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Cronkite Has Lost It



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 12th 03, 06:28 PM
James Oberg
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Default Cronkite Has Lost It


"stmx3" wrote in message
...
Other than that, I found nothing wrong with it.



Do you think the 'military culture' analogy for the Apollo Project is
accurate? I think it's bizarre at best, totally raving at worst. But it's
'original', that's for sure!




  #2  
Old September 12th 03, 09:09 PM
Rick DeNatale
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Default Cronkite Has Lost It

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 17:28:20 +0000, James Oberg wrote:


"stmx3" wrote in message
...
Other than that, I found nothing wrong with it.



Do you think the 'military culture' analogy for the Apollo Project is
accurate? I think it's bizarre at best, totally raving at worst. But
it's 'original', that's for sure!


Is it either?

I think that many words have been written which paint the manned space
program through the Apollo 11 landing at least as a substitute for war.

There were clear directions from the President, and enough support from
the Congress. The Astronauts were thought of by many folks as cold
warriors. Plans were adjusted based on intelligence (good or bad) about
what the opposition was up to. If not, the bold move of using the first
manned Saturn V launch to go to the moon without the net of a LM would
likely not have been taken.


Comparing NASA to the military, there is a similar mix of politicians:
(assistant)administrators in NASA vs. (under)secretaries in DOD; middle
management: project management in NASA vs. the officer corps in DOD; and
the troops: engineers/technicians/astronauts in NASA vs. soldiers, airmen,
sailors and marines in DOD.

The politicians in each organization interface with the same government,
and everyone both organizations deal with basically the same pool of prime
contractors.

In either case given a clear objective, and adequate logistical support
(i.e. budget) either organization can and has made us proud.

I think that there are cases where both NASA and the Pentagon have lacked
either a clear objective and/or support causing both organizations to fall
short, sometimes embarrassingly short.

As I listened to Admiral Gehman over the course of the CAIBs work, and
paricularly during the final briefing immediately after the release of
volume 1 of the CAIB report, I can't say that I detect much difference
between Gehman's and Cronkite's assessment of the current state of NASA.

As for the current state of the military, there's been too much political
rancor about that which is off-topic in these fora.
  #3  
Old September 12th 03, 09:21 PM
rschmitt23
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Default Cronkite Has Lost It

Jim Webb, Kennedy's NASA Administrator during the Apollo days, stated in
testimony to congressional oversight committees during the hearings for the
FY64 NASA budget that 80-90% of NASA's budget had military applications. He
maintained that the $20B ($FY2K) FY64 NASA budget was actually a $2B space
program and an $18B military program because DOD would have to invest at
least that much to obtain the military space capability that NASA was
providing with Apollo. This, of course, really ****ed off Bob McNamara,
Kennedy's Secretary of Defense, because it represented a threat to DOD's
space budget. McNamara said essentially that Webb's ideas about the military
benefits of Apollo were crap.

I don't know if Walter C. had this in mind when he wrote his op ed piece,
but during the early days of Apollo, Webb and his direct reports were
selling the military benefits of Apollo really hard. After McNamara called
him on this, NASA began to change strategy and after 1965 began to tout the
supposed scientific benefits of Apollo as the primary justification for the
manned moon program. Of course, NASA was fighting an uphill battle here
since most of the U.S. academic and scientific community remained
steadfastly opposed to Apollo.

See Chapter 9 of my book on U.S. manned spaceflight in the 20th century for
more info on how the Apollo program was sold to Congress and the U.S.
taxpayer.

Later
Ray Schmitt


"James Oberg" wrote in message
...

"stmx3" wrote in message
...
Other than that, I found nothing wrong with it.



Do you think the 'military culture' analogy for the Apollo Project is
accurate? I think it's bizarre at best, totally raving at worst. But it's
'original', that's for sure!






  #4  
Old September 12th 03, 09:21 PM
James Oberg
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Default Cronkite Has Lost It


The theme I was asking about was whether NASA in the 1960s was MANAGED like
a military organization, not what the military applications of its
technology might have been.

Sorry I wasn't clear.

Frankly, I'm highly skeptical of the alleged analogy, because military
groups accomplish goals with methods that are well defined and they apply
known technologies. Apollo had to invent it as it went along, requiring much
more 'loose' leadership style and flexibility.






  #5  
Old September 12th 03, 10:31 PM
Rick DeNatale
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Default Cronkite Has Lost It

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 20:21:32 +0000, James Oberg wrote:

Frankly, I'm highly skeptical of the alleged analogy, because military
groups accomplish goals with methods that are well defined and they
apply known technologies. Apollo had to invent it as it went along,
requiring much more 'loose' leadership style and flexibility.


If that were true to the limit, wars would still be being fought with
sticks, bones and stones.

It's been quite some while since large military groups just worked with
known technologies. The methods evolve more slowly, but the technology
evolves greatly, particularly in wartime. The methods are affected more
slowly as the effect of the technology on tactics, strategies, and
planning become apparent.

Rather than just using off the shelf technologies, the military often
drives technology development. Consider the advances in aviation
technology between 1939 and 1946. Now imagine that WW II hadn't happened.
Who managed the Manhattan project? The same General who built the
Pentagon. Was General Groves just applying known technologies? Is it
possible that the Manhattan project might have provided some influence on
how to run Apollo?

A lot of what the Pentagon does is managing technology development. And a
lot of the technology used in the space program came from military
development, and from the same contractors. Who developed the Redstone,
the Atlas and the Titan? How much did the management of the Saturns change
when the Redstone Arsenal became Marshall Space Flight Center? It's
interesting that of the three major NASA centers involved in the manned
spaceflight program, two are named after Presidents, and one is named
after a General.

We can get distracted by discussions of the politics about military vs.
civilian, or Webb vs. McNamara. Sure Eisenhower put NASA under civilian
control. If they just buy that he succeeded I think they have missed the
point. NASA is under civilian control the same way that the Pentagon is
under civilian control. Under the covers they are more alike than
different.
  #7  
Old September 13th 03, 06:50 AM
Derek Lyons
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Default Cronkite Has Lost It

"James Oberg" wrote:
The theme I was asking about was whether NASA in the 1960s was MANAGED like
a military organization, not what the military applications of its
technology might have been.


No.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.
  #8  
Old September 13th 03, 06:52 AM
Derek Lyons
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Default Cronkite Has Lost It

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

In article ,
says...
Do you think the 'military culture' analogy for the Apollo Project is
accurate? I think it's bizarre at best, totally raving at worst. But it's
'original', that's for sure!


It is no secret that a lot of the management techniques and people for
Apollo came from the military.


That's management techniques for military *projects*, not the quite
different techniques used for managing military *organizations*.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.
  #9  
Old September 13th 03, 06:53 AM
Derek Lyons
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Default Cronkite Has Lost It

Kevin Willoughby wrote:
The management techniques and lessons of Atlas, Titan, Minuteman,
Corporal/Sergeant, techniques and processes like configuration
management, project management, PERT, the Source Evaluation Board,
concurrent development coupled with systems engineering, the various
formal reviews, and aggressive contractor managment were all inherited
from the Air Force.


When did the USAF start using PERT? SSPO was the first to use PERT,
on the Polaris project.

D.
--
The STS-107 Columbia Loss FAQ can be found
at the following URLs:

Text-Only Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq.html

Enhanced HTML Version:
http://www.io.com/~o_m/columbia_loss_faq_x.html

Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.
  #10  
Old September 13th 03, 08:56 PM
Christopher M. Jones
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Default Cronkite Has Lost It

"James Oberg" wrote:
"stmx3" wrote in message
...
Other than that, I found nothing wrong with it.



Do you think the 'military culture' analogy for the Apollo Project is
accurate? I think it's bizarre at best, totally raving at worst. But it's
'original', that's for sure!


Quite. If anything the closest "military culture" that Apollo
approached would be something like the special forces, in
terms of how command and organization and all that went. But
their not usually considered a part of traditional "military
culture". On the other hand, real military culture has a lot
of bureaucracy and internal politics involved so maybe that's
what he's talking about. But if that's the case then just
about every big business from Toys 'R' Us to the New York Times
has a "military culture".

 




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