too fraught with danger, and contended that automatic unmanned machines could accomplish everything necessary.

Specialized groups frequently overlooked the multiple objectives of developing a means of transporting astronauts to and from the Moon. Some manned spaceflight enthusiasts deplored NASA's simultaneous emphasis on flights to build a solid base of scientific knowledge of space. Some critics failed to recognize the value of having trained men make on-site observations, measurements, and judgments about lunar phenomena, and sending men to place scientific instruments where they could best answer specific questions.

A vast array of government agencies participated in the network of decisionmaking from which the basic policies that governed the Apollo program evolved. Collaboration between academic and industrial contributors required procedures that often seemed burdensome to scientists and engineers. Even some astronauts failed at times to appreciate the potential benefits of precise knowledge as to the effect of weightlessness and spaceflight stress on their bodies. Fortunately our Nation's most thoughtful leaders recognized the necessity as well as the complexity of the various components of NASA's work and strongly endorsed the Apollo program. It is a tribute to the innate good sense of our citizens that enough of a consensus was obtained to see the effort through to success.

THE GOAL OF APOLLO

The Apollo requirement was to take off from a point on the surface of the Earth that was traveling 1000 miles per hour as the Earth rotated, to go into orbit at 18,000 miles an hour, to speed up at the proper time to 25,000 miles an hour, to travel to a body in space 240,000 miles distant which was itself traveling 2000 miles per hour relative to the Earth, to go into orbit around this body, and to drop a specialized landing vehicle to its surface. There men were to make observations and measurements, collect specimens, leave instruments that would send back data on what was found, and then repeat much of the outward-bound process to get back home. One such expedition would not do the job. NASA had to develop a reliable system capable of doing this time after time.

At the time the decision was made, how to do most of this was not known. But there were people in NASA, in the Department of Defense, in American universities, and in American industry who had the basic scientific knowledge and technical knowhow needed to predict realistically that it could be done.

Apollo was based on the accumulation of knowledge from years of work in military and civil aviation, on work done to meet our urgent military needs in rocketry, and on a basic pattern of cooperation between government, industry, and universities that had proven successful in NASA's parent organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The space agency built on and expanded the pattern that had yielded success in the past.

Systems engineering and systems management were developed to high efficiency. So was project management. New ways to achieve high reliability in complex machines were worked out. New ways to conduct nondestructive testing were developed. The best

6 APOLLO

of large-scale management theory and doctrine was used to bring together both organizational (or administrative) optimization and join it to responsibility to work within the constraints of accepted organizational behavior.

LARGE ISSUES OF POLICY

In 1961, when President Kennedy asked me to join his administration as head of NASA, I demurred and advised him to appoint a scientist or engineer. The President strongly disagreed. At a time when rockets were becoming so powerful that they could open up "the new ocean of space," he saw this Nation's most important needs as involving many large issues of national and international policy. He pointed to my experience in working with President Truman in the Bureau of the Budget and with Secretary Acheson in the State Department as well as to my experience in aviation and education as his reasons for asking me to take the job. Vice President Johnson also held this view, and emphasized the value of my experience with high-technology companies in the business world.

I could not refuse this challenge, and I found that large issues of policy were indeed to occupy much of my energy. How could NASA, in the Executive Branch, do its work so as to facilitate responsible legislative actions in the Congress? How could public interest in space be made a constructive force? How could other nations' help be assured? In resolving policy and program questions, NASA was fortunate that Dr. Hugh Dryden, as Deputy Administrator, and Dr. Robert Seamans, as Associate Administrator, also had backgrounds of varied experience that could bring great wisdom to the decisions. We early formed a close relationship and stood together in all that was done.

Soon after my appointment, several significant events occurred in rapid succession. The first was a thorough review with Dr. Dryden and Dr. Seamans of what had been learned in both aeronautics and rocketry since NASA had been formed in 1958 to make projections of these advances into the future. We examined the adequacy of NASA's long-range plans and made estimates of the kind of scientific and engineering progress that would be required. We reviewed estimates of cost and found that sufficient priority and funds had not been provided.

The second event was the U.S.S.R.'s successful launch of the first man into Earth orbit, the Gagarin flight on April 12, 1961. A few weeks before this spectacular demonstration of the U.S.S.R.'s competence in rocketry, NASA had appealed to President Kennedy to reverse his earlier decision to postpone the manned spaceflight projects that were planned as a followup to the Mercury program. In his earlier decision, President Kennedy had approved funds for larger rocket engines but not for development of a new generation of man-rated boosters and manned spacecraft. The "talking paper" that I used to urge President Kennedy to support manned flight included the following:

"The U.S. civilian space effort is based on a ten-year plan. When prepared in 1960, this ten-year plan was designed to go hand-in-hand with our military programs. The U.S. procrastination for a number of years had been based in part on a very real skepticism as to the necessity for the large expenditures required, and the validity of the goals sought through the space effort.

A PERSPECTIVE ON APOLLO 7