Open NASA » Natalie

NASA’s Vision and Mission

Natalie — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:54:43 +0000

Last month, Johnson Space Center’s Advanced Planning Office requested the insight of a few volunteers in support of their action on the vision and mission statements for the agency. Those who accepted the challenge gathered in the “upper room” at the local wine / coffee hangout. Somehow the creative juices just flow better there!

There were only a handful of us who accepted the challenge to brainstorm the topic, but it was a rewarding experience. So many interesting ideas were kicked around the table. We talked about the point of space exploration. Do we explore just because it is in our nature to explore? Do we explore because our planet is running out of time? Are we like pilot leaves: testing to see if we can survive in new environments?

These are the vision statements we captured that night. What is your vision for NASA?

NASA will heal the plant and ensure sustainability of life on Earth
NASA will heal the planet Explore Space and Do the Impossible
NASA will proved Leadership to heal the planet, Explore Space and Do the Impossible
We will lead the Earth in Sustainability, Explore Space and Challenge American Innovation
We will lead the World in Sustaining Life on Earth, Exploring Space and challenging the limits of what is possible
Heal, Explore, Challenge
We heal our world, explore the unknown, achieve the impossible
Preserve, Explore and Discover
We lead the expansion of humanity’s understanding of our place in the universe and drive technology solutions for exploring life on Earth
NASA will be the unambiguous world leader in tacking bold and difficult challenges in Space, sky and Earth. Regaining our reputation of achieving the impossible
To Expand our awareness of the Universe, ensure our sustainability on the Earth and advance humanities capability to expand to others
Advance mankind to the future
Secure prosperity for them and their descendants
Ensure the continuation of mankind
Innovate to achieve, explore to discover for life, Earth, sky and space
Expand the human experience and secure the future of humanity’s prosperity
Bring the World together one Giant Leap at a time
Lifting the Human Experience on Giant Leap at a time
Break the barriers of Exploration
Earth, Life, Universe
Doing the thing that is impossible
To enable a human prosperity, grow the human perspective and take humanity to the stars
We will take Giant leaps to evolve our awareness of the universe, ensure the sustainability of life on our world, enable mankind to expand to others
To take Humanity to the Stars
We take the collection of Human Knowledge and expand it
We will do the impossible, expand the Human experience, and secure the future of Humanity’s posterity
We will lead the Earth in sustainability, exploring space, and challenge the impossible
Enabling Humanity’s Posterity; growing the Human perspective
To quench the thirst for knowledge , increase scientific literacy, and enable Human posterity
A multi-generational commitment to the future, education, and exploration.
A foundation for the future
Hope for the future, builder with intention of longevity
Creating the Future; one giant leap at a time
To serve Humanity’s future by building the future
To serve Humanity by building the future
Charting the course and paving the way for the future
Charting the course that creates the future
Charting the course to create the future
Creating a future sustainability an exploration
Sustaining and Building the future
Pioneering sustainability here and building elsewhere
Pioneering sustainability here, building the future, and changing Humanity’s perspective
Pioneering sustainability, building the future, and quenching the thirst for knowledge

ABC asks: “Is Space Worth the Money”

Natalie — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 18:59:49 +0000

ABC News had an interesting “Question of the Day” (3/12/09) I discovered through Twitter. In the space biz, we all know the value of space. Sometimes we struggle to quantify it or describe why we think it’s valuable beyond the “cool” factor. Some of the 270+ comments on the ABC blog can be written off as “ignorant.” One of my twitter friends, @RobertPearlman (editor of CollectSPACE), said “If you ask a stupid question, you’ll get a whole bunch of stupid answers.” However, I think you should read the comments on this question of the day if you think that we who work in the industry no longer need to explain the value of space.

I encourage you to post comments on the abc blog if you feel compelled. In addition, what do you tell people who ask you this question?

Here’s what I said:

“Here is some very interesting info you can read about space:

Is space exploration worth the cost: http://www.spacecoalition.com/benefits3.cfm
Space-derived products: http://www.spacecoalition.com/products.cfm
Benefits of space exploration: http://www.spacecoalition.com/benefits.cfm
88% of Americans value the space program: http://www.spacecoalition.com/Press_releases.cfm

If you say space is not worth it, I ask you to back up that claim.”

“Maximizing” NASA’s Potential in Flight and on the Ground

Natalie — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 20:09:21 +0000

On January 20, George Abbey, Dr. Neal Lane, and John Muratore published a paper through the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University called “Maximizing NASA’s Potential in Flight and on the Ground: Recommendations for the Next Administration.” I’ll let the paper speak for itself, but the 5 recommendations were: (quote)

Restructure the human space initiative and keep the space shuttle flying until 2015.
Deliver short-term (within four years) payoffs in energy and the environment, especially climate change.
Deliver longer-term payoffs (within four to eight years) for energy and the environment.
Ensure an ongoing and effective robotic space science program.
Implement a reinvigorated and effective aeronautical research program, with particular attention to low-carbon fuels and efficiency, to help ensure the future well-being of the nation’s aviation industry.

The paper also recommends cancelling Ares 1, reducing the size of Orion from a 6-person to 3-person crew, and forget about Mars for the next decade.

I’ll reserve my opinion for the time being. What do YOU think about this proposal?

Future NASA Projects

Natalie — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:21:59 +0000

An interesting set of polls came out today on Twitter (See this post if you haven’t joined the Twitter bandwagon yet). Beth Beck, Space Operations Outreach Manager at NASA HQ, created a poll entitled “What NASA project would you most like to see accomplished?” with 8 options ranging from building an outpost on the moon to conducting missions beyond the solar system. Shortly after that poll was posted Michael Mealling, fellow twitterer and VP of Business Development at Masten Space Systems, posted a similar *but Non-NASA Sanctioned* poll with 3 additional options with a commercial space bent. I took the 2 polls here and here and thought the disparity between the results was quite interesting! At the writing of this post, 25 had taken Beth’s poll and picked “Establish a colony on the moon” as the #1 choice. However, given other options, the overwhelming majority on Michael’s poll chose either “Provide and/or purchase basic in-space infrastructure to enable private sector development of space” or “Figure out how to obsolete itself by creating a spacefaring society where everyone is capable of being their own NASA.” Granted, only 9 have taken Michael’s poll as of right now… so we’re not talking about scientific results. What’s your opinion? Maybe by the end of the day we’ll have more accurate results with a larger sample size. Take the poll and if you’re on Twitter, RT! (retweet)

What projects would YOU like to see NASA take on in the next 20 to 50 years?

NASA Participatory Exploration Policy Recommendations

Robbie Schingler — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:15:29 +0000

Participatory Exploration Policy Recommendations for National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Participatory exploration was first introduced in 2007 at the NASA Participatory Exploration Summit at Ames Research Center and was prioritized into the NASA Authorization Act of 2008 (H.R. 6063), highlighting its necessity to NASA’s continued public relevance in the 21st century. We have written a paper for NASA senior management that discusses the role of “participatory exploration” as a way of “aggregating and leveraging people’s contributions in ways that are useful to other people” which can be applied to NASA programs and projects to engage the American public in the exploration experience and to identify opportunities for the direct involvement of the public, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and international partners. The paper includes specific recommendations which we have summarized below. We’ve posted the paper on openNASA for your consideration and encourage you to share your thoughts on Participatory Exploration as well. Please share your thoughts via the comments below or on if you have specific ideas or recommendations, via the ideas forum.

Link to Executive Summary

Link to Full Paper

Eliminate the obstacles to working with the public

– Encourage open-source adoption

– Leverage the re-competition of NASA’s website

–      Implement single sign-on

Increase the availability of NASA knowledge and data

–      Create open APIs for NASA data

–      Improve internal knowledge-sharing between technical and business groups

–      Develop a rich, extensible, and user-editable directory of employee information

–      Implement categories and “tagging” on all NASA web content

–      Provide hosting for open, public research notes

–      Refine policies on controlled sensitive space-related information

–      Streamline information release policies

–      Encourage participatory exploration early in a mission as a Level-1 requirement

Modify communication practices:

–      Integrate participatory exploration into the Agency’s Strategic Communications Strategy

–      Encourage open publication of all internal Agency communications

–      Deploy industry proven Web 2.0 communication tools and processes agency-wide

–      Benchmark against successful organizations that have adopted Web 2.0 strategies

–      Provide a structure to train employees to interact with newly-contacted communities

–      Consider corporate blogging and community-building skills when hiring staff

–      Build and create formal processes to leverage voluntary collaborative communities

–      Highlight and build on examples of successful crowdsourcing at NASA

–      Open up IT ports for utilizing collaborative tools on internal NASA networks

–      Avoid over-defining the use of web tools through policy

Ensure support for widespread implementation of participatory exploration:

–      Create a Participatory Exploration Group at NASA Headquarters

–      Encourage relevant initiatives at the Center level

–      Provide a budget to create the necessary infrastructure and community

Inspiration on KUHF

Natalie — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:25:10 +0000

I stumbled upon a gem this week when I was listening to Houston’s Public Radio, KUHF, on FM 88.7. They have created a 6-episode “mini-series” recounting some highlights of NASA’s history in celebration of its 50th Anniversary! The series is full of historic audio clips you may not have heard before and interviews with Mike Coats, Gene Cernan, Gene Kranz, and John Glenn – to name a few!

If you missed it, you can listen to it here. All six episodes have been posted to the website. It’s definitely worth your time!

Suspended Operations for Tropical Storm Edouard

Natalie — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:43:14 +0000

I thought it was interesting that JSC decided to suspend operations for Tropical Storm Edouard. Yesterday was a blue-sky day, perfectly clear night. Then we had steady but light rain all day today.

How has the 1.5 day hiatus affected your work? Will you be able to accomplish everything you needed to get done this week?

How do you feel about the call to suspended operations?