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James E. Webb was a noted public administrator who served as head of NASA during the 1960s and was president of the American Society for Public Administration. Webb's management of NASA's Apollo program, that aimed at putting a man on the moon, was brilliant and achieved its goals on time and very close to budget. Webb was born in North Carolina in 1906 and educated as a teacher, but he soon went into administration. He was director of the US Bureau of the Budget from 1946 to 1949 and later undersecretary of state. Webb died Mar 27, 1992.

Did the 1990 Augustine Committee Report on the future of the space program deal effectively with the problems facing NASA? Although generally favorable in their assessment of the Committee's work, the authors in this symposium provide critiques of the Augustine Report from a variety of public administration perspectives. Jay Shafritz considers how the Committee approached issues dealing with the civilian space program's human resource needs Howard McCurdy provides critical insight into the "organizational culture" approach used by the Committee, while Arthur Levine (the symposium editor) focuses on how the Committee handled issues related to the organizational structure of NASA and the space program. Henry Lambright draws attention to the need for greater presidential leadership, another issue not effectively addressed in the Augustine Report. Finally, John Logsdon offers comments regarding the committee's lack of sufficient attention to the international dimensions of the civilian space program.