United States Navy Special Projects Office (SPO) is a former research and design office of the United States Navy, responsible for the coordination of the development and design of the US Navy Fleet Ballistic Missiles (FBM) Polaris and Poseidon.
The Special Projects Office was initiated in 1956 as new organization with a mandate to develop a submarine-launched solid-fuel fleet ballistic missile. The Special Projects Office reported directly to Admiral Arleigh Burke, and the secretary of the Navy, an unprecedented bypass of the Navy bureaus that signalled the Navy's commitment to the FBM concept.
To direct the Special Projects Office, at John H. Sides' persistent suggestion, Burke selected Sides' former deputy, Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, Jr., whose phenomenal success in that role would earn him renown as the father of Polaris.[1]
The Special Projects Office (SPO) is also known for the development of the planning and scheduling methodology, known as Program Evaluation and Review Technique or just PERT, and first published in 1958.[2]
- ^ Isenberg, Michael T. (1993), Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, 1945-1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, pp. 658–661, 769
- ^ Malcolm, D. G., J. H. Roseboom, C. E. Clark, W. Fazar, "Application of a Technique for Research and Development Program Evaluation," OPERATIONS RESEARCH Vol. 7, No. 5, September–October 1959, pp. 646–669