THE PATHOLOGIES OF THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM OF NASA PROGRAM PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT

2012 NASA MANAGEMENT CHALLENGEHUMBOLDT C. MANDELL, JR., Ph.D.

MANAGEMENT PATHOLOGIES COULD BE RUINING NASA’S FUTURE

Human space exploration development times have increased monotonically for fifty years

Costs have increased proportionally Causes: At least 6 pathologies

Frozen, inefficient management culture Excessive overhead Cost estimating, budgeting, and control processes Risk aversion and institutional pessimism The myth that new technologies are required to perform

advanced missions “Not invented here” aversion to ideas from outside

Result: May be putting itself out of business

THE TREND OF PROGRAM LENGTHYEARS FROM START TO FIRST OPERATIONAL FLIGHT

Year Started

Development Time, Years

1950 1960 1980

12

8

4

1970

20

16

COST AND SCHEDULE TRENDS CAN NOT BE SUSTAINED

Programs longer than 10 years are: More expensive than they need to be Almost impossible to plan: Situations and

technologies change too fast Hard to sustain politically (> 2 presidential terms) Hard to keep public interest

A plan longer than 10 years is no plan at all E.G., 2004 Vision for Space Exploration

If it can be done, it can be done in 7 years Apollo lunar program was 6.8 years from start to

human landing

NASA PLANNING INSTABILITY

Every president since JFK has appointed at least one space advisory group Members usually prominent veterans of politics and/or high-

technology program management Most do not have the necessary intimate knowledge of the inner

workings of NASA and its pathologies. Often reflect the pessimism of the past (“it will take 30 years to

get to Mars”) Sometimes unrealistic in expectations of the future (nuclear fusion

reactors, VASIMR engines) and dismissive of internal NASA ideas Often contain members with vested interests in specific outcomes

(2004 study dominated by moon advocates) Sometimes politically naïve Seldom produce a unified, affordable single focus for NASA

programs Some enemies!

RESULTS OF NASA PLANNING INSTABILITY

Resulting recommendations have almost never come to fruition Sometimes unworkable recommendations Resistance by the NASA culture Usually ignored by the President and Congress, who have

had higher priorities As a result of this and other pathologies, NASA future

plans have been tenuous, at best, and unstable for at least the past two decades: e.g.: Space Exploration Initiative Cancellation in 1992 Space Station Near Cancellation in 2003 Constellation Cancellation in 2009 STS Cancellation in 2010

WHY ARE NASA PROGRAMS SO LONG? A Small agency dominated by one or two

programs Annual costs, peak annual funding are the primary

constraints So, Funding growth can not be accommodated by

higher annual costs, moving money around. And programs get longer. This has created the expectation that future

programs will take just as long or longer And this gets built into the culture of NASA and its

oversight agents (OMB, Congress).

WHAT ARE THESEPATHOLOGIES?

PATHOLOGY 1: THE NASA MANAGEMENT CULTURE

Born in the days of the Apollo Lunar program, The NASA culture is not appropriate for today’s missions:

Totally enculturated ways of doing business: excessive specs and operating procedures

Based on plentiful resources and expensive multiple approaches to technology, use of money to mitigate risk

Rare knowledge and skills, which are today more plentiful (but will become more scarce with time)

Racing past detailed definition in the haste of the Cold War Violation of basic systems engineering practices (some not invented then) Starting programs before uncertainties resolved (e.g., EPS, TPS)

Combining of public and private sector work forces (no one’s responsibility) Technically forbidden Overlooked in the interest of national urgency But the practice persisted Violates “Unity of Command” basic management

Management culture is the LARGEST cost driver!

PATHOLOGY 2: EXCESSIVE OVERHEAD The combination of urgency and pork

politics produced TEN NASA installations All ten are still in operation Feeding this infrastructure takes about ¼

of the NASA budget About the amount of money required to

do a very nice human mission to Mars For political reasons, unneeded

installations will be difficult to close!

PATHOLOGY 3: COST ESTIMATION, BUDGETING, AND COST CONTROL PRACTICES

NASA costs are as much as 6 to 10 times as much as private sector

Some of this is because of how program management and budgeting have evolved

Unnecessary costs result from the way NASA handles estimation. For example: Cost model estimates raised by growth factors: BUT: model estimates already have growth built in Costs always grow from the INITIAL estimate,

which adds more growth to future cost model data

EXTRA GROWTH FACTORS CAUSE FUTURE COST GROWTH

CER ES-TIMATES

DUPLICATE GROWTH FACTORS

FINAL RUNOUT COSTS

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2

ORIG. EST. W/O EXTRA GROWTHORIGINAL EST WITH EXTRA GROWTH

1

2

1: RESERVES ADDED BY THE ESTIMATOR TO ACHIEVE AC-CEPTABLE RISK

RESERVES ADDED BY THE POLIT-ICAL PROCESS

EXTRA COST CARRIED TO NEXT GENERATION CER’S

CER ESTIMATE

3

BUDGETING PATHOLOGIES

THREE YEARS (OR MORE) FROM ESTIMATE TO APPROPRIATION (E.G. ‘71=‘73 $)

PROGRAMS ARE DESIGNED TO PEAK-YEAR FUNDING CONSTRAINTS, NOT OPTIMUM COSTS

CONSTANT VERSUS “THEN YEAR” DOLLARS NO MORE SUPPLEMENTALS GROWTHS MUST BE ACCOMMODATED WITH

SCHEDULE SLIPPAGES ASSUMPTION OF ELASTICITY OF PROGRAMS

SCHEDULE SLIPPAGE TO MEET ANNUAL CONSTRAINT IS EXPENSIVE!

PATHOLOGY 4: INSTITUTIONAL PESSIMISM AND RISK AVERSION

At the end of the Apollo Lunar program many of the original risk takers left for more excitement

With notable exceptions, left a work force where many were more focused on security than adventure

Then, Challenger and Columbia losses had profound effect upon agency psyche NASA and Contractors Congress The Presidents

RESULTS OF A RISK AVERSE CULTURE “Conventional wisdom” that Mars would take 20-

35 years (moon had taken 7 from a cold start) False Prophets: For example: “Moon is a

necessary precursor to Mars” (to reduce risk): In reality, the Moon is a poor analog for Mars May cost as much or more to send humans to Moon as

to Mars Enemies: People threatened by Human

Exploration programs will add their voices, using sometimes false premises (e.g., Steven Weinberg)

Leaves a climate averse to major new programs

PATHOLOGY 5: THE MYTH THAT NEW TECHNOLOGIES ARE REQUIRED

NASA management has often held out hope that spending money on technology will reduce cost and risk

Some new technologies may indeed reduce cost and/or risk

But few if any true breakthroughs are evident today or on the horizon

Almost everything we can do in space can be done safely and affordably with today’s technologies Far advanced from the technologies that took us to the

moon, in every system

PATHOLOGY 6: “NOT INVENTED HERE, NOT THE WAY WE DO THINGS HERE”

Many brilliant people have brought forth ideas to NASA

Some ideas have been so powerful that they have prevailed: for example: Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (John Houbolt) In-Situ Resource Utilization (Robert Zubrin)

But some have fallen by the wayside Management Improvement ideas

Richard Reeves Larry Ross Jack Lee Mike Griffin

CONCLUSIONS

If the US is to be a player in the future human exploration of the solar system, NASA must: Overcome at least these six pathologies

Especially institutional risk aversion and pessimism Excessive NASA overhead

Set affordable, ambitious, even risky, early goals (e.g., human Mars expedition in a decade)

Implement new and bold management cultures, based on the sound research of recent years

Work more closely with the international community

CONCLUSIONS

And Must Restore Political Support Make NASA relevant to solving some

urgent national problems Demonstrate that they can do the job

affordably Prove to the political world that they have

re-invented the agency

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM IS THE ENEMY "Everything that can be invented has been invented,"

-- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible,"

-- Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances."

-- Dr. Lee DeForest, "Father of Radio & Grandfather of Television.

"There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom."

-- Robert Millikan, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."

-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."-- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp.,

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."-- Bill Gates, 1981

AND

“Human space exploration can never be justified” Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate, The University of Texas, 2009

“IF YOU DO WHAT YOU ALWAYS DID, YOU WILL GET WHAT YOU ALWAYS GOT”

W. EDWARDS DEMING

REFERENCES

1. NASA HQ: “President Bush Announces New Vision for Space Exploration, remarks by the President on US Space Policy.” Washington DC, January 14, 2004

2. Levine, Arnold S., Managing NASA in the Apollo Era: Washington DC: NASA 1982

3. Anderson, Jr., Frank W., Orders of Magnitude. Washington, DC, NASA, 1981 4. McNamara, Bernard, Into the Final Frontier: The Human Exploration of

Space.Ft Worth, Texas, Harcourt College Publishers, 2001 5. Mandell, H.C. Jr., and Griffin, Michael D., “Management as the Enabling

Technology for Space Exploration,” 43rd Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, October 1992

6. Mandell, H.C., Jr., “The Human Exploration of Mars.” Austin, Texas, The University of Texas at Austin Center for Space Research, Feb 13, 2004.

7. Mandell, H.C., Jr., and Duke, Michael B., “Benchmarking Processes for Managing Large International Space Programs,” 44th Congress of the International Astronautical Federation, October 16, 1993.

8. “Space Exploration Programs Management Plan,” NASA Johnson Space Center, Exploration Programs Office, Houston, Texas February 1993