He reiterated that NASA will build a Crew Return Vehicle for the ISS based on the Orion capsule, begin development of heavy-lift rockets, expand scientific and robotic research, and begin a series of programs intended to expand the state-of-the-art in space technology and on-orbit operations.

There was no mention of the much-rumored Shuttle extension.  Instead, President Obama announced that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden had been tasked to put together a workforce realignment program by August.

While the President’s speech did not have the Cold War urgency of Kennedy’s challenge to beat the Soviets to the Moon, it was a clear recognition that we cannot sustainably explore and develop the solar system for the benefit of humanity by doing the same things over and over again.

Interestingly, President Obama indicated that his ultimate goal is to build a virtually indefinite human presence in space with the United States at the lead.  He set milestones of heavy-lift rocket construction beginning in 2015, manned long-duration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (perhaps to an asteroid) by 2025, and manned missions to Mars orbit in the 2030s.

I disagree with his “been there, done that” attitude about the Moon, as it was recognized as a viable exploration destination by the Augustine Commission and recent discoveries by orbiting probes indicate there is much more to it than we first imagined.  However, I don’t think we should let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of the ‘good’.  The focus on building capabilities and deciding destinations based on their merit means the door is not fully closed.

As was indicated in the center assignments released by NASA Headquarters, Johnson Space Center will be home to the ISS extension, a deputy program office for the Commercial Crew Development program, and the Flagship Technology Demonstrators Program.  Mission Control, the Astronaut Office, and training functions will also stay at JSC.

The International Space Station is an asset now and a valuable platform for testing exploration technologies on-orbit and sustained microgravity science research.  JSC’s participation in the Commercial Crew Development program will ensure that the highest safety and mission assurance standards are kept.

I am particularly interested in the Flagship Demonstrators, though.  This program will put JSC on the forefront of developing and testing, both on the ground and on-orbit, new operational technologies for space transportation.  There will be four projects in this new program.

The first three are already identified – automated docking & rendezvous, inflatable and/or lightweight structures, and in-orbit propellant storage & transfer.  The fourth project is likely to be closed-loop life support demonstration or advanced Entry/Descent/Landing systems.

All of these are enablers for building an in-space transportation system that cycles between destinations and will allow us to only launch what we need for a given mission.  The fact that JSC has been given the lead for this program is a testament to the institutional knowledge and engineering capabilities of the center.

Space policy consultant Angela Peura describes this as “Gemini on steroids,” in direct contrast to former NASA administrator Michael Griffin’s description of the Constellation Program as “Apollo on steroids.”

The simple reality here is that decisions were made six years ago that put us on this path.  Congress stood by and did nothing while the march to Shuttle retirement began.  Congress did not object when President Bush did not put in his own budget proposal the funding he had promised for the Constellation Program.

Once again, we found ourselves in a situation – just as in Shuttle – where attempts to short-change development costs in the near-term were leading to increased operational costs further down stream.  Ares I was going to cost 50% more than the Shuttle to operate to put half the crew and a fraction of the cargo in orbit.  Not only that, it wasn’t even likely to enter service before ISS decommissioning.

The Augustine Committee found that the Constellation Program would have, first, had a crew launcher with no destination, and, then, a heavy-lift launcher with no lunar lander to deploy.  Rather than punt this problem to another President to deal with, President Obama decided to expend the political capital and risk the popular backlash to face this problem now.

I don’t agree with all the decisions in the proposal – particularly, retaining Orion as a crew lifeboat for the ISS – and I think the rollout was awful, but I do think this strategy puts us on the right path forward.  NASA staff are working even now on developing this strategy into actionable plans and programs.  With the exception of the Orion lifeboat, the President was right to leave the technical decisions to those with the best knowledge to make them.

Most Houston-area politicians are, predictably, steadfast in their opposition to the President’s plan and continue to fight for the status quo.  While Rep. Olson and his allies may be hardening their stance, some Congresspersons representing other NASA centers have expressed their provisional support for the new plan and several leading aerospace contractors have dropped lobbying efforts for the Constellation Program.

Despite the accusations from some pundits that Texas is being retaliated against for being predominantly Republican, I think JSC has still gotten a fair deal in the new plan.

The President has set his policy, now it’s time for those of us in the trenches to figure out how to implement it.  There is opportunity in the midst of uncertainty and we shouldn’t squander this chance to transform the way we explore space.

Cross-posted at A World With No Boundaries

The team recognized at the end of those two days that its task was daunting enough to need extra work, and so the team members set out to accomplish their task. The result, after a little over a month of diligent work, outlined their vision for the JSC of 2028 and provided 5 suggestions of “immediately” implementable ideas that would, in the end, help realize this vision (presentation can be found in the Documents section of this website).

In recognizing the value of documenting and analyzing the leadership lessons learned throughout this experience, a subset of the team worked to compile the following paper. We are, of course, anticipating updating and adding to this paper as we chat more about our collective experiences. In the mean time, we hope that it can provide some more insight on the activities over the past year and a half and spark some interest in the dynamic leadership model that was utilized by the 20-Year Vision Team.

The paper can be found at the following link: Next Gen at Johnson Space Center – Boldly Expanding the Frontiers of Human Space Exploration

We heavily publicized the “moon landing” prior to Friday’s event. In Washington DC, the Newseum hosted our “Let’s Kick Up Some Moon Dust” party. (Even my mother received an email from NASA inviting her to attend. Not sure exactly how THAT happened. No matter.)

I was off work on “LCROSS day,” so I logged onto NASA TV to watch the lunar impact. I mean, really. Who DOESn’t want to see moon dust? Watching the mission coverage, though, took me by surprise.

Stop! Before I go any further, I must in all fairness disclose that I work the “human space flight” side of the house at NASA. I say this only to put in context my perspective. I’m accustomed to years upon years (yes decades even) of Space Shuttle launch and Space Station on-orbit coverage — the hushed, almost flat voices of our Public Affairs folks doing commentary, the CapCom astronaut speaking to the crew, and crew responses. Calm. Even. Almost hypnotic. (No offense guys. I’m just trying to frame my point.)

Back to LCROSS coverage. I listened to chatter between the console folks — camera commands, I believe. Some of the voices struck me as jarring. Maybe it was early in the morning, but I found myself reacting to the sound of the voices. (InCREdibly petty. I know. I know. Who cares what they sound like, right? It’s the mission that’s important! Yes, I get it. Really I do. I’m merely describing my reaction.)

I watched the tiny NASA TV window on my laptop as the spacecraft rocketed closer and closer. I listened to the Go/No Go count and wondered about the spacecraft barreling toward the moon. Could we even turn it around if someone voted “no-go?” Hmmm. Not my mission.

I captured screenshots and posted them on Twitpic. I personally love this near-infrared shot below. I think it would make cool Moon art.

Impact! We hit the moon, didn’t we?

Yes, the announcer confirmed “contact”…as in crash landing. I was a bit confused. My little NASA TV screen only showed gray fuzziness. The announcer revealed a second impact. Hard to tell. I was still watching blurry images on my computer.

Further confirmation: NASA TV switched to images of arm slapping/hand shaking in the control room, then camera views somewhere outside where we could see happy people in lawn chairs. Then, back to the Control Room:

The Flight Director stood up, put his hands on his hips, and looked directly into the camera. Odd.

Twitter lit up with Moon Dust…or lack thereof…chatter. Some out in the vast twitterverse cheered the achievement. Some expressed anger at NASA for “bombing” a gentle giant. Some voiced confusion about what happened (mirroring my reaction). Some made fun of the coverage.

The social media world joined in for a global conversation about space. Differing opinions, some unflattering, but conversation none-the-less.

I’ve been thinking about my reaction to mission coverage and wondering what it says about me. I’ll be honest, compared to a Shuttle launch, LCROSS felt like the minor leagues. Does that mean I’m arrogant? I’ve really struggled over the weekend to understand WHY I felt underwhelmed by the “Kick Up Some Moon Dust” experience (other than the fact that we didn’t witness a massive cloud of dust — which may mean water).

Here’s what hit me last night: the culture clash between human vs. robotic, engineering vs. science.

I’ve noticed, through my many years at NASA, that our engineers want to tweak perfection, while our scientists want gather more data, to ask one more question, try one more approach. The LCROSS mission is a success because it’s one more approach to asking another question so that we better understand what questions to ask. Their scientific mission is just beginning with lunar impact. Our human space flight missions, in contrast, end upon touchdown or docking — when we safely arrive at our destinations.

We’ve been doing this Shuttle thing for quite some time. The culture of how we do what and what is acceptable is quite ingrained. Launch coverage and mission control cultural norms rule. I fell victim to my human space flight cultural heritage when I subconsciously compared “our” launch coverage with “their” launch coverage…and giggled. Yes, I admit. I giggled — which is not fair to the serious work behind the mission. I feel very rude. Scientific, robotic missions are ruled by different cultural norms.

Look no further than the contrast between the Houston Mission Control “flat-top” and the California “flip-flop” mentality. Both approaches get the job done — just differently.

Now that I’ve had a few days to process, I apologize to all you LCROSS folks. I let my cultural bias cloud (moon dust?) my perception of your mission coverage. Though, I do hope your Hi-5 guy gets a shot at the late-night comedy shows. He deserves a shout out!

Bravo LCROSS. Ignore NASA’s cultural dust storm. We expect your results to “water” it down.

Crosspost on bethbeck.wordpress.com.

Crazy week at NASA. Space Shuttle Discovery completed her cross-country piggy-back ride from California back to Florida. We announced the discovery of water on the Moon…and more on Mars. The 2009 Astronaut Class and the STS-127 crew came to visit NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. We hosted a Tweet-up with Space Tweeps and the STS-127 crew. (Thanks all you Space Tweeps who joined us!)

Since I work human spaceflight issues, I love having our astronauts come up to DC. So, I’ll share a few stories with you from this week.

Jules Verne in Orbit:

Veteran Astronaut Dave Wolf talked about his time with the Russians on Mir vs. time on Shuttle and Station. He described Mir (precursor to Space Station) as Jules Verne-like with ivory keys on the control panel and a red leather chair. Who needs a chair in Zero-G, if you think about it? But Dave said he spend time in the red leather chair as best he could on orbit. Velcrow, perhaps?

Smells in space:

Both Canadian astronaut Julie Payette and Dave Wolf talked about how the U.S modules on Space Station differ from the Russian side — look, feel, taste and smell. Dave said the smell of the Russian modules reminded him of his time on Mir. You gotta’ wonder exactly what that means…right? But then, if you think about it, our senses are assaulted walking into someone’s home — smell of cookies or fried foods, smoke or new carpet, candles or dirty clothes. Space Station is their home in space. They eat, sleep, exercise, work for up to six months at a time. They will leave their scent, I assume. Hmmm.

Fear of Falling:

First-time astronaut Chris Cassidy spoke of his first moments after opening the hatch for his spacewalk. He looked out to see the Earth spinning under him. As he watched, he realized he held onto the handle with a death-grip. His brain had to process the reality that he wouldn’t fall…he would float.

Our human brains are gravity-wired.

Even with years of training, astronauts have to mentally, as well as physically, adjust to the differences zero-g present.

One-way ticket to Mars:

When asked if any of the STS-127 crew would jump at a ticket to Mars, Chris Cassidy spoke of family and how they factor into the decision. He and Commander Mark Polansky both said the decision might be different if family could go along.

Would you go, if given the opportunity — knowing you would never see our blue planet or other Earthlings EVER again?

Wouldn’t it be cool, though, to have that choice? Someday our planet will be asking our global citizens for volunteers on humanity’s quest for knowledge. Someday.

In the meantime, we’ll host space invaders fresh from our orbital outpost 220 miles overhead.

The Office of Space Operations hosted the brand spankin’ new astronauts for an early breakfast. Our Exploration colleagues joined us.

Astronaut-Africa Connection:

I spent some time with Dr. Kate Rubins, one of 14 members of the 2009 Astronaut Class. She’s an expert on infectious diseases — HIV, Ebola and Lassa viruses, which primarily affect West and Central Africa. She’s been given her “call-sign” already by her fellow astronauts: Bola (as in E-bola). I really enjoyed hearing about her time in Africa working with the people in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She lamented how so many diseases are preventable with education and simple steps.

Kate is taking action to relieve suffering by founding the Congo Medical Relief Organization to provide medical supplies to the poverty-stricken.

You can become a fan of Congo Medical Relief on facebook. Their first support site is: L´Hôpital Général de Référence de Kole in a remote region of central Democratic Republic of Congo. Kate told me the Astronaut Office supported her work and encouraged her to continue her efforts. So cool!

Now, if we can only link NASA advances in supporting human life in the harsh reality of space to relieve those facing harsh realities here on our home planet.

Viral Space Fever:

I spoke with many of the Astronaut Candidates about the importance of sharing the magic of space outside our circle of influence. They are SO, SO eager and enthusiastic now. Jeanette Epps, 2009 Astronaut Class, told me,“We’ve been given this amazing opportunity to live out our dreams.“ She and the others can’t imagine NOT wanting to share this experience with anyone willing to hear it.

Sadly, my experience predicts otherwise.

Editorial comments (i.e. Soapbox Moment):

Sharing the astronaut experience through public appearances — school visits, events, speeches, and more — must be approved by the Astronaut Office in Houston. The decision to honor the request or not is viewed in light of the mission: sending humans safely to space and back. Here are a few considerations:

1. Fact: Our Astronaut Corps is shrinking with the close of the Shuttle program in 2010.
2. Fact: We have fewer slots for longer duration missions on the International Space Station (which increases time needed to train).
3. Fact: Everyone (or almost everyone) wants a chance to meet an astronaut.
4. Fact: We have too few astronauts to meet all the requests for public appearances.
5. Fact: Every minute an astronaut spends attending a public appearance translates into one minute less training for a task on a mission.
6. Perception: Mission training is more valuable to NASA than public appearances.

Here’s what I have observed of the astronaut culture over the years:

An astronaut who enjoys “speaking with the public” risks being seen as less technically-credible by fellow astronauts.

A less technically-credible astronaut may jeopardize selection for the highly coveted slot on space missions — which take years to secure. Astronauts who are the best “Space Ambassadors” may risk ridicule as “attention-seekers.” Ah, those pesky unwritten rules on how to get one of those few seats on a spaceship leaving Earth.

Several members of the new Astronaut Class commented that they’d been advised to keep a low profile. Yet, I want them to have the HIGHEST of ALL profiles. I say, BRING it ON: hand-held video for YouTube, blogposts, Twitter and Facebook updates.

Let the world be part of astronaut training – right along side them!

One of the former Astronaut Office chiefs told me they worked hard to balance mission-critical training with all the outside non-mission-critical requests for their time. Public outreach/educational events remove the astronauts from the job each was selected for — going into space. Training requires single-minded focus.

‘Really hard to argue against that logic. Mission-critical sounds like it should trump anything non-mission-critical. Right? But really, isn’t that just an assumption within our traditions and culture?

I really don’t envy the Astronaut Office folks. I can only imagine the pressure they’re under to juggle all the competing requirements for their time. I also get our NASA culture: we stick with what’s worked well for us in the past. But…is that the only way to succeed?

Can tradition handicap us, get in the way of creative solutions?

Enter technology — tools that could lighten the load and create new ways to share the training process with the rest of the world. Social media tools make sharing so simple. At one point, we were all afraid of e-mail. Now we can’t live without it for accomplishing work.

So here’s what I would do — in my imaginary world where I’m King of the Universe:

I would rewrite the equation: 1/2 unit technical + 1/2 unit inspirational = 1 Astronaut

In my opinion, social media should be a ‘given’ throughOUT the entire training process. Equip the astronauts with the iPhone 3GS (video) so they can instantly post pics and video inside the simulators, water training, T-38 practice time, and more.

Allow the tax-payer an opportunity to participate and interact WITH our incredible national treasure — the space travelers who’ve broken the bonds of Earth gravity.

If I were King, I would craft a career path that includes time at NASA Headquarters for EACH and EVERY astronaut in the Corps — prior to promotion consideration of any kind. (I realize this sounds harsh for uprooting the family structure, but kids/family members can benefit from time in our nation’s Capitol.) The time would be split evenly:

1. six months in the Office of Legislative Affairs (sharing NASA’s story with Members of Congress and staff) and
2. six months in the Office of Public Affairs (learning and practicing communication methods and representing NASA at outreach-type events outside NASA).

Our future as a space-faring nation depends on the will of the people, as expressed through decisions by their elected representatives.

Our astronauts and our images of the heavens offer our citizens a window into the universe. Our images show the story of what’s beyond our reach. Our astronauts tell the story — how it feels to GO beyond our reach. Yes, training is crucial to get the job done. But, the real job, is getting OUT THERE…in the Universe! We need political will to get there.

Astronauts embody the human drive to push beyond the boundaries of our knowledge.

Yes, the technical aspects of the mission are CRUCIAL. We have human lives at stake. Totally. Absolutely! And, we, at NASA, are incredibly good at conducting missions safely. However, without the storytelling — how it tastes and feels, complete with hair-raising near-misses and close calls — we may not have future space missions to conduct.

Humans are addicted to the drama behind the story.

Why else would we have an entertainment industry that we throw money at — for the privilege of losing ourselves inside the storytelling in novels, movies and TV shows?

So let’s tell our story…using every tool we’ve got!

Cross post from http://bethbeck.wordpress.com

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.

This morning rolls around, my alarm clock goes off, and shortly thereafter I stumble into the MER, hoping that I didn’t miss the launch.

2 minutes later wondering why there weren’t more people in the room and I come to find out that the mission has been scrubbed. So here I am, 6AM on Saturday morning finding myself with some time to post my thoughts about the space program in an environment nurturing to such thoughts.

First off, watching NASA TV and having them talk about the mission was really exciting. They are going to accomplish a whole heck of a lot during this mission. With all the battery changeover, installations, robotics, hardware transfers, the fix for that truss element that got stuck, and all the other stuff that is to small to make the highlight reel, the 13 astronauts on board are really going to do a lot of highly technical tasks.

On the ground, when we change the configuration of hardware, there is paperwork to process, signatures to have signed, inspection after inspection and test to perform, and schedules to coordinate. To put RTV on the screws for some Orbital Replaceable Units (ORUs) on the ground, there are half a dozen pieces of paper that need to be signed, multiple schedules that need to be coordinated, and other things also necessary but to boring to mention. So when I watch the highlight reel and consider the hugs impact to the station that this mission is for perhaps the first time I don’t take for granted the comparative massive amount of work that the 13 astronauts are going to perform.

And even though they are the first to admit that they couldn’t do any of what they are doing without the thousands of people on the ground that are doing all of the prep work, which is true, it is also true that they are not just warm bodies implementing an inevitable laundry list of planned to death tasks. These people know their stuff and have the stamina to implement a huge change while coordinating with themselves and the ground. No “SPAM in an can” here.

Ok. So on to the second thought.

Another friend and co worker who was over last night was sharing with me what he had done at work yesterday. Our mutual co worker is out of town so when an issue with a piece of hardware came up that is slated to launch for the 17A/STS-128 mission he was the backup to handle the issue. It turns out that this hardware need to be changed from something it is into something that it isn’t right now and delivered, packed, and stowed to go into this flight that is scheduled for 8/6.

NASA has a very necessary procedure in place to make sure that we don’t launch the wrong stuff, and that procedure involves somethings called quality, configuration management, engineering, contracting, shipping, um… the people who do the physical change… and a bunch of other groups. So my buddy from work is telling me how this morning he gets this email about how this thing that is supposed to fly isn’t actually what it needs to be… and that we need to send it to a company to modify it, but before that can happen, there is a mountain of paperwork that needs to be competed to include all the groups that I mentioned above. And after it is done there is another mountain of paperwork that needs to be completed. And my buddy has spoken to just about everybody who is going to touch this thing and they are all pretty much on board to implement a schedule that will actually make this thing be delivered and inside the space shuttle in time for the August 8th launch.

I think that that is pretty awesome. I mean, people rag on NASA for being all inefficient, and granted, sometime is can be inefficient compared to other private operations like Google or McDonalds that don’t involve explosives and multi-billion dollar machines in space and international partnerships and risk to human life, but hey, a bit of inefficiency to enable things to happen safely and correctly can be allowed for in such a case, right? The point is that for this particular piece of hardware that my friend is dealing with, when program management says “jump,” a whole bunch of people say “how high” and we are getting the job done lightning fast. Maybe the whole NASA system isn’t so ineffective after all. (Lets know the difference between efficiency and effectiveness)

Lets say that you were getting a college degree and you wanted to get straight As. You would have to work pretty hard. The marginal effort to get each question correct on your tests would be a lot lower than the marginal effort for the C student to get their questions right on their tests. You might consider your effort to get that last question on the test right not very “efficient.” Well, what if I told you that you might die if you got the question wrong and that you might destroy a billion dollars worth of equipment if you didn’t get every question on every test of your college career right? If you had the money and the inclination, you wold probably do some pretty inefficient things to get those grades, but if you spent the time and had the staff, you could probably accomplish that takes (Assuming that your teachers weren’t whacked.) So NASA is kind of like that. Going into space is digital. You either reach orbit or you don’t. You either install the module on the space station or you don’t. Things either blow up, rattle apart, pop, or they don’t. And you have to get pretty much every question right on the test to achieve success. And there is a ridiculously large number of questions. NASA spends the time and staff to make sure that things work. And sometimes, when they need to, they expedite to get the right answer on the test in a pinch, like what is happening with my buddy. And when they don’t need to, things can be rather “inefficient.”

Call it Kool-Aid if you will, but I think that what’s happening with my coworker is pretty cool.

And on to my final thought. Twitter and the Mission Operations Directorate (MOD). Hmm. MOD, the people who are tasked with “operating” that station in real time, makes a policy that MOD people can not release of non-public information via Twitter and Facebook. That makes sense, I guess, I mean, we wouldn’t want whoever is on the MERLIN console in the MER to tweet “Well, my day is over because the O2 Pressure is dropping on telemetry feed ISSOGAV02″ which makes people thing that the station is depressurizing when it means that the electrolysis machine in powering down.

But I hope that the recent efforts by many at NASA, including many in management, to expand the openness and “stickiness” of NASA’s programs can go forward with the accelerating pace that they are with efforts such as www.nasa.gov/collaborate, because putting humans and science in space really is the best bang for the governments dollar to inspire, enhance, and develop our nations technical and intellectual abilities.

So in conclusion, to my friend who gave me a hard time for not wanting to get up at 6 to watch the shuttle launch, I am a space nerd. I do think that NASA rocks (never mind the Kool-Aid), and I do wax philosophical from 6-8AM on Saturday mornings.

Well my wife just called me and asked what the heck I was doing seeing as how the launch was scrubbed. She wasn’t to satisfied when I told her that I was making a blog post, because she thinks that 5 days a week plus saturday taking care of two kids is a bit much, so I’m heading home now.

Perhaps the furthest-reaching team was called Barrier Analysis. You might be familiar with that team’s video, since as of now it’s received over 92,000 hits on You Tube. That’s right, it’s the one from Wayne Hale’s blog post and the NPR story. There’s even a good summary of its background here on OpenNASA. It has been great to see the conversation that has started among NASA employees and the general public alike. The other teams also had some very interesting (if not quite as controversial) contributions relating to the inner-workings of the JSC Community. They looked internally at challenges such as Recruiting, Mentoring, IT Infrastructure, or Work-Life Fit. Personally, I had the privilege of working with 12 others to study the latter, and in the spirit of being open, I’d like to share with the OpenNASA readers the results of our work.

The Work-Life Fit team was made up of employees from across the center, civil servants and contractors, including some subject matter experts and a facilitator to help keep the varying perspectives focused on our goal. That goal was to conduct a short study, addressing three general areas:

• Review existing Work-Life Fit offerings to employees at the Johnson Space Center.
• Give consideration as to what other flexibilities should be included.
• Develop ideas on how to market current flexibilities, encouraging wider acceptance and use.

Given the challenge to think outside of PowerPoint for our presentation, we decided pretty early to put together a video that caught the audience’s attention, and highlighted our key findings and recommendations. Knowing we would have folks in the room that needed to immediately discuss our suggestions, we accompanied the video with a summary one-pager, and of course we had a more detailed white paper that fully explained the research that brought us to our conclusions.

Our video was split into two parts, the first of which reflected on why fitting work and life together effectively was important – and particularly at NASA/Johnson Space Center. The videos on YouTube have a “Watch in High Quality” link, so make sure to click just to the bottom-right of the video. Here’s Part One, which we showed to introduce the subject of Work-Life Fit at the Johnson Space Center (JSC):

Work-Life Fit at JSC: Part 1 (YouTube video)

During the interlude we asked the audience a few prying questions to help communicate some of the “eureka moments” we had. First we wanted to convey the difference between Work-Life Fit, and Work-Life Balance/Segregation, so we asked how many people who were given a Blackberry for work, used it to communicate on occasion with their spouse. We then asked if anyone ever carried a separate cell phone for work and personal calls. To us, this was a simple example of the difference between integrating, and balancing. After a few more of those types of questions we came back around to the use of technology by asking how many people used a cell phone, pager, or PDA in college or high school to be more productive in work and life. Very few hands went up. Our point here was that 100% of new-hires are familiar with the use of these technologies. This younger generation can be very effective when given flexibilities which allow them to manage their life and work.

The second video was a few minutes longer, and specifically addressed our recommendations and gave a preview of some of the data we used to make our conclusions.
Work-Life Fit at JSC: Part 2 (YouTube video)

Keep in mind that these are only recommendations, and not sanctioned or accepted by NASA as of yet. Hopefully after presenting to the Joint Leadership Team we have opened a few eyes and sparked some conversations within the gates of the Johnson Space Center, and maybe by posting it here we’ll even get some feedback from outside the gates. So after watching the video and/or reading our written publications which accompany it, what are your thoughts? How does the JSC community compare to others with respect to Work-Life Fit? How do you fit work with your personal lives?

-Chris G.

Sometime during fall of last year, I was perusing the AIAA library and I came upon a paper that some Boeing guys had published in conjunction with the NASA Altair Broad Area Announcement (BAA) regarding the trade space for the physical configuration of the Altair vehicle. There were half a dozen Boeing authors, and one of them happened to be in Houston.

He also happened to be Boeing’s overall project manager for Altair, so it was a fortuitous chance that I saw his name on the paper. I looked him up and headed upstairs to where his office was.

Before this time, I had approached the functional manager for Systems Engineering at Boeing Houston and asked him what types of things I should do to be qualified for the Lunar Lander project. He answered some of my questions about the USC graduate programs, and also highly recommended that I do the Space Systems Engineering Masters Certificate from Stevens Institute of technology. Boeing pays for that sort of thing, so I jumped on it and started in the beginning of October.

All this meant that when I went to the Altair Project Manager’s office in October, I have a little bit of confidence and a broad topic to write a paper on some human space system from end to end from a systems prospective. I had read his paper (I had enough time to go over it thoroughly waiting in the chair outside of his office while I waited for him on several occasions.)

At last, I had my chance to pitch myself to him; our paths had crossed (thanks to his friendly OA.) He was pleasant and trusted me enough to show me some proprietary stuff that Boeing was cooking up in conjunction with the BAA. I told him that I wanted to be involved, that I had CAD and writing experience, and that I wanted to form my space systems engineering paper to support his business goals and objectives. I don’t know how much he really expected of me, but he politely accepted to give me some guidance for my topic. He also gave me access to Boeing BAA Share Point

I was off to the races. The Share Point was chock full of sometime up to the minute data as Boeing was preparing its final BAA report outs. The Master Equipment list, Q&As between NASA and the engineers, CAD models… I was in hog heaven. I printed off a 2 inch thick binder and marked it up thoroughly. This was all research for the first part of my paper.

A month went by, and I was ready. I had really put a lot of research and analysis into the paper, and even slaved away on butchering the NASA Design Analysis Cycle 2 CAD model to illustrate the concept that I explored in the second part of my paper. I proudly presented it to the project manager and the Systems Engineering Manager when I was finished. The project manager was excited to have it. He said he would read it.

I returned a week later and he had sent it on to some of his guys who were more closely working with the topic that I had focused on; he said that they liked it and I had done some good analysis that his guys were glad to have. Later I would actually meet these people and work with them on the ACDC proposal. The project manager said that I was a good writer, demonstrated a firm understanding of NASA’s Altair procurement philosophy, and said “we will use you.” He told me he would send my paper and instructions to the proposal manager at Boeing that I should be included on the proposal team. I was so totally stoked. I called my wife and everyone in my family. It was really what I had wanted for years and years. The proposal was the first step toward working on the design of the Lander.

By this time the draft RFP was coming really soon, and the team was assembling.

After a week went by and I hadn’t heard from the project manager or the proposal producer, I got the feeling that I was dealing with busy people who weren’t particularly motivated to give me a spot on the team. I was going to have to be a little pushier. I sauntering by the project manager’s office a couple of times a day until I finally met up with him (He wasn’t in his office very often.) When I finally met up with him, he acted surprised that the proposal producer hadn’t contacted me. That really made me worried that the impetuous had seemed to fall flat, and I figured that I would take matters into my own hands as much as I could to get the ball rolling.

(To be continued…)

]]> http://www.opennasa.com/2009/02/11/acdc-rock/feed/ 3 http://www.opennasa.com/2009/02/01/nasa-culture-2-of-2/ http://www.opennasa.com/2009/02/01/nasa-culture-2-of-2/#comments Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:26:55 +0000 gfitz http://www.opennasa.com/?p=367

The first time I ever thought of culture, I did so kicking and screaming. It was World Cultures class in ninth grade. Everyone had to take it. I didn’t know why I needed to take any kind of culture or history class at the time. My eyes were on the future, my head in the stars. Thinking back, I have no idea what I was thinking. 

Culture is cool. I get that now. And it’s important, too. It’s a unifying force and the unseen hand of progress and failure, tolerance and pride, beauty and injustice. It’s always there and might be the most important factor in our success as an agency and nation.

What is NASA culture to you?

Maybe you’re a student, imagining an exciting career working on cutting edge space technology. Maybe you’re a NASA employee, passionate about exploration yet frustrated about the progress and leadership of the agency. Maybe you’re an informed outsider, captured by the allure and romanticism of space exploration yet not professionally involved in the endeavor.

Or maybe you’re one of the many once-starry-eyed space camp kids who dreamed of floating adrift (tethered, of course) against the backdrop of space or feeling the firm lightness of lunar dust scattered at your boot step, now for whatever reason disillusioned by the reality of space travel and the structure of the organization charged with the task of realizing those dreams, at least from the public sector perspective.

Disillusionment is a powerful word. My MS Word thesaurus says disillusionment is “disappointment caused by a frustrated ideal or belief”. The key there is the ideal or belief part. You can’t be disillusioned without an ideal or belief to become frustrated over. Forever the optimist, to me that means there’s hope- because if there are still ideals and beliefs to become frustrated over, at least we don’t have to worry so much about generating them. When there’s a frontier to explore there will be ideals and beliefs about its exploration. So let’s work on the frustration.

NASA culture to me is like a tale of two cities. On the one hand, you have a foundation built on the highest standards of technical excellence driven by a bold spirit to challenge humanity’s collective concept of what is impossible. It is a culture of determined men and women, who dedicate their lives in public service to the passionate pursuit of exploration. It is the side of integrity, selflessness, toughness, and willingness to adapt to overcome any obstacle.

On the other hand, you’ve got the degenerating side of NASA culture—the dark side that is almost never openly discussed. The side of complaint, frustration, finger pointing, selfishness, and anger. It’s the 800-lb requirement-gorilla in the room. It’s the contractor-civil servant cockroach crawling out of the AC vent. It’s the pesky gnat of the leadership void buzzing in your ear.

Ok, I’ll stop before diving too far into the metaphorical zoo of NASA shortcomings. You get the idea though—it’s the side of cynicism and our good friend, disillusionment. 

I recently read one person’s opinion that people waste their entire lives at NASA, slaves to the burgeoning bureaucratic behemoth of false dreams and misplaced idealism. “NASA will never change,” this opinion seemed to suggest. “You should save your breath.”

Well, if everyone thought that, of course nothing would ever change.

Forgive the high-minded political fluff rhetoric for a moment and consider that the greatest aspect of NASA culture, of American culture, is that it CAN change.

Admittedly, I’m a victim to the wave of idealism and change sweeping across the nation and the world, a product of the times, a testament to the sometimes brash naïveté of youth and innocence and the generation that’s supposed to lack the attention spans to stick with it for the long haul and all that jazz, but I don’t care. I’d rather live in this city than the one across town.

I still get goose bumps when I watch Apollo 13. I’m still honored every day to walk the same halls as the great men and women before me. And I still think NASA can be a model for the world as a leader in exploring frontiers, whether they come in the form of the physical frontiers of space or the idealistic frontiers that drive men and women to challenge themselves to reconsider what they think of as impossible.

Sure, I’ve seen some disillusionment, but mostly I’ve seen quite the opposite in this agency. I’ve seen high-level managers opening discussions about how to tear down organizational barriers. I’ve seen young engineers seeking out and finding outstanding mentors in uncommon places. I’ve seen mentors go to extraordinary lengths to instill not only a sense of technical excellence, but a genuine sense of honesty and integrity that is arguably even more important to sustainable engineering projects—and life for that matter—than data analysis or raw technical knowledge alone.

So, in short, I’ve figured out that culture is, in fact, cool. And important. And I’m inspired by its potential to drive change at NASA, despite the uphill battle it may seem at times. (If my World Cultures teacher is reading this, I humbly apologize for falling asleep in your class.)

What do you think about NASA culture? 

Unfortunately, the PE Recommendations document does lend itself to some old criticisms as it carries over weaknesses of CoLab’s prior efforts to fix NASA. The suggestions only treat symptoms of an Agency wide disease, but they do not not offer a systemic cure. There needs to be cogent, material, and real offerings on how to change the minds and behaviors of NASA’s workforce from the top down. Instead of being told how to fix some of yesterday’s problems, NASA employees should be nurtured so the ideas of Participatory Exploration and Collaboration develop organically across the Agency.

Many have repeatedly claimed that it is NASA’s ‘mindset’ that is the underlying problem. Indeed, there are many individual and institutional problems throughout NASA that make PE programs difficult to initiate or mature. That said, this mindset is based on old assumptions and good intentions by very bright people given the best data available at the time. In recent times, there have been several presentations that detail the advantages of collaborative and participatory technologies, but the validity of these messages have been completely lost in the irrelevant static of inter-generational bickering. There is no compelling argument that NASA’s problems have anything to do with the age distribution of its workforce. Fortunately the authors of these PE recommendations have smartly broadcast solutions to familiar, solvable problems, but need to continue to tune the message on improving the Agency as a whole.

I believe that NASA’s mindset problems are not as difficult to change as many may frustratingly believe. NASA as an agency is complacent because NASA’s leaders, thinkers, and doers–regardless of their generation–are mostly ignorant of the alternatives. The solution to ignorance is literally education.

In August 2008, I invited myself to work with NASA CoLab during the IPP Quarterly meetings at Ames Research Center. Representing external commercial and academic NASA partners through my company, Exploration Solutions, I came to critique Colab and suggest new ways to advance their mission that I fundamentally believed in. Those conversations framed with my prior experiences helped me identify the single most important thing that could help FIX the problems that NASA CoLab experienced: institute an agency-wide Workforce Development program for the development, management and usage of Participatory Exploration and collaboration tools.

The NASA CoLab team, coupled with the profitable and connected innovators in Silicon Valley, were (are) ideally suited to develop the appropriate curricula for what I would call a Participatory Exploration Workforce Development program. With the various pressures NASA faces, such as Shuttle cancellation and other budget related changes, the demand for employee (re)training programs are clear at each Center. External state government and non-government partners (Space Grant Consortia, Space Florida, California Space Authority, etc) have local interest and money to invest in such tax-base assurance programs. Workforce Development programs are materially understood in industry and government alike, and provide comparable metrics that can establish the success and value of the education in real dollars. Moreover, successful metrics builds legitimacy, silences detractors, and helps ensure recurrent funding.

Specifically, I proposed creating education initiative through the already established SATERN training system. It would serve two purposes:

• Provide legal and operational understanding of collaborative and participatory exploration related activities and technologies.
• Facilitate a community of trained employees that would foster & guide the development of Participatory Exploration activities and tools.

Many IPP managers were very receptive to this idea at the time. With an appropriate presentation, such a program could have landed a level of additional seed money if not from NASA HQ, then from external partners. Ames Research Center and Kennedy Space Center could have been two immediate test beds of such a program. Sadly my spoken and written suggestions were ahead of their time: NASA CoLab, having to juggle disparate and unclear priorities, was in essence paralyzed by their limited resources.

However, the nature and progress of the Presidential Transition team has renewed my hope that NASA can still be fixed as things move forward. I can think of no better place to post these ideas but here at OpenNASA.com, and I am hopeful to receive much feedback on your ideas specific to the value and implementation of a SATERN based workforce development/employee education program. To sweeten the deal, on Monday of next week, my company will be submitting a more detailed brief of my SATERN proposal to Change.gov. With that document I intend to reference this post and your comments. I’m looking forward to reading and passing along what you have to say.

This is the first page you reach when you visit the nasa.gov website and look for information about working at NASA. If you go to nasa.gov and click “About NASA”, and then click “Careers@NASA” it will take you to what I’m talking about. The text here talks about how NASA is more than astronauts – and gives a list of folks who work within NASA including: scientists, engineers, computer programmers, personnel specialists, accountants, writers, maintenance workers. This is absolutely true and the actual list is much longer. There are people from all walks of life and backgrounds at NASA. So to address your question Brian, we absolutey need folks like you to give us a new and fresh persepective. Your background at NOAA and education as a geoscientist is invaluable. This is evidenced by none other than Justin, who was a former intel officer, and is now very active in the NASA community making huge contributions to what we do.

The next question, that both Brian and Ash brought up, is how does one actually go about getting their foot in the door at NASA – especially in today’s economy? Ash, you’ll be happy to know that although my school had a COOP program, we did not have any relationship at the time with NASA. I was in the same place you are. I might as well not have even asked my career center for help because getting in the door at NASA was completely up to me. I knew I wanted to work here so I started doing research (I wish this site existed back then so I could have talked to people who worked at NASA about what to do). Fortunately, I came across the JSC COOP website which was a big help in my application process. It not only provided me the contact information for the JSC COOP office but it also provided me student written biographies that shared in first person, their experiences as NASA employees. It was such a gold mine. As Justin pointed out, NASA can be a very difficult place to get a job – even when the economy is great, and even if you already have experience. From personal experience, the COOP program is a very effective way for someone kick off a career at NASA. NASA view’s it’s COOP program as a very effective pipeline for its workforce and therefore converts many COOPs to fulltime employees after graduation.

In the “participatory exploration” presentation, I also highlighted a link to the NASA student education programs page at nasa.gov. This is an invaluable and comprehensive list of the education programs at NASA and I really encourage you to check it out (link: http://education.nasa.gov/edprograms/stdprograms/). I’m sure there are other websites/resources/contacts that people who read this can share, but this list gives you a good idea of all the entry points. I know many people at NASA who have started their careers in one of these other education programs.

Full time employment, which Justin and Brian were discussing, is always an interesting subject. Even if you want to apply to be an Astronaut, or if you are a current civil servant (CS) and want to apply for a new job, you have to use the website http:///www.usajobs.gov. It has its pro’s and con’s; a major con being that, just like many “job application websites,” submitting your resume is sometimes like submitting it into a black box. There is a good book you can get at Barnes and Nobles about how to write a resume for the government, which for some reason, is very different than writing it for another job. Justin also mentioned “knowing” a CS in terms of helping you get a job. My thought on that is, “maybe.” See, NASA, being the government, is very scrutinized in how it manages its human resources. Hiring is done, at least from my personal experience, as fairly as possible.

In addition to the COOP program, I’ve also seen a number of contractors who are converted over to NASA civil service after working for the corporate world a few years. The COOP program and contractor conversions make up a huge amount of the new hires at NASA – not to say that there are not others.

Keith mentioned the discussion a number of younger employees had this past year with the NASA Strategic Management Council (SMC). The SMC is a meeting held by the NASA Administrator, Mike Griffin, with his senior management. It’s a closed meeting meaning that not everyone is invited to it and generally the discussion never leaves the room. At that meeting, a really good discussion about the future of our workforce took place and the presentation mentioned is posted here on the nasa.gov website. The group went forward to ask NASA “to create an environment where all NASA employees can leverage their strengths to push the limits of science and space exploration by:

• Providing the current NASA workforce with infusion of fresh ideas, methodologies and technologies.
• Providing the Next Gen NASA workforce the programs and experience today that it needs to be the leaders in the future.
• Enabling enhanced communication and collaboration between NASA centers.
• Getting more young people in the door.

Here is a link to the key talking points. The response was very positive and a detailed discussion was held about the importance of these four bullet points in particular. From what I’ve seen, NASA senior management is very aware of this problem, and is doing what they can, as fast as they can, to address it.

IMHO, NASA has a pretty effective pipeline into its workforce. The issue isn’t necessary that the pipeline doesn’t work, because it does - the NASA education programs are top notch. The pipeline just has to be widened to allow more young people in the door, providing our workforce with a new infusion of ideas.So in conclusion, Ash and Brian, I offer the following advice on getting a job in the NASA community:

• Never give up. Seriously, if something doesn’t work, don’t quit. Try another avenue.
• Don’t discount working for a contractor. Some will argue that contractors do the “real work anyway” and there is truth to this. Being a contractor for NASA is a highly rewarding career and many contractors make their way into the NASA civil service system anyway.
• Explore opportunities at multiple centers. I write and present about Johnson Space Center because that’s what I know best, but all the centers are equally exciting to work for and each may offer unique entry points.
• Pursue an advanced degree. Sometimes, in times of economic downturns and an apparent lack of job opportunities, many people choose to further their education. Advanced (technical) degrees are highly valued at NASA and this may be a perfect opportunity for you to work with NASA in a whole other way. For example, the Human Research Program has hundreds of interesting topics they are interested in solving with respect to returning humans to the Moon. These are all excellent research and thesis topics. If you are interested in one, don’t be afraid to contact the NASA civil servant in charge and see how you can contribute.
• “Participatory Exploration.” This is the second half of “participatory exploration” presentation. Just because you can’t work for NASA, doesn’t mean you can’t work with NASA. More and more leaders at NASA are really trying to find ways for people to participate in the NASA mission. Sometimes, you can be even more effective from the outside.

I’m personally always willing to help you in anyway I can. Feel free to email me, friend me on Facebook, or DM me on at http://twitter.com/skytland if you would like more information.