advance in
astronomy since Galileo,” was devised to orbit above Earth’s distorting atmosphere and peer
deeply into the universe. Soon after Hubble was deployed in April 1990, however, NASA
discovered that one of the telescope’s mirrors had a manufacturing flaw that would permanently
blur its vision. NASA admitted that the agency had not thoroughly tested the mirrors before
launch. Fletcher called the episode “devastating to NASA,” since the public had been excited
about the telescope.
The Hubble Mirror and Its Lessons
One of NASA’s most important administrative decisions was related to the discovery
and impact of the Hubble space telescope’s flawed hardware. The telescope was launched in
May 1990 with an aberration in the primary mirror that made the telescope unable to carry out
significant aspects of its planned mission. The fault in the mirror had been introduced in its
manufacturing, and it remained undetected throughout the testing and validation programs that
preceded its assembly and launch. In July 1990, NASA established a board of investigation to
identify reasons for the fault in the mirror and for the failure to detect its condition before the
launch. The board’s report reflected the shortfalls in technical management and quality
assurance, as well as the contractor’s lack of performance.
The Hubble incident is important to NASA’s administration because the case set the
standard for how the agency ran its programs in the 1990s. Like the military preparing to fight
the last war, NASA focused on managing the last program and learning from its mistakes.
NASA learned at least six important lessons from its investigation.
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Identify and Mitigate Risk
The first lesson NASA learned was to identify and mitigate risk. The opening
paragraph of the board’s report stated that NASA’s project management must make deliberate
efforts to identify the aspects of a project where there is a risk of error with serious consequences
for the mission. On recognizing risk, the manager must consider the actions that mitigate it.
This marked a seminal difference from prior practice, according to which risk was recognized
and accepted but few if any projects demonstrated a methodology to intervene or demand
independent verification of testing.
Maintain Project Communications
The second lesson was to maintain good communications within a project. This lesson
hit at the agency’s historical autonomy. Externally, NASA had seldom been probed beyond
program budgets and fiscal year planning. Internally, NASA’s field centers retained tremendous
power and autonomy within the organization within their domains. Seldom, if ever, did a NASA
headquarters mandate prevail over a field center’s technical decision. The investigation had
found now that while proper delegation of responsibilities and authority is important, delegating
must not restrict communications in a way that fails to subject problems to review. In the case
of the Hubble mirror, the contractor had been allowed to operate with a closed door.
Contributing to poor communications was an apparent philosophy at Marshall Space Flight
Center at the time to resolve issues at the lowest possible level and to consider problems that
surfaced at reviews as indications of bad management.
Review Potential Risks to the Mission
The third lesson stemmed from a finding in the board’s report that insisted on
developing a culture in projects that encourages the expression of concerns and that ensures that
the concerns that pose a potential risk to the mission cannot be disposed of without an
appropriate review that includes NASA’s management. This was incredibly significant and
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counter to NASA’s ways. It was a denial of the effectiveness of NASA’s organizational culture.
Throughout the early 1990s, center directors railed against penetration by headquarters reviews,
and they resisted attempts by NASA headquarters to attend reviews that were in the normal
cycle of project events. Resistance to Administrator Goldin was tied in part to the historical
norms of the old NASA culture that stemmed from the Hubble investigative report.
Understand Critical Measures
The fourth lesson was that project staff must understand the accuracy of critical
measurements. NASA’s old guard was being put on report. Before Hubble, agency experience
was regarded more highly than formal training in program and project management. Only
recently, in 1999, has the concept of a development program for program and executive
personnel been available to employees. Most NASA project managers in the 1990s had to rely
on the contractor whose job it was to produce items such as the Hubble mirror to understand the
accuracy of their observations and testing of critical measurements. In effect, a NASA project
manager was along for the ride. The board’s report recommended that key decisions, test
results, and changes in plans and procedures must be adequately documented. In preparing such
documentation, individuals would be forced to review and explain inconsistencies in the test
data. This provided a communications link with the persons who were responsible for
overseeing the project.
Maintain Independent Quality Assurance Reporting
The fifth lesson coming from the report’s recommendations was the need for an
independent reporting path for quality assurance to gain access to top management. The board
believed it essential to remind management to act on critical items in time, before they
developed into crises, so as not to compromise the mission.
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Maintain Rigorous Documentation
The sixth lesson was for the need to maintain rigorous documentation covering design,
development, fabrication, and testing.
An Agency on the Defensive
The public outcry over the Hubble fiasco, combined with the criticism sparked by other
problems, left NASA staggering. Nevertheless, a committee to study NASA’s future, chaired by
Norman Augustine, reported in December 1990 that while NASA was deeply troubled and
needed major changes, it should still run the nation’s civilian space program. But the events of
1986-1990 had made NASA highly unsettled, both operationally and politically. NASA’s
image as a can-do agency had taken a serious beating. Just as the agency seemed to have
recovered from Challenger, it suffered the Hubble space telescope embarrassment. In addition,
the Space Shuttle delays and flaws in the Space Station design harmed the agency. In general,
questions about NASA’s competence to fulfill its mission began to appear. These problems also
damaged NASA’s credibility in the Congress. For example, Senator Albert Gore wondered
about the implications of these repeated errors for the ambitious program NASA had mapped out
for the 1990s.
Had NASA not suffered any major problems after Challenger, its political environment
would probably have stabilized. But other problems did occur, and NASA’s credibility, already
badly tarnished by Challenger, was fading. NASA was now on the defensive.
The Blue Ribbon Commission and NASA’s Loss of Autonomy
NASA had visibly failed to cope with emerging technologies, and the days of the
“skunk works” culture of many NASA projects had come to an end. In its place was the need to
infuse a disciplined approach at the earliest stages of every mission. But the agency, unable to
completely recover from Challenger and Hubble, could not dissuade the Congress from taking
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action. NASA’s technical and managerial performance, as evidenced by the grounding of the
Space Shuttle in June 1990, was the last straw. The National Space Council’s increasing
dissatisfaction regarding Administrator Truly’s response to President Bush’s call for a Space
Exploration Initiative and the president’s successful bid to have the council name a special panel
to report not only to it but to Truly as well set the stage for a broad-based inquiry into the
agency’s strategy, programs, and budget.
The panel, the Blue Ribbon Commission, was chaired by Norman Augustine, Chief
Operating Officer of Martin Marietta and a major contractor for much of NASA’s work.
Through the latter half of 1990, the commission held hearings and fact finding visits to all
NASA’s field centers, and its impact was wide. Truly was unable to control its focus or
influence its recommendations. The momentum of the commission’s report rolled through the
Congress and consequently served as major leverage in removing Truly and installing Goldin as
NASA’s administrator. It also contributed, in the minds of many politically motivated skeptics,
to the confirmation that NASA had failed to lead the national space program, both technically
and managerially. Augustine’s Blue Ribbon Commission thus furthered the cause of the
minority Democratic party by allowing space advocates such as Senator Gore to expound on and
cite NASA in areas of nonresponsiveness, budgetary reform, and technical competency in
government.
The commission also wrestled NASA’s autonomy away from the agency and placed it
in the hands of the Congress. NASA’s long-term strategy would now become far more
politically than technically motivated. In effect, NASA had left behind its rich legacy of cold
war victories in space to enter the new and uncharted waters of public scrutiny and detailed
congressional oversight. The agency would have to prove itself all over again. The principal
recommendations of the commission’s report offered specific guidance pertaining to civil space
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goals, program control, and NASA’s management. To be implemented, they would require the
full support of the executive and legislative branches and NASA itself.
The major goals of the Augustine commission are shown below. In every case, major,
immediate, and often turbulent reforms were implemented as a result of the commission’s report.
Space Goals
The commission recommended that the nation’s future civil space program consist of a
balanced set of five principal elements:
□ a science program that enjoys highest priority within the civil space program and is
maintained at or above the current fraction of NASA’s budget;
□ a Mission to Planet Earth that focuses on environmental measurements;
□ a Mission from Planet Earth with the long-term goal of human exploration of Mars,
preceded by a modified Space Station that emphasizes life sciences, an exploration
base on the Moon, and robotic precursors to Mars;
□ a significantly expanded technology development activity, closely coupled to space
mission objectives, with particular attention devoted to engines; and
□ a robust space transportation system.
Program Goals
In the area of space programs, the commission recommended that
□ the strategic plan for science currently under consideration be implemented;
□ a revitalized technology plan be funded and prepared with strong input from the
mission offices;
□ Space Shuttle missions be phased over to a new unmanned launch vehicle, except
where missions dictate that human involvement is essential to other critical
national needs;
□ Space Station Freedom be revamped to emphasize life sciences and human space
operations and to include microgravity research as appropriate. It should be
reconfigured to reduce cost and complexity, and the current 90-day limit on
redesign should be extended if a thorough reassessment is not possible in that
period;
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□ a permanent module be provided, as planned, for emergency return from Space
Station Freedom, and initial provisions be made for two-way missions in the event
of the Space Shuttle’s unavailability.
With respect to program affordability, the commission recommended that NASA be restructured
in scope so as not to exceed a funding profile greater than 10 percent per year throughout the
next decade. To accomplish this, the commission recommended that
□ the Space Station be redesigned to reduce cost and complexity;
□ the planned purchase of another shuttle be deferred or eliminated;
□ Mission to Planet Earth be placed on a go-as-you-pay basis, tailoring the schedule
to match the availability of funds.
Management Goals
The commission’s recommendations for management were that
□ an Executive Committee of the Space Council be established to include NASA’s
administrator;
□ major reforms be made in the civil service and that NASA selectively convert some
of its field centers to university affiliated federally funded research and
development centers;
□ NASA management review the mission of each center to consolidate and refocus
them as centers of excellence in currently relevant fields, with minimum overlap
between them;
□ the internal organization of any institution be the province of those bearing the
responsibility for its performance;
□ NASA’s headquarters be revamped, disestablishing the positions of certain existing
associate administrators;
□ an exceptionally well-qualified, independent cost analysis group be attached to
headquarters with ultimate responsibility for all top-level cost-estimating, including
cost estimates provided outside NASA;
□ a systems concept and analysis group be established as a federally funded research
and development contractor reporting to the administrator;
□ multicenter programs be avoided wherever possible and, when this is not practical,
a strong independent project office reporting to headquarters be established near
the center that has the principal share of the work.
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Chapter 7
Roles, Responsibilities, and Organizational
Structure of the 1990s
Following on the implementation of the Blue Ribbon Commission’s December 1990
recommendations, NASA in the 1990s was almost devoid of a true leader—a national figure—
who ran the agency and also looked the part of a person able to conquer the unknown challenges
of space exploration. NASA came to be run instead by a series of councils or delegated groups
who steered the agency through the early years of its reform movement. In some cases, these
were noteworthy space scientists, but more often they were not spacecentric in education or
experience. At times, such talent was considered a liability, and people who had it were
typically viewed as prejudiced against change.
NASA in the 1990s replaced the 1960s model I rational actor, the dominant leadership
figure—like Administrator Webb and a group of three or four close associates—with
bureaucratic politics model decision-making and consensus-building bodies that could engage in
dialogue with the politically diversified interests of the Congress. Unlike Webb, Administrators
Richard Truly and Daniel Goldin in the 1990s worked from a position of compromise and
conflict among officials with diverse interests and unequal influence toward outcomes
characterized as bargaining with government players through various channels of
communication.
By the middle of the decade, NASA’s organizational structure had come to have two
primary levels of management responsibility that reflected a philosophy of flat organization and
the maximum dispersion of management hierarchy. The first level was the agency’s
management, which resided primarily at headquarters. The second level was strategic enterprise
management, which included the management of the field centers and its programs. Internal
integration was ensured through a number of management councils and boards that coordinated
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activities and planning among the individual enterprises and between the agency and enterprise
management levels.
Agency Management and the Administrator’s New Role
Agency management was responsible for the agency’s overall leadership, managing
across the strategic enterprises and developing NASA’s strategy. Agency management served as
the principal interface with NASA’s primary stakeholders—that is, the Congress and the
president’s administration. It was the external focal point for accountability, communications,
and liaison. Agency management defined strategic enterprise and was responsible for
crossenterprise efficiency, investment, performance assessment, resource allocation, and
synergy. The new role for agency management was to provide budget integration, long-term
NASA-stakeholder-focused institutional investment strategy, NASA policy and standards, and
functional leadership.
Agency management incorporated NASA’s administrator and officials within the
Office of the Administrator, as well as supporting functional offices and staff offices. In
addition to these offices, NASA used a series of councils and boards to integrate, coordinate, and
make decisions on critical topics that crossed organizational lines. The leadership paradigm was
no longer that of the rational actor but a bureaucratic politics model made up of councils, boards,
and committees. Personal responsibility was defused and positional power was replaced by
political leverage as a decision-making force.
The administrator had been traditionally defined as the agency’s highest decision
maker. In the new NASA, this role was reinforced in order to give vision to the agency and to
provide clarity to that vision. As the source of internal leadership for achieving NASA’s
mission, the administrator spent most of his time aligning NASA’s strategic and policy direction
with the interests and requirements of the agency’s stakeholders and constituent groups.
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The administrator and immediate senior staff led NASA’s overall strategic direction
and policies and established its relative priorities, associated budget guidelines, and performance
assessment. Senior staff officials within the Office of the Administrator included the deputy
administrator, associate deputy administrator, associate deputy administrator (technical), and
chief engineer. Additions to this otherwise traditional staffing model were the chief information
officer, chief scientist, and chief technologist.
Meanwhile, the administrator chaired the Executive Council and the Senior
Management Council. The Program Management Council was the domain of the deputy
administrator. Staff within the Office of the Administrator or enterprise-level associate
administrators chaired the boards and committees of lesser importance.1
NASA’s Councils
Senior Management Council
NASA’s Senior Management Council was chaired by the administrator (or deputy
administrator when so delegated) and consisted of the “officials-in-charge” at headquarters, the
center directors, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory director. This body provided advice and
counsel to the administrator. It was responsible for developing and approving the strategic plan,
for evaluating performance against the annual performance plan mandated by the Government
Performance and Results Act of 1993, and for serving as a forum for reviewing and discussing
issues that affected agency management. The administrator established the Executive Council to
support the Senior Management Council by addressing selected issues of a highly critical nature.
The Executive Council consisted of the senior officials within the Office of the Administrator.
The Chief Financial Officer and the General Counsel served as the council’s ex officio advisers.
The administrator invited others to attend selected meetings to address specific topics.
'The material in this chapter is based largely on NASA Strategic Plan, January 1998 (Blue Book) and
NASA Strategic Plan, 2000 (Red Book).
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Program Management Council and Capital Investment Council
Two lower level councils that dramatically affected the agency’s direction and
commitment were the Program Management Council and Capital Investment Council. These
agencywide bodies were chaired by the deputy administrator or by associate deputy
administrators. The Program Management Council was responsible for reviewing new programs
that enterprise associate administrators proposed as part of the annual budget cycle, and it made
recommendations to the administrator. It also reviewed the performance of existing programs
and projects in accordance with predetermined criteria. Every NASA program had to go through
a type of Program Management Council review periodically. This formal review process
evaluated cost, schedule, and technical content to ensure that NASA met its programmatic
commitments. The Capital Investment Council was responsible for addressing significant
agencywide capital investments and policy issues. It considered investment management
decisions regarding NASA’s capabilities and infrastructure that also served a broader national
interest. The council ensured an agency perspective for all large, long-term investments that
enabled it and the strategic enterprises to execute their programs. Investment areas included
facilities, environmental management, information systems, technology, human resources, and
other designated investments.
The Capital Investment Council was the administrator’s key advisory group for
resolving issues, prioritizing activities (capital investments, functional leadership initiatives, and
programs), and balancing resources among the strategic enterprises. It thus recommended
options on issues among the enterprises, centers, and functions or combinations of them in terms
of agency investment in assets or functional capabilities. This council also reviewed functional
and staff office leadership strategies and reviewed and recommended budget guidance initiating
each annual budget cycle. Finally, the Capital Investment Council conducted an annual
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assessment to ensure that agencywide investments supported the strategic plan’s overall goals,
objectives, and strategies.
The members of the Capital Investment Council were its chair and the deputy
administrator, as well as associate deputy administrators, the chief financial officer, enterprise
associate administrators, two center directors on 2-year rotating terms, the Associate
Administrator for Human Resources and Education, and the Associate Administrator for
Management Systems and Facilities.
Science Council
NASA’s chief scientist and the three associate administrators for Earth Science, Space
Science, and Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications were responsible for developing
and overseeing NASA’s science policy, assisting the administrator in formulating and widely
communicating the agency’s key science questions, and providing external advocacy and
coordination. The chief scientist was also responsible for coordinating science priorities and
planning across the strategic enterprises.
The Science Council primarily coordinated NASA’s science activities, promoted
effective public communication, and ensured the quality of the agency’s science program. By
reporting to the administrator through the chief scientist, this council advised the administrator
on all aspects of science related to NASA’s flight and ground programs. It served as a forum for
reviewing agency policies, practices, and issues as they related to science activities,
communicating and discussing interdisciplinary science goals and the national and international
policies that guided their development, and developing integrated science plans. The council
also participated in the agency’s development of recommendations for science priorities and its
budget for science; it shared information about operational areas of the agency’s strategic
enterprises as they related to the quality and content of the science program.
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Technology Council
The Technology Council, chaired by the chief technologist, advised the administrator
on all aspects of technology related to NASA’s flight and ground programs. It coordinated
NASA’s technology activities, including advanced research and development, and promoted the
effective public communication of NASA’s technology programs. The council served as a
forum for reviewing agency policies, practices, and issues as they related to technology
activities; communicating and discussing technology goals and the national policies that guided
their development; and developing integrated technology plans.
Engineering Management Council
The Engineering Management Council, chaired by the chief engineer, provided a forum
for assessing and improving agency engineering practices, policies, standards, procedures, and
capabilities. When the chair of the Program Management Council or the chief engineer asked it
to, this council conducted or provided support for independent technical reviews of NASA’s
programs and technology and advanced development activities. The council’s source of
authority was provided for in a unique directive, referred to as NASA Instruction 1152.67B.
Space Operations Management Council
The Space Operations Management Council, chaired by the associate deputy
administrator (technical), provided a forum for assessing and improving agency space operations
practices, policies, standards, procedures, and capabilities. It also provided agencywide policy
guidance for activities associated with NASA’s operations.
Chief Information Officer Council
The Chief Information Officer Council, chaired by the chief information officer, was
responsible for establishing the agency’s information technology policies, plans, and standards.
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It approved NASA’s information technology plans and reviewed proposed major information
technology investments required to accomplish them. The council also served as the supporting
panel for information technology and provided recommendations on proposed information
technology investments to the Capital Investment Council. Under the watchful guidance of this
council, the chief information officer provided vision, leadership, and advice for the agency in
terms of the development of information technology strategies. This officer also served as the
principal adviser to the administrator and other senior officials on matters pertaining to
information technology plans, policies, standards, investments, and assessments as they related
specifically to the return on investment in terms of mission outcomes.
Chief Financial Officer Council
The Chief Financial Officer Council, chaired by the chief financial officer, was
responsible for improving financial and resource management, strengthening communications,
improving coordination, and promoting professional development. The council advised and
coordinated the agency’s activities in developing and implementing financial and budget
systems and improving the quality of financial and resources information, financial data and
information standards, management controls, and professional development standards. It also
advised the agency on any other matters that facilitated financial and resources management
excellence.
Internal Senior Management Boards
NASA established Internal Senior Management Boards to coordinate and support the
agency’s management in certain key areas. The boards were chaired by one of NASA’s associate
administrators or, in selected cases, by a nominated agency senior official. Documents that
defined the charter, scope, purpose, and responsibilities of these boards were not made available
for this analysis. However, they typically included a board for each of the following functions:
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Agency Performance Review, Environmental Management, Equal Employment Opportunity,
Facilities Review, Flight Assignment, Human Resource Management, and Medical Policy.
Functional Offices and Staff Offices
The headquarters functional and staff offices established and disseminated policy and
leadership strategies within assigned areas of responsibility. They served in an advisory capacity
to the administrator and worked in partnership with the enterprise associate administrators and
center directors to ensure that agency activities were conducted in accordance with all statutory
and regulatory requirements, including fiduciary responsibilities. In addition, staff in these
offices advised the administrator and senior managers of potential efficiencies to be gained from
agencywide standardization and consolidation, as well as from coordinating the implementation
of approved initiatives. The headquarters functional and staff offices included the Office of the
Chief Financial Officer, Equal Opportunity Programs, External Relations, the General Counsel,
Headquarters Operations, Human Resources and Education, Legislatiive Affairs, Management
Systems and Facilities, Policy and Plans, Procurement, Public Affairs, Safety and Mission
Assurance, and Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization.
Staff office activities fell into three major categories: (1) functional leadership to
provide policy and standards in functional areas, as well as assessment of performance against
those standards; (2) staff to the administrator; and (3) central services provided across the
agency. Central services were specific, individual capabilities or support activities provided
through the functional and staff offices across the agency to the strategic enterprises and centers.
They included staff support, training, and internal communications and other services. The
functional and staff offices performed activities in one, two, or all three categories, depending on
office function.
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Crosscutting Process Owners
Underlying NASA’s strategic enterprises were Crosscutting Processes that reflected the
manner in which work was completed. These processes were the means by which the agency
delivered its outputs to its customers. All NASA employees participated in one or more of these
processes in performing their jobs. The processes were interconnecting mechanisms through
which the agency transformed inputs, such as policies and resources, into outputs, such as
knowledge and technology, for the benefit of NASA’s many constituencies.
Recognizing the importance of these processes, NASA had established “process
owners” to lead the improvement or reengineering of each process. In this role, the process
owners, who were members of the Senior Management Council, had authority, responsibility,
and accountability for the processes, and they were expected to work with management
throughout the agency to maximize its execution.
Each process owner collaborated with the enterprise associate administrators and other
personnel to develop performance goals; standards, strategies, and policies to achieve them; and
the associated performance metrics to evaluate performance. In addition, the process owner had
the responsibility of working with management across the agency to identify ways to improve or
redesign the processes to increase efficiency and higher levels of customer satisfaction. NASA
identified four Crosscutting Processes and their owners:
□ Provide aerospace capabilities and products—chief engineer;
□ Generate knowledge—chief scientist;
□ Communicate, transfer, and share information and results—associate administrator
for policy and plans;
□ Strategic planning and management—deputy administrator.
Enterprise Management: Headquarters and the Field
The enterprise associate administrators were responsible for the stewardship of strategic
enterprise and for establishing enterprise strategy—the what, why, and for whom of NASA’s
programming—as well as cross-program priorities. The enterprise associate administrators
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served both as members of the Senior Management Council and as heads of their respective
strategic enterprises.
Headquarters Strategic Enterprises
Goldin established four headquarters enterprises in 1993—Aeronautics, Earth Sciences,
Human Exploration of Space, and Space Sciences. These strategic enterprises constituted the
principal customer interface for NASA. The enterprise associate administrators established
science requirements and satisfaction levels while providing space advocacy for their
enterprises. In addition, the strategic enterprises provided program definition (requirements,
cross-program efficiency, and synergy) and were responsible for enterprise-focused, long-term
institutional investment strategy, integrated enterprise budget development, program resource
allocation and performance assessment, enterprise-specific policy and standards, and the
implementation of NASA’s policy.
NASA’s field centers were responsible for program management and execution. They
defined how enterprise programs and central services were developed and delivered to external
and internal customers. Their directors were responsible for institutional management (including
capability development and maintenance), managing multi-enterprise resource requirements,
supporting functional leadership and central service activities, and implementing NASA’s
strategic enterprise policies.
The four strategic enterprises were considered primary business areas for implementing
NASA’s space mission and serving its unique customers. Each enterprise had a unique set of
strategic goals, objectives, and implementing strategies that addressed the requirements of the
agency’s primary customers. The enterprise associate administrators determined what the
enterprise did and why it did it, with a specific focus on the external customers’ requirements.
These administrators had a considerable number of responsibilities, including
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□ developing enterprise strategy, policy, and standards to support the agency’s goals
and objectives;
□ formulating programs;
a defining requirements and objectives;
□ defining long-term institutional investment strategies;
□ allocating resources for the full cost of each program, including personnel and
facilities;
□ providing science leadership;
□ delegating lead center assignments;
□ providing external advocacy;
□ providing external and customer interfaces;
□ serving as NASA’s internal customers;
a assessing performance; and
□ assessing center directors’ performance (as institutional program officers).
Where the strategic enterprises were composed of multiple headquarters organizations, a lead
associate administrator was appointed to coordinate policy and requirements guidance for that
enterprise. The enterprise associate administrators could designate an individual at headquarters
to sponsor specific programs for accomplishing the responsibilities listed above. The Associate
Administrator for Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications reported to NASA’s
administrator and was a key member of the Human Exploration and Development of Space
enterprise. Although this position was not that of enterprise associate administrator, the person
who held it had the full responsibility of an enterprise associate administrator for activities in life
sciences, microgravity sciences, and associated space product development.
To ensure alignment between programs and institutional capabilities, the enterprise
associate administrator with the dominant activity at each center was designated an institutional
program officer. The enterprise associate administrators serving as institutional program
officers had to have a broader perspective than their individual strategic enterprises. In this
management capacity, the institutional program office worked with NASA’s centers and
functional and staff offices to
□ Plan long-term institutional strategies;
□ Determine institutional and infrastructure investment requirements;
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□ Pursue integration and synergies, crosscutting strategies, and investments, as well
as support specific programs;
□ Determine macro adjustments to and tradeoffs between the various institutions in
response to budget adjustments; and
□ Issue budget allocations and guidance to the centers on the basis of the inputs
received from agency management and other enterprises concerning center
activities.
Each institutional program officer also ensured a broad perspective by using a coordination
forum and including members from all the enterprises that had worked at the centers. The
coordination forum was used to approve key policy decisions, approve center overhead budgets,
and make recommendations on proposed capital investments for incorporation into the budget
process.
Agency-level functional and staff offices supported the coordination forum to ensure a
broad perspective on individual issues. They played a key role in institutional management,
serving as agency leaders in specific areas that were necessary for conducting agency programs.
As leaders, they focused on improving processes, stimulating efficiency in the performance of
activities related to programs, and providing consistency across the strategic enterprises, often
directly affecting the supplier and stakeholder communities. They provided insight into the
performance of their particular function across all centers, as well as into external organizations
performing similar functions and stakeholders who established govemmentwide policy and
requirements.
Field Centers
NASA’s centers implemented agency plans, programs, and activities as an integral part
of the strategic enterprises. “Center missions” and “Centers of Excellence” were two key roles
in the management of NASA. Center directors were both heads of their centers and members of
the Senior Management Council. As directors, they had primary management responsibility in
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three areas—program management (determining how programs were accomplished),
institutional infrastructure (maintaining and enhancing human and physical resources), and
Centers of Excellence.
Center Missions
Center missions identified the primary concentration of capabilities that supported the
accomplishment of strategic enterprise goals. Each center had designated areas of mission
responsibility that provided a basis for building human resources capabilities and physical
infrastructure in direct support of enterprise requirements. Enterprise program and project
assignments were based on mission designations.
Centers of Excellence
Centers of Excellence were focused, agencywide leadership responsibilities in a
specific area of technology or knowledge. They were chartered with a clear definition of their
capabilities and boundaries. They were not program entities; rather, they were fiscally supported
by program or institutional resources or both, with funding flowing from the strategic
enterprises. Centers of Excellence were, by their very nature, different in scope and approach.
Having been designated a Center of Excellence brought several responsibilities to a
center. It was charged with being preeminent within the agency, if not worldwide, with respect
to the human resources, facilities, and other critical capabilities associated with its particular area
of excellence. A Center of Excellence had to strategically maintain or increase NASA’s
preeminent position in the assigned area of excellence in line with the program requirements of
the strategic enterprises and the agency’s long-term strategic interests. Each Center of
Excellence was individually defined in a plan that was reviewed and approved at the agency
level. The Centers of Excellence were available to any and all the strategic enterprises to
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provide cost-effective and high-quality service. Table 7.1 presents the center mission and Center
of Excellence assignments associated with each field center.
Table 7.1: Field Center Mission and Center of Excellence Assignments
Field Center Mission Center of Excellence
Ames Research Center: Aviation Operations Systems
and Astrobiology
Information Technology
Dryden Flight Research
Center
Flight Research Atmospheric Flight
Goddard Space Flight
Center
Earth Science and Astronomy Scientific Research
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Planetary Science and
Exploration
Deep Space Systems
Lyndon B. Johnson Space
Center
Human Exploration and Astro
Materials
Human Operations in
Space
John F. Kennedy Space
Center
Space Launch Launch and Cargo
Processing Systems
Langley Research Center Airframe Systems and
Atmospheric Science
Structure and Materials
Lewis Research Center Aeropropulsion Turbomachinery
George C. Marshall Space
Flight Center
Transportation Systems
Development and Microgravity
Space Propulsion
John C. Stennis Space
Center
Propulsion Test Propulsion Testing
Systems
The ability to support a designated NASA Center of Excellence was distributed across
multiple centers. The Centers of Excellence led the development of recommendations for
consolidating capabilities where it was beneficial to NASA. Agency investment decisions in
such areas as facilities development, human resources, and skills mix were considered and
supported in such consolidations, and they were accomplished in as evolutionary a manner as
possible.
Center directors were charged with Center of Excellence planning and implementation,
including determining critical skill levels, physical capabilities, and facility augmentation across
NASA’s centers to maintain the resources necessary to support areas of excellence. They
annually assessed Center of Excellence capability and, if programs were insufficient to support
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critical capabilities, the directors led the planning to resolve shortfalls, either by consolidating
capabilities or by proposing programs to maintain capabilities. If Center of Excellence issues
could not be resolved at the strategic enterprise or institutional program office level, they
submitted proposals for review to the Capital Investment Council through the institutional
program officer. The Capital Investment Council, in turn, made recommendations to the
administrator.
The Capital Investment Council was responsible for ensuring the viability of the
Centers of Excellence, consistent with NASA’s long-term strategic plan. Since the significant
augmentation of a Center of Excellence facility, human resource levels, and skill mix constituted
agency investment decisions, this responsibility resided with the Capital Investment Council.
This council also addressed proposals to change or designate new Centers of Excellence.
Managing Enterprise Programs
Lead Center Directors
In general, each NASA program was assigned to a lead field center for implementation.
In making such assignments, the enterprise associate administrators considered center mission
and Center of Excellence responsibilities. The lead center directors had full program
management responsibility and authority and, thus, full accountability for assigned missions or
programs, ensuring that they were managed to agreed-on schedule milestones, budget guidelines,
technical requirements, and safety and reliability standards.
Enterprise associate administrators established specific performance-level requirements
for each program. The level and number of requirements were held to an absolute minimum,
consistent with external statutory, regulatory, and customer requirements. The enterprise
associate administrator was to configure each program so that it could be accomplished
efficiently and effectively within the framework of lead center assignments. Lead center
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directors established supporting assignments for other centers (as supporting centers),
considering center mission and Center of Excellence responsibilities. The center directors
delegated management responsibility to the program managers who reported to them.
Program and Project Managers
Program managers ensured the most expeditious and cost-effective implementation
approach for a program while considering center mission and Center of Excellence assignments.
Each program manager was designated by and reported to a lead center director. If individual
project elements existed within a program, they were managed by project managers who
reported to the program manager.
Science Management
The responsibilities for managing scientific research programs were shared by the chief scientist,
the enterprise associate administrators, the centers’ scientists, and the centers’ program and
project managers. NASA’s scientific research programs were based on open peer-reviewed
competitions that involved the centers and external organizations. As a result, the science
enterprise associate administrators’ role in science research included implementation planning
and selecting and evaluating research and mission proposals.
NASA’s center scientists were involved in enabling scientific research, including
serving as project scientists and developing instruments. In addition, they conducted research to
maintain their scientific excellence and to retain their capabilities as creditable “enablers.”
While flight and ground systems development and operations management responsibilities were
delegated to the field, scientific research management remained a headquarters responsibility.
The enterprise associate administrators maintained the ability to interact with non-NASA science
communities, establish science priorities, issue NASA Research Announcements and
Announcements of Opportunity, manage the peer review of proposals, select proposals to be
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funded, oversee research, assess performance, and ensure that research results were broadly
communicated.
The Centers’ Functional Delegations
In addition to program management responsibilities, the centers were sometimes
assigned functional specialty areas when it was determined that they could more appropriately
execute certain operational responsibilities. The agency-level functional staff office (or the
Office of the Administrator, depending on the specialty area) selected the center that could best
execute the function on NASA’s behalf. The delegation of authority was negotiated and
documented with a memorandum of understanding that was signed by the functional or staff
office associate administrator (or the appropriate Office of the Administrator official), the
institutional program officer, and the center director. The memorandum contained provisions for
direction and funding flow, as well as performance review. As the delegated function matured at
a center, greater latitude to perform that function was sometimes granted.
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Chapter 8
New M ethodologies for Management:
Planning and Performance in the 1990s
As we have seen, NASA changed its fundamental view of organizational life in the
1990s. The motivation came primarily from outside the agency. The Government Performance
and Results Act enacted by the Congress in 1993 and the National Performance Review initiated
by the administration in 1993 were forces that sparked a massive long-range performance effort
in the agency that soon formed the basis for the decade’s business planning and operations. The
role of NASA’s administrator changed radically from that of steel-jawed leader who appeared to
embody the indomitable American spirit to that of chairman of the corporate board
implementing management methodologies. The rest of the world changed its attitude toward
NASA too. What taxpayers had been willing to risk within the exciting domain of astronauts
who dared incredible feats of space exploration had given way to taxpayers’ pragmatic
expectation of a return on their investment.
Goldin decided that it was among his primary responsibilities to see to the agency’s
strategic plan and the elements he believed it should contain—vision, a mission statement, an
identification and description of NASA’s external customers, an assessment of the agency’s
internal and external environments, and a statement of the agency’s goals, objectives, and
implementation strategies. Moreover, he decided, all strategic plans within the agency, at
whatever level, were also to contain these elements. Before we look at how NASA turned to the
business of implementing its new methodologies, however, and the business of turning NASA
into a business, we must see how it was that the rest of the government had moved NASA down
this path.
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The Effect of the Government Performance and Results Act
In 1994, NASA was fully engaged with implementing a NASA blueprint under
President Clinton’s National Performance Review and with piloting programs it hoped would
fulfdl the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. Part of these
initiatives set the agency on a reformation of its long-term goals and objectives. In developing a
new strategic plan that used the act and the philosophy of the National Performance Review as
its guide, NASA was able to make critical decisions regarding implementation activities and
resource allocations in its new and ever changing political and economic environment. It also
established a process to ensure that agency decisions would be consistent with goals, objectives,
and strategies contained in other documents.
The purpose of the strategic plan was to document NASA’s management policies,
processes, guidelines, and responsibilities. Old strategic methodologies that had centered on the
agency’s mission were repackaged as five specific management processes and responsibilities:
□ Integrating strategic planning with the budget process,
□ Developing detailed implementation plans and strategies,
□ Managing the execution of strategies through programs and processes,
□ Evaluating performance and assessing and reporting results, and
□ Specifying roles and relationships among management levels from the
administrator, through the management levels at headquarters and the centers,
ultimately to individual employees.
In theory, these processes and responsibilities would capture and apply to all activities and
personnel at NASA. In many resistant comers of the agency, however, especially at the field
centers, they were viewed as purely politically motivated and a waste of time. This divisiveness
within the agency touched off fierce battles for the control of core agency mission areas and
tested Goldin’s will to push for reform. Nevertheless, this Strategic Management Process, as it
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came to be known, met the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act, the
Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, and the Information Technology Management Reform Act
of 1996, as well as other congressional and Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
requirements.
This new culture of process was difficult for an engineering-dominated agency to adapt
to. The traditional, headlong NASA had been part of a clear national mandate that was mission
driven. All that was over and done with. History was “bad.” The future, unknown, was “good,”
according to process-oriented leaders new to NASA’s headquarters. The engineering mystique
had been rudely thrown aside and in its place now stood a bureaucratic politics model that was
devoid of missions and space applications; it was heavily laden instead with yet-to-be-named
cross-cutting theoretical realtionships. As Goldin soon found, leading change was very difficult.
The Strategic Management Process
A fundamental goal of NASA’s strategic management process was to ensure that the
agency provided its customers with excellent product and services in the most cost-effective and
timely manner. NASA was to use continual improvement, reengineering, and other quality
management tools and techniques (such as the International Standards Organization, ISO 9000
standard, referring to what an organization does to ensure that its products conform to the
customer’s requirements) when planning and executing its programs, processes, and associated
activities. The language of NASA’s leadership and management was to become devoid of space
terminology, to be replaced by the terminology of political action channels and interest groups.
Strategic planning, the first of these processes, established NASA’s long-term direction
as a business, envisioning its future, setting its goals and objectives, and developing its policies
in response to customer requirements, external mandates, and the internal and external
environments. Strategic planning enabled NASA to align the agency’s strategic plan with the
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strategic plans of its enterprises—its major organizational components—and with its
institutional capabilities and functional requirements and initiatives. This planning process
provided direction for all agency efforts and formed the basis for resource allocation and capital
investment as well as tactical decision making—looking 1 to 5 years forward—and strategic
decision making—looking 5 to 25 years forward.
The Process Elements
Within the strategic management process, the elements Goldin established for NASA’s
strategic plan were vision, mission statement, identification and description of external
customers, assessment of internal and external environment, and statement of the agency’s goals,
objectives, and implementing strategies.
Vision
According to Goldin, NASA had to have a single, shared vision to communicate—one
common theme for the future of the nation’s aeronautics and space program. This vision had to
be a clear and concise statement that defined the ideal future state of the organization and the
programs it implemented. The vision was to describe the successful outcomes of the agency’s
long-term activities and the values its many customers—and its ultimate beneficiary, the
public—gained.
Mission Statement
The mission statement summarized the accomplishments of the organization in
fulfilling its vision, its main purpose for existing, and the basic social or political needs it met.
The mission statement addressed the unique products and services that the organization
delivered to its customers.
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Identifying and Describing External Customers
NASA’s customers in the 1990s were individuals, groups, or organizations that relied
on the products and services it delivered to achieve their goals and objectives.-
Assessing Internal and External Environments
The new assessment process included the identification of factors and issues not only
within the agency but also external to the organization, both opportunities and threats, that might
be beyond its control and that could significantly affect the achievement of general goals and
objectives. Also to be assessed were key assumptions used in developing strategy.
Stating Goals, Objectives, and Implementation Strategies
Goals
NASA’s goals were to elaborate on the mission statement and to constitute a specific
set of policy, programmatic, or management outcomes for the programs and operations covered
in the agency’s strategic plan. Its goals served the purpose of further defining the organization’s
direction by addressing the critical issues identified in the external assessment. NASA’s goals
did not need to be quantitative or measurable, but they had to be expressed in a manner that
allowed an assessment of whether they were being achieved. As each goal was developed, the
following questions were to be considered:
□ Does the goal address a critical issue confronting NASA?
□ Does it chart a clear course for NASA?
□ Is the goal congruent with NASA’s mission and mandates, and is guidance
provided by the Congress and the president’s administration?
□ Does the goal conflict with any other goals?
□ Does it reflect NASA’s primary activities and direction?
□ Is it challenging, realistic, and achievable?
Objectives
Objectives were to be specific milestones and targets of near-term outputs to be
achieved during strategic implementation. In NASA’s Strategic Management Process, each
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objective was to relate to a particular goal and, as a general rule, was to meet the following five
criteria.
1. Specific. Objectives were to be results-oriented and to reflect the accomplishments
to be achieved but not outline specific implementation steps. They were to be specific enough to
provide clear direction and to be understood by both internal “implementers” and external
customers.
2. Measurable. Objectives were to be either quantifiable (“The percentage of task A
completed on time will be increased from 65 percent to 80 percent”) or verifiable (“Study A will
be completed by September 30, 2000”). NASA had to be able to monitor its success in
achieving each objective.
3. Aggressive but attainable. Objectives had to be challenging but attainable. Realism
had to be imposed in deciding targets.
4. Results-oriented. Objectives had to be focused on desired outputs and outcomes, not
on the methods used to achieve them.
5. Time-bound. Because objectives served as milestones for monitoring progress
toward a goal, it was imperative that accomplishment be achieved within a specific time period.
The time period had to be reasonable yet aggressive. Wherever possible, interim milestones had
to be established so that NASA or a strategic enterprise could review progress and the
effectiveness of its methods.
Implementation Strategies
Implementation strategies were to describe how the goals and objectives were to be
achieved and were to summarize human, capital, information, and other resources, systems,
processes, and technologies critical to achieving established goals and objectives. Each strategy
was to contain
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1. A description of the key elements, programs, or processes that included—at the
agency level—NASA’s strategic enterprises and crosscutting processes and their
customer requirements, goals, objectives, and implementation strategies and—at
the enterprise level—major programs, processes, or functions and their customer
requirements, goals, objectives, implementation strategies, and resource
requirements.
2. Values that formed the basic tenets of the organization’s culture and operational
approach.
3. A description of the program evaluation process.
4. An indication of how program evaluations were to be used in establishing or
revising goals, as well as a schedule for future evaluation.
In addition to these requirements, NASA’s strategic plan and its enterprise strategic
plans were to include a one-page “strategic roadmap” that was based on NASA’s mission
statement and that delineated the agency’s and strategic enterprises’ near-term goals (for the next
7 years), mid-term goals (8 to 14 years), and long-term goals (15 to 25 years).
The Strategic Plans of the 1990s
The Agency’s Plan
NASA’s strategic plan established the agency’s top-level strategy. It articulated what
NASA did, who its customers were, where it was going, and how it would get there. NASA’s
strategic plan provided strategic direction for all elements of the organization—both its offices
and its personnel. It also provided a mechanism for communicating to external stakeholders and
customers that the agency was responding to their requirements.
The Senior Management Council annually reviewed and updated NASA’s strategic
plan. The plan was made final each February to ensure its consistency with the president’s
budget. NASA’s strategic planning is a continuous process; development begins in March,
following the completion of the prior year’s plan. The process begins with the review of the
internal and external environments in order to reaffirm or identify potential issues that may
affect the organization and its programs. NASA used the previous year’s strategic plan and the
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environmental data as a starting point. The Senior Management Council held a series of strategic
management retreats to assess and revalidate NASA’s mission, goals, objectives, strategies, key
assumptions, and performance indicators. Members of the administrator’s staff, the associate
administrators, and the center directors participated in these retreats. As required by the
Government Performance and Results Act, NASA submitted its strategic plan, with the annual
performance plan and 5-year budget required under the act, to OMB and the Congress in
September each year.
Enterprise Strategic Plans
The enterprise strategic plans flowed down from and had to align with the agency’s
plan. They were reviewed and, as required, updated annually. Planning began in March with a
review of the internal and external environments and included an assessment of customer
requirements in order to reaffirm or identify issues that affected the enterprise and its programs.
Using the previous strategic plan, NASA’s program operating plan guidance, and the
environmental data as a starting point, management held a series of planning sessions to assess
and revalidate the enterprise mission, goals, objectives, strategies, key assumptions, and
performance indicators. To allow for a full exchange of views, the sessions included
representatives from the other enterprises, the centers, and the functional and staff offices that
either contributed to or received products and services from the enterprise whose strategy was
being planned. The enterprise strategic plans were made within 2 weeks of completing NASA’s
strategic plan and formed the foundation for developing the enterprise associate administrator’s
performance plan and the enterprise’s annual budget.
The Business of Investment and Budget Planning
Capital Investment Planning
In the 1990s, NASA undertook the agencywide capital investment planning of a large
business. The size, scope, time horizon, and technical nature of its capital investments had
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become critical to its long-term viability. In addition, such investments had to be balanced
across NASA’s organizations and prioritized on an agencywide basis, consistent with external
financial constraints and partnership opportunities.
NASA’s Capital Investment Council provided recommendations to the administrator as
a key element of the agency’s program operating plan guidance at the beginning of the
implementation planning process and during the budget development process. The council met
as often as the chair believed appropriate. The meetings focused on key agency issues, such as
information technology, human resources, technical capabilities, high-risk and generic
technologies, or facilities, but they also included cross-investment area integration.
The Capital Investment Council ensured the integration of enterprise, Center of
Excellence, and other investment plans. It also prioritized planned investments and
recommended guidance to NASA’s entities for subsequent implementation. The council focused
on other key analyses, such as major agency downsizing or restructuring.
The Capital Investment Council established supporting panels for particular investment
areas. Such panels reviewed agency policies and implementation plans and developed materials
and analyses to support the council’s deliberations. The panel leaders developed or coordinated
a complete analysis of designated investment areas for presentation to the Capital Investment
Council. Analyses included
□ A description of NASA’s requirements, based on missions, including links to
NASA’s strategic plans, the enterprise strategic plans, and the centers’
implementation plans;
□ A prioritized list of requirements, including time phasing;
□ A description of NASA’s capabilities, including condition and inputs from
appropriate ongoing functional assessment activities;
□ A description of related federal, academic, industry, and other capabilities,
including partnering potential;
□ An evaluation of requirements and capabilities, including partnering and funding
profiles;
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□ An investment strategy for the designated investment area, with proposed guidance
for the implementing strategic enterprises, the Centers of Excellence, functions,
and other elements of the organization; and
□ As appropriate, a prioritized list of capital investment initiatives and opportunities,
with related cost, schedule, and performance measures.
The Capital Investment Council reviewed the panel’s analysis and recommended agency policy
and investment strategy. These deliberations integrated multiple investment area opportunities
and strategies. Updated investment strategies in other investment areas might be required, as
well as regular integration of available budget information. In this context, the executive
secretary to the Capital Investment Council or other designated individuals were sometimes
required to develop cross-area evaluations.
The Five-Year Budget
NASA’s budget was an ongoing process that incorporated a detailed analysis of current
requirements with outyear projections of funding needs. Each budget cycle was initiated by
OMB guidance that provided estimates as well as policy guidance for preparing the agency’s
budget request. This broad guidance used a 5-year agency estimate of the president’s budget
request for NASA before the Congress at the time, and it updated the totals for further economic
policy or program decisions that might have been made.
Agency guidance on allocations among the strategic enterprises, priorities for decision
making and tradeoffs, and any broad strategy issues were developed to initiate both the internal
planning and budget processes. The administrator issued this guidance, with the full
participation and advice of the Capital Investment Council, through the agency’s chief financial
officer and comptroller. The chief financial officer and comptroller then provided more detailed
programmatic and funding guidance to the strategic enterprises. The multiyear budget estimates,
program assumptions, and strategic direction provided to each enterprise established a baseline
for the planning and budget formulation activities and were further distributed as guidelines to
NASA’s centers.
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As budget formulation proceeded, decisions had to be made regarding activities that
could be afforded within available funds. Each strategic enterprise had to justify the relevance
of the programs for which funding was requested in NASA’s and the enterprise strategic plans.
New initiative candidates that an enterprise proposed had to be accommodated within the
agency’s funding guidelines and handled as relative priorities.
The final budget request transmitted to OMB reflected this decision process for the
entire agency. The strategic plan and budget process had to be fully compatible. The content of
the budget request described the way in which the administrator planned to achieve progress
toward meeting the goals and objectives in NASA’s strategic plan within the multiyear funding
allowance available. The administrator approved the final 5-year budget submission.
The Business of Implementation Planning
NASA’s implementation planning process provided detailed performance planning and
proposed resource allocation to implement the goals, objectives, and other organizational
initiatives identified during the strategic planning process. It ensured the alignment of all
supporting organizations with the agency’s strategy and established the detailed requirements,
schedules, and resources necessary for their successful execution. A firm’s implementation
planning is an iterative process. At NASA in the 1990s, it began with the completion of NASA’s
strategic plan and enterprise strategic plans, capital investment planning, and 5-year budget, and
it enabled the execution of and formed the basis for the agency’s performance evaluation.
At NASA, implementation ensured the compatibility of planning and budgeting to
support NASA’s and the enterprise strategic plans. Furthermore, it prescribed the commensurate
milestones, resource requirements, schedules, and performance criteria at both the program and
task levels. Working through the iterative processes of prior-cycle strategic plans, capital
investment plans, 5-year budget, and performance evaluation results led into program execution.
The four following specific activities thus made up the implementation process:
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1. Establishing implementation guidance;
2. Planning enterprise performance and budget integration;
3. Integrating and adjusting agency plans;
4. Establishing commitment.
Establishing Implementation Guidance
NASA’ s Implementation Guidance and Program Operating Plan
In the 1990s, the administrator’s implementation guidance initiated NASA’s
implementation cycle. The guidance was developed with consideration of the results of the
prior-year planning cycle, new guidance from OMB, and any perceived changes in the
environment, either external or those based on internal performance. Also often included were
matters derived from entities within the executive office of the president that developed policy
and budget recommendations for the president. Also, the National Science and Technology
Council (NSTC) issued govemmentwide budget guidance to all departments and agencies,
which incorporated goals and strategies that NSTC communities developed.
NASA’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer served a function equivalent OMB’s. On
behalf of the administrator, NASA’s comptroller translated OMB’s budget guidance into more
detailed programmatic and funding guidance for the agency’s program offices. Transmitting the
budget guidelines incorporated specific direction concerning the preparation and submission of
budget data, specific format requirements, and due dates. Budget guidance, specific to an
individual program office, was often also included.
Implementation began with the administrator’s issuing NASA’s Program Operating
Plan guidance to the strategic enterprises. It included the results of the prior-year budget
planning products and capital investment decisions documented by the Capital Investment
Council. It also included additional guidance regarding potential new initiatives, an investment
profile for ongoing programs, performance goals, and associated metrics.
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In developing NASA’s Program Operating Plan guidance, the administrator established
first-order priorities of program content, giving consideration to inputs from both agency and
enterprise management. The objective was to provide agency priorities, as well as to identify
key issues to be resolved during the planning cycle, based on customer requirements and on
administration and congressional guidance.
Enterprise Operations
On receiving NASA’s Program Operating Plan guidance, each enterprise drafted its
own detailed Program Operating Plan guidance at its lead centers and provided this to the
cognizant institutional program officer. This officer integrated the guidance, issuing it to the
centers responsible for specific elements of the enterprise. Enterprise Program Operating Plan
guidance included each enterprise’s program investment strategy with its prioritization and
potential new program starts; institutional investment guidance, including workforce and other
resource allocations and availability; and performance metrics and goals (both programmatic and
nonprogrammatic).
Functional and Staff Office Operations
The functional and staff offices were responsible for developing policy and for
coordinating implementation with the strategic enterprises and centers. As functional leaders,
they ensured that the agency carried out its mission, consistent with statutory and regulatory
requirements and fiduciary activities. They set strategic direction and evaluated the performance
of the function.
The functional and staff offices were also responsible for developing leadership
strategies to improve agency management, as well as for responding to new external direction.
Following presentation to and concurrence of the leadership strategies by the Capital Investment
Council, decision and guidance were to be documented for inclusion in NASA’s Program
Operating Plan guidance and, in the case of new policies, for formal coordination and
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dissemination. The functional and staff offices also ensured that the appropriate metrics were
developed to evaluate function performance.
Another responsibility of the offices was leading improved performance in areas that
fell under their purview. Their primary focus was on agency cross-enterprise efficiency, as well
as effective contribution to enterprise goals and objectives. The offices could, on their own
initiative, develop implementation plans to document and communicate their goals, objectives,
leadership strategies, and improvement initiatives.
Center Operations
Center implementation defined the relationships between enterprise strategic planning
and a center’s roles, missions, Centers of Excellence, and program-specific assignments (both at
the lead center and within its support activities). It also ensured the alignment of the center’s
institutional, program, and project activities with enterprise and functional leadership strategies.
A center’s implementation plans were supported by the relevant program or project plans and
Center of Excellence plans, which contained details of content, resource requirements, and
schedule commitments, along with the metrics accountable to the center and its managers.
The centers’ plans also addressed strategies for institutional, Center of Excellence, and
assigned agency support functions, and they supported center functions so as to fully integrate
the centers’ efforts. The strategies were updated as required to reflect decisions made during the
agency’s strategic planning process. In this way, the centers’ implementation plans bridged their
strategic direction with their execution activities. A center’s plan was signed by the center’s
director, who was responsible for the strategies and implementation activities that the plan
contained.
In response to enterprise Program Operating Plan guidance, the centers prepared
integrated resource requirements, which were submitted to the institutional program officers for
integration into the agency’s annual submission of its 5-year budget. Coordination with the
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strategic enterprises and the functional and staff offices resulted in a negotiated agreement,
which was then reflected in program, project, and implementation planning.
A center’s implementation plan was a communication tool enabling its customers to see
that their requirements were being addressed. It ensured that the center’s employees understood
their contribution to NASA’s highest-level strategies and objectives. The plan was also linked,
ultimately, to each individual employee’s performance plan and performance appraisal.
Headquarters Operations
Agency functional and staff office activities were generally managed at headquarters
and included ongoing internal operations, the implementation of leadership planning, and, where
appropriate, the operation of specific services provided to the rest of the agency. These activities
were generally managed and funded as follows:
□ The Office of Headquarters Operations managed and funded basic operations.
□ The enterprises funded leadership activities that were integral to conducting
ongoing programs, including services the functional and staff offices provided
centrally.
□ The functional and staff offices directly managed leadership activities.
These activities were reviewed initially by the Capital Investment Council and integrated
throughout their life span by the deputy administrator.
For all leadership activities that the functional and staff offices managed directly, the
deputy administrator ensured the integration of requirements and prioritized funding. During the
annual budget development and review cycle, the respective associate administrator proposed
new agencywide functional leadership initiatives or increased levels of central services to the
Capital Investment Council, which made recommendations to the administrator for approval and
integration into NASA’s budget request.
Planning Enterprise Performance and Budget Integration
On receceiving a center’s Program Operating Plan requirements inputs, each strategic
enterprise, working with its designated lead centers, was responsible for balancing the
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anticipated resource availability with the activities that the implementation planning inputs
identified. The implementation inputs from the centers were integrated and adjustments were
made on the basis of strategic enterprise customer requirements and anticipated available
resources. The enterprise associate administrator reallocated resources among programs and
revised performance requirements as necessary in order to establish performance baselines. An
integrated package of performance objectives and resource requirements was provided to the
administrator through the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. The information included
□ Specific customer-driven, results-oriented goals (enterprise or program) to be
funded in the budget submission, plus associated resource requirements (dollars
from all funding sources, as well as key processes, skills, technologies, human,
information, or other resources required to meet the established goals);
□ Program budget (coming fiscal year and 4 succeeding years) by major programs;
□ Strategic enterprise risks and liens;
□ Institutional support budgets, capital investments, and identified key issues (such
as conflict with functional and staff office policies or leadership initiatives, as well
as Center of Excellence problems);
□ Support required from and negotiated with other enterprises, Crosscutting
Processes, functions, or other sources;
□ Performance indicators to be used in measuring the outcomes, outputs, service
levels, and level of customer satisfaction; and
□ Evaluation approaches for comparing actual program results with established goals
and for verifying the validity of performance indicators.
Integrating and Adjusting the Agency’s Plans
NASA’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer coordinated the decision process for
integrating the strategic enterprise and functional and staff office implementation products into
the agency’s Program Operating Plan and 5-year budget. Each enterprise and selected functional
and staff offices presented their recommended resource and performance plans to the
administrator in a forum open to all members of the Senior Management Council. The Capital
Investment Council supported the decision process as the key advisory group to the
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administrator in resolving issues, prioritizing activities (programs, capital investments, and
functional leadership initiatives), and balancing resources among the enterprises.
The Office of Policy and Plans developed and integrated a draft agency performance
plan, based on information the strategic enterprises and functional and staff offices submitted.
After review and coordination, a final agency performance plan, prepared in accordance with the
Government Performance and Results Act, along with a corresponding budget, developed by the
agency’s chief financial officer, was presented to the administrator for approval. The
administrator’s decisions formed the basis for NASA’s strategic plan, 5-year budget request, and
agency performance plan submitted to OMB.
The OMB-led decision process served as the principal vehicle for obtaining the
administration’s commitment to NASA’s strategic and implementation planning processes. The
products, amended as the result of a presidentially approved decision, were to be used to support
budget deliberations with the Congress.
NASA’s annual performance plan presented the integration of the performance
planning inputs that the agency’s strategic enterprises provided. Consistent with requirements
of the Government Performance and Results Act, this plan included
□ Quantifiable performance goals;
□ The level of performance to be achieved during the budget year;
□ Human, capital, information, or other resources required to meet performance
goals;
□ Specific nonprogram actions planned within the time period and fiscal scope of the
proposed budget; and
□ Measures to be used as performance indicators.
The annual goals, performance objectives, and associated data in this plan were grouped by
strategic enterprise.
NASA’s Office of Policy and Plans developed and coordinated NASA’s annual
performance plan under the Government Performance and Results Act. The plan, submitted to
OMB and the Congress at the end of September each year, was updated on the basis of the
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results of budget deliberations with the president and the Congress. A final plan, reflecting any
changes to performance goals or target levels of performance resulting from the agency-
approved fiscal year budgets, had to be resubmitted to OMB and the Congress after NASA’s
budget was made final and approved by the president.
Establishing Commitment
Management Performance Agreements
Formally establishing commitment began with the establishment of a performance
agreement between NASA’s administrator and the president and cascaded through the
organization to the performance plans of all NASA’s employees. The agreement between the
administrator and the president was based on the goals, objectives, and other performance
measures reflected in the agency’s performance plan. NASA’s Office of Policy and Plans
prepared a draft agreement and submitted it for review to the administrator, in concert with the
submission of the agency’s performance plan and budget for approval.
Each enterprise associate administrator executed a performance plan annually for the
coming fiscal year as a contract with the administrator. The plan included performance goals
and measures for the enterprise as well as top-level resource requirements. This planning
requirement also applied to the Associate Administrator for the Office of Life and Microgravity
Sciences and Applications. The functional and staff office associate administrators executed
their own performance plans, which constituted similar contracts with NASA’s administrator.
Each center director’s performance plan was executed annually for the coming fiscal
year as a contract with the director’s enterprise associate administrator or institutional program
officer. The contract represented an agreement for the center’s performance and, thus, included
performance goals and measures for the center as well as top-level resource requirements.
Although the center director and enterprise associate administrator or institutional program
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officer signed the final plan, the concurrence of other headquarters officials was required, as
appropriate and agreed, in terms of the contract’s scope.
Individual Performance Plans
Each employee developed, with his or her supervisor, an individual performance plan
that constituted an agreement for the coming fiscal year as to the contributions the employee was
to make to the organization. Standards for measurement had to be specified and clearly
understood by both the employee and the supervisor. Clear alignment was to be made between
the agency, the strategic enterprises, the functional and staff offices, and the centers’ goals,
objectives, or programs in terms of the employee’s contribution to their development,
implementation, or performance assessment and reporting.
Crosscutting Processes: The Business of Serving Customers
NASA executes its mission and achieves its goals through programs and projects,
underlying which are its Crosscutting Processes. The details, guidelines, and procedures for
planning, executing, and evaluating NASA’s programs and projects are spelled out in NASA
Policy Directive (NPD) 7120.4 and NASA Procedures and Guidelines (NPG) 7120.5. The
products and services that NASA delivers to its customers through work processes cut across
the strategic enterprises and functional and staff offices. Implicit in the performance of all
NASA personnel is participation in one or more of these processes, which are interconnecting
mechanisms through which the agency transforms inputs, such as policies and resources, into
outputs, such as knowledge and technology, for the benefit of NASA’s many constituent groups.
Crosscutting Process owners work at all agency levels to ensure that its products and
services are effective and delivered efficiently. NPG 7120.5 documents four Crosscutting
Processes to provide general guidelines for execution across the agency:
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1. Provide aerospace products and capabilities.
2. Generate knowledge.
3. Communicate, transfer, and share information and results.
4. Perform strategic planning and management.
Provide Aerospace Products and Capabilities
The scope of this process is to provide space, ground, and aeronautical systems,
technologies, services, and operational capabilities to NASA’s customers so that they can
improve life on Earth as well as explore and develop space. The major subprocesses associated
with this process are
□ Provide space operations services—provide the services, facilities, and systems
necessary to support NASA’s strategic enterprise programs, projects, and
customers during mission preparation and flight execution phases.
□ Develop and use aerospace capabilities—provide space, ground, and aeronautical
systems and services for scientific, industrial, international, and government
partners, as well as other customers.
□ Develop space technology and enable commercialization—select, prioritize, and
implement technology development activities to meet the critical needs of NASA’s
strategic enterprises and to seek and encourage the commercial use of NASA’s
technologies and resources.
□ Develop aeronautics technology—pioneer the identification, development,
verification, transfer, application, and commercialization of high-payoff
aeronautics technologies.
Agency management and the strategic enterprises led the development of the framework of
activity, including the assessment of external requirements and customer satisfaction.
Generate Knowledge
The scope of this process was to extend the boundaries of knowledge of science and
engineering, capture new knowledge in useful and transferable media, and disseminate new
knowledge to NASA’s varied customers in govenment, academia, and industry and among the
public. The process of disseminating knowledge was coordinated with a “Communicate
Knowledge” process. The “generate knowledge” process reflected the first and most basic part
of NASA’s mission statement and consisted of at least the following steps:
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□ Acquire advice on priorities for knowledge acquisition, through formal and
informal mechanisms, from groups representing all customers for NASA’s
knowledge products, including the National Research Council and NASA-formed
advisory committees.
□ Plan and set priorities—develop strategic and implementation plans, based on
advice and other considerations, that articulate the rationale for knowledge
acquisition and the strategies for acquiring knowledge.
□ Select, fund, and conduct internal and external science and technology research
programs that are part of, complement, or support acquiring knowledge through
development programs.
□ Conduct the initial data analyses that permit an evaluation of the quality of the data
acquired (and hence, in some cases, modifications to the acquisition methods) and
yield the first knowledge products.
□ Create data archives that are easily accessible by and useful to the science and
technology communities.
□ Fund and conduct internal and external research programs to derive knowledge
from the full suite of data sets and other information produced by flight and
nonflight programs.
□ Publish, patent, or otherwise broadly disseminate the scientific and technical
knowledge resulting from these programs in forms that are accessible by and useful
to the science and technology communities in open or proprietary media, as
appropriate.
Each of these steps was subject to review for the purpose of process improvement. However, the
major focus on improvement was the integration of the process—that is, the connection of
research themes across the agency and the organization of research activities around
fundamental questions and strategic themes. This task was undertaken in support of NASA’s
Science Council, which in the 1990s was the principal management mechanism associated with
generating knowledge. Other important mechanisms included the various committees of
NASA’s Advisory Council, which supported NASA’s major fields of research.
Communicate, Transfer, and Share Information and Results
The scope of this process was to develop an effective mechanism for coordinating,
integrating, and disseminating consistent information to internal and external audiences
regarding the content, relevancy, results, applications, and excitement of NASA’s missions of
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research, development, and exploration. Opinion polls revealed that the American public held a
generally positive attitude toward the space program in the 1990s but that they were not very
familiar with its importance or activities and accomplishments. The polls also indicated that
those most familiar with the program were the strongest supporters. As an area that could help
improve this situation, the “communicate knowledge” process focused on three subprocesses:
(1) develop themes and messages, (2) establish integrated communications teams, and (3)
communicate with the entire NASA “team.”
The subprocess of developing themes and messages included concise and consistent
themes and messages that NASA’s officials and employees could articulate to a variety of
audiences. These audiences consisted primarily of NASA’s employees and customers, the
executive branch and the Congress, industry and academia, and the public. Themes and
messages were to be simple so that everyone could understand them and repeat them
consistently. A theme was defined as an orienting principle or idea derived from national
interests that provided a solid foundation for relating NASA’s activities to customer and public
interests. Themes were focused on important national, agency, and center objectives. A message
was a phrase that related to program issues, activities, or accomplishments in the public interest.
It was to clearly communicate specific and relevant information to NASA’s customers.
An agency communications team defined a specific set of themes and messages for use
in agency communication vehicles and approved an overall agency communications strategy.
This group also determined the criteria for assessment, based on outcome measures The team’s
members included the associate deputy administrator (technical) as the chair, a White House
liaison, the apecial assistant to the administrator for communications, the comptroller, and the
associate administrators for human resources and education, legislative affairs, public affairs,
and policy and plans. Themes and messages were coordinated with and disseminated to
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enterprises, functional and staff offices, centers, and employees for incorporation into their
activities.
The subprocess of establishing integrated communications teams was the primary
mechanism for coordinating, strengthening, and implementing communications programs,
products, and services related to specific enterprises, programs, and projects. Each enterprise
determined the requirement and number of teams to be established for communicating its
activities. Team members included scientists, engineers, technicians working with a particular
activity, and experts in education, public affairs, legislative affairs, international affairs, and
policy. The content of the strategies that the teams developed had to be consistent with
approved agency themes and messages and had to include specific timetables, products, and
services that would be used to disseminate information on enterprise activities.
The subprocess of communicating with the entire NASA team—the NASA
organization—was vital as the agency implemented reengineering and organizational change and
effective communication with its employees and partners. Keeping employees informed affects
their morale, which in turn affects their performance. Employee surveys indicated that internal
communication was a major weakness in the management process of the 1990s. To improve this
situation, the Office of Headquarters Operations established a World Wide Web site on the
Internet, designed especially to meet the needs of the NASA team. This Web site features up-to-
date information on agency policy and plans, information on human resources and personnel
issues, the status of NASA’s budget, messages from Goldin and senior management, and
guidance on agency themes and messages. In addition to posting information on the Web site,
senior managers were encouraged to increase their efforts to share information on critical agency
issues with the NASA team in a timely manner.
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Perform Strategic Planning and Management
A fundamental goal of NASA’s Strategic Management Process of the 1990s was to
ensure that the agency provided its customers with excellent, cost-effective, and timely products
and services. To ensure that NASA executed its Crosscutting Processes in this manner, process
owners were expected to collect performance goals and target levels that measured the resources
consumed in the process, as well as output, cycle time, and life-cycle cost, and process
effectiveness indicators that were determined by the customers’ processes, generally by the
enterprise, to measure the degree to which the products and services produced met customers’
needs. These data and measures were to be developed annually and updated in September in
parallel with the agency’s other performance planning activities or during the course of the year
as new improvement and reengineering activities were initiated.
To ensure agencywide understanding and foster the successful implementation of
integrated policies at all levels, policy documents and directives (NPDs and NPGs) were to be
developed, approved, and implemented. NASA’s directives were developed in accordance with
statutory requirements or as mandated by the administration.
Performance Evaluation
Having seen its programs of the 1960s lose popular appeal and congressional support,
NASA conceived in the 1990s a need for an effective way to communicate how well the agency
was doing. Implementation planning provided some basis for the end-to-end evaluation of
performance at multiple levels within the agency; evaluating performance measured whether, as
stated in its performance plans, the agency achieved its intended results and levels of
effectiveness and efficiency in executing its programs and processes. NASA established
performance planning across the agency, each level being responsible for performing the
necessary steps of measuring, evaluating, reporting, and implementing improvement initiatives.
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The performance evaluation process provided NASA’s customers with information
helpful in assessing its performance at all levels. It also allowed NASA to identify potential
opportunities for improvement in areas that might need improving, such as product and service
delivery, program implementation, and process management. The results of performance
evaluation activities provided data and information that managers could use to make informed
decisions regarding changing the organization’s long-term strategies or near-term deployment.
The results of performance evaluation activities also allowed the agency to communicate results
and accomplishments to its internal and external customers and stakeholders using the rhetoric
of process rather than space.
The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 established reporting
requirements regarding annual performance goals. NASA’s annual performance report addressed
the enterprise-level goals, objectives, performance measures, accomplishments, and progress
toward NASA’s goals and objectives. The act requires that the report be provided to the
president and the Congress in March following the associated fiscal year. The same data are
used to comply with additional reporting requirements, such as the Chief Financial Officers Act,
the Federal Managers Financial Integrity Act, the Administrator’s Performance Report to the
President, and other reports established by OMB, the National Performance Review, and
congressional committees. NASA’s annual performance report summarizes the performance
indicators in the relevant performance plan and makes an analytical comparison of performance
achieved against established goals. It reviews the achievement of performance goals over the
past year, assessing activities and actions that led to that achievement. It assesses the
performance plan for the current fiscal year relative to performance achieved in the preceding
fiscal year. It explains whether a goal was or was not met, addressing why, how, and when the
goal will be met, and if the goal was not practical or feasible, it explains why it was not and
I
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makes recommendations. Finally, the performance report provides performance trend data for
preceding fiscal years.
Other resources the agency used in the 1990s to measure its ability to achieve its goals
and objectives were reviews that external organizations conducted, such as the Environmental
Protection Agency, the General Accounting Office, the National Academy of Sciences, and the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as well as externally mandated reviews NASA
and the Office of the Inspector General conducted. The agency’s strategic and implementation
planning and executive activities were analyzed, based on performance evaluation and process
improvement recommendations derived from these reviews. NASA used the results of these
reviews to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of its programs and processes.
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Chapter 9
The Commercialization of NASA
and the Transfer of Technology
In 1995, NASA resolved to reduce its cost for space communications and operations by
consolidating and, to the fullest extent practical, commercializing the organization. NASA decided
to buy commercial network services, when appropriate, to meet its mission requirements at lower
costs and to continue to sell available capacity on its ground and space systems on a noninterference
basis to offset its costs with reimbursable services. To these ends, the agency made three key
organizational changes. It
1. established a Space Operations Council at headquarters to oversee the
implementation of space communications and operations,
2. designated the Johnson Space Center as the lead center for space operations, and
3. established the Space Operations Management Office (SOMO) at the Johnson
Space Center to manage consolidation efforts, increase and accelerate the
commercialization of space communications and operations, and provide related
assistance to businesses.
SOMO’s primary objective under the program commitment agreement for space operations is to
provide space operations services that are responsive to customer missions at lower cost to the
agency, with an emphasis on greater reliance on commercial service providers. Within SOMO,
the Commercialization Office is accountable for achieving savings through commercialization.
Contracting Out NASA’s Mission
On September 25, 1998, NASA awarded the Consolidated Space Operations Contract
(CSOC) to Lockheed Martin Space Operations Company. The contract evolved from an
intensive effort to consolidate NASA’s space communications infrastructure in order to improve
efficiency, relying more heavily on private industry to meet the agency’s needs. The statement of
work captures this overall vision by describing the contract’s goals and objectives:
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□ provide excellent quality and reliable mission and data services at significantly
reduced cost;
□ move responsibility and accountability for end-to-end mission and data services to
industry;
□ implement an integrated architecture that reduces overlap, eliminates unnecessary
duplication, and reduces life cycle costs;
□ define streamlined processes that minimize the intermediaries required to define
requirements and deliver services;
□ adopt private sector commercial practices and services.1
In pursuing these goals and objectives, the contract specifically requires Lockheed Martin to
manage existing NASA infrastructure, to be responsible for that infrastructure, and to provide
space operations services to meet the needs of NASA’s space flight and science programs. In
addition, the contract’s statement of work expressly requires Lockheed Martin to “provide
services to noncontract customers on an as-available basis.”2
The Legal Framework
To commercialize NASA, several areas of legislative and legal relief were required.
The National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 had established NASA’s capacity to plan,
direct, and conduct space activities.3 Early in NASA’s history, the agency had determined that
space operations and communications provided necessary and critical support for its science
programs. NASA procured and built a large, complex infrastructure of space-based and
ground-based systems, facilities, and control centers. Over the years, NASA obtained most of
this infrastructure, including the services of expert operators, through numerous, largely
independent, contracts.
’Consolidated Space Operations Contract NAS9-98100, section 2.
Consolidated Space Operations Contract NAS9-98100, section 1.
3 The National Aeronautics and Space Act o f 1958, as amended (Space Act), 42 U.S.C. §2472 et seq.
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The Space Act also empowered NASA to “enter into and perform such contracts,
leases, cooperative agreements, or other transactions as may be necessary in the conduct of its
work and on such terms as it may deem appropriate.”4 In exercising this authority to enter into
contracts, NASA is subject to the general restrictions and limitations on government
procurement that the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 prescribes.5
The Space Act also expressly recognized that NASA, in carrying out its mission, must
be able to use and allow others access to its property. More specifically, the act authorized
NASA “to use . . . the . .. facilities of Federal and other agencies with or without reimbursement,
and on a similar basis to cooperate with other public and private agencies and instrumentalities
in the use of... [NASA] facilities.”6 In other words, the Space Act authorized NASA both to
contract and to allow others to use agency property.
The Federal Acquisitions Regulation (FAR) amplifies on this interconnection between
the authority to enter into and perform contracts and the authority to allow others to use
government property. In fact, the FAR dedicates part 45 to the subject of using property in
performing government contracts. It begins by stating that “This part prescribes policies and
procedures for providing Government property to contractors, contractors’ use and management
of Government property, and reporting, redistributing, and disposing of contractor inventory.”7
After the FAR defines “facilities” and “Government production [and research] property” to help
clarify the policies it describes, it prescribes an initial, general policy that “contractors shall
4 42 U.S.C. §2473(c)(5).
Competition in Contracting Act o f 1984 (CICA), 10 U .S.C . §2302 e t seq.
6 42 U.S.C. §2473(c)(6).
7 The intent and context o f FAR 45.000 are clarified in the National Security Decision Directive o f January
5, 1988; U.S. Commercial Space Launch Policy NSPD-2, September 2, 1990; and U.S. Commercial Space
Policy Guidelines NSPD-3, February 11, 1991 (all signed by George Bush).
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furnish all facilities required for performing Government contracts except as provided in this
subsection.”8
One of these exceptions allows an agency to provide government property to a
contractor “W hen... the agency head or designee issues a Determination and Finding . . . that
the contract cannot be fulfilled by any other practical means or that it is in the public interest to
provide the facilities.”9 Once a designated agency official makes this determination, the FAR
authorizes the contractor to receive “Government production and research property” as part of
the “facilities” necessary to fulfill the contract, and FAR 45.401 goes on to establish the
following important corollary:
In performing Government contracts or subcontracts, Government production
and research property in the possession of contractors or subcontractors shall
be used to the greatest possible extent. . . . Prior approval of the contracting
officer having cognizance of Government production and, research property is
required for any use, whether Government or non-Govemment, to ensure that
the Government receives adequate consideration. Government use is defined
as use in support of U.S. Government contracts and non-Govemment use is all
other use including direct commercial sales to domestic and foreign
customers.1 0
Commercialization’s Vision and Goals
NASA’s vision of itself as a commercialized entity is that “to the maximum extent
practical, [it will] acquire its space communications goods and services from the private sector.”
In concert with this vision, the agency defines commercialization as NASA’s purchase of goods
and services from an industry that owns its own assets that it uses in its own production and
performance for its own customers, in addition to NASA. The agency employs a number of
techniques to achieve its commercialization goals. It uses both its own assets and commercial
services. It transfers responsibility for managing, operating, and maintaining its space
8 FAR 45.302-l(a).
9 FAR 45.302-l(a)(4).
1 0 FAR 45.401.
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operations assets to the private sector but retains ownership of these assets. It purchases space
operations services from nongovernment service providers, no longer owning the assets required
for these services. It sells available capacity for NASA assets to non-NASA customers on a
noninterference basis.
The accountability and liability for the performance of the commercial assets resides
with the CSOC contractor. As overall integrator and service provider to NASA, the contractor is
accountable for the performance of all subcontractors and vendors. When the CSOC contractor
sells available capacity for NASA’s assets, NASA is not held accountable or liable for the
performance of those assets.
To achieve NASA’s vision for its commercialization, SOMO has defined it in the
context of the following three goals:
1. strive to commercialize space operations (mission and data) services to the
maximum extent practical
2. reduce the cost for space communications services to NASA’s programs,
3. encourage and stimulate the commercial marketplace to provide services that meet
NASA’s needs.
The SOMO office attempts to achieve the agency’s space communications commercialization
goals by
□ buying commercial services when appropriate while taking into consideration
upgrades, facilities investments, and advancements in technology;
□ selling available capacity for government systems on a noninterference basis;
□ evolving and migrating nonfederal customers to contract appropriate space
operations services with CSOC; and
□ securing a regulatory environment friendly to commercialization (for example,
spectrum usage and transfer of federal space operations assets to the private sector
in exchange for services).
The corresponding success criteria, and performance measurement of progress toward successful
accomplishment of these goals, will be incorporated in a future modification to the
Commercialization Implementation Plan. Measurement will address the extent to which
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operations services are provided by the commercial sector, operations costs are offset, and
operations costs are avoided.
NASA intends to capitalize on the commercial space and ground networks that provide
communications services to low Earth orbit missions and then extending the Internet into near-
Earth spacecraft, thus making them a node on a second-generation Internet infrastructure. The
intent is to use the Internet in conjunction with recognized Consultation Committee for Space
Data Systems protocols to provide command and and control services to NASA’s missions and
telecommunications services to commercial space factories and refineries—the offshoots of the
Space Station era. NASA expects that commercial firms might become interested in
collaborating in the development of the space communications infrastructure in planet
exploration missions, thus pushing Internet capability into planetary space, with the ability to
involve public and private ventures in planetary exploration.
At the close of the 1990s, the space-based commercial market had experienced a hiatus,
and its profitability was questionable. The entertainment and telecommunications industries
internationally had achieved profits; however, in the United States the space launch industry and
direct access to space had suffered because of the tremendous success of advances in ground-
based telecommunications and technology. The space industry had not died, but its prospects
were not bright, given NASA’s reduced objectives and funding.
The Benefits of Technology Transfer
Data Gaps
Just before NASA formed a Technology Transfer Team, it contracted with Chapman
Research Group Inc., a consulting group, to determine the value of NASA’s technology
contributions or spinoffs. The Chapman report concluded that the benefits from 259 cases may
have been as great as $21 billion in sales. The figures did not include any costs or any
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unsuccessful technologies.1 1 The primary purpose of the study had been to update and expand
on earlier studies of the technology transfer programs that were used to support both the
agency’s budget and the technology transfer budget.
It turned out that in looking “backward” from known applications, one could miss
knowing about the benefits of earlier NASA applications into which newer technology had
become “embedded.” That is, modifications—individual or in series—may have been
embedded in, based on, or built up from original technology that NASA supplied, thus covering
over or concealing the original technology such that knowledge of its origins has become lost.
Similarly, benefits resulted from the contributions of only 259 applications of NASA-
sponsored or NASA-furnished technology. A number of important benefits were not included in
the Chapman report: (1) direct NASA or DOD use of NASA’s technology, such as NASA’s
commercialization programs and mission-directed applications (such as weather satellites and
communication satellites), and (2) social benefits, such as lives saved, lengthened, or improved;
labor days saved from avoided illness, accident, or death; improvements in the environment and
the quality of life; and productivity improvements.
As revealed in the Chapman study, NASA’s technology transfer includes not only the
hardware end of technology but also managerial and economic aspects. It includes suppliers and
users, inputs and outputs, products and processes. Working back in a historical sense, too,
suggests information gaps regarding how technology has provided benefits: People move or
forget, organizations change or disappear, and some may have been reluctant to fully
acknowledge a particular benefit or its origins. In many respects, the study represented a serious
probe into the complexity (and difficulty) of capturing spinoff applications. It certainly
"Chapman Research Group, An Exploration o f Benefits from NASA “Spinoff," contract 88-01 with
NERAC Inc. (Littleton, Colo.: June 1989), pp. 1-5 and 23-36.
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demonstrated the need for early and systematic attention to identifying and tracking potential
spinoff applications.
“Sales” includes the sale of new products, additional sales because an old product has
undergone improvement, or increased sales because of NASA’s use of it. No attempt was made
in the study to isolate specific economic contributions of particular technologies or assistance to
NASA’s full range of sales. However, the report excluded gross sales and savings figures that
probably included other products or processes. To be completely assured of having excluded all
but directly “provable” benefits, detailed case studies are required and the examination of
accounting information from all particular firms involved. Since the study’s information relied
on telephone interviews, the researchers’ data depended on the respondents’ estimates, and often
the researchers accepted a particular product’s total sales figures for the technology used. This
means that NASA technology contributed to the sales but that that contribution may have varied
substantially from a relatively small percentage of the total sales or savings figure to a figure
suggesting that a new product or process was completely dependent on the NASA technology.
The various applications were categorized nine ways in the Chapman study according to
end use: communication and data processing, consumer products, energy, environmental,
industrial (manufacturing and processes), medical, public safety, transportation, and other.
Leaving aside the “other” category, the largest contributions were made to industrial use,
followed by transportation, medical, and consumer products. One might also anticipate that
transportation would rank high (that is, second) in the use of technology, since NASA is one of
the primary producers, if not the principal producer, of technology for aeronautics and
aerospace. Aviation uses of technology were clearly the most dominant within this category.
The medical end-use category also rated high (here, third), not unexpectedly, because
of the virtual explosion of computer technology, such as digital-imaging techniques, in the
medical field. The microminiaturization of electronic circuits as well as mechanical features
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have become especially adaptable to medical needs. The development of the programmable
implantable medication system and its substantial potential, along with digital imaging for brain
and whole body scans and subsequent diagnostic procedures, are only partial evidence of the
growth of such technologies.
Savings include greater efficiency; labor saved; reduction in materials, maintenance,
utilities, and processing costs; and research and development avoided. Of 441 separate instances
of the application of NASA-sponsored or NASA-provided technology, the Chapman study was
able to identify 254 cases in which the respondents acknowledged contributions toward savings
or sales. This amounted to 83 percent of the total cases identified. Of the cases in which sales or
savings were acknowledged, 109, or 25 percent, involved circumstances in which respondents
either could not estimate sales or savings or were unwilling to because of the proprietary nature
of the information.
O f the 259 cases in which respondents were able to identify sales or savings, it was
possible to identify contributions toward sales of $21.3 billion. Contributions toward savings
were $315.7 million. Total contributions toward sales and savings were $22 billion. This figure
excluded nearly $12 billion in sales that included NASA-furnished technology but that were
given as total sales figures for a company, including all products. Interviews the contractor
conducted with corporate officials revealed 67 instances in which a product, process, or
company existed because of the NASA-furnished technology. These represented 18 percent of
all cases involving sales and savings and amounted to $5.1 billion in sales or savings. Using
standard economic projection procedures, Chapman estimated that the federal government
received corporate income tax receipts of nearly $356 million as a result of these spinoffs and
that more than 352,000 jobs were created or saved.
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Changing to a Proactive Culture
Despite the Chapman findings, technology transfer at NASA was identified as an area
in need of cultural change. Spinoff, a passive infusion methodology, was unacceptable. Despite
the ability of technology transfer to demonstrate value, it became politically expedient to
reinvent the transfer of technology and front-load funding for the program in order to more
effectively target small and disadvantaged business and specific technologies. The new cultural
dimension of NASA was an expansion of its space research and development mission, and this
included a greater emphasis on technology tranfer. Traditionally, NASA focused on technology
development for space, downplaying the transfer of technology outside NASA. In the new
paradigm, NASA was to be an engine for the maturation and transfer of new technologies to the
private sector.
An inhouse review of the technology transfer paradigm publicized a set of
recommendations to steer NASA toward the new objective. A December 21, 1992, report had
recommended dramatic change to the culture of NASA and improvements to internal incentives
for managers that would stimulate the transfer of technology. The Technology Transfer Team
assumed that the agency was accountable for transferring to the public its special capabilities and
technologies. This was part of NASA’s mission.
Another key assumption, suggested by experience, was that technology transfer is most
successful when potential recipients recognize a need for technology. The Technology Transfer
Team believed that an effective, proactive outreach created this recognition and even desire.
Thus, a marketing model for technology transfer was deemed to have great potential for success.
A passive diffusion model left much to chance. Above all, the team’s finding was that
technology transfer was best achieved as a market-oriented, technically conducted, and legally
supported effort. Change in the culture became the order of the day.
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To support cultural change at NASA in terms of technology transfer, the team
recommended that the administrator send a directive to associate administrators and center
directors stating that technology transfer was now a NASA mission and, specifically, that
secondary targeted and nontargeted technologies were fully valued, important NASA missions
and should be managed accordingly. Overall agency performance would now be measured to
some degree by the level and effectiveness with which transfers occurred. Each center would
include technology transfer in its mission statement. Each center would provide technology
transfer training for all employees and would assess, promote, and reward employees according
to their measures and contributions.
To ensure agency compliance, the team offered a recommendation to form and
empower process action and process development teams that would operate outside the normal
organizational hierarchy and that would directly advise the administrator on technology transfer
matters. The team’s recommendations were accepted, and a consuming effort was undertaken to
institute a proactive effort to change the agency’s technology transfer culture and to ensure
broader participation by all employees. This was accomplished at the expense of NASA’s
traditional focus on its space mission.
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Chapter 10
The 1989 and 1996 Space Policies
of Presidents Bush and Clinton
Evolving from Disarray
NASA opened in the early 1990s in disarray, signaling a new epoch in the agency’s
history. Therefore, to attain his objectives, Goldin had to radically alter NASA’s work force by
downsizing, reducing the cost of doing business in space, and establishing a new culture as the
dominant force behind NASA’s strategy. The agency’s fracturing of direction during the decade
was caused largely by the 1993 change in presidential administrations from that of George H.
Bush (1989-1993) to that of William J. Clinton (1993-2001) and the consequent reformulation
of the nation’s space policy. The change in space policy was marked secondarily by the
transition from Richard Truly (1989-1992) to Daniel Goldin (1992-2001) as NASA’s
administrator.
The National Space Policy that President Clinton released on September 19, 1996,
covered military, civilian, and commercial space issues as well as intersectoral issues, essentially
reinventing NASA’s framework. Clinton’s policy represented the first overall national space
policy since the National Space Policy that President Bush had released on November 16, 1989.
Bush had continued thereafter to rely throughout his administration on issuing discrete space
policies. The Clinton administration continued in the manner of Bush only until roughly 1996,
when on September 16 he demonstrably shifted the nation’s—and NASA’s—emphasis in space.
While Clinton’s shift in policy was seemingly nondramatic at the congressional level, its net
effect culminated in significant redirection and reorganization at the agency level. This chapter
compares and contrasts the most pertinent elements of these two presidents’ policies.1
'The data presented in this chapter were developed from unclassified fact sheets accompanying the release
o f the presidential policies and various Congressional Research Service documents.
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The Two Presidents’ Policy Statements
September 1996 was well into Clinton’s term when his statement of national space
policy gave reflection to his overall goals for military, civilian, commercial, and intersectoral
space programs and a framework for space policy matters. His policy complemented a small set
of specific policy issue papers on remote sensing, space launch vehicles, and navigation
satellites.
President Bush, in contrast, had issued his space policy remarkably earlier, in November
1989, soon after taking office. The Bush administration’s policies were developed under the
guidance and direction of the National Space Council, which President Bush established.2 The
National Space Council, chaired by Vice President Quayle, served as the forum for making
policy related to military, civilian, and commercial issues during the Bush administration.
Expertise resided in the Space Policy Advisory Board, chaired by Dr. Laurel Wilkening, who led
the preparation of several space policy directives, including
□ Commercial Space Launch Policy, September 5, 1990;
□ U.S. Commercial Space Policy Guidelines, February 12, 1991;
□ National Space Launch Strategy, July 24, 1991;
□ Landsat Remote Sensing Strategy, February 13, 1992; and
□ Space Exploration Initiative Strategy, March 13, 1992.
Against the recommendation of Administrator Truly but at the National Space Council’s
direction, NASA sponsored the Advisory Committee on the Future of U.S. Space Program in
December 1990. The committee’s report, the Augustine report, is often cited either in
justification or in rebuttal of NASA’s mission priorities. While the National Space Council
essentially subverted Truly’s authority, it reflected the public lack of confidence in what had
become a rather intransigent bureaucracy in the post -Challenger era.
2See National Security Decision Directive, January 5, 1988; U.S. Commercial Space Launch Policy NSPD-
2, September 2, 1990; and U.S. Commercial Space Policy Guidelines NSPD-3, February 11, 1991 (all
signed by George Bush).
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Bush made his only significant speech relative to space on July 20, 1989, the 20th
anniversary of the first human landing on the Moon. In that speech, he laid out the essentials of
his space policy, including Mission to Planet Earth, now called the Earth Science Enterprise; the
implementation of the International Space Station; a second lunar landing mission; and a mission
to Mars in the early 21s t century. These were all part of the National Space Policy that he
released officially in November.
Clinton’s National Space Policy echoed the first two of these goals, but human
exploration of the Moon and Mars were most definitely not on Clinton’s agenda. The pressure
of shrinking budgets and the need to reposition NASA as an agency of credibility were
extremely effective blocks to what had become known as the Space Exploration Initiative, and
Clinton backed away from human exploration initiatives.
Rather than using Bush’s National Space Council during his administration, Clinton
created in 1993 a new, cabinet-level entity, the National Science and Technology Council.
NSTC functioned within the president’s executive office, providing advice for the coordination
of national science, space, and technology policy. NSTC was the formal advisory group
responsible for carrying out Clinton’s National Space Policy, working in concert with the Office
of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council. Clinton had thus taken the
lead in generating a coherent plan for civilian and military space.
Significant Elements of the Two Policies
Philosophy, Economy, and Operations
As one would expect, the space policies of Bush and Clinton both supported U.S.
leadership in space. A caveat in the Bush policy adds an interesting focus: Since the
administration believed that the United States could not be a leader in everything, it believed in
choosing areas of preeminence. With this caveat, Bush’s objectives focused on critical national
security interests and on scientific, technical, economic, and foreign policy. Clinton, in contrast,
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did not carve out areas of preeminence; he focused instead on maintaining U.S. leadership in
space by supporting a strong, stable, and balanced national space program. Table 10.1, culled
from the several documents researched for this chapter, displays the major features of the
national space policies held by Presidents Bush and Clinton. The points the table summarizes are
discussed and expanded on below.
Table 10.1: The 1989 and 1996 Space Policies of Presidents Bush and Clinton
National space policy President Bush President Clinton
Date policy released November 16, 1989 September 19,1996
Developed and directed
by
National Space Council National Science and Technology
Council
Where expertise resided Space Policy Advisory Board Office of Science and Technology
Policy; National Security Council
Goal ■ Mission to Planet Earth
■ Space Station
« Human and robotic mission to Mars
■ Lunar landing
■ Mission to Planet Earth
■ Space Station
■ Robotic mission to Mars
Policy regarding space ■ Obtain benefits for the general
population and improve quality of life
on Earth
■ Expand human presence and
activity beyond Earth’s orbit
■ Enhance knowledge of Earth,
solar system, and universe
through human and robotic
exploration
■ Support current Space Shuttle
and international Space Station
Economics ■ Obtain economic benefit from space
activities
■ Encourage private investment
• Enhance U.S. economic
competitiveness and scientific
and technical capabilities
■ Encourage private, state, and
local investment
Leadership Give NASA the lead in advancing space
science, exploration, and applications
through research, development,
technology, and related operations
Give NASA the lead in civil space
research and development
Space science Expand understanding of
■ Astrophysical phenomena and the
origin and evolution of the universe
■ Earth and its solar-terrestrial
relationships
■ Fundamental physical, chemical,
and biological processes
■ Effect of space environment on
humans
* Factors governing the origin and
spread of life on Earth
■ A robotic presence on Mars
■ In situ measurements and
sample return from bodies in
our solar system
■ Identify and characterize
planetary bodies in other solar
systems
■ Study Earth
Technology Manned exploration of the solar system
with Pathfinder
■ Develop new and innovative
technologies
■ Develop smaller and more
capable space craft
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National space policy President Bush President Clinton
Sister agencies Identify with civil space activities at
■ Commerce
■ Transportation
Identify with civil space activities at
■ Commerce
■ Transportation
■ Energy
■ Interior
Sovereignty of space ■ Reject claims on sovereignty of
space
■ Support international and peaceful
operations
■ Reject claims on sovereignty of
space
■ Support international and
peaceful operations
The development of Goldin’s cheaper, better, faster, philosophy; the flattening of the
NASA organization through reduction in force; and the influence of the National Performance
Review exerted pressure upward from the agency to the chief executive’s staff. This, in turn,
translated downward as a significantly different perspective for the incoming Clinton
administration. For example, the first goal in the Clinton policy was to enhance knowledge of
the Earth, the solar system, and the universe through human and robotic exploration. The Bush
policy made no mention of this goal, a fundamental philosophical difference. The prime focus
for Bush was to obtain benefits for the general population and to improve the quality of life on
Earth. The Bush policy treated such goals as enhancing scientific knowledge as specific subsets
of a paragraph under civilian space policies.
The most significant difference regarding civilian space was the Bush goal of expanding
human presence and activity beyond Earth’s orbit. “Human presence” runs throughout the Bush
policy. In July 1989, he had enunciated the goals of returning humans to the Moon and of our
going on to Mars. Clinton did does not do this, providing only modest support for human
exploration of space under civil space policy paragraphs. While Clinton’s policy mentioned its
first goal as enhancing knowledge through “human and robotic exploration,” it supported a level
of activity consistent with the current Space Shuttle manifest and the international Space Station
as the means of satisfying that goal. While not eliminating human missions beyond Earth orbit,
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the Clinton civil space policy did not commit to them. The obvious and enthusiastic support that
the Bush administration had had for such missions was absent from Clinton’s.
Clinton’s policy appears to have used space as a means of enhancing U.S. economic
competitiveness and its scientific and technical capabilities. Bush’s policy linked space
activities to obtaining economic benefits for implementation purposes—space was in a far more
critical path under Bush than under Clinton. Both Clinton and Bush encouraged U.S. private-
sector investment in space activities, but Clinton’s policy went further, bringing out state and
local investments as elements of the policy.
Both policies committed the United States to the ideology of all nations’ exploring and
using outer space for peaceful purposes and for the benefit of all humanity. Consistent with
previous international agreements, both presidents rejected claims of sovereignty in space and
supported all nations’ right to pass through and operate in space. In many international
agreements, the historical maritime rights of passage or freedom to navigate in international
waters were adopted for space applications and codified in legislation for the peaceful use of
space.
The Clinton policy contained two unique elements stating that all government action
should be consistent with a number of U.S. laws, policies, and obligations and reserving
responsibility for making space policy to the executive branch. The balance of the space policy
under Clinton was marked by highly specific language that detailed the responsibilities for
national security and for the civil and private sectors.
Another important difference between the Clinton and Bush policies was that Clinton’s
policy identified NASA as the lead agency in civil space research and development, whereas
Bush’s policy had also given NASA an operational role, directing NASA to continue its
leadership in advancing space science, exploration, and applications through research,
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technology, development, and related operations. At the agency level, this one policy statement
of Clinton’s brought wholesale change to NASA’s culture in 1996.
In many ways, this shift in national policies made Administrator Goldin a highly
controversial figure in that he now dutifully executed orders of the president, outsourcing,
downsizing, and privatizing wherever possible. The culture at NASA in the middle 1990s
turned from exploring space to organizational rebellion. All the while, it was not readily
apparent to the White House that anything unusual was going on across town at NASA’s
headquarters.
Space Science, Exploration, and Commercialization
Bush and Clinton had interests in commercialization as a means of satisfying their
constituencies. NASA embraced the ideas of privatization and commercialization to rid itself of
operational assets and other facilities that were rapidly becoming obsolete. To foster
commercialization, the Clinton policy directed NASA to acquire spacecraft from the private
sector instead of building them, to use private-sector remote sensing capabilities and their
derived applications and data information products, and to commercialize space communications
wherever feasible. Bush had presented a similar policy but it had been far broader in scope.
Bush had directed Commerce, DOD, and Transportation to foster the growth of private-sector
commercial use of space and to buy commercially available goods and services. The
philosophical difference was that Bush’s strategy was to restrict commercialization to areas
within the capacity of federal oversight and at the same time to reduce the boundaries of
government by encouraging the elimination of statutes and regulations that unnecessarily
impeded the commercial space sector.
In terms of goals for the sciences, both presidents’ policies directed NASA to conduct
science programs in diversified disciplines. Clinton specified four space science goals:
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□ establish a robotic presence on Mars,
□ make in situ measurements and sample returns from bodies in our solar system,
□ identify and characterize planetary bodies in other solar systems, and
□ study Earth itself.
Bush, in contrast, had specified expanding our understanding of
□ astrophysical phenomena and the origin and evolution of the universe;
□ Earth and its solar-terrestrial relationships;
□ fundamental physical, chemical, and biological processes;
□ the effects of the space environment on humans; and
□ factors governing the origin and spread of life in the universe.
The exploration of Mars, first on Clinton’s list, had become a topic of considerable
public attention in the month before he released his policy. NASA had just announced that a
NASA scientific team had found evidence that life may once have existed on Mars. President
Clinton’s public statement on August 7, 1996, said that the American space program would put
its full intellectual power and technological prowess behind the search for further evidence of
life on Mars. His policy focused on robotic Mars exploration, directing NASA to commence a
“sustained program of Mars exploration” to support a “robotic presence” on the surface of Mars
by 2000.
This specific support for Martian missions was an element of continuing discourse
between NASA’s administrator and White House staff. Some special interest science groups at
NASA and other advocates of human exploration of Mars had hoped that possible fossilized
microbes on a meteorite found in Antarctica would cause the president to reconsider human
exploration of Mars. This was not part of Clinton’s plan, however, and NASA moved rapidly
away from the strategy of high-risk manned flight. Bush’s policy had focused more on human
exploration but had also recognized robotic exploration, saying that NASA would conduct a
“balanced program” to support scientific research, exploration, and experimentation in order to
understand, among other things, the origin and evolution of the solar system.
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The Clinton policy directed NASA to use competition and peer review to select
scientific investigations while at the same time greatly enhancing set-aside programs and state
and local applications. The Bush policy did not address this issue.
The two policies each addressed space technology. Bush, reflecting his emphasis on
human exploration beyond Earth’s orbit, directed that Pathfinder, a current NASA technology
program, be “oriented toward a Presidential decision on a focused program of manned
exploration of the solar system.” Clinton said only that NASA was to develop new and
innovative technologies and smaller, more capable spacecraft.
Clinton specifically directed NASA to ensure safety on all human spaceflight missions,
perhaps reflecting concern about the transition of many Space Shuttle operations to the private
sector. He also directed NASA to emphasize flight programs that reduced costs and
development times and to examine with other agencies the feasibility of updating ground
facilities. Bush did not mention any of these topics.
Both policies identified other agencies that had roles in civil space activities. The
Department of Commerce was identified in both presidents’ policies as the agency responsible
for the operation of civil Earth observation programs. In this section of his policy, Clinton did
not mention the Department of Transportation, although he identified Transportation in the
intersectoral section of his policy as having responsibility for commercial launch operations.
Bush gave Transportation responsibility in both the civil and intersectoral sections of his policy.
Clinton identified Interior as responsible for archiving land remote sensing and other surface
data. Bush did not mention Interior.
The Department of Energy figured prominently in the Clinton policy. President Clinton
directed Energy to maintain the capability necessary to support civil space missions, including
research on space energy technologies and space radiation effects and safety. Later, he directed
Energy to maintain the capability to support missions that required space nuclear power,
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reflecting concern about whether the United States would retain the capability, for example, of
providing nuclear power sources for spacecraft that travel too far from the Sun to use solar
power. Under the Clinton policy, Energy was directed to maintain this capability, with
limitations on the use of space nuclear reactors. The Bush policy did not address these issues or
mention Energy at all.
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Part IV. Conclusions
Chapter 11
Summary, Analysis, Observations, and Conclusions
This dissertation has had two purposes. One purpose has been to present a critical
comparison of administrative changes in two pivotal eras of NASA’s history. This has been
accomplished by researching NASA’s organization and reorganization at the enterprise level
during the 1960s and 1990s.
The dissertation’s other purpose has been to explore the application of two of Graham
Allison’s decision-making models. By comparing NASA’s administrative chronology in the
1960s and the 1990s, I have been able to demonstrate how the agency’s top leadership
functioned in those two very different decades. My conclusions were reached through the
analysis of the data, an analysis that confirmed my two hypotheses:
□ Hypothesis 1 was confirmed in that agency-level decision making during
Administrator Webb’s era fit with the rational actor model of decision making.
□ Hypothesis 2 was strongly confirmed in that agency-level decision making during
Administrator Goldin’s era fit well with the bureaucratic politics model of decision
making.
The summary in the body of this chapter is intended to show how my analysis led to
these conclusions. The chapter is divided mainly into two parts. In the first, I summarize the
rational actor model and NASA decision making in Webb’s era. For this purpose, table 11.1
outlines the key features of Allison’s formulation, and the text elaborates on them. Subsequently,
table 11.2 outlines the key features of Allison’s formulation of the bureaucratic politics decision
making model, and the text elaborates on them, summarizing the operation of the model in
Goldin’s era. The chapter concludes with some suggestions for future public administrators.
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The Rational Actor and NASA Decision Making
As described in chapter 1, rational actor decision making is largely a matter of rational
choice, a selection of alternatives that offer the greatest beneficial consequence. In my analysis
of the data, it became apparent that decision making during the Webb era predominantly used
this model. Table 11.1 outlines the key features in Allison’s formulation of the model and the
evidence I found of the presence of these features during the administrations of Webb and
Goldin.
Table 11.1: The Rational Actor Model and NASA Decision Making Under Administrators
Webb and Goldin
Key feature of the
model
Feature defined Era of NASA decision
making
Webb Goldin
Basic unit of analysis Government action as rational choice Medium Low
Organizing concepts National actor: NASA leadership as a
small, cohesive body of unitary
decision makers
High Low
The problem: action in response to a
national strategic problem
High Medium
Static selection: action as a choice
among alternative outcomes
Medium Medium
Action as rational choice: a value-
maximizing decision-making method;
the national interest is the category in
which the strategic goals are
conceived; each alternative produces a
series of consequences
Medium Low
Dominant inference
pattern
An agency that performed a particular
action must have had ends toward
which the action was a maximizing
means
Medium Low
Note: High = strong evidence of rational/classical decision making. Medium = moderate
evidence of rational/classical decision making. Low = little evidence of rational/classical
decision making.
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The Basic Unit of Analysis
The unit of analysis has been defined as government action as rational choice. This unit
reflects the concept of the unitary actor and how that actor viewed his world. A rational actor
expected that all decision making was based on knowledge of all alternatives and all
consequences. The decision itself was a trade-off among an ordered set of preferences, the
outcome of which was a maximization of the decision’s utility.
Organizing Concepts
National Actor. One of the model’s organizing concepts is that of a national actor. At
NASA, leadership was conceived of as a small cohesive body of unitary decision makers, and
Webb embodied this concept throughout his tenure as administrator. From his earliest days as
the head of NASA, he preferred the unitary decision-making concept. For instance, the
establishment of the leadership triad Webb, Dryden, and Seamans set in place a small insider
group of key personnel through which all NASA decisions would be assessed and the
consequences of alternatives would be weighed.
In the early stages of organizing to respond to a presidential mandate, Webb relied on a
very small group of insiders, none of whom had been part of NACA, to evaluate NASA as a
whole. According to NASA official Siepert, Webb reserved to NASA officials rather than to
outside consultants the continuous study of, and the ability to change, NASA management
practices. This was a marked a change from previous years. One of the conclusions of the
Kimpton Report—a politically motivated report generated by the outgoing administration and
approved through lame duck congressional review—represented the way in which Webb viewed
congressional investigatory help in determining a course to set for NASA. It stated that NASA
had reached the stage of its organizational life at which it needed to strengthen its management
analysis staff. Webb interpreted this to mean that NASA would appraise and improve itself with
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its own in-house talent rather than outside blue ribbon panels and other non-NASA groups. A
special NASA management committee was formed to respond to Kimpton’s recommendation.
Seamans, a member of Webb’s top management team, chaired the committee and would guide
the work of nine NASA headquarters staff officials in the resolution of management problems
and relationships with field centers on matter of policy and program authorizations.
Presidential access was an important aspect of the national actor concept. Throughout
1963 and 1964, Webb and President Johnson exchanged daily memos. This high degree of
direct access to the president solidified the unitary decision-making group. In some cases, the
degree of presidential involvement was such that Johnson could very well have been considered
part of NASA’s leadership team. The theme that continues to emerge from an examination of
the relationship between Johnson and Webb demonstrates how the actions Webb chose
responded to a national strategic problem, another of the model’s organizing concepts.
Similarly, Webb thought it was absolutely essential that his senior managers outside the
unitary body understand their roles in what he called the total milieu. His strategy of rotating
leaders to and from field centers served to block significant influence from the Congress through
political appointees. Key officials were never precisely defined by their positions but instead
served as senior staff to the administrator. The interplay of the unitary decision-making body
was intense and mutually supportive. As the decade of the 1960s progressed, congressionally
sponsored committees on space and the redirection NASA continued apace, as chronicled by
Roger Bilstein in Orders o f Magnitude} As long as NASA’s overriding mission was Apollo, a
lunar landing mandate, Webb was able to fend off political leverage and organizational
intrusions into the leadership. Toward the close of the Apollo era, a time when new missions
'Roger E. Bilstein, Orders o f Magnitude: A History o f NACA and NASA, 1915-1990, NASA SP-4406
(Washington, D.C.: NASA, Office o f Management, Scientific and Technical Information Division, 1989).
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were planned and the spacecraft was built, NASA’s mission was quickly diffused into multiple
science explorations and space technology applications, and Webb’s ability to control the agency
broke down. His leadership methods could not cope with nonhierarchical political channels of
operation and consensus building. Webb did not survive long after the complexities of a
multifaceted space agency began to emerge.
The Problem. Another of the organizing concepts of the rational actor model, the
problem, is defined as an action chosen in response to a national strategic problem. From
Webb’s earliest days as administrator, he was intent on fulfilling President Kennedy’s national
mandate. His first major effort to reorganize NASA for the implementation of the Apollo
program was a major self-evaluation of the agency and its focus. This effort, accomplished by
his senior decision-making triad, published a staff study called “Reappraising NASA’s
Organizational Structure to Achieve the Objectives of an Accelerated Program.”2
The most significant and immediate change made as a result of this study was the total
refocus of the agency on programmatic responsibilities. The art of programming as a means of
management reporting and budgeting prevented any one field center from becoming an
autonomous agent, as had happened earlier under Administrator Glennan. It was clear that
definable work plans, fiscally responsible budgeting, and a narrowly focused agency objective
were key attributes of the new NASA under Webb. The 1961 concept of “programs” was
further narrowed in 1963 to “one program,” which resulted in unified infrastructure and center
cross support. The autonomy of the field centers was further reduced through the initiation of
monthly program reviews by a member of Webb’s decision-making team. Much of Webb’s
2DeMarquis Wyatt, report o f the director o f the Office o f Programs, “Reappraising N ASA’s Organizational
Structure to Achieve the Objectives o f the Accelerated Program,” NASA Archives, Washington, D.C., June
12, 1961.
i
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success was owed to his continuous attention to keeping the agency tightly focused on a problem
of national importance. The volume of data that kept the paradigm of national crisis in the
public eye and reinforced throughout NASA served to focus the agency on one major program
and one national problem.
Static Selection. Webb’s decision-making process also reflected static selection,
another organizing concept of the model. According to this concept, each action is conceived of
as a choice among alternative outcomes. Static selection is the characteristic of a decision
maker’s personal weighing of goals and objectives, perceptions of available options, and
analysis of cost or consequences that follow each option.
Webb demonstrated his preference for static selection in his decisions related to the
substantive organizational changes of 1961. To facilitate paths to his center directors, he
instituted a number of changes that improved his ability to personally weigh, view, and influence
top-to-bottom decision making. Changes Webb made in 1961 confirmed the role of his second,
the associate administrator, as the official responsible for authorizing projects and approving
budgets while he focused on the total picture of NASA programs, with manned flight the
dominant program. While this reconfiguration of programmatic reporting served Webb’s need
to personally weigh each focus of NASA’s overall program, it tended to create a free for all
between the program offices at headquarters and the field center offices responsible for
implementation.
The concept of static selection did not work for Webb’s associates. The roles assigned
to Seamans and Dryden became extremely demanding, to the point where Webb could not visit
the centers to personally assess programs or adequately grasp what was happening in the field
because of the sheer volume of programmatic content that he had to weigh. The failure of static
selection to adequately inform Webb and his decision-making team was corrected in 1964,
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however, with the initiation of the NASA Secretariat. This office, an expected outcome of
NASA’s organizational maturity, served as the hub for matters of interest to the administrator.
Webb ensured that the Secretariat became a very visible part of NASA’s decision-making
process and acted as the primary arm of the Office of the Administrator. Throughout Webb’s
tenure, his penchant for personally knowing every technical detail and his need to personally
weigh and judge every aspect of manned space flight was driven by forces consistent with those
of the rational actor model.
Action as Rational Choice. Action as rational choice is defined as a value-maximizing
method of decision making, under which strategic goals are conceived in the national interest.
Each alternative produces a series of consequences. The model’s components include the goals
and objectives of agency-level strategy. Options are various courses of action relevant to a
strategic problem. Consequences then result from the course of action selected, and choice is the
actual selection of the alternative that yields the greatest magnitude.
In 1961, Webb implemented a series of radical changes in recognition of the fact that
the lunar landing mission had made manned space flight the dominant activity within NASA.
The decision was reached through rational choice. After several consultations with the
president, the agency’s goals and objectives for the lunar mission were assessed. Webb and his
staff carefully defined a set of options from a technical demonstration of the full lunar landing.
First the president and then congressional committees were briefed on these options. The
consequences of the commitment to the national mandate forced NASA to substantially alter its
organizational structure in order to respond appropriately to the schedule and challenge of
manned space flight.
In the years that followed, Webb applied the same kind of rational choice decision
making to the goals and objectives of the Apollo mission applications that involved follow-on
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manned missions and a set of experiments. Similar steps led to assessing the consequences and
a selection of a course of action. In this case, however, Webb’s underlying assumptions about
the role of humans in Earth-orbit operations was flawed. His selection of Apollo applications
drew sharp criticism from the Congress and the Bureau of the Budget. In 1966, Webb was
confronted on the matter by Newell and Cortwright, two of his close associates. It was agreed
that the lack of a substantial, visible end product to serve as a focus for the effort no longer
justified its continuation. An example of the process in action was the intense negotiations with
the bureau’s Charles Schultz. Citations from Webb’s oral history refer to the process as having
locked horns with Schultz over the summer of 1966 over such questions as, Should the nation
continue manned flight after the lunar landing? Clearly, this choice had consequences, and as a
national issue it struck at the heart of NASA’s goals and objectives. As history shows, Webb
won the day by presenting to Schultz several courses of action with understandable impact that
finally sold the bureau on the continuation of manned space flight.
Later in the decade, Webb established an ad hoc science advisory committee, but his
tenure as administrator was coming to an end. Increasingly, the Congress and special interest
groups were able to leverage more and more power to force Webb to look beyond the lunar
mandate and adopt a more balanced program. The ad hoc committee was formed, in part, to
respond to these pressures and to examine how to involve outside scientists with NASA science
policy making to a greater degree. While Webb allowed the committee to make
recommendations with little impact, he tightly maintained a rational choice approach to decision
making, as exemplified by his rejection of a general advisory committee, not because it would
have required a fundamental reorganization of the agency but because it might have forced the
administrator to choose between accepting the committee’s advice and supporting the
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217
president’s program. The process of assessing the consequences of this decision was very
reminiscent of the rational choice decision-making method.
Dominant Inference Pattern
The dominant inference pattern in the rational actor model is a summary look at
agency-level outcomes that result from its performing particular actions. Fundamental to this
key feature of Allison’s rational actor model is that for the agency an action constituted a
maximizing means toward an achieved end. Webb’s actions clearly reflected the methods of the
rational actor model. Examples are
□ Webb’s response to the presidential mandate to land a man on the moon;
□ multiple reorganizations within a period of 2 years that were designed to radically
change the status quo of NASA research;
□ efforts to focus expertise in field centers areas toward the dominant lunar program
as a means of reducing field center autonomy and increasing cross-cutting
processes;
□ Webb’s weighing of consequences and actions as a way to effect action;
□ the maintenance of in-house leadership and talent necessary to implement the lunar
mission and resistance to external leverage groups;
□ Webb’s resistance to political bargaining with the Congress and his strong linkage
to the president.
Applying the Rational Actor Model
to Administrator Goldin’s Era
One of the greatest challenges of this dissertation was collecting and analyzing the data
of Administrator Goldin’s decision-making processes. In attempting to relate these data to the
rational actor model, it was important to demonstrate that Goldin’s era either reflected rational
actor decision making or that it did not. Several indicators led to the conclusion that Goldin
operated within a completely different decision-making paradigm.
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The data on Goldin do not reflect the existence of a unitary decision-making body.
Additionally, the nature of decision making in Goldin’s era does not appear to be that of an
administrator’s mandate. From the available data, it appears that the 1990s were not a decade of
national strategic problems that needed a directive or rallying point to effect action. In fact,
whether because of social or cultural change, hierarchy was replaced by external interest groups,
politically astute power players, that advanced their regional and constituent interests over and
above an overarching focal point for agency action. Only one exception, in the area of static
selection, could be construed as rational actor decision making. That incident involved the
congressional approval of continuing construction of the space station. Goldin’s actions in that
case appeared to allow for multiple alternatives, researched and evaluated, that permitted him to
make a steady state choice. The variation of Goldin’s selection process was the intense leverage
political interests applied through powerful group advocacy of one space station design over
another.
Finally, the concept of action as rational choice diverged from the apparent bargaining
and consensus environment of Goldin’s era. The lack of data in this case was as significant a
finding as its existence would have been. The exciting discovery that the key features of rational
actor decision making were absent in the Goldin era indicated another potential model for this
era. Therefore, I turned to my second hypothesis and the bureaucratic politics model.
Bureaucratic Politics and NASA Decision Making
Daniel Goldin assumed command of NASA in a time of turmoil and conflict. The
public outcry over the Hubble space telescope fiasco, the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion,
and the grounding of the shuttle fleet for technical reasons had staggered NASA. The
organizational environment was politically unsettled to the degree that the Congress heavily
influenced the removal of Goldin’s predecessor. During the first year of Goldin’s tenure as
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219
administrator, NASA effectively lost all autonomy as an agency. A national space council had
been formed to reconstitute NASA and its role in civil space. An external blue ribbon
commission, led by Norman Augustine, chief executive officer of Martin Marietta, the largest of
NASA’s contractors, recommended sweeping changes at NASA.
It was against this background that Goldin was challenged to lead NASA back to
credibility. To achieve this successfully, he had to rely on decision-making processes that, in my
analysis, reflected bureaucratic politics decision making. Table 11.2 outlines the key features in
Allison’s formulation of the model and evidence of their presence in the Webb and Goldin eras.
Table 11.2: The Bureaucratic Politics Model and NASA Decision Making Under
Administrators Webb and Goldin
Key feature of the
model
Feature defined Era of NASA decision
making
Webb Goldin
Basic unit of
analysis
Government action as political resultant:
What happens is not chosen as a solution
to a problem but results from
compromise, conflict, and confusion
Low High
Organizing concepts Who plays: Players in positions Low High
What determines each player’s stand:
■ Parochial priorities and perceptions
■ Goals and interests
■ Stakes and stands
■ Deadlines and faces of issues
Medium Medium
What determines each player’s impact on
results: Power
Medium Medium
What is the game?
■ Action channels
■ Rules of the game
■ Action as political resultant
Low High
Dominant inference
pattern
Action is the result of individuals and
groups bargaining within the agency;
action channels, positions, preferences,
and power yield a political resultant
Low Medium
Note: High = strong evidence of bureaucratic politics decision making. Medium = moderate
evidence of bureaucratic politics decision making. Low = little evidence of bureaucratic politics
decision making.
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220
The Basic Unit of Analysis
In the bureaucratic politics model, the basic unit of analysis is defined as government
action as a political resultant. What happens is not chosen as a solution to a problem but, rather,
results from compromise, conflict, and confusion.
Organizing Concepts
Who Plays. The first of this model’s organizing concepts is: Who plays? This is the
definition of the players in positions of influence who leverage bargaining and orchestrate the
mode of management through consensus. The best demonstration of this concept in the Goldin
era is found in the management recommendations of the Augustine commission. The
commission established the Executive Committee of the National Space Council, composed of
political and space industry leaders, including NASA’s administrator. The committee had
relative parity in terms of voting and influencing the outcomes of NASA, but it left the
administrator to bargain among individuals in order to reach a compromise position on NASA
decision making.
Other new players appeared when some of NASA’s field centers were converted to
university-affiliated and federally funded entities. Cross-cutting NASA space centers were to be
refocused as autonomous centers of excellence in relevant fields. NASA was also forced into
consensus building by the institution of an independent cost-and-budgeting group that had
authority to evaluate top-level agency programs. Thus, in Goldin’s first year, he faced the
formidable task of preserving some of the good things of NASA while radically reforming the
agency. In all cases, and under the best of circumstances, power and positions that could
influence a score of independent players were needed to lead the agency.
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What Determines Each Player’s Stand. A second organizing concept of the
bureaucratic politics model is what determines each player’s stand. This includes parochial
priorities and perceptions, goals and interests, stakes and stands, and deadlines and faces of
issues.
The Augustine commission established science, program, and management goals and
interests for NASA. The science and program goals drastically widened NASA’s focus, to the
point of creating an entirely new enterprise: Earth-bound environmental science. A new space
science mission to Mars was directed by the commission, as well as a significant increase in
technology development. Programmatically, the space station program was revamped, and the
spacecraft was designed for a reduction in cost and complexity. Further manned flight
improvements, such as an additional space shuttle, were stopped.
The parochial interests of each major power player were served through this
redefinition of NASA. To fully satisfy each of the diversified interests, the focus of the agency
itself was changed. The remaining power structure of NASA headquarters was negotiated, and
its role in this new paradigm of decision making was decided by bargaining. Headquarters
leadership no longer had programmatic responsibility. The major work of the agency was to be
conducted by regionally controlled entities. As a result, NASA’s headquarters was left to
ruminate over more philosophical points, such as defining the role of the strategic enterprises
and the work of cross-cutting processes. These processes were defined as the provision of
aerospace products, the generation of knowledge, communication, the transfer and sharing of
information, and the performance of strategic planning and management.
What Determines Each Player’s Impact on Results. What determines each player’s
impact on results is the model’s organizing concept that is framed in terms of power. In the new
NASA, agency-level management served as the principal interface with NASA’s primary
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stakeholder—the Congress. The power of the administrator relative to the interests of the
Congress had become greatly diminished, compared to the Webb era. In many respects, Goldin
was the head decision maker of an agency he did not lead. It was only through the use of power
and leverage that he was able to steer NASA through a period of intense congressional
interference. Most of his time was spent aligning NASA’s strategic interests with the interests
and requirements of the agency’s congressional stakeholders and constituent groups. They had
become, externally, the primary focal point for accountability, communications, and liaison;
internally, they defined the strategic enterprises and were responsible for cross-enterprise
efficiency, performance assessment, and resource allocation.
One aspect of power that was left completely to Goldin was the definition of NASA’s
vision. In this bureaucratic political environment, the mental image of the future was a
negotiated position, yet Goldin’s ability to articulate a view of a realistic, credible future for
NASA allowed him to influence its future state and focus attention on attainable goals.
Goldin’s primary power sharing arrangements internally extended to the enterprise
associate administrators. These officials were responsible for the stewardship of NASA’s
science divisions. They provided oversight for program priorities and institutional investment
strategy. The power they used was characterized as the ability to exert leverage by leading the
macro adjustments to and tradeoffs between the various research institutions.
One surprising aspect was the lack of personal involvement by President Bush and
President Clinton in matters of space policy. Goldin was unable to achieve in the 1990s the
same personal access to the president that Webb enjoyed in the 1960s. Perhaps the work had
become fundamentally more complex; more likely, the president had been more excited earlier
by whatever NASA had to offer. During the Bush administration, the president relied on his
National Space Council to conduct all policy making and national strategies in areas pertaining
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to civil and military space. President Bush’s interest in space was so minute that his only known
speech relative to space was to commemorate the first Apollo Moon landing. In part, the power
of the Space Council reflected a lack of confidence in NASA by the American public as well as
a lack of interest by the president.
Goldin fared no better during the Clinton administration. President Clinton
disestablished the Space Council and replaced it with a politically more acceptable and
politically powerful group called the National Science and Technology Council. NSTC
functioned within the office of the president and focused on space issues as well as security and
intelligence matters that intersected with space. There are no data to make the case that
Clinton’s administration had an interest in NASA’s achievements in space. The total lack of
access Goldin had to the Clinton administration supports the idea that the bureaucratic politics
model of decision making best fits his era at NASA. President Clinton never made a major
speech in a space-related area, and in general his administration reflects an absence of support
for civil space. The Clinton space policy produced by NSTC linked space activities to obtaining
economic benefits for the nation and provided for the commercialization of many civil space
functions. Given all that stood against Goldin’s ability to operate autonomously, this model
appears to best describe what maximized the administrator’s influence and bargaining position.
What Is the Game? The fourth of the organizing concepts of bureaucratic politics
model is posed in the form of a question: What is the game? The game is composed of
nonhierarchical action channels and a collection of rules that determine how action ensues, and
as a result of players using these channels and rules, decision making takes the form of a
political resultant.
The game at NASA in Goldin’s era was defined by two themes. First, the major
external theme was the control of NASA’s budget. Budget was an underlying theme of most
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committee and congressional actions, because money was the common and understandable
commodity for negotiation. A subordinate theme was the game of budgetary control by
Democrats and Republicans. The political party that was served by a sympathetic agenda for
space gained power, and probably votes, thus enhancing its voice in the Congress. Another
subordinate theme was where the budget was geographically allocated—in other words, whose
district benefited from NASA money.
Second, the major internal theme was who controlled NASA. This theme was, for the
most part, the game that pitted the administrator against various initiatives linked to the
implementation of political resultants from bargaining. Examples of a political resultant were
the Augustine commission space, program, and management goals for NASA. Each such goal
was a recommendation based on committee consensus that carried with it the weight of
congressional oversight. Internally, NASA’s councils, such as the Senior Management Council,
Program Management Council, and Capital Investment Councils, dealt with internal
implementation of the agendas of NSTC, the National Space Council, and the Augustine
commission.
Dominant Inference Pattern
The dominant inference pattern in the bureaucratic politics model is a summary look at
agency-level outcomes as a result of bargaining among individuals and groups within the
agency. Action channels, positions, and preferences yield a political resultant. Qualitative
analysis of the data revealed evidence from Goldin’s era that reinforces the idea that his era
exemplified the bureaucratic politics decision-making model:
□ The organizational environment of the era was politically unsettled to the degree
that sufficient cause was demonstrated to the Congress to effectively remove
NASA’s autonomy as an agency.
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□ External councils, committees, and panels were the players that recommended
sweeping changes, reconstituting NASA and its role in civil space.
□ The concept of the player’s stand reflects the diversified and parochial interests of
each major power player in that era, to the extent that the focus of the agency itself
was changed.
□ Each player’s impact on results was a function of external power and influence.
The power of the administrator’s role in this era was greatly diminished power
because of his lack of access to the president, while the president relied on the
National Space Council, for example, to conduct matters of space policy.
□ The game of this era was the control of NASA’s budget.
Lessons for Future Public Administrators
The Next Leadership Style
Observing the past is often a good way to try to predict the future. Across two decades,
the observations of this dissertation have described leaders attempting to realize mandates, the
grand challenges of exploring the unknown vastness of our world and satisfying the special
interests of constituencies served by their agency.
In this student’s estimation, the next leadership style will clearly need to address the
true elements of good management practices. There will be a need for good management as well
as good politics.
Externally, each new leader could draw from the strengths of the models analyzed in
this work and form a hybrid model that could effectively respond to mandates and political
interests as equal, synergistic partnerships. Accomplishing the grand challenges of this nation
are within the grasp of our future agency decision makers. These decision makers, as future
leaders, must proceed with the knowledge of an appropriate use of their powers, the use of
performance-driven measures that are understandable to the common man as irrefutable
evidence of actual accomplishments, and finally the responsibility to the Congress and the
president for a results-based approach to government.
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Internally, the future leadership could build on the lessons of the past to refresh its use
of human capital. In the two decades of NASA history, decision makers seldom let the
limitations of their work force stand in the way of accomplishing the objective at hand. While
NASA has done great things in its brief history, it has paid a price in terms of a work force that
is out of balance from continual reforms focused on reductions over cultivation and professional
growth of its people. Our future leaders should be people who are willing to make the prudent
decision on matters of management practice and core competencies.
Reflections on Model I and Model III
This section dwells briefly on a retrospective look at the use of the decision-making
models used in this dissertation. I remain comfortable with my decision to use the models as the
basis for analyzing NASA decision making and believe that models I and III were the
appropriate selections to compare the two decades under study.
To adequately treat each era, an appropriate tool had to be found to evaluate the
topmost agency decision makers’ methods. My literature review revealed a close kinship of
decision making to leadership theories as well as organization theory. I struggled for a long time
with the literature involving leadership. My conclusion was that the body of work that resides in
leadership was too complex a collection of work and, in many cases, too subjective to be of
value across a time span of two decades. Leadership itself seemed to be undergoing significant
change as theory X and theory Y gave way to action theory and chaos theory, to mention a few.
The body of work appeared to this researcher as too volatile to consider as a basis of analysis.
Organization theory was initially of great interest. The research into the organization
theory literature did not result in a good match for seniormost-level decision making in the
federal sector. These are really two unique issues. The first issue was the matter of organization
theory literature dealing predominantly with program-level and project-level applications. In the
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literature review, it was not apparent that organization theory could adequately address
relationships such as were found in the bureaucratic politics model, where nonhierarchical
influence and bargaining resulted in a consensus decision-making process. The second issue
was that it appeared that organization theory applied more to conventional, private sector
scenarios than to the federal government.
In the process of this review, I determined that the models of decision making by
Graham Allison, which were developed initially to explain the Cuban missile crisis, appeared to
be sufficiently resilient when applied to this research. Several assumptions were made to permit
the use of these models, the most salient of which is the ability of the Allison models to be used
uniquely and applied to a broader context of public administration. Allison originally used his
models to explain a multidimensional decision-making process that had a single focus and a
finite period of time. While Allison used his models in simultaneous approach to exam decision
making, he applied them models independently—that is, each model stood on its own. This
dissertation explored the application of the Allison models to NASA decision making across two
very different eras.
Importance of the Decision-Making Environment
A sense of the decision-making environment is worthy of consideration by future
decision makers. Knowledge of decision making and the organizational culture, or awareness of
the organization’s preferred decision-making process, is a needed skill for successfully
navigating a decision maker’s many duties. It is rare that a decision maker is able to initiate and
lead a process from conception to conclusion. Most decision-making situations present
themselves as a process in progress. Such events require the players who are engaged in them to
become aware of the theory-practice continuum in which they find themselves. Awareness of
the decision-making environment is key to understanding the mechanism or model that the
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organization’s leadership follows or invokes. Awareness can enhance a decision maker’s
effectiveness as a member of a rational actor entity or as an action channel for participating in
governmental politics scenarios. A public administrator who understands the environment in
which he or she operates may be better able than not, given a knowledge of decision making, to
succeed at the decision-making process.
Knowledge of decision-making models can be a helpful element in the formation of
leadership teams. The body of literature on teams represents a broad and rich array of mature
analysis, and the field of decision making is nothing new to this area of study. However, it may
be helpful to consider how rational actor teams function, compared to the functioning of teams in
the governmental politics mode.
Having successfully navigated the dissertation process, 1 believe my research has
pointed to the principle that decision making is an important element of any leadership or
organizational model. Decision making is a catalyst to the binding together of organizational
behavior and leadership styles. Viewing decision making this way may help other researchers
gain a richer understanding of a key function in the vast discipline of public administration.
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Asset Metadata
Creator
Kelley, John Daniel
(author)
Core Title
An organizational history of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration: A critical comparison of administrative decision making in two pivotal eras
School
School of Policy, Planning and Development
Degree
Doctor of Public Administration
Degree Program
Public Administration
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
history, United States,OAI-PMH Harvest,Political Science, public administration
Language
English
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Digitized by ProQuest
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Advisor
[illegible] (
committee chair
), Carter, Robert M. (
committee member
), Halley, Alexix (
committee member
)
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https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-540738
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3094346.pdf
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540738
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Kelley, John Daniel
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texts
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University of Southern California
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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...
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Tags
history, United States