Category The Secret of Apollo

As was typical for other large projects in Europe and the United States, ELDO managers distributed tasks to a number of organizations. ELDO funded the British Ministry of Aviation for the first stage. The ministry, in turn, chan­neled funds to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, which contracted with De – Havillands for most of the stage and with Rolls Royce for the engines. De – Havillands subcontracted with Sperry Gyroscope for the guidance package. ELDO funded the French Space Agency for the Coralie second stage. The agency, in turn, contracted with the French Army Laboratory for Ballistic and Aerodynamic Research for second stage development and the government’s National Company for Study and Construction of Aviation Engines for en­gines.26

West Germany, which had no space organization prior to the ELDO dis­cussions, initially placed its space activities under the German Ministry for

Atomic and Water Power. In August 1962 the Germans formed the govern­ment-owned Space Research Company to study space activities, under the guidance of the German Commission for Space Research. The Ministry for Atomic and Water Power expanded to become the Ministry for Scientific Research, under the Ministry for Education and Science. ELDO delegated the Ministry for Education and Science as the national agency to oversee the Europa I third stage, and this agency in turn contracted with the newly created industrial consortium Arbeitsgemeinschaft Satelitentrager (ASAT). ASAT was an uneasy—and according to some, involuntary-alliance between two major German aerospace firms, Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm (MBB) and Entwicklungsring Nord Raumfahrttechnik (ERNO). Similar unwieldy ar­rangements held for the Italian, Belgian, and Dutch portions of ELDO.27

Complexity of the organizational structure contributed to ELDO’s difficul­ties but was not the most significant problem. The difficulty was that work­ing groups, usually private companies and government-industry consortia, did not report to ELDO but to their national governments. These, in turn, reported to the ELDO Secretariat in Paris. Because ELDO distributed funds to the national governments, which distributed them using their own pro­cedures, the industrial and engineering groups took their orders from the national governments, not the ELDO Secretariat. This ‘‘indirect contracting’’ structure interposed an extra layer of bureaucracy and gave that layer final authority.28

The Secretariat had no authority to force governments or contractors to make changes; it could only make suggestions to the national governments. Nor could the Secretariat take legal action, both because contractual authority lay with the national governments and because the contracts themselves were vaguely worded. As late as 1972, the Europa II Project Review Commission stated, ‘‘There is no clear definition of responsibilities within the ELDO orga­nisation, nor between ELDO staff and ELDO contractors.’’29

Uncertainty about roles and responsibilities led to two kinds of situations. When the national agency was ‘‘strongly structured,’’ as in Britain and France, it led to ‘‘a complete effacement of the Secretariat’s role.’’ On the other hand, when the national agency was weak, as in the case of Germany’s new organi­zations, it led to ‘‘confusion in the minds of firms about the technical respon­sibilities of the Secretariat and those of the national agency.’’ In some cases the Secretariat ‘‘did not respect the responsibilities of the national agencies’’ and undermined their authority.30

Having unclear and changing requirements did not help. The 1972 review commission concluded, ‘‘Europa II seems in a continuous state of research and development with major changes made from one launch to the next almost independently of whether the previous flight objectives have been achieved.’’ No single, complete specification existed for the entire vehicle. Without clear specifications, engineers did not have clear goals for defining telemetry mea­surements, for limiting the weight of the vehicle, or for ensuring quality and redundancy across the project. The end result was ‘‘a launch vehicle with little design coherence, and posing complicated integration and operational problems.’’31

Because the British and French designed their first and second stages before ELDO existed, they ensured that their government organizations determined methods and standards for their own stages. ELDO itself had no authority to impose standards. This led to inconsistent and incomplete specifications, documentation, quality standards, and procedures. The Secretariat had no quality organization until 1970, relying upon national teams to enforce good manufacturing practices, use high-quality components, and adhere to testing procedures. At best, the result was components, processes, and documenta­tion of variable quality. In practice, variable quality led to flight failures.32

With only a small engineering staff, the Secretariat’s ability to analyze problems was also limited. Before ELDO came into official existence, the Pre­paratory Group relied on engineers supplied by the national governments. After February 1964, the Secretariat built a small engineering staff in the Tech­nical Directorate. Often the engineering staff ‘‘endeavored to promote the solution of technical problems, but in some cases important solutions [were] refused on budgetary grounds.’’ Without access to necessary information, adequate staff, or authority to make changes, the Technical Directorate per­formed little systems engineering. Unless contractors resolved interface prob­lems among themselves, the problems remained unresolved.33

Problems lingered in this way because of poor communication. No single location existed for project documentation. Nor did ELDO define what docu­mentation should be produced. Project reviewers noted that ‘‘while certain documents were available, there was nothing systematic about this.’’34 For communication across national boundaries, barriers of language, industrial competition, and national factionalism took precedence. The most extreme case was with the German third stage contractor ASAT, which had ‘‘total dis­interest in the IGS [Inertial Guidance System-built by British contractor Marconi], a refusal to attend acceptance or bench integration tests, a lack of cooperation in defining strict working procedures, a total refusal of respon­sibilities.’’ The ELDO Secretariat failed to bridge the gap between ASAT and Marconi. Communications between manufacturing and testing were poor, as were communications between the launch and engineering teams. In the case of the guidance systems, Marconi ‘‘built a wall between users and manufac­turers, a wall which was accepted, if not liked, by everybody and which ELDO, among others, did not make much effort to destroy.’’35

The ELDO Secretariat’s financial and scheduling groups were better staffed than its technical teams, but the problems were similar. ELDO created a Proj­ect Management Directorate, which used tools such as the Program Evalua­tion and Review Technique (PERT) to track three levels of schedules: the con­tractors, national programs, and the ELDO Secretariat.36 Unfortunately, the Secretariat had no authority to force timely or accurate reporting. Analysts la­mented, ‘‘The reports of the member states are always late.’’37 Even when the Secretariat could acquire timely data, it could do little more than watch the schedule slip and remind offenders that they were deviating from the plan. Tools and organizations to report schedule slips and cost overruns were of little use to personnel in the Secretariat, other than to remind them of their lack of power with respect to the national governments and contractors.

By design, ELDO’s member states created a weak organization. ELDO’s Secretariat had few staff members and little authority to do anything but watch events happen and try to coordinate its unruly member states and con­tractors. When troubles came-and come they did-the Secretariat tried to coordinate and plan around the problems. What it could not do was manage or control them.

During World War II, scientists vastly increased the fighting capability of both Allied and Axis powers. The atomic bomb, radar, jet fighters, ballistic missiles, and operations research methods applied to fighter and bomber tactics all had significant impact on the war. Recognizing the contributions of scientists, Gen. H. H. ‘‘Hap’’ Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, advocated maintaining the partnership between military officers and scientists after the war’s end. His plans led to the creation of several organizations that cemented the partnership between technically minded Army Air Forces officers and the community of scientific and technological researchers.

In 1944, Arnold met briefly with eminent aerodynamicist Theodore von Karman of the California Institute of Technology and asked him to assemble a group of scientists to evaluate German capabilities and study the Army Air Forces’ postwar future. Among the group’s recommendations were the estab­lishment of a high-level staff position for R&D, a permanent board of scien­tists to advise the Army Air Forces, and better means to educate Army Air Forces officers in science and technology.9 The Army Air Forces acted first to maintain the services of von Karman and his scientific friends. Supported by General Arnold, the Army Air Forces established the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) in June 1946 as a semipermanent adviser to the staff.10

Arnold recognized that establishing an external board of scientists would do little to change the Army Air Forces unless he also created internal posi­tions to act as bridges and advocates for scientific ideas. He established the position of scientific liaison in the air staff and elevated his protege Col. Bernard Schriever into the position in 1946. Schriever had known Arnold since 1933, when as a reserve officer Schriever was a bomber pilot and main­tenance officer under Arnold. Schriever’s mother became a close friend of Arnold’s wife, leading to a lifelong friendship with the Arnold family. Arnold encouraged Schriever to take a full commission, which Schriever did prior to World War II. Schriever served with distinction in the Pacific, and his work in logistics brought him into contact with procurement officers at Wright Field. After the war, Arnold moved him to the Pentagon. As scientific liai­son, Schriever helped create the air force’s R&D infrastructure, including test facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and in the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles as well as research centers in Tennessee and near Boston. He worked closely with the SAB, an association that would have far-reaching conse­quences.11

Despite the creation of a research office in Air Materiel Command (AMC),12 an increasing number of military officers believed that AMC did not pursue R&D with sufficient vigor. The controversy revolved around the conflict be­tween technologically oriented officers who promoted the ‘‘air force of the future’’ and the traditional pilots who focused on the ‘‘air force of the present.’’ Advocates of the future air force had powerful allies in General Arnold and in Lt. General Donald Putt, a longtime aircraft procurement officer from Wright Field. Putt had been a student of von Karman at Caltech and in the late 1940s was director of R&D in the air force headquarters staff.13

Putt and an energetic group of colonels under him discussed how to im­prove air force R&D, which in their opinion languished in AMC. As bud­gets shrank after the war, AMC gave high priority to maintaining operational forces, leading to R&D budget cuts. This concerned members of the SAB as well as Putt’s allies. Putt and his colonels plotted how the SAB could aid their cause.14

Capitalizing on an upcoming meeting of the SAB in the spring of 1949, Putt asked the chief of the Air Staff, Gen. Hoyt Vandenberg, to speak to the board. Vandenberg agreed, but only if Putt would write his speech. This was the opportunity that Putt and his proteges sought. Putt asked one of his allies, SAB military secretary Col. Ted Walkowicz, to write the speech. Walkowicz included ‘‘a request of the Board to study the Air Force organization to see what could be done to increase the effectiveness of Air Force Research and Development.’’ Putt ‘‘rather doubted that Vandenberg would make that re­quest.’’ Fortunately for Putt, Vandenberg at the last minute backed out and had his deputy, Gen. Muir Fairchild, appear before the board. Fairchild, an advocate of R&D, read the speech all the way through, including the request. Putt had already warned SAB Chairman von Karman what was coming, so von Karman quickly accepted the request.15

Putt and his colonels knew that this was only the first step in the upcoming fight. They also had to ensure that the report would be read. Putt’s group carefully picked the SAB committee to include members that had credibility in the air force. They selected as chairman Louis Ridenour, well known for his work on radar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Radiation Laboratory. More important was the inclusion of James Doolittle, the famed air force bomber pilot and pioneer aviator who was also Vandenberg’s close friend. Putt persuaded Doolittle to go on a duck hunting trip with Vandenberg after Ridenour and von Karman presented the study results to the Air Staff. Putt later commented that ‘‘this worked perfectly,’’ gaining the chief’s ear and favor. Putt’s group also coordinated a separate air force review to assess the results of the scientific committee. After hand-picking its members as well and ensuring coordination with Ridenour’s group, Putt noted that ‘‘strangely enough, they both came out with the same recommendations.’’16

The Ridenour Report charted the air force’s course over the next few years. It recommended the creation of a new command for R&D, a new graduate study program in the air force to educate officers in technical matters, and im­proved career paths for technical officers. The report also recommended the creation of a new general staff position for R&D separated from logistics and production, and a centralized accounting system to better track R&D expen­ditures. After a few months of internal debate, General Fairchild approved the creation of Air Research and Development Command (ARDC), separating the R&D functions from AMC. Along with ARDC, Fairchild approved creation of a new Air Staff position, the deputy chief of staff, development (DCS/D).17

With the official establishment of ARDC and the DCS/D on January 23, 1950, the air force completed the development of its first organizations to cement ties between technically minded military officers and scientific and technological researchers. These new organizations, which also included the RAND Corporation,18 the Research and Development Board (RDB),19 and the SAB, would in theory make the fruits of scientific and technological research available to the air force. The RDB and SAB coordinated air force efforts with the help of the scientists and engineers, similar to how the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development had operated, but RAND was a new kind of organization, a ‘‘think tank.’’ ARDC and the DCS/D would attempt to centralize and control the air force’s R&D efforts. They would soon find that for large projects, they would have to centralize authority around the project, instead of the technical groups of AMC or ARDC.

JPL’s lunar and planetary programs developed under very different organi­zational regimes. In the lunar program, Cliff Cummings and James Burke ran the Ranger program on an academic model; Burke coordinated the ac­tivities of the subsystem engineers who worked under the technical division chiefs. JPL contracted with Hughes Aircraft Company (HAC) to design and build the Surveyor lunar lander. Surveyor lacked support from JPL, whose per­sonnel concentrated on Ranger and Mariner. Because of JPL’s neglect, HAC ran the program as it saw fit. By contrast, Robert Parks and Jack James ran the planetary program, which consisted initially of the Mariner spacecraft to fly by Venus, on the formal model they had developed on Sergeant. Al­though Mariner’s design was a modification of Ranger, the spacecraft achieved quite different results: disastrous failures on Ranger and spectacular success on Mariner. Their contrasting fates illustrate the significant influence of orga­nizational structure and processes on the technical success or failure of space­craft.

Ranger and Surveyor were intended to support NASA’s lunar program both by attaining space achievements before the Soviets did and by helping the Apollo mission. Ranger was to take close-up pictures of the lunar surface be­fore the spacecraft crashed onto the Moon and to help engineers develop spacecraft technologies for use on other programs. Ranger had an additional goal: ‘‘to seize the initiative in space exploration from the Soviets.’’ Surveyor was to perform a soft landing on the lunar surface. Conflict between scientific and engineering goals hampered both projects. Scientists desired on-board experiments, but for engineering purposes and for Apollo support, experi­ments were a nuisance. By contrast, Mariner was a purely scientific program to explore Venus and Mars, relaying photographs and scientific data back to Earth. It did not support Apollo and, consequently, had clearer mission ob­jectives.44

By late 1959, some of JPL’s managers believed that JPL needed to change its organizational structure. They thought that Pickering’s academic structure did not work well for large projects. To investigate, JPL hired management consulting firm McKinsey and Company to assess JPL’s organization. Based on the firm’s recommendations and pressure from managers like Jack James, Pickering established project-oriented Lunar and Planetary Program offices, but he maintained the authority of JPL’s functional divisions and added the Systems Division. Pickering selected Cliff Cummings to head the Lunar Pro­gram Office. Cummings, in turn, selected his protege James Burke to head Ranger.45

Burke, a Caltech mechanical engineer, had a reputation as a brilliant engi­neering researcher and technical specialist. He had an easygoing attitude with others but drove himself very hard.46 On Ranger, which began in December 1959, Burke’s mild demeanor turned out to be a handicap. The 1959 reorga­nization created project managers, but the division chiefs from Pickering’s functional organization controlled the personnel. Project managers had little authority and had to negotiate with powerful division chiefs for personnel and support. Burke did not have the authority to force division chiefs to abide by project decisions. For example, when Mariner needed personnel, division chiefs compromised Ranger by transferring some of Ranger’s most experi­enced engineers to the more glamorous Mariner. Biweekly meetings with the divisions focused on program status and scheduling, not technical problems or systems engineering.47 Burke’s project office consisted of a single deputy, and he gave the critical systems engineering tasks to the Systems Division, ad hoc committees, and technical panels.

Although JPL had developed substantial expertise in reliability on Cor­poral and Sergeant, reliability and quality assurance engineers could only advise design engineers, who could reject their advice. With many senior engineers transferred to Mariner, Ranger’s reliability suffered. Design incon­sistency resulted from continuing changes in the scientific experiments re­quested by NASA headquarters. Ranger also suffered from a requirement to sterilize components by baking them at high temperatures, which signifi­cantly reduced electronic component reliability.48

Burke’s lack of authority inside JPL was a small problem compared to his lack of authority over external organizations. JPL reported to the Office of Space Flight Programs at NASA headquarters. Air force Atlas and Agena ve­hicles were to launch Ranger, yet launch vehicles fell under the jurisdiction of the Office of Launch Vehicles at NASA headquarters, which assigned respon­sibility for Atlas and Agena to Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). MSFC had responsibility for, but no authority over, the air force for these vehicles. Thus, authority for the Ranger program was divided between two NASA field centers, two headquarters offices, and NASA and the air force.49

Ranger was not a priority for MSFC or for the air force. MSFC was busy designing the Saturn I rocket, a step toward von Braun’s dream of manned space flight. For the air force, NASA’s use of Atlas and Agena was secondary to developing ballistic missiles. Agena contractor Lockheed gave priority to the hundreds of upper stages slated for the air force as opposed to the nine pur­chased by NASA. NASA did not help matters, assigning responsibility for the Agena program to a headquarters-chaired committee, where Ranger was only one of several NASA Agena users. Project personnel had to work through the committee, which reported to MSFC, which in turn coordinated with the air force, which then directed Lockheed.

With this confusing organization, launch vehicle problems were a virtual certainty. Having many organizations interposed between JPL and Lockheed led to misunderstandings about the electrical and physical connections be­tween JPL’s spacecraft and Lockheed’s Agena upper stage. Exasperated JPL engineers could not get crucial Agena information from the air force or Lock­heed because they did not have the ‘‘need to know’’ required by air force security.

In September 1960 Lockheed sent a mockup of the Agena upper-stage inter­face hardware to JPL. Not surprisingly, the hardware did not match JPL’s expectations. After the ensuing investigation, the air force granted security clearances, then let NASA sign its own contract with Lockheed in February 1961. The problems also led managers and engineers in the air force and NASA to hold a design review covering interface hardware in December 1960. JPL engineers sent tooling and spacecraft mockups to Lockheed to check interface designs, so that when they manufactured flight spacecraft, they would match Agena’s interfaces.50

Mariner was JPL’s showcase project, intended to fly two spacecraft past Venus in 1962 and two more past Mars in 1964. Originally slated to launch with the new high-energy Centaur upper stage, NASA canceled the Mariner A spacecraft (the first of the series) when it became clear that Centaur would not be available in time. Regrouping, JPL engineers lightened the design to launch on Atlas-Agena launch vehicles. NASA approved the new Mariner R

spacecraft in the fall of 1961. Mariner benefited from its allure as a planetary mission and from its stable complement of onboard science experiments.51

Although Mariner’s organization included elements similar to Ranger’s, a number of features significantly strengthened Mariner’s management. As with Ranger, project managers emphasized interfaces between the spacecraft and launch vehicle, required significant testing, used JPL’s matrix structure, and had a small project office. There the similarities ended. Robert Parks, former Sergeant program manager, ran JPL’s planetary programs, and he selected his Sergeant deputy, Jack James, as project manager. The two Sergeant vet­erans decided to use Sergeant’s best management features, particularly fail­ure reporting, design freezes, and change control. Mariner engineers began by writing functional specifications to resolve spacecraft interface problems. They then created a design specification manual that defined the preliminary design, mission objectives, and design criteria. James created a development operations plan outlining the communication processes for the project, in­cluding interfaces, technical design decisions, schedule reporting, and design status meetings. James’s plan even specified what topics each status meeting should cover and who should attend. Unlike on Ranger, on Mariner James tracked the development of specifications and design drawings, not just hard­ware.52

James believed that the most innovative management feature of Mariner was the use of progressive design freezes. After a survey of subsystems to de­termine when to freeze each design element, the project periodically pub­lished a Mariner R change freeze document, along with any approved changes to drawings or specifications. Once frozen, a component’s design could be modified only through an engineering change requirement form approved by James.

Problem reporting became one of the project’s significant innovations. Project manager James instituted the ‘‘P list,’’ a list of critical problems. Any problem that made the P list received immediate attention and extra re­sources. The project implemented a failure reporting system for Mariner in November 1961, starting with system integration tests for the entire spacecraft. Failure reports were distributed to division chiefs, the project office, and engi­neers responsible for designing components and subsystems.53

As JPL prepared for its first Ranger and Mariner flights, its engineers and

Mariner Venus 1962, also called Mariner 2. Mariner’s success helped convince NASA to reform JPL rather than reject it. Courtesy NASA.

managers were confident that they would succeed. Even if faults occurred, five Ranger test flights and two Mariner spacecraft gave ample margin for the un­expected. Despite last-minute changes to Ranger’s science experiments and occasional testing glitches, both projects remained on schedule. The Ranger project planned to build five ‘‘Block 1’’ spacecraft, only one of which had to work properly for Ranger’s initial objectives to be met. Surely one of them would.

ELDO’s technical troubles traced in most cases to problems with inter­faces: component boundaries that were also organizational boundaries. Here ELDO’s inability to either impose standards or ensure communication among its engineering groups produced its logical result: failure. ELDO engineers and managers soon recognized that they had a major problem with inter­faces and communications. Through the Secretariat and national organiza­tions they tried to make this point to the politicians who governed ELDO. Despite efforts to improve ELDO’s communications and systems engineering, ELDO’s basic flaw was a lack of authority that no piecemeal measures could repair. Symptoms of this problem became evident first in cost overruns and schedule slips, then in flight failures.

In 1964 and 1965, the first test flights of Britain’s Blue Streak were decep­tively promising.38 DeHavillands’s first stage design incorporated several years of design experience prior to the formation of ELDO, as well as American techniques from the Atlas program, which itself had developed for a num­ber of years before Britain acquired some of its technologies. Because the first tests flew only the British first stage, they did not involve interfaces with any other stage. Because a single government organization with prior rocket and missile experience managed Blue Streak, and because firms experienced with these technologies and with each other built it, communications were not a problem. Blue Streak’s success was not to be repeated.

Problems soon appeared in the interfaces between the rocket stages and the organizations responsible for them. Under ELDO agreements of 1963, mem­ber states divided interface responsibility by having the lower stage contractor responsible for interfaces between any two stages. Thus the British were re­sponsible for the interface between the first and second stages, the French for the interface between the second and third stages, and the Germans for the third stage-test satellite interface. Meetings in 1965 further defined interface procedures, specifying that the Interface Design Authority (the lower stage contractor) would freeze the design, make the information available to all parties, and provide for hardware inspection. The Interface Design Authority would submit a Certificate of Design to ELDO to certify the correctness of the interface. However, the scheme had a fatal flaw: ‘‘It was not the intention that an Interface Authority should do again work already allocated and being per­formed by another Design Authority. The Interface Design Authority would therefore base his design declaration on statements, made by the other Design Authorities concerned, that the relevant specifications had been met.’’39

The contractor documenting the interface merely ensured that the other organizations involved provided the appropriate documentation, but no or­ganization analyzed both sides of the interface for discrepancies. ELDO docu­mented the interface specifications and trusted contractors on each side ofthe interface to abide by them. Without anyone checking both sides, misunder­standings about specifications went unnoticed until the organizations tried to connect the stages or test them in flight.

Misunderstandings became painfully evident the moment contractors tried to connect hardware. In an early test of the interface between the French sec­ond stage and the German third stage, the structure failed because of the wrong kinds of connecting bolts. When the ELDO Secretariat decided to make changes to the French second stage, the French complained, question­ing who had the ‘‘power to impose a solution.’’ In another case, the Germans developed a table to mimic the structural interface of the Italian test satellite ‘‘before the Italian Authorities had completed their examination [of] the re­quirements.’’ This led to a mismatch between the assumed size ofthe connect­ing ring and the actual ring later designed by the Italians, and the Germans had to scrap their hardware and build a new table.40

Complaints about communications and integration problems reached the ELDO Council through member state delegations, leading to a study of ELDO’s organization in early 1966. Belgian engineers, who had to collect data from all ELDO members to design the telemetry system, were the first to con­front the interface problem. They suggested that the Secretariat be given sub­stantially more authority in a two-level management scheme. The first level would be a study bureau to establish specifications. It would be at the national level but under the “functional authority’’ of the ELDO Secretariat, and it would have authority to approve modifications and make technical decisions. Through control of the national bureaus, the Secretariat would impose con­sistent standards and processes. At a higher level in the organization, the Sec­retariat would have greater power, ‘‘corresponding in the English sense to the word ‘control’ (monitoring plus decision authority).’’ Belgian delegates pro­posed to staff this level with seventy engineers, with seven ‘‘inspector gen­erals’’ from each national program under the direction of a management di­rector. The engineers would focus on integration problems and look for future problems, while the seven inspector generals and the seven national program managers would meet with the Council to discuss problems at least every other month.41

Countering the Belgian proposal, the French proposed an Industrial Inte­grating Group that would exchange information among the government and industrial firms. The French solution provided information but did not give the Secretariat the power to enforce solutions. The Industrial Integrating Group would collect information and pass its recommendations to the Sec­retariat, which in turn could recommend changes with the member states and the ELDO Council. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Industrial Integrating Group would be led by SEREB, the French organization that coordinated the French rocket program.42

In matters political, French proposals carried more weight. German dele­gates supported the French because they did not want a strong project man­ager. Not wanting the project manager to have financial control, the Dutch supported the Germans. The ELDO Council decided to appoint a project manager for Europa I but to strictly limited the manager’s authority. Council members directed, ‘‘The Project Manager shall remain within the approved technical objectives, timescale, programme cost to completion and total ap­propriations under each country chapter in the current budget.’’ The manager would have to ‘‘pay due regard to the opinions and advice of other directors, but the decisions would be his own responsibility.’’ The Council also required that he ‘‘act in agreement with the Member States concerned regarding bud­get transfers.’’43 Without authority over budgets, the project manager could take no significant actions without agreement from the member states.

Along with appointing a project manager, the ELDO Council requested that the Secretariat investigate program management procedures and agreed with ‘‘the necessity of adopting a system for providing delegations and the Secretariat with continuous and full preventative information on the prog­ress of the current programmes.’’ Secretary-General Carrobio reported back, agreeing that a ‘‘Corps of Inspectors’’ should review ELDO and make rec­ommendations concerning processes, structure, and management. Carrobio also proposed an “integrating group set up by industry and subordinate to the Secretariat’s authority.’’ Such a group would enhance ELDO’s position.44

The French proposal prevailed. In July 1966, the ELDO Council approved the Europa II vehicle,45 which could place a small communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit, and agreed to create an integration group, known as Societe d’Etude et d’Integration de Systemes Spatiaux (SETIS [Company for the Study and Integration of Space Systems]), to strengthen the Secre­tariat. Beginning as a division of SEREB, SETIS had the same analysis and integration functions and was then spun off into a separate organization.46

SETIS had only advisory capacity, reporting to the ELDO Project Manage­ment Directorate, which the Council also created at that time. Under the new system, the Project Management Directorate assigned project managers to Europa I and Europa II. Each country selected its own project manager, who reported to the national organization and to the ELDO project manager, who distributed information to member states through the Scientific and Techni­cal Committee. SETIS worked only on Europa II because Europa I was soon to begin integration testing. For Europa II, the Secretariat now had authority to place contracts directly with industry. ELDO’s Europa I project manager remained virtually powerless.47

Secretary-General Carrobio expected that SETIS would strengthen ELDO’s technical capabilities. Because the SETIS engineers came from Europa II con­tractors, SETIS would ensure better communication between ELDO and the manufacturers ‘‘by means of direct contacts.’’ SETIS planned to hire forty engineers for the Europa II program and sixty more after that, arranged in three divisions: PAS Vehicle (Europa II) Development, Planning and Infor­mation, and System Integration. Despite SETIS’s apparently broad charter, its power was strictly limited; it could not amend contracts or change costs, schedules, or technical performance except through the Secretariat. Because the Secretariat did not have much power in these matters, SETIS could only analyze information that member states and their contractors were willing to provide.48

In December 1966, the chairman of the Corps of Inspectors delivered his committee’s report, which described ‘‘the problems ofthe interfaces’’ and ‘‘the role played in this matter by the Secretariat.’’ The report noted, ‘‘The Ger-

man Authorities and the German industrials repeatedly stressed the difficul­ties which have resulted from an incomplete solution of the interface prob­lems, which they attribute to gaps in the methods of coordination.’’ A number of interface problems bedeviled the project, and the Corps of Inspectors con­cluded that the Secretariat should define its methods and intentions to deal with interface issues.49

Carrobio responded the next month, first to specific problems noted by the Corps of Inspectors. The Secretariat had ‘‘played a determining role in recon­ciling the viewpoints’’ of the French and Germans in making design changes after a test failure in February 1966. However, in the case of problems with the German third stage, neither the German authorities nor ELDO could con­trol foreign suppliers for third stage components. Even here, Carrobio stated, ‘‘These were not so much a matter of principles as of practical difficulties due to slippages in the development programme of Germany’s foreign suppliers.’’ Because German contractor Bolkow had no control over the suppliers, Carro – bio argued, ‘‘It is then up to the Secretariat to intervene and endeavour to find and win acceptance for the least harmful compromise, and this has been done on all occasions.’’ Carrobio believed that only minor fixes to ELDO’s organization were necessary, not a complete overhaul.50

ELDO member state delegates took some time to approve the new pro­cesses and procedures proposed by the Corps of Inspectors. After an ELDO visit to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to learn more about project management techniques, the ELDO Council finally ratified the new program management procedures in September 1967. SETIS came into official exis­tence on January 1,1968. Both project management and SETIS strengthened ELDO’s Europa II project. Europa I remained hampered by indirect contract­ing and a lack of authority.51

As ELDO, the national governments, and the contractors started to build and integrate Europa I, they found numerous communication and interface problems. Complaints bubbled up from the contractors through the national delegations to the ELDO Council, leading to an enhancement of ELDO’s project management capability. The new procedures gave the Europa II proj­ect manager the authority to make direct contracts and gave him a staff that could monitor events more closely. However, even for Europa II, the Secre­tariat still had limited authority to modify contracts, costs, and schedules. Un­fortunately, ELDO’s immediate future hinged on Europa I and its less effective organization.