Yesterday, I had a very interesting and thought-provoking discussion about the future of JSC and how we’re going to get there. (I’m trying to be careful about name-dropping, so as to keep the focus here on the ideas more so than personalities.) One of the subjects we broached was how JSC is famous for its mission operations work, but that a lot of the good engineering work we’re doing here is going unnoticed by the public-at-large. I’ll actually be meeting with someone tomorrow who is heading up the Engineering Directorate’s efforts to share their innovations both internally and externally. However, that effort is inexorably tied to the larger question of what our focus should be as an organization. That central question that has preoccupied my thoughts lately.
Successful organizations tend to be those that focus on a particular area and do that extremely well, as I was reminded yesterday. In our case here at JSC, that would clearly be mission operations and support. If that is going to be our focus, then we might need to be prepared to offload projects in the same vein as the now-defunct X-38 to other NASA centers and stay centered on our area of excellence. When asked where I see JSC being in 20 years, I said that I would like to see JSC essentially serving as the staging area for lunar outpost and Mars sortie missions and support. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for “the other stuff,” especially in an era where we must be prepared to expect static budgets. However, I also believe that we must remember that operations are not an end unto themselves. As the Global Exploration Architecture clearly shows, we must have achievable, relevant scientific goals to be working towards. Our operations must be the means to accomplishing specific ends in science and exploration.
This suggests to me that we may have to shift towards leaner, more mission-oriented, but simultaneously more deeply interconnected NASA centers to accomplish the change we seek and present a coherent message to the public. Fortunately, I think JSC is particularly well-positioned for such a move because of our recognized mission operations and support (engineering, training, etc.) capabilities and close relationships with local universities and organizations like the Lunar & Planetary Institute. I’m not as familiar with the inner workings of the other centers, as all of my experience to date has been here in Houston. I’m very curious to see what those of ya’ll at other centers think about this topic, as we’re all going to have to get on the same page to make this vision for the future of space exploration work.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
“This suggests to me that we may have to shift towards leaner, more mission-oriented, but simultaneously more deeply interconnected NASA”
There is a balancing act between a focused center and co-locating efforts to achieve synergy. Houston is one of the central locations for human spaceflight, and value is created by virtue of all of the supporting businesses already located there.
Also, slimming down JSC to be primarily mission support could leave it with not much to do during the gap.
That being said, not having a focused purpose creates a hodgepodge of efforts that are often duplicated and not publicized to the public as much as they should be.
April 10th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I agree that it is a balancing act, to be sure. I just got the impression from the discussion yesterday that we may have to be prepared to be a bit leaner to accomplish the goals NASA management has set for the center. Where that line is drawn is the $50 million question, though. I’m very interested in seeing what the other centers have done along these lines, both to avoid reinventing the wheel and to help figure out what doesn’t work.
April 10th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
As I understand the “ten healthy centers” philosophy, Congress will do what it can to make sure that no single center’s budget gets axed. However, each center will need to be judicious about what work it chooses to bid on or retain. They could be stuck with said work for a long time.
April 10th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Good point, BD. We have to figure out how to make the best use out of the resources each center is given.
April 11th, 2008 at 2:10 am
NASA engineering is too incompetent to complete the simplest of tasks. Ingenuity is best left to industry. Stop bogging down the space program with the same bureaucratic nonsense.
April 11th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
There’s important roles for gov’t and industry at NASA. JSC’s role in flight operations makes it naturally the right customer for Orion development.
The Federal gov’t also has the responsibility to ensure the Constellation Systems meet the mandate for increased reliability, modularity and affordabiltiy. That’s a tough job with everything going on.
It would be a pretty gross conflict of interest if the contractors played both the customer and supplier roles in these challenging times.
April 12th, 2008 at 12:56 am
Werner,
FYI but NASA doesn’t do much of the actual engineering. That last A stands for something. But you need a few good engineers on board to make sure you are getting the product you are supposed to.
Here at KSC we have around 15,000 people. Only about 2,000 are NASA.
April 12th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Ditto. I work for Boeing because I want to be involved with space.
April 17th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
John,
I don’t think Werner was suggesting that you do it with more contractors. My take on what he is suggesting is that NASA not do the design either. That NASA act as a payload customer only and let industry design, build, and fly. Or maybe I’m just projecting my own biases on his short statement.
IMHO, the best thing you could do for almost all of the NASA centers is to turn them into FFRDCs…
-MM