How does one go about organizing something as complicated as a strategic-missile or space-exploration program? Stephen B. Johnson here explores the answer -- systems management -- in a groundbreaking study that involves Air Force planners, scientists, technical specialists, and, eventually, bureaucrats. Taking a comparative approach, Johnson focuses on the theory, or intellectual history, of "systems engineering" as such, its origins in the Air Force's Cold War ICBM efforts, and its migration to not only NASA but the European Space Agency. Exploring the history and politics of aerospace development and weapons procurement, Johnson examines how scientists and engineers created the systems management process to coordinate large-scale technology development, and how managers and military officers gained control of that process.

Includes index.

Introduction: Management and the Control of Research and Development --Social and Technical Issues of Spaceflight -- Creating Concurrency -- From Concurrency to Systems Management -- JPL's Journey from Missiles to Space -- Organizing the Manned Space Program -- Organizing ELDO for Failure -- ESRO's American Bridge across the Management Gap -- Coordination and Control of High-Tech Research and Development. Introduction: management and the control of research and development -- Social and technical issues of spaceflight -- Creating concurrency -- From concurrency to systems management -- JPL's journey from missiles to space -- Organizing the manned space program -- Organizing ELDO for failure -- ESRO's American bridge across the management gap -- Coordination and control of high-tech research and development.