In design, there is almost always a reason for the madness.

In January of 1970, NASA cancelled the Apollo 20 mission -- the last lunar landing mission planned for the original Apollo series. In September of that year NASA cancelled two more missions, Apollo 18 and 19 as well. The official reason for the cancellations was the reduction in NASA's budget appropriation for Fiscal 1971.

But upon closer inspection, something was amiss. All of the Apollo hardware had been built by that time, so there was little money to save there, and also, because of the Skylab follow-on program, most of the mission specialists and control staff would remain as well. In fact, out of a total 10-year program cost of 24 billion dollars to get to the Moon, canceling the last three mission only saved NASA 42.1 million dollars. It was a great cover story, though, because NASA could blame the cancellation on the budget cuts instead of revealing the real reason for ending the program early.

You see, behind the scenes, NASA was running scared. Apollo 13 was the sort of reality shock that would not go away, especially with one near-disaster after another around each bend in the road to the Moon. On Apollo 15, for example, the astronauts discovered a small water leak while on the lunar surface where the water ran across the floor into a harmless corner. Had the lander been leaning the other way, however, the water would have drained into an electronics equipment bay below the floor --which was not designed to keep out water. And if this had happened, the entire electrical system may well have failed.

The real reason for canceling the program, as it turns out, made total common sense. Yet it was not what the publicity-mad NASA folks wanted passed around -- They had made it to the Moon enough times to bore everyone silly on the Earth, so now there was simply no more reason left to court disaster.

With this in mind the next time your company cancels a project or makes what seems like a crazy change in plans, remember that you are most likely hearing a cover story invented to hide an otherwise hugely compelling reason that the business owners or managers want kept a secret.

Senior people may seem inept, clueless, and sometimes downright stupid at times -- but they all understand fear.