Abstract
Spaceflight is not only applied physics but also applied politics and project management, and demands success in all three realms.
Under strict budget and schedule constraints, a student team designed, built, and tested a single-stage subscale sounding rocket intended to reach 3,000 ft and collecting atmospheric data. Commercial off-the shelf (COTS) structures, propulsion, avionics, and ejection hardware were combined with custom adapters and ring laminates, then vetted via OpenRocket, SolidWorks, and ground-ejection tests. The rocket reached about 2,500 ft apogee; a hardware fault in the avionics chain stopped data recording. The project shows that schedule can be dramatically reduced with COTS products, while future work should add part screening, connector selection, and power redundancy.
Project Apollo benefitted from personnel, engines, ranges, and management practices inherited from Cold War projects, which initially yielded schedule gains but at a long-term cost to later projects. Direct transfers from military projects contributed to momentum in launch vehicles, guidance, facilities, and program control, then locked in path dependency effects as production lines closed and budgets tightened. The case suggests that by pairing reuse with planned exits, by funding requalification, by maintaining qualified alternative components, and by designing facilities and software around modular interfaces, policymakers and project administrators can exploit momentum from legacy projects without limiting options later.
