ON THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH IN THE AIRCRAFT AND SPACE SYSTEMS INDUSTRIES,

The ever expanding scope of Operations Research Activity in the Aircraft, Missile and Spaceflight fields is traced, beginning with the search for optimal employment of existing military aircraft in World War II. The most promising area for future application of operations research is believed to be the search for preferred operational concepts in an era when an advanced technology renders feasible a greater variety of expensive systems than can generally be developed and procured with available budgets. From a point of view, approximating that of a military customer, it is indicated that the effectiveness of operations analysis performed by the aircraft and missile industry can be improved considerably through early collaboration between advanced design and operations research groups, with the aim of creating a preferred, balanced system rather than devising optimal tactics for the employment of a specific vehicle configuration. The paper concludes with a discussion of several problem areas which deserve concentrated operations research effort by the space industry. These problem areas arise primarily from the following characteristics of many space systems desired long system life, desired high system reliability, relatively small number of vehicles required. Author