o Repetitive synopsis, such as time-lapse movies of clouds. o Continuing patrols, such as a search for asteroids. o Extensive surveys, such as measuring the astronomical unit. o Random exploration, such as looking for fossils on Mars. Review of rovel check lists, and comparison of different check lists, is the usual means of gaining new insights, or making inventions. Thus, it is the way to learn how to formulate questions for further space activities. 6. PROGRAM MANAGEMENT It has been said that management consists of deciding on a plan, arranging finances, getting the right people on the job, and keeping the wrong people off the job. In slightly different words, management consists of the following four sequential steps: o Planning. o Decision (sale, authorization). o Organization (programming). o Expediting (reprogramming and bargaining). 6.1 PLANNING The plan presented in this paper is intended to be comprehensive in scope, but not in detail. The object is to support a tentative decision, but not an immediate commitment. A commitment is neither possible nor desirable until a planning team has been brought together, and has prepared itself for the program management task by first completing the details of the plan, including, for example, the wording of all contracts expected to be made with industry. 52 In order to succeed, the planning team must be autonomous, and not merely a congress of representatives of jurisdictional interests. Accordingly, the team from the beginning should be organized along the lines of the ultimate program management team, and staffed accordingly. Under no circumstances should the planning task be given to an already existing team in any organization. A suggested procedure for forming the team would be to create a new, temporary, private, planning corporation. The corporation would accept a contract from the National Science Foundation to prepare a detailed plan. At the end of the contract, say after two years, the corporation would be dissolved, and the plan submitted to the nation for acceptance or rejection. Then would be the time for a decision. 6.2 DECISION The placing of a planning contract by the National Science Foundation hopefully would have the desirable effect of stimulating several parallel or competitive planning efforts by various interested companies and government agencies. These efforts would provide the nation with informed critics, and, possibly, with competing plans. Assuming that the contract plan would be good, and better than any competing plan, there still remains the question whether the public would want it. That question can best be answered after, and not before, the plan is completed. If the answer is negative, the cost of the planning effort would be relatively little, and both the nation and the participants would benefit from the experiment in planning method, as a pilot for many other planning efforts. If affirmative, no time would have been lost, for the continuation of the program could follow the unbroken extension of the planning growth curve. It will be objected that the above proposal leaves a hiatus in the utilization of existing space capability. Such a hiatus was being widely predicted five years ago, as a necessary consequence of not having a post-APOLLO plan already started at that time. Any competing plan which solves that problem is, of course, entitled to a hearing by the nation. 53 Standardization of rockets and spacecraft facilitates decision in three ways. First, the initial investment to establish a comprehensive capability is much less than people have learned to expect. Second, commitment as to how and how much the capability is to be used can be postponed until the time comes to outfit the missions. Third, the unit cost of individual missions is relatively low. For these reasons, the rate, nature, and extent of growth or retrenchment can be adjusted as circumstances and experience may dictate. The decision is no longer a major national commitment. 6.3 ORGAN: ZING (PROGRAMMING) It is conceived that a new launch facility would be created at South Point, or the Island of Hawaii. Hydrogen and oxygen would be produced at the facility by a vendor, in a vendor-owned plant. An assembly plant would be established near Naalehu, 12 miles distant. Any subassembly which could be transported would be purchased from vendors, and transported to South Point. An operating organization would be established as shown in Table 6.3.1. The annual cost would follow a normal growth curve, leveling off at $2 billion. Excluded from the cost estimate are expenditures not coming within the jurisdiction of the organization and its contractors. The organization plan shown in Table 6.3.1 is believed to be self-explanatory, for the most part. The space academy, however, calls for discussion. The composition of the academy is shown in Table 6.3.2, and the steady-state payroll in Table 6.3.3. The purpose of the academy is to prepare people to operate the spacecraft and manage the information indicated in the check list of missions, Table 4.2. The full accomplishment of the purposes of most of the missions calls for a lifetime career for the academy personnel. This fact is the pacing item in the possible growth of a space program. Regardless of funding, the academy cannot reach full proficiency in less than about 20 years. Rockets and spacecraft can be fully operational in half that time. It is fortunate that the proposed plan is flexible enough to be scheduled to keep step with the availability of people to operate it, as already discussed in Section 6.2. A suggestion worthy of serious consider SPACE TRANSPORTATION CORPORATION (semi-private) Procure and assemble rockets and spacecraft Install and service launch facilities Manage contract for propellants CHANCELLOR SPACE ACADEMY (reorganized Manned Spacecraft Center at Houston) Select and educate operating personnel Opere te rockets and spacecraft Handle information management ADMINISTRATOR USERS SERVICE Public at large Private companies Universities Foundations Government agencies Other governments CONTRACT OFFICER SPACE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT Industry Universities Foundations Government agencies, including some present NASA centers Other governments Hire all graduates as astronauts or as direct charge employees. Retain astronauts as professors and direct employees after they complete one manned planetary expedition. Retire all graduates after 41.75 years of student and subsequent activity, or at the average age of 64.75 years. Hire overhead employees, transient employees, and replacements for any graduates who may terminate from qualified persons outside the academy. |