Paper Session I-C - Missiles, Mythologies and Misses: A Perspective on U.S. Space Launch Developments

The history of the American space launch program has been one of both successes and failures, but in many respects has been characterized and guided as much by questionable assumptions and "mythologies" as it has by planned technological achievement and careful program management. Ironically, while launching satellites is considered to be the pinnacle of "hard" science and the ultimate in systems management, the way in which space booster development has proceeded has been anything but scientific, with few management principles of any kind discernible. That tradition continues to this day.