Reach for the skies

THIS book analyses a large segment of the history of American space exploration - the development and nature of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and, in particular, the circumstances that culminated in the space shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28th, 1986.

The author is interested in the strengths and weaknesses intrinsic to complex organisations in a sophisticated technological arena and how these organisations are influenced by political, social and economic forces. Such complex organisations are an integral part of modern civilisation, and it is therefore important to understand the dynamics that determine their behaviour.

The author is a Danish Professor of Literature whose passion is the annals of space exploration. This is a well written book which survives translation from Dutch very well, and the reader is led irresistibly through the story in easily digested chapters.

From the start, the space programme was intimately affected by national political considerations. The rockets that launched the first American satellite into orbit and, later, that put a man on the moon, were developed under the direction of German scientists brought to the USA after the defeat of the Nazis.

With the development of the Cold War, America never really went off a wartime footing. President Eisenhower was extremely wary of the growing military industrial complex. In 1958 he formed a civilian space agency - NASA - to manage the space programme and to prevent the military from dominating this area.

The Russians beat the Americans into space with the launch of the satellite Sputnik I on October 4th, 1957. At the time the USA hadn't the technical capacity to put a ball bearing into orbit, let alone a 182 pound satellite. The shock and the shame evinced in America by the Russian achievements cannot be overestimated.

John F. Kennedy ushered in a golden age for NASA. He needed a dramatic venture with which to divert public attention from his Bay of Pigs failure, to kick start the economy, and to restore pride in American "know how" and technology. The Russians could not be beaten into space, but they could be beaten to the Moon. On May 25th, 1961, Kennedy announced that America (i.e., NASA) would put a man on the moon "within the decade".

The Apollo moon programme was the most ambitious technological programme ever undertaken. Management standards operating generally in American industry would never have successfully handled such a project.

NASA built up a new management style of self motivating professional teams within, and rigorous external quality control over the work of its main subcontractors in the aerospace industry.

The Apollo programme was a great success. Neil took his "giant leap for on to the Moon on July 20th, 1969, "within the decade", as Kennedy had promised.

Things were never the same for NASA after Apollo. The Presidents after Kennedy never the same enthusiasm for space: and it became difficult to extract money from Government. NASA proposed to develop the space shuttle, which would allow routine and cheap access to space, could be operated on a commercial basis, and could be developed using existing technology.

NASA only got about half the money from Government necessary to do an optimum job on the shuttle, and from the start it was working under unacceptable pressures on this project. Deadlines had to be met at all costs in order to continue to squeeze money out of government. Corners were cut and standards declined. The Sub contractors grew more powerful and NASA lost the keen quality control it had over their work on the Apollo project. Internally, too, NASA was going stale, with large sections wary and jealous of each other.

It was known from the start that there was a design flaw in the solid fuel rocket boosters designed to lift the shuttle into orbit. The checks and balances in the Apollo programme would never have allowed this problem, to persist. However, persist it did, resulting in the Challenger disaster in 1986, with the loss of the lives of seven astronauts. All of the flaws in the management of the shuttle programme were clearly exposed in the subsequent Presidential inquiry.

Flying manned missions into space is a complex and tightly coupled process. In the days of Apollo, NASA showed how a large state enterprise, properly funded and managed, could rise magnificently to such a task. However, in the days of the shuttle development, NASA was more like a commercial enterprise riding the waves of the market. This may be an acceptable mechanism for producing consumer goods, but this book argues that, for very complex processes at the leading edge of technology, such management mechanisms are inadequate.

There is an important lesson here. As our civilisation develops, more and more of the processes that produce routinely used services, such as electrical power, will becomee extremely complex and technical. Will the ethos of free enterprise ever be able to safely handle such processes?