Space Project Management: 4 Best Practices That Could Help Us Get to Mars

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In less than two years, we will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Technology on Earth has changed in surprising ways since then (what would those early astronauts have thought of smartphones, the Internet, or 3D printing?), but Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's walk on the Moon remains our most iconic foray into space.



Of course, there have been exciting events: we've returned to the Moon five times (most recently in 1972), launched manned space stations , landed robotic explorers on Mars , and photographed distant galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope .



All of these are galaxies containing about 100 billion Earth-like planets.

But when are we going to do what science fiction has business owner database can help been pushing us to do for decades and take a real, adventurous trip to another planet?

Aldrin himself, now 87, has recently promoted a project to colonize the Moon in preparation for a possible manned mission to Mars .

Why go to Mars? (You mean, besides the fact that it would be the most awesome thing we've ever done?) As Elon Musk argues in support of his SpaceX project: "We need to become a multi-planet species as life insurance for humanity .

Why is space project management necessary?
It's impossible to predict what space exploration will look like in the next 50 years. (After all, there was a time when the U.S. military planned to build a military outpost on the moon and defend it from Soviet cosmonauts.)

However, I am confident that no matter what path we take to Mars - whether it's SpaceX, NASA, or some combination of the two - it will require advanced, robust project management (PM) practices.

So let's look at four key project management techniques and how they apply to managing space projects and the journey to Mars in our lifetime.

1. Budget management in space


It will be 500 million dollars, please.

Back in the 1960s, the Apollo program that got us to the moon cost about $20 billion in 1970s dollars , or more than $100 billion today.

Taking into account the added complexity of a manned mission to Mars and subsequent colonization, as well as inflation, we can estimate that this program will cost about a billion dollars.

Danger

If a Mars mission goes over budget early on because of ill-advised investments in things like light-speed technology and teleportation research, the program will fail before it even gets off the ground.

How Space Project Management Can Save Us

The Mars program will stay on budget if those running it adhere to good space project management practices , such as:

Continuous forecasting that allows for fluctuations to be taken into account immediately, rather than rapid increases in costs leading to sudden overspending
Track resources to ensure that every missile, rover, and beam gun is documented and optimally utilized, eliminating duplication
Communication between teams of scientists and engineers to ensure that every hour of work is directed toward achieving the unique goal of the project in the most efficient way.
Prevent scope creep to ensure that any additions to the project are feasible within an acceptable budget and timeline. So that racquetball court on the Mars transporter might have to wait until version 2.0.