Chasing New Horizons: Inside Humankind's First Mission to Pluto

by Alan Stern

NEAR had been a triumph by every measure. How did APL manage to perform so well? One big part of it was a management philosophy of not having more managers than was absolutely necessary, since layers and layers of managers drove costs up. Instead, they put more responsibility at the level where the knowledge was—with their engineers. APL also kept their missions small through a fundamental desire to remain a lean organization. APL preferred to grow in prominence rather than head count.