Faster, Better, Cheaper: A Sociotechnical Perspective on Programmatic Choice, Success, and Failure in NASA’s Solar System Exploration Program

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 More than a decade later, this ephemeral strategy receives mixed reviews. Many have pointed to the mishaps in 1999 of multiple missions developed under the strategy to refute the validity of the philosophy's claims, noting that a mission might be developed "faster" and "cheaper" but will not necessarily also be "better" in any material terms. 3 Some have criticized NASA manage-ment's use of the approach, arguing that its success rate was disappointing, and downright embarrassing, for an accomplished spacefaring nation such as the United States and that to continue taking such risks would border on irresponsible. 4 Others look back on the approach's successes as reflecting an R. D. Launius (ed.), Exploring the Solar System