Abstract
In the 1990s the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reformulated its program of robotic solar system exploration missions.1 “Flagship” spacecraft like Viking, Voyager, and Galileo had dominated the program in the previous decade. Although wondrous and prolific missions, each took many years and a billion or more dollars to develop, allowing the agency to launch just a few of them. The 1990s instead found NASA deploying much smaller spacecraft to a variety of destinations within the solar system, including the renowned Mars Pathfinder, the first remotely controlled rover to reach another planet’s surface, and for a fraction of the cost of its predecessors. The agency’s plan was to concentrate on spacecraft with focused objectives and to use lean management techniques to reduce the cost of each mission, freeing resources to develop and launch more spacecraft more often to generate a steadier flow of data than infrequent, large missions could allow. But while NASA launched and achieved its goals for several missions developed under this “faster, better, cheaper” philosophy, five space science probes produced in this way failed before the decade’s end. NASA soon thereafter backed away from this mode of planetary mission acquisition.2
I wish to thank Kelley Boyer, Donald Clark, Charles Elachi, Scott Hubbard, Mallory James, Greg Jolley, Roger Launius, Sterling Mullis, Michael New, Sonja Schmid, Alan Stern, Ed Weiler, and David Winyard for their helpful comments on this manuscript.
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Notes
Howard E. McCurdy, Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 9; Liam Sarsfield, Cosmos on a Shoestring (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1998); David A. Bearden, “A Complexity-Based Risk Assessment of Low-Cost Planetary Missions: When Is a Mission Too Fast and Too Cheap?” paper delivered at the Fourth IAA International Conference on Low-Cost Planetary Missions, JHU/APL, Laurel, MD, May 2–5, 2000.
See, e.g., Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Mathematically Challenged Americans Suffer from... Fear of Numbers,” Natural History 110 (December 2001 /January 2002): 30.
Michel Callon, “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay,” in Power, Action, and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge?, ed. John Law (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), 1986), 196–233; Bruno Latour, Science in Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1987); John Law, “Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese Expansion,” in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, eds. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 111–34.
For a comprehensive programmatic history of NASA’s planetary exploration program, see Amy Paige Snyder, “NASA and Planetary Exploration,” in Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in the History of the U.S. Civil Space Program, Volume V: Exploring the Cosmos, gen. ed. John M. Logsdon with Amy Paige Snyder, Roger D. Launius, Stephen J. Garber, and Regan Anne Newport (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001), 263–300.
Edward Clinton Ezell and Linda Neuman Ezell, On Mars: Exploration of the Red Planet, 1958–1978 (Washington, DC: NASA SP-4212, 1984), 135.
John M. Logsdon, “The Survival Crisis of the US Solar System Exploration Program in the 1980s,” chapter two in this volume.
Ibid.
NASA Advisory Council, Solar System Exploration Committee, Planetary Exploration through the Year 2000: A Core Program (Executive Summary) (Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1983), 6.
See also Stephanie A. Roy, “The Origin of the Smaller, Faster, Cheaper Approach in NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program,” Space Policy 14 (August 1998): 153–71.
NASA Advisory Council, Space and Earth Science Advisory Committee, The Crisis in Space and Earth Science (Washington, DC, 1986).
Robert A. Brown, Solar System Exploration Division, NASA, “Presentation to the Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration, Space Studies Board, National Research Council,” March 7, 1990; Krimigis and Veverka, “Foreword: Genesis of Discovery,” Journal of the Astronautical Sciences 43 (October–December 1995): 345–47.
Howard E. McCurdy, Faster, Better, Cheaper: Low-Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 44.
See, e.g., Daniel S. Goldin, Remarks to the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, National Research Council, October 1, 1992.
See, e.g., L. Siegel, “At NASA, Red Planet or Red Faces?” Washington Times (August 25, 1993): A1.
Daniel S. Goldin, Remarks to Jet Propulsion Laboratory Workers, May 28, 1992.
Diane Vaughan, The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 209.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory also vied for the opportunity to develop a small asteroid-orbiting mission, but NASA ultimately chose APL to build NEAR given the latter institution’s experience with building low-cost space systems for Strategic Defense Initiative programs and pressure from Maryland senator Barbara Mikulski. For more on this issue, see Howard E. McCurdy, Low-Cost Innovation in Spaceflight: The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker Mission, The NASA History Series, Monographs in Aerospace History Number 36, NASA SP-2005–4536 (Washington, DC, 2005), 5–15.
Brian K. Muirhead and William L. Simon, High Velocity Leadership: The Mars Pathfinder Approach to Faster, Better, Cheaper (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 113.
Susan M. Niebur, “Principal Investigators and Project Managers: Insights from Discovery,” Space Policy 26 (August 2010): 174–84.
G. Scott Hubbard, William Feldman, Sylvia A. Cox, Marcie A. Smith, and Lisa Chu-Thielbar, “Lunar Prospector: First Results and Lessons Learned,” IAF-98-Q.4.01, 49th International Astronautical Congress, September 28–October 2, 1998, Melbourne, Australia.
National Research Council, The Role of Small Missions in Planetary and Lunar Exploration (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1995), 12–14.
Robert S. Boyd, “Pathfinder a Picture of Success; Spacecraft Snaps Photos of Mars,” The Denver Post (July 5, 1997): A1; Matt Crenson, “Mars: Giant Leap for U.S.; Barren Surface ‘Paradise’ to NASA Scientists,” The Herald--Sun (July 5, 1997): A1; and Glennda Chui, “ ‘Hallelujah! Back on Mars!’ NASA: Scientists Thrilled with First Pictures,” San Jose Mercury News (July 5, 1997): 1A.
National Research Council, An Integrated Strategy for the Planetary Sciences: 1995–2010 (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1994), 182.
See, e.g., Tony Reichhardt, “Does Low-Cost Mean Low-Value Missions?” Nature 389 (October 30, 1997): 899; and Leonard David, “Is Faster, Cheaper, Better?” Aerospace America 36 (September 1998): 42.
See, e.g., Kathy Sawyer, “Pathfinder Lands on Mars, Sends Back Surface Images; Cocooned Craft Bounces 50 Feet on Impact In First Touchdown on Planet in 21 Years,” The Washington Post (July 5, 1997): A1; “Pathfinder Success Vindicates Faster-Better-Cheaper Approach,” Aerospace Daily (July 8, 1997): 34; and William Jefferson Clinton, “Statement on the Landing of the Mars Pathfinder Spacecraft, July 4, 1997” in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, William J. Clinton, 1997, Book 2, July 1 to December 31, 1997 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1997), 915.
Robert Lee Hotz, “Mars Probe Lost Due to Simple Math Error,” Los Angeles Times (October 1, 1999), http://articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/01/news /mn-17288 (accessed December 12, 2011).
David Perlman, “NASA Craft Lost in Orbit Approach/Blow to U.S. Space Program—NASA Stunned,” San Francisco Chronicle (September 24, 1999), http://articles.sfgate.com/1999–09–24/news/17698592_1_mars-surveyor -red-planet-mars-climate-orbiter (accessed December 12, 2011).
James Oberg (UPI), “NASA Knew Mars Polar Lander Doomed,” March 21, 2000.
James Sensenbrenner, “Sensenbrenner Statement on Mars Orbiter Error,” September 30, 1999.
Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, Annual Report for 1999 (Washington, DC: NASA Headquarters, February 2000).
National Research Council, Assessment of Mission Size Trade-offs for NASA’s Earth and Space Science Missions (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000), 3.
Scott Hubbard, Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2011).
National Research Council, New Frontiers in the Solar System: An Integrated Exploration Strategy (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2003).
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Kaminski, A.P. (2013). Faster, Better, Cheaper: A Sociotechnical Perspective on Programmatic Choice, Success, and Failure in NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program. In: Launius, R.D. (eds) Exploring the Solar System. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137273178_4
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