Faster, Better, Cheaper essays

Faster, Better, Cheaper essays The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a government agency which invents and implements aeronautical, space, and Earth science programs. NASA is currently led by an administrator, Daniel Goldin, who has done a good job leading NASA into the twenty- first century. In the early 1990s, through Goldins leadership, NASA adopted the Faster, Better, Cheaper (FBC) approach to the project management of its space and Earth science missions. The goal was to shorten development times, reduce cost, and increase the scientific return by flying more missions in less time. This goal was driven by politics and funding. Politics play an important part in NASAs management strategies and has led to many changes in management style. Politics for all intents and purposes started NASA. NASA was formed as a result of Russias Sputnik program successes. The official start of NASA was October 1, 1958. NASA inherited the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and other government organizations, and almost immediately began working on options for human space flight. NASAs first high profile program was Project Mercury, an effort to learn if humans could survive in space, followed by Project Gemini, which built upon Mercurys successes and used a spacecraft built for two astronauts. NASAs human space flight efforts then extended to the Moon with Project Apollo, culminating in 1969 when the Apollo 11 mission first put humans on the lunar surface. After the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz Test Projects of the early and mid-1970s, NASAs human space flight efforts resumed in 1981 with the Space Shuttle program that continues today to help build the International Space Station. In 1992, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin challenged all of NASA, including its industry and contractors, to do projects in a Faster, Better, Cheaper (FBC) mode. Moving into the last decade of t...