Publisher's Synopsis
This official NASA history describes and analyzes the organization of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration during the 1960s and, in so doing, to test certain assumptions about the nature of administrative history. To date, administrative history has been as much the victim of its friends and practitioners as of those who wonder if it exists as a distinct genre. The assumption behind much of the administrative theory that finds its way into such works-that officials and bureaucrats live in a world where rational behavior is conceivable and attainable-has been in question at least since the publication of Herbert Simon's Administrative Behavior in 1946. In the real world, Simon argues, a fragmentary knowledge of consequences and the inability to choose among all possible alternatives set severe constraints on the administrator's ability to act rationally. Rationality as a goal-the efficient matching of means to ends-can be described, but for the reasons given, "it is impossible for the behavior of a single isolated individual to reach any high degree of rationality." To these objections may be added two more. One is the tendency of certain key decisions to have cumulative effects throughout the organization, whether such decisions are documented or not. The logic of a particular course of action may bring certain consequences, even (or especially) when these are not consciously intended. The other objection to the view that there is measurable correspondence between intentions and results is that superiors may not know or want to know what their subordinates are doing. Whether the sheer volume of feedback is self-defeating, or subordinates cannot or will not do what their superiors want, the problem remains: Descriptions of formal organization structures may, at best, tell only what the organization was intended to do. Acknowledgments * Introduction * Chapter 1 - Key Administrative Decisions of NASA's First Decade * Chapter 2 - The Making of NASA Policy, 1958-1969 * The Origins of NASA * The Transfer of Programs to NASA * The Lunar Landing Decision and Its Aftermath * The Initial Payoff, 1963-1966 * From Apollo 204 to Apollo 11 * Chapter 3 - Headquarters Organization, or the View From the Seventh Floor * Creating a Headquarters Organization, October 1958-January 1961 * Turn and Counterturn, 1961-1963 * The Situation at the End of 1966 * Organizational Changes, 1967-1968 * Conclusion: What Did Top Management Do? * Chapter 4 - The NASA Acquisition Process: Contracting for Research and Development * A Summary of NASA Contracting Philosophy * Origins of Government by Contract * How NASA Learned To Deal With Its Contractors, 1958-1962 * The Bell Report and Its Aftermath, 1962-1963 * The NASA Acquisition Process Evaluated * The Integrity of the NASA Civil Service Staff * Selection Criteria and Their Effectiveness * Use of Incentive Provisions * Chapter 5 - NASA Manpower Policy * Introduction * The Making of NASA Manpower Policy * NASA Excepted and Supergrade Positions, 1958-1968 * Characteristics of the NASA Work Force * Support Service Contracts and the General Accounting Office * Personnel Management Policy, 1967-1969 * Personnel Retrenchments, 1967-1969 * Some Conclusions * Chapter 6 - Program Planning and Authorization * Prerequisites for Successful Planning * Program Review * Advanced Studies * R&D Project Planning and Approval * Cost-Estimating Procedures. Phased Project Planning, 1965-1969 * Four Approaches to R&D Programming * Conclusions * Chapter 7 - The NASA Budgetary Process * The Functions of the Bureau of the Budget * Difficulties in Reviewing the NASA Budget * How the NASA Budget Was Formulated * Federal R&D Spending in the 1960s * Trends in NASA Program Categories * Phasing Down the Space Program, 1965-1970 * Chapter 8 - The Structure of NASA-DOD Relations * The Scope of Interagency Relations
