Garver: “a lessening of tensions” in the NASA budget debate
Oct 1 is less than a month away, and NASA centers are preparing for a continuing resolution to continue operating-without knowing yet what the CR will say. The admin still seems to be on time-out since the Muslim thing, but at least Garver is talking and sending positive signals.
From Spacepolitics-
ShareIn a luncheon speech Tuesday at the AIAA Space 2010 conference in Anaheim, California, NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver sounded an optimistic and even a bit of a conciliatory note about the ongoing debate in Congress about the future direction of the space agency. “All four bills, I believe, do acknowledge that there are things in our budget proposal that are important to do,” she said, mentioning the extension of the ISS and increased funding for Earth sciences as two examples of items supported in House and Senate versions of NASA authorization and appropriations legislation. However, she added, “we clearly still have priorities like fully funding the commercial crew element of the budget, like fully funding our technology portion of the budget.” Those elements, she said, were essential to a sustainable, affordable program.
One additional area of concern she mentioned that has not gotten as much publicity is funding the transition and closeout of the Constellation program. The budget proposal includes $2.5 billion over two years for that, but Garver noted that no funding for that is included in any of the current Congressional legislation. “Just because you don’t have that in the budget doesn’t mean we’re not going to have to spend that money,” she warned. “Those dollars will have to be embedded in some of the other programs if it is not singled out in a line item.”
On heavy-lift, she said that NASA was “working with Congress to get a broader, deeper understanding” on how to go forward on this. She suggested that the agency didn’t feel it should be restricted on the design of an HLV by language such as that in the report accompanying the Senate’s authorization bill, which mandates a specific shuttle-derived approach. “We don’t feel that the best way to make those technical decisions is at the level of political leadership” but instead where the technical expertise resides at NASA and in industry. Political leadership, she said, can instead drive the “figures of merit” for such a system, such as affordability…
Nasa Ranked 5th in Federal Places to Work
NASA has been ranked fifth in the Partnership for Public Service 2010 ratings for the “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government.”
The 2010 survey is the fifth conducted by the partnership since 2003. NASA has been rated in the top five in the federal government in four of the surveys and sixth in the other. An award was accepted by Associate Deputy Administrator Charles Scales on behalf of the agency at a special briefing held by the partnership on Wednesday, Sept. 1.
The partnership is a nonprofit organization that works to revitalize and transform the federal government by inspiring a new generation to serve. The “Best Places” program is one of many the Partnership sponsors to encourage government service.
The data used to develop these rankings were based on the Office of Personnel Management’s Employee Viewpoint Survey. Approximately 260,000 employees at 290 departments, agencies and sub-components were surveyed.
NASA’s workforce continues to score well on the survey among the 32 large federal agencies. The best places to work index is based on employee responses to questions about whether they are satisfied with their jobs and organization. A key factor is also whether employees would recommend their organization to others as a good place to work.
In addition to this overall index, agencies and subcomponents also were scored in workplace environment categories such as effective leadership, employee skills/mission match and work/life balance. NASA was among the leaders in several categories, including effective leadership, support for diversity, teamwork, training and performance based rewards. The complete listing of the rankings and scores for federal components is available at: http://www.bestplacestowork.org
For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: http://www.nasa.gov
ShareIf You Think Powerpoint Rockets are Too Much…
Space watchers all know that powerpoint rockets don’t fly. Charts are good to communicate with, but at some point they can get out of hand. If you think they are over-used in space, think about this problem for the military:
From fcw.com-
ShareWould Patton survive in today’s PowerPoint military?
Our readers largely sided with an Army officer who was fired from his post in Afghanistan after complaining about what he saw as an over-reliance on PowerPoint slides instead of real information among the upper echelons there.
As we reported late last week, Army Reserve Col. Lawrence Sellin was relieved of duty with the International Security Assistance Force Joint Command in Afghanistan after writing a harsh criticism of the military’s use of PowerPoint slides in a regular column for UPI.
“For headquarters staff, war consists largely of the endless tinkering with PowerPoint slides to conform with the idiosyncrasies of cognitively challenged generals in order to spoon-feed them information,” Sellin wrote in the column. “Even one tiny flaw in a slide can halt a general’s thought processes as abruptly as a computer system’s blue screen of death.
“The ability to brief well is, therefore, a critical skill,” he added. “It is important to note that skill in briefing resides in how you say it. It doesn’t matter so much what you say or even if you are speaking Klingon.”
Our readers quickly jumped to Sellin’s defense.
“Probably even the analysis to fire the guy was put into a briefing deck,” wrote one unidentified reader. “I can certainly identify…. We spend an inordinate amount of time tweaking charts…changing bullet points to check marks; highlighting call out boxes; making sure there is something to ‘decide’ (since everyone wants to be a decider)…. What a waste of resources.”…
United Space Alliance contract extended
From orlando.bizjournals.com-
ShareNASA announced late Tuesday it is extending the $909.6 million space program operations contract with United Space Alliance LLC to March 31, 2011.
The contract extension supports flight operations for the space shuttle and International Space Station programs, NASA said in a news release.
Contract work work will be performed at United Space Alliance facilities in Houston; Huntsville, Ala.; and the Kennedy Space Center, as well as subcontractor facilities in Huntington Beach, Calif.; Houston; and Cape Canaveral.
Headquartered in Houston, United Space Alliance is equally owned by The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT), and has 8,800 employees working at sites in Texas, Florida, and Alabama…
The Private Space Race
From compositesworld.com-
ShareSince the Obama Administration’s cancellation of NASA’s Constellation program, the spotlight — and government space policy — has focused on the private space industry. More importantly, so have government development dollars.
“We will be providing industry with NASA technical expertise,” said NASA’s deputy administrator Lori Garver, speaking at the U.S. Federal Aviation Admin.’s Commercial Space Transportation Conference in February. “We will provide serious seed money … and a firm commitment to buy crew transportation services on the market side.” To diversify its risk, NASA is funding competitive systems. “No single commercial system will represent the critical path,” says Garver. “We’re going to see the most exciting space race that NASA’s seen in a long time, and there’s likely to be more than one winner.”
NASA has made good on the first promise, doling out funds not only to expected players — Boeing, Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance — but several “NewSpace” companies, the term now used of firms run by entrepreneurs willing to risk their own money to develop private avenues into space…
“We Got a Nobel, So Listen To Us…” (?)
A strange letter is posted on Spaceref.com. Some Nobel laureates and some other impressive names sign a letter to the House Science Committee chairman backing up Obama’s space plan, even though a compromise has already been started. The letter looks like the one signed by a list of former astronauts. It’s not from a specific organization. It would be interesting to see who is organizing these things and why. Maybe they just bumped into each other at Taco Bell?
Spaceref.com-
Dear Chairman Gordon–
ShareNASA has long been a critical component of American economic competitiveness, inspiring young people to enter careers in science and engineering, ensuring American leadership in human spaceflight, and driving cutting-edge research. However, we have watched with concern in recent years as NASA’s programs for advanced technology, commercial spaceflight, student research, and robotic exploration have been scaled back or postponed. The data are sobering: since 2005, NASA’s technology program has been cut by more than 50 percent; robotic exploration precursor missions were eliminated; NASA was unable to fund commercial systems for carrying crew to the International Space Station despite a pressing need to avoid extended reliance on the Russian Soyuz; and NASA-sponsored university research was sharply curtailed.
President Obama’s new strategy revitalizes and expands our investments in technology, commercial spaceflight, student research, and robotic exploration precursors. These are the key elements of the President’s new plan for NASA that must be retained in any consensus solution reached by Congress and the White House…
NASA and ATK Successfully Test Five-Segment Solid Rocket Motor
From Nasa.gov-
ShareWith a loud roar and mighty column of flame, NASA and ATK Aerospace Systems successfully completed a two-minute, full-scale test of the largest and most powerful solid rocket motor designed for flight. The motor is potentially transferable to future heavy-lift launch vehicle designs.
The stationary firing of the first-stage development solid rocket motor, dubbed DM-2, was conducted by ATK, a division of Alliant Techsystems of Brigham City, Utah. DM-2 is the most heavily instrumented solid rocket motor in NASA history, with a total of 53 test objectives measured through more than 760 instruments…
Space Foundation Wants to Know Your Space Hero
“You mind a little advice? Starfleet captains are like children. They want everything right now and they want it their way. But the secret is to give them only what they need, not what they want.”
From Spacefoundation.org-
ShareSurvey Seeks to Find Who Inspires, Motivates Us to Explore the Heavens
Space Heroes can be found many places: in the movies, in comic books and graphic novels, on television and in real life. No matter who they are or where they come from, space heroes inspire others to learn and explore.
The Space Foundation, an international non-profit organization engaged in space awareness and advocacy, is conducting a survey to identify space heroes.
The results will help better explain who motivates individuals to support and promote space endeavors. There are no lists to choose from, no specific criteria, no rules … just a simple survey with sentences to complete: “My personal space hero is…” and “Because…?”
The link for the survey can be found on www.spacefoundation.org.
DM-2 and the future of SRBs
(Test scheduled for this morning)
From Thespacereview.com-
ShareAs the debate about the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program drags on, one facet of the situation is often overlooked: work on the existing Constellation program—loved in some quarters and vilified in others—continues. While a Government Accountability Office report this summer concluded that work on the program had slowed and some people have been laid off, the bulk of the funding allocated to Constellation for the fiscal year has been obligated to various contractors, at a rate actually a bit higher than in previous years.
The biggest demonstration of that ongoing work is scheduled to take place Tuesday morning in Utah, when NASA and ATK will conduct a test of a five-segment rocket motor like the one that would power the first stage of Constellation’s Ares 1 launch vehicle. During the two-minute test firing, the Development Motor 2 (DM-2) solid rocket motor will generate up to 16 million newtons (3.6 million pounds-force) of thrust while remaining firmly anchored to its horizontal test stand at ATK’s facilities in Promontory, Utah.
As the name suggests, DM-2 is the second test of the five-segment solid rocket motor developed for Constellation, building upon the heritage of the four-segment motors used in the shuttle program…
Space Tourism Sector A Good Opportunity For Insurance Firms
From Space-travel.com-
ShareAs space tourism matures, it holds tremendous opportunity for insurance companies to offer risk coverage to those on-board, similar to what they do for passengers of airlines, industry officials said.
At an international conference on space business, organised as part of Bengaluru Space Expo 2010, speakers noted that since Yuri Gagarin’s flight in 1961, citizens of 38 countries have flown in space.To date,most individuals have been astronauts/cosmonauts, military personnel and scientists who have been extensively and expensively trained, they said, adding, while this would continue, one would see the emergence of “space tourism” with access to space for private individuals…