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The use of activity-based cost estimation as a management tool for cultural changeIt will be shown that the greatest barrier to American exploration of the planet Mars is not the development of the technology needed to deliver humans and return them safely to earth. Neither is it the cost of such an undertaking, as has been previously suggested, although certainly, such a venture may not be inexpensive by some measures. The predicted costs of exploration have discouraged serious political dialog on the subject. And, in fact, even optimistic projections of the NASA budget do not contain the resources required, under the existing development and management paradigm, for human space exploration programs. It will be demonstrated that the perception of the costs of such a venture, and the cultural responses to the perceptions are factors inhibiting American exploration of the moon and the planet Mars. Cost models employed in the aerospace industry today correctly mirror the history of past space programs, and as such, are representative of the existing management and development paradigms. However, if, under this current paradigm no major exploration programs are feasible, then cost analysis methods based in the past may not have great utility in exploring the needed cultural changes. This paper explores the use of a new type of model, the activity based cost model, which will treat management style as an input variable, in a sense providing a tool whereby a complete, affordable program might be designed, including both the technological and management aspects.
Document ID
19920037968
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Mandell, Humboldt
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Bilby, Curt
(Arrowsmith Navigation, Inc. Austin, TX, United States)
Date Acquired
August 15, 2013
Publication Date
October 1, 1991
Subject Category
Economics And Cost Analysis
Report/Patent Number
IAF PAPER 91-640
Accession Number
92A20592
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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