WASHINGTON - In their zeal to fly space missions under the banner of "faster, better, cheaper," NASA managers are forgetting one thing.

Those missions also have to succeed.

That's the view of a caustic report out Monday by a NASA review board that looked into last year's failure of the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft. The 47-page report urged managers to adopt a new philosophy called "Mission Success First" that the board said should become the agency's top priority.

The so-called "Stephenson Report" -- led by Art Stephenson, director of the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama -- blamed poor communications, a lack of teamwork and disorganized management for the loss of the orbiter.

The spacecraft disappeared on September 23, 1999 as it was about to begin orbiting Mars. The reason: a mix-up in English and metric measurements used to plot its trajectory.

To carry out complex missions like that, the board said, NASA needs "adequate, but not excessive resources" in line with the "faster, better, cheaper" idea that missions can be done on time and on schedule at a relatively low cost.

"In recent years, NASA has been asked to sustain [a] level of success while continually cutting costs, personnel and development time. It is the opinion of the board that these demands have stressed the system to the limit," it said.

NASA Administrator Dan Goldin called the board's recommendations "a fourth element of the 'faster, better, cheaper' approach, and that is doing our work smarter."

"It means picking the right people, giving them the right resources, infusing the right technology, holding the right people accountable and doing the right kind of risk management," Goldin said. The report, he added, provides "a road map for improving our performance in the future."

Monday's report was the second installment from Stephenson's Mars Climate Orbiter Mishap Investigation Board. The investigation has been underway since October 15.

Last November the board found that the probe was destroyed when it was sent on the wrong trajectory due to confusion over English measurements used by spacecraft-maker Lockheed Martin in Denver and metric ones used by controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. The spacecraft came in too steeply on its approach to Mars and either burned up or broke up because of atmospheric friction.

"It means picking the right people, giving them the right resources, infusing the right technology, holding the right people accountable and doing the right kind of risk management."

As the board saw it, the idea of Mission Success First "entails a new NASA culture and new methods of managing projectsAll individuals should feel ownership and accountability, not only for their work, but for the success of the entire mission."

The Climate Orbiter report is one of four high-level reports the agency is releasing this month.

In a second report out Monday, former NASA manager Tony Spear called for better coordination between NASA centers in carrying out the policy of "faster, better, cheaper" missions.

Last week, a report last week by an outside review panel headed by Harry McDonald, head of the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, listed 81 recommendations for improving space shuttle maintenance.

Later this month, the agency will release the report of a board headed by former Lockheed Martin executive Thomas Young. That board studied the failure of both the Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander and will advise NASA on what lessons the agency can learn as it reworks its entire program to explore the planet.

Goldin said he has asked the agency's chief engineer, Brian Keegan, to lead an internal group of experts in considering this and other reports to "develop an across-the-board approach to implementing these recommendations." Keegan is to have specific responses ready by mid-summer.