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NASA Staff Meeting Minutes 16 October 1995

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 16, 1995
Filed under ,

Minutes of Senior Staff and Center Directors’ Meeting October 16, 1995
The following documents the discussions addressed at the Senior Staff and Center Directors’ Meeting on October 16, 1995. Action assignments are bolded. Mr. Goldin was in attendance.

1. AA Reports
B/Mr. Peterson: There are increasing indications from the Administration that the continuing resolution will stay in effect through the end of December 1995. As NASA will be working with 95-percent funding, issues and problem areas must be identified as soon as possible. This will allow us to identify solutions before a crisis situation exists. Additionally, many excellent responses have been received to the Zero-Based Review (ZBR) paper. However, many of the responses did not indicate dates for specific milestones. It is essential that these dates are identified prior to the Senior Management Meeting, as they will be included within the ZBR discussions.
S/ Huntress: A review of Galileo’s malfunctioning tape recorder is being conducted. This anomaly is being attributed to a software problem. However, this problem does not threaten Galileo’s insertion or probe missions. POLAR was shipped to the Vandenberg AFB, California, last week.
R/Anderson: Dr. Whitehead is at LaRC for the briefings with Congressman Sensenbrenner (R-WI). Northrup Grumman recently expressed their appreciation of NASA’s assistance with the B-2.
L/Lawrence: It is likely that the Senate authorization bill will go to the floor on October 17, 1995. It is anticipated that the vote will be preceded by a debate.
I/Schumacher: The ESA Ministerial Council will be held October 18 to 20, 1995, in Toulouse, France, to discuss ESA’s contribution to the international Space Station program. Mr. Matsui, the President of the National Space Development Agency of Japan, will meet with Mr. Goldin on Thursday, October 19, 1995, after the congressional hearing on U.S./Japan Space Cooperation, which will be held before the House Science Committee. Mr. Schumacher will be participating in the Memorandum of Understanding negotiations in Russia, October 16 to 20, 1995.
Q/Gregory: Code Q does not have any safety concerns with the launch of STS-73.
P/Hess: The mission briefing for STS-74 will be held October 17, 1995. The STS-74 crew will conduct their preflight news conference at JSC, Friday, October 20. METEOR will launch October 20, 1995. The METEOR launch will be taped and replayed at a later date.
J/ Cooper: On October 13, 1995, Phil Chait met with Frank Degnan, GAO, to determine GOA’s future direction on its Infrastructure Audit. The original Infrastructure Audit (709153) has been terminated. It was considered open for planning and design purposes only and has been replaced with four new audit assignments. Facilities (709173), under Lee Edwards, will focus on the size and capacity of the facilities’ infrastructure, NASA’s efforts and plans to reduce it, and opportunities for consolidating/sharing/closing. Base Support (709174) is the second audit, also under Mr. Edwards, which will focus on efforts currently underway, as well as further opportunities to consolidate functional support service activities within NASA or between NASA and other agencies. Personnel Downsizing (709175), under Frank Degnan, will focus on the 1991-99 reduction goals, the progress NASA has made in achieving those goals, how it plans to accomplish the remaining reductions, and whether reductions will impact mission performance. The final audit, Telecommunications (511341) under John de Ferrari, will focus on NASA’s planning for the use and/or consolidation of communications-type networks and systems. The Telecommunications report is expected to be completed in December 1995. The completion of the other three reports will coincide with the appropriation-authorization process beginning in January 1996.
Y/Mann: Dr. Kennel is attending the Global Climate Observing Systems Joint Scientific and Technical Committee Meeting this week in Hokone, Japan. Last week, a meeting was held in Montreal, Canada, concerning an integrated earth observation system. This international body agreed, in principle, with the concept of a globally interoperational satellite system. The Committee will conduct a follow-on meeting in December 1995. The handover of GOES 9 will occur at the end of the month. The launch of the Canadian RADARSAT, from Vandenberg AFB, California, has been rescheduled for November 4, 1995.
Z/Ladwig: The second draft of the National Space Policy should be received this week for final review. The Administration intends to publish this document on November 1, 1995. This policy has been under review since August 1995, and a number of changes have been recommended. In order to meet the November publishing date, it is essential that all participants be familiar with the document and ready to provide a rapid response to ensure that the Agency can conduct a quick turnaround of the policy. The President will be making a major policy speech on October 18, 1995, at the awards ceremony for the National Science and Technology Medals.
2. AD/Dailey
The Senior Management Meeting is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Mr. Goldin will be in attendance for most of the day.
The next meeting of the Aeronautics and Astronautics Coordination Board has been rescheduled for early December 1995. The NASA committee and enterprise representatives will still meet on October 26, 1995.
The first annual intercode volleyball tournament, sponsored by the HQ Exchange Council, began October 12, 1995, with a great turnout. The second set of matches will be conducted on Thursday, October 19th, when the undefeated Code U’s team will meet the victor of the Codes M, S, and Y matches. The games will be played on the three volleyball courts by the Air and Space Museum beginning at 4:45 p.m.
3. Center Director Reports
ARC/Munechika: The Computational Sciences Division, in collaboration with Boston University’s (BU) Center for Space Physics (a consortium of public and private institutes, developing a small tomography satellite scheduled for flight in March 1997), is providing the software necessary for the Payload Operations and Command Center (POCC). The ground-station-to-POCC software was delivered to BU in late August 1995. The satellite command file transmission software system was delivered to BU in September 1995. This last software delivery completed the baseline functionality portion of the ARC deliverables. The critical reusable software for this small satellite was developed and delivered within 6 months. The advanced knowledge-based functionality of the software focuses on real-time fault discovery, isolation, and recovery, and potentially, satellite operations scheduling. Additionally, the prototype software system for Just-in- Time-Training (JITT), a field deployable trainer prototype for Space Station systems, was delivered to JSC in September 1995 for review by the JSC team. The JITT is a cooperative effort between the NASA Ames and JSC’s Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) and is an intelligent hypermedia computer-based tutor. The MOD’s preliminary evaluation of the prototype, developed within 3 months, has been very positive. Work is on schedule for delivery of the full system by the end of October 1995. Work has also begun to identify material that is suitable for intelligent tutoring feedback. JITT software will be applicable to both space and aeronautics.
DFRC/ Szalai: The first flight of the F-16XL Supersonic Laminar Flow Control was conducted Friday, October 13, 1995. The subsonic flight functionally checked all systems, which performed well. The Pilot was Dana Purlfoy. The project is part of the Aeronautics High Speed Research program managed by LaRC. Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Rockwell developed the experimental wing glove. The Critical Design Review for the Linear Aerospike Engine Test on the SR-71 was held last week at the Center. The experiment is being conducted in support of the X-33 program.
JPL/ Stone: JPL is beginning to relay commands to Galileo for on-orbit space flight tests on its malfunctioning recorder.
JSC/Abbey: STS-73 crew is at KSC preparing for the October 20 launch. The STS-74 crew is also at KSC conducting countdown demonstration training.
KSC/Honeycutt: KSC is prepared for this week’s launch. The Swedish Ambassador and the Swedish Secretary of Defense will being touring the KSC October 16, 1995.
LaRC/Holloway: As Rob Anderson mentioned, Congressman Sensenbrenner will be touring the Center October 16, 1995. Dr. Whitehead is also at the Center.
4. A/Goldin
Mr. Goldin commended the Codes Q and M launch teams, and all others involved, for making the difficult decisions to repeatedly postpone the launch of STS-73, stating that such decisions are very difficult and takes a great amount of strength to make. These teams are to be commended for doing the right thing and not allowing themselves to be pressured into making unsafe decisions.
Mr. Goldin expressed his concern that there is beginning to be some concern that people may be backing away from the results of the ZBR, leaving NASA in the position of not being able to accomplish what it has said it would do. It must be remembered that NASA is one of the few Federal agencies not leaping at the last minute to create a plan to meet their budgets. NASA will not experience the reduction in force (RIF) as many other federal agencies will this fiscal year. In fact, NASA does not face the possibility of a RIF until FY 1998. Even then, this possibility may still be avoided. Next year will be one of the worst years for Federal employees in D.C. history. NASA has a good plan and is proceeding forward with that plan. October 17, during the Senior Management Meeting, Mr. Goldin desires to address the metrics associated with the ZBR. These metrics include the dates previously addressed by Mr. Peterson. Mr. Goldin is anxious that aeronautics and human space flight are not as far along in the process as space sciences and space utilization.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.