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Archive for 'general'
Launch Scrubbed, but Go to Post
So an hour ago, I showed up at the ISS Mission Evaluation Room to watch the shuttle launch. Last night, a friend of mine was asking me if I was going to get up at 6 AM to watch the launch. I wasn’t that enthusiastic about doing it, but realized that I had to option to go into my console in the MER and not only watch it on a nice big flat screen but I could also hear the other voice loops beyond PAO and CAPCOM if I watched it in the MER and used my headset.
Got Communication?
A few weeks ago over lunch, I had the pleasure of participating in a discussion about how we improve communication at Goddard. In short, communication is currently a big concern on center - everyone knows that it is important, and most think that it isn’t currently particularly effective.
(By the way, I would personally propose that effective communication may be THE area that could raise NASA’s success to a whole new level. Look at our history: In 1986, Challenger exploded thanks to poor communication that manifested itself as a bad O-ring. Seventeen years later, the same thing happened AGAIN to Columbia, this time disguised as a piece of foam.)
Online social networking: The glue that binds people together at NASA
Did you know archeologists excavating burial sites dated 4000 BC discovered that people used tree sap to glue broken pottery? And did you know that the Greeks invented several recipes for adhesives that included things like egg whites, blood, bones, milk, cheese, and grains. I discovered this historic information while developing a presentation on glue and social networking. Today, NASA uses heavy duty adhesives for the Shuttle fuel tank and tiles.
Asked by a friend of mine, Tim Young, of Socialcast, if I was interested in presenting (May 2009) at a new conference called Glue Con, on social networking and using the NASAsphere study as an example, I said “of course.” Since data analysis is boring alone, I wanted to craft a good story and weave in the study results. Before writing my presentation, I researched glue–where it came from and how it works—out of curiosity mostly. During my readings, I discovered that glue is similar to human behavior in social networking.
Tweet Success
I’m closing in on Mars! Who is going to sleep tonight? Not the team, too excited/scared/anxious seeing 5 years of work come to this last day.
– 7:45PM May 24, 2008 from @MarsPhoenix
Does anyone remember seeing that tweet from the “MarsPhoenix” Twitter account last year? Probably not, because it was one of the updates posted before landing when relatively few people were following. During the initial days of the account every post felt like shouting into the wind, hoping that people might take notice and listen.
By landing day (one year ago this weekend) 3,000 people were following the mission’s tweets through atmospheric entry and touch down. The post-landing tweet, “Tears, cheers, I’m here!” reflected the scene not on Mars but in mission control where the Phoenix team literally laughed and cried knowing they had 90 sols of hard work and discoveries ahead of them. One discovery had just been made: a new way to communicate news of the mission using Twitter.
When I say, “communicate, ” I don’t mean simply pushing pithy updates to the public via the relatively new (at the time) Twitter. To be honest, that was my original intent – to post updates on the landing — but it quickly took on a different life. You see, while you were reading the updates posted by MarsPhoenix, I was busy reading the @replies. And the @replies changed everything.
Shaping the NASA workforce for 2020
As a participant in the April 2008 Strategic Management Council (SMC) meeting that first explicitly discussed the issue of “generations” and NASA, I wanted to add some new material some recent discussion in this space and elsewhere about our workforce. I thought it would be particularly timely, considering Nick Skytland’s recent posting of an internal NASA email about recent NASA Strategic Management Council decision to target-hire younger workers, and, the recent posts on NASAWatch about the state of the Federal workforce. Many of the comments that followed on that website requested some data – data about NASA and the contractor workforce. To that end there are two attachments to read in support of this posting.
First is a paper written by me and my NASA HQ colleague Garth Henning. It was first drafted in 2006 and was updated in 2008 in advance of the aforementioned April ‘08 SMC. That paper, titled “The State of the Next Generation of Explorers,” can be found here at OpenNASA. In the rest of this post I refer to this paper as “the white paper” for simplicity. The white paper gives some details about NASA’s demographic history; suggests that paying attention to the combined issues of age and generational differences is worth some detailed attention; discusses what NASA “does” and how that has changed over time; discusses NASA’s relationship with industry now and over time; raises the question of future NASA success; and then suggests different paths forward for NASA as ways to address this demographic issue.
Possible Open Innovation Projects at NASA
Following on my post from a couple of weeks ago, and in the spirit of eating your own dogfood, I would like to share some ideas about open innovation at NASA. Please note that the below list is not exhaustive, and that they are just ideas, although some are much further along than others. Additionally, these ideas are not all mine, although they are coming from my (spacecraft + software) bias. Not only do all the projects below promote transparency in practice (both internally and externally), but it also creates a culture of action and has many positive intended consequences. However, that is for a different conversation. Below is a list of ideas that have stuck over the last few years that are both small developments (free) and large initiatives ($900M+).
Internal
• Interactive x500
• Side Project App
• Open Innovation Fund
• Co-working / Coffee Shop Environment
• QuickSat
• Participatory Exploration as a Level 1 requirement
• Reward Cost Underuns
External
• Prizes
• NASA Open Source Agreement (NOSA) Continuous Release Authority
• NASA Application Programming Interface (API)
• NASA Advanced Research Projects Agency (NARPA )/ ARPA-N / NIAC++
• Red Planet Capital
• X Class Missions + Launch initiative
• COTS-Alphabet
Further below is a paragraph describing each idea. I welcome and encourage your comments!
Website Inputs (Follow-Up)
A few weeks ago, we were given the opportunity to contribute our thoughts towards the RFP for the new NASA website. A number of you contributed some really great thoughts that we then took back to the folks working on the project at HQs. Just this Friday, I received word back from Brian Dunbar, who was heading these efforts up on the HQs front, that the RFP is finally ready to go. He’s posted a reply to everyone in the initial post, which I’m copying and pasting below, so that everyone can see it. In addition, there’re some files he’s forwarded, which include:
- Brian’s reply to the suggestions that were gathered via OpenNASA: Click Here
- An overview by Senior Producer of NASA.gov, Jim Wilson: Click Here
- Brian’s presentation on the new website contract from Industry Day: Click Here
Colbert ISS Module: The (Open)NASA perspective
A non-NASA friend recently asked me and some other NASA folks what we thought of the “Colbert” ISS-module naming situation. For those who don’t know about this (really?), NASA held an online vote for naming the yet-to-be-launched Node 3 of the International Space Station (ISS). It gave four specified options (Legacy, Venture, Serenity, and Earthrise) and allowed for write-in votes. Colbert beat out Serenity by thousands of votes. Further rumors of naming the ISS toilet after him fueled the fire, with NASA responding in a nicely done cheeky way.
Today, it was announced that NASA will name the new ISS module on The Colbert Report on Tuesday, April 14th. This is what prompted this post: I’m interested in hearing some folks’ thoughts about this BEFORE it is announced. Opinions abound on the internet, but many people, like my non-NASA friend, are curious what people at NASA think about all of this.
Innovation doesn’t always mean “hi-tech”
CNN: Inventor turns cardboard boxes into eco-friendly oven
Inventor Jon Bohmer won the FT Climate Change Challenge with a solar oven made from cardboard, foil, and an acrylic cover. It only costs $5 and can boil water without flame or electricity.
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