Une astronautique « frugale » ?

Abstract

This article investigates the uses and effects of frugality in the field of astronautics, from the 1960s to the present day. The adoption of this principle is certainly not recent. Studying it allows us to account for the strategies of adaptation of civil space agencies and their private industry contractors to budgetary restriction policies in times of enduring crisis. In the case of the United States, which will interest us the most, it is not difficult to detect that the injunctions to be frugal that come from governmental sponsors collide with the functioning of a field of activities and organizations. The program managers and the agents who are responsible for space affairs involved in these operations justify the extra costs by the existence of uncertainties and unforeseeable events in the conduct of the projects. This is so convincing that for a long time the idea that frugality is an unattainable goal has become commonplace. Nevertheless, the recent emergence—in the United States, but also in India and Europe—of methods that value the art of “doing better with less” calls into question these rationales. Without deciding or valuing one model of activity over another, we will analyze the multiple issues at stake in the “trivialization” of this management mantra.

Keywords

• astronautics
• space industry
• frugal innovation
• innovation models
• science policies