A Case Study in NASA-DoD - The Black Vault

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for ICBM reentry vehicles and the X-15 experimental rocket-propelled
aircraft. It had a long history of cordial relationships and cooperation
with the Department of Defense, as well as with other governmental
agencies. Its main interaction with other agencies had been through
its advisory capacity and the coordination of all the scientific
work in aviation in the government. Dr. Hugh L. Dryden, Director of
NACA in 1958, viewed its main function as "a coordinating body."
It was organized to do this mainly through the 17-member Advisory
Committee and the five major and 22 subordinate committees.
membership of these committees and subordinate committees was drawn
from experts in industry, government, and military departments.
NACA functioned as a permanent, independent agency in the Executive
Branch, reporting directly to the President and requiring his supervision.
President Eisenhower, in his proposed legislation for NASA, saw
NASA functioning in much the same capacity and way in the space arena
that NACA had functioned in aviation. This accounted partly for his
decision not to provide machinery for resolving disputes short of
Presidential involvement.
The
The opposing view was based primarily on
the observation that continued cooperation could not be assumed, as
NASA was to be a new operating agency with broadened functions and
scope, whereas NACA had been primarily a research agency.(15) And,
as such, NACA lacked the tradition of directing and coordinating
major programs.
To inculcate a spirit of decisionmaking in an organization
that has lived and thrived on a tradition of peaceful advicegiving
would be very difficult. The expectation was that the inevitable
commingling of civilian and military in the space field would create (13)
areas of conflict reqiiring organizational machinery for resolution.
As it materialized, the organizational viewpoint of neither the
Administration nor the Congress was entirely correct for NASA. Congress
was correct in its assessment that organizational machinery was needed
to resolve conflicts and to ensure coordination between DoD and NASA.
The Administration was correct in its assessment that working-level
coordinating boards could adequately provide the interaction needed
to solve interagency problems. As described earlier in this section,
both were also wrong in important ways which contributed to the four