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#1
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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