This week marks the 50th anniversary (20 July 1969) of when over 600 million people across the world paused to witness that history defining moment of Neil Armstrong taking his iconic "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
The outcome, a human walking on the moon, is one of our greatest collective achievements. It will rightly be given significant airtime and commentary across the anniversary period. But, it is also a fascinating story of the journey: of curiosity, national pride, ingenuity, planning, determination, failures and successes along the way. So, as we celebrate the success of the original "moon-shot" program, it is worth reflecting on the important lessons from the journey and understanding how they can be implemented into innovation pursuits.
From fantasy to possibility
The moon has aroused wonder, mystery, suspicion and fascination over the course of human history. Even with the invention of the telescope and human flight, at 400,000km away, the very notion of travelling to the moon would have been considered pure fantasy.
However, in the early days of the Cold War, technological competition between the United States and the Soviet Union transformed into a "space race", as each side sought to prove its ideological superiority over the other. When the Soviet Union took an early lead in the race, following the successful launch of Sputnik (the first artificial satellite) and Yuri Gagarin (the first human into space), the then US President John F. Kennedy issued a bold and audacious goal to a joint session of Congress in May 1961:
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish."
And so began the next phase of the "space race". "Destination Moon", once in the realm of fantasy, was now being considered a genuine possibility, albeit a significantly risky and expensive possibility. Despite NASA's relative infancy and the lack of developed technology and processes needed for the program, the call to action saw NASA’s budget grow to a peak of almost 4.5 percent of US Federal spending and the mobilisation of an estimated 400,000 people across the public and private sectors.
Despite these huge challenges, President Kennedy later famously added:
"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 goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."
Success in many different forms
After eight years of intense research and development, various tests and missions, and multiple successes and failures, including fatalities, incidents and near-misses, NASA achieved President Kennedy's goal with the lunar module of Apollo 11 landing on the moon on 20 July 1969 and its crew safely returning to Earth on 24 July 1969.
Whilst the original moon-shot had the desired outcome, it also directly and indirectly led to many other important technological innovations and spin-offs that continue to benefit society: from the advancement of satellite technologies that enable global positioning and communications to specialty materials and water treatment systems that are central to adjacent sectors such as manufacturing, safety and cooling.
The US and Soviet lunar landing programs also inspired new generations of STEM-focused career paths. These inspired technicians have gone on to develop a new wave of transformative innovations benefiting society, and many are even now pioneering a new Space Race 2.0 – a mix of a renewed geopolitical play between the world’s superpowers, as well as various private enterprise initiatives led by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, just to name a few.
Five lessons for innovation pursuits
The original moon-shot has also contributed to the development of innovation vernacular. Now, those big, ambitious and transformative projects are typically referred to as "moon-shots". However, whilst the original moon-shot had a unique start and unique characteristics, it does provide valuable lessons for innovation programs of all sizes and complexity. Here are five lessons that could be brought into any innovation pursuit:
1. Find your champion and utilise their influence
A critical first step of the program was that it had the "buy-in" from the "leader of the free world". President Kennedy understood what was at stake. At a time when the US economy was relatively buoyant and there was some level of community acceptance of the space program, he knew that winning the race to the moon could restore western power, create cracks in the Soviet armour and could help win the Cold War. As such, President Kennedy seized the moment. His rhetoric covered all bases, appealing to America's pioneering spirit, national pride, identity and global security. It inspired and galvanised everyday Americans and many across the western world. And it gave him a mandate to ask for substantial budget allocations and enabled NASA to hire and partner with some of the world's best and brightest technicians.
2. Don't reinvent the wheel
When President Kennedy set the challenge in 1961, he wasn't suggesting to start from scratch. Instead, the program was to build on existing structures and capabilities. The United States already had a fully operational space agency, they'd made significant advances on rocketry technology, they'd already been into space, and still had a unwavering belief in their technical prowess a generation after the analogous Manhattan Project launched the nuclear age. Audacious as it was, President Kennedy's challenge in this context was remotely achievable.
3. Collaborate and leverage partners
Even though NASA employed some of the world's best technicians and thousands of support staff, they recognised that they could not do it in isolation. Instead, they relied heavily on tens of thousands of external technical experts. This is best illustrated by the Saturn V rocket that ultimately propelled Apollo 11 towards the moon. It was developed by a consortium of private lead contractors including Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft Company and IBM.
4. Create smaller achievable projects
After making a number of critical initial decisions that would underpin the program, such as rocketry needs and lunar landing options, the moon-shot program effectively transformed into a series of smaller projects, sub-projects, milestones and feedback loops. As just one example, it took 12 Gemini and 10 Apollo missions and testing to provide enough confidence that a crewed lunar landing and successful return could be completed by Apollo 11. This partitioned and incremental project management approach enabled NASA and their partners to maintain motivation and morale by regularly meeting shorter and achievable milestones, create contingencies for ongoing testing, and design identifiable firewalls to minimise losses and contagion across the program.
5. Be fully prepared, test and repeat
Given the risky and expensive nature of the program, ongoing communication of successes was paramount to maintaining community goodwill and Congressional budgetary support . As such, the program was much about testing and retesting to achieve the precision needed. One good example of this approach was how NASA used Apollo 10 effectively as both a "reconnaissance mission" and a "dress rehearsal" for Apollo 11.
The legacy for innovation
The original moon-shot will stand the test of time as one of the greatest human triumphs. Its successes came in many different forms. And whilst we continue to benefit from the program in our everyday lives, it has provided us with some valuable lessons which can help refine our own innovation pursuits, which in turn, aim to improve and enrich our own spheres no matter how big or small they are.
