“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; […] because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.” (JFK, Moon Speach at Rice University, 1962)
On July 20, 1969 the crew of Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, succeeded in achieving the goal set by US President John F. Kennedy. Along with them, approximately 400,000 other personnel contributed to the mission success. The first manned moon landing was not just a technical masterpiece. Without the application of appropriate management procedures capable of coordinating this extremely complex undertaking, the mission would have failed. It is not without reason that project management processes in space technology are strictly regulated in standards such as ESA’s ECSS-M series.
Project management pursues the task of coordinating the competing areas of defined objectives, available resources, and the schedule. In short, it is necessary to continuously manage objective, time, and costs.