Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2019-07-22)

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◼ REMARKS Bloomberg Businessweek July 22, 2019

COURTESY

NASA

● Fivethingswecanlearnfromhow

NASAputastronautsonthemoonand

broughtthemsafelyback 50 yearsago

● ByPeterCoy

There’ssomethingfaintly embarrassing aboutthe 50th

anniversaryofthefirstmoonwalk.It wasjustsolongago.It’s

nolonger“we”whoputa manonthemoon,it’s“they”who

puta manonthemoon.Sowhycan’t“we”doit?It’shard

nottofeelthatforallthetechnologicaladvancesofthelast

half-century,Americahaslostsomething—theabilitytounite

andovercomelongoddstoachievegreatness.

Atonelevelthisis silly.TheU.S.stoppedgoingtothemoon

becauseAmericansstoppedseeingthepointofit,notbecause

theystoppedbeingcapableofit.Thelackoffreshfootprints

onthelunarsurfaceis notevidencethattheU.S.hasfallen

intoa newDarkAge.

Still,thehistoricMercury,Gemini,andApolloprograms

dohavesomethingtoteachus.Theywerea shiningsuccess

storyofbuildingandmanaginga complex,decentralized

technologicalenterprisethataccomplishedanaudaciously

ambitiousgoal.InNovember1968,sevenmonthsbeforethe

moonlanding,thejournalSciencewrotethatthespacepro-

gram’s“mostvaluablespin-offofallwillbehumanratherthan

technological:betterknowledgeofhowtoplan,coordinate,

andmonitorthemultitudinousandvariedactivitiesoftheorga-

nizationsrequiredtoaccomplishgreatsocialundertakings.”

Missionmanagementis asimportantnowasit wasinthe

’60s.Thenewmoonshotsincludecuringdisease,ending

poverty,andfixingclimatechange.Buta millionthingscan

gowrongwhentherearea millionmovingparts.Consider

theproblemswithBoeingCo.’sgrounded 737 Maxairliner

orLockheedMartinCorp.’scostlyF-35fighterjets.Andwhat

aboutbillionaireElonMusk’sunrelentingchallenges,downon

theground,inmanufacturingelectricvehiclesatTeslaInc.?

Eachcaseinvolvesdifficultiesinmissionmanagement.

So,herearefivemanagementlessonsApollotaughtus:

Havea clearobjective.PresidentJohnF. Kennedyvastlysim-

plifiedNASA’sjobwithhisMay25,1961,addresstoCongress

committingto“thegoal,beforethisdecadeis out,ofland-

inga manonthemoonandreturninghimsafelytoEarth.”

Fromthenon,anydecisionwasmadebywhetherit wouldaid

orimpedetheagencyinmeetingthatdeadline.Experiments

thatweretoobulkyorheavywereshelved,howevervaluable

theymighthavebeen.Technologiesthatweresuperiorbutnot

readyfordeploymentweresetasideforlater.ThePentagon

wantedNASAtoresearchsolidfuels,whichwouldbeuseful

forballisticmissiles.Butgoingtothemoonrequiredkerosene,

liquid hydrogen, and liquid oxygen—so they got the green light.

Having a North Star to follow was essential, because skeptics

and critics abounded. Up until 1969, polls consistently found

that 45% to 60% of Americans thought the U.S. was spending

too much on the space effort. On the left, the tie-dye gener-

ation was about thinking small and getting back to the land,

not blasting off to outer space. Many people said the money

would be better spent feeding and clothing the poor; Gil Scott-

Heron performed a protest song called Whitey on the Moon.

On the right, Apollo was perceived as a Democratic boon-

doggle. Republican congressmen applauded in 1963 when

Dwight Eisenhower, Kennedy’s Republican predecessor, said,

“Anybody who would spend $40 billion in a race to the moon

for national prestige is nuts.” Amid protests over the Vietnam

War, race riots, and a series of assassinations that punched the

nation in the gut, NASA engineers kept their heads down and

their slide rules busy.

Contrast that with today, when the direction from the top

is lacking or, worse, conflicting. In March, Vice President

Mike Pence said he was unhappy with NASA’s goal of getting

Americans back to the moon by 2028, saying it should happen

“by any means necessary” by 2024. Skeptics pointed out that

2024 is the year Pence could be running for president. Then

President Trump muddied the waters in June, tweeting, “For

all of the money we are spending, NASA should NOT be talking

about going to the Moon—We did that 50 years ago.” In fairness,

Trump may have meant NASA should go to the moon, just not

be talking about it. But even that is proving difficult. On June

19 the Government Accountability Office said the new moon

mission is behind schedule and over budget.

Harness incongruence. In any large organization there is

pressure to squelch dissent. That can be deadly, as it was for

NASA in the two space shuttle failures, each of which killed

all seven crew members. Challenger broke up 73  seconds

into flight in 1986; Columbia disintegrated on reentry in 2003.

Leading up to both tragedies, “Engineers grew concerned

about a technical problem they did not fully understand, but

they could not make a quantitative case” and were conse-

quently ignored, David Epstein writes in a new book, Range:

Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.

There was more tolerance for ambiguity and doubt during

Apollo. Wernher von Braun, the former Nazi who became the

chief architect of the immense Saturn V rocket, “went look-

ing for problems, hunches, and bad news,” Epstein writes.

Two days after the Eagle landed, he zeroed in on one engi-

neer’s guess about why a liquid-oxygen tank lost pressure, even

though it was no longer relevant to the mission. “We must

know whether there’s more behind this, that calls for checks

or remedies,” von Braun wrote, according to Epstein.

After the bad years of the shuttle disasters, the practice of

harnessing incongruence, and learning from mistakes, has

staged something of a revival at NASA, which has success-

fully sent unmanned craft to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune,

and the remote Kuiper belt. Adam Steltzner of the NASA-

affiliated Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who helped design the

sky crane that gently plopped the Curiosity rover down