Organizing for Failure

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.