Did they actually have a system, or where they throwing large numbers of incredibly bright people at it and giving them pots of money to play around with?
Management Accounting techniques are generally based on knowing what the process is, or what the output looks like, ideally both. I would suggest that the atomic and space programs have involved many problems, at various recursive levels, where the process to follow, and what success looked like, where unknown going in. Research & Development is one of the classic cases for where Management Accounting techniques are consider useless or counter-productive.
Management Accounting techniques are generally based on knowing what the process is, or what the output looks like, ideally both. I would suggest that the atomic and space programs have involved many problems, at various recursive levels, where the process to follow, and what success looked like, where unknown going in. Research & Development is one of the classic cases for where Management Accounting techniques are consider useless or counter-productive.