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...