CASIS Still Doesn't Do Anything – Not That Anyone Notices (Update)
International Space Station National Laboratory Education Project (ISS NLEP)
“The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Office of Education, NASA Higher Education Office in cooperation with the Human Exploration Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) and the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Office of Education, invites proposals to seven (7) areas within the ISS National Lab Education Project’s (ISS NLEP) portfolio.”
Keith’s 9 Feb note: As has been the case for months, there is no mention of CASIS in this announcement, and CASIS makes no mention of this announcement on its website. Also, there is no mention at the NASA Education website, nothing at the ISS National Lab website, or at the NASA ISS website. No one at NASA Human Spaceflight seems to care about coordinating with each other or informing the public anymore.
Keith’s 25 Feb note: The ISS National Lab website now has a link to ISS NLEP, but there is still no mention of ISS NLEP at CASIS – despite the fact that this is exactly what CASIS was created to do in the first place. Nor is there any mention at the NASA Education website. Meanwhile, CASIS has this notice on its website “CASIS RFI Webinar Presentation and Q&A Session” for an event to be held in 3 days. Oddly, neither NASA or CASIS has issued a press release, media advisory, Federal Register notice, etc. How are people supposed to know about events like this if there is zero advanced notice – unless you happen to stumble upon the CASIS website? And of course, there is no mention of this event anywhere at the NASA websites listed above – places where you’d expect such activities would be prominently mentioned. CASIS also claims that it will be part of this event in California yet the NASA press release makes no mention whatsoever of CASIS.
What would they inform the public about? Assembly is basically done. Russians are spacewalking. A logistics craft goes up every now and again – not US work; not a US launch. I did read that they are doing yet another combustion experiment.
wo2- looked today, iss-casis.org website not responding. zombies.
Lenny, I think it’s supposed to coordinate science projects (new) and commercial activities.
Keith,
Your article title may have inadvertently revealed the first CASIS Plan, a plan the space and ISS community have being waiting for over half a year.
The Plan: Don’t Do Anything and No One Will Notice Us.
Is that “harshing CASIS’s mellow”?
If you read the corporate documents, CASIS is a complete start-up from zero employees. Since most start-ups take three or four years to get going, the space community‘s expectations should be adjusted accordingly. Maybe the ISS community just needs to be patient. By 2015 CASIS may show some results and may have a full plan. Lower your expectations; be on-par with those of the Administration and NASA and the Board of CASIS, Space Florida.
Some in the ISS user community may be unhappy with the delay of plans and of ISS use, especially if they are doing things like biotech science that have timelines of three or five or seven years. The fact is, these researchers are screwed. And they know it. They’d have a better chance
working with the Russians or some more reliable space capable nation.
Someone at a conference said the ISS loses over half a Billion dollars a Month in value. With half a year of CASIS inactivity, $3 Billion dollars has already been lost. Another 3 years in start-up gear and $18 Billion in ISS worth will go to hell. That’s NASA’s entire budget for a year! Who cares? No one. Why? Because the ISS was paid for with tax dollars which are of course all “other people’s money”.
Congress’s brilliant solution to rescue a $6 Billion dollar annual asset loss? Push $15 Million at it. Employ a few Floridians. The Administration? Throw ISS Lab control
to Florida and spin the jobs news to win the 2012 election.
Isn’t it odd the ISS NLEP page speaks of education and sets out four proposal areas that relate to education but makes no mention of CASIS and no mention of integration with CASIS? On the CASIS website, it appears they have an education activity. More accurately at this point, inactivity.
Is there a website that explains how the education
activities overlap between NASA’s HEOMD and Higher Education Office and CASIS? Does anyone even care?
It is excellent to see the Higher Education Office has developed programs like High Schools United with NASA for the Creation of Hardware (HUNCH).
What a great acronym. The space biotech and science community will need skilled young engineers and STEM skilled technical workers to build the space hardware this nation needs in the future. Or if this nation fails the STEM students might still be able to grab a job or two in
Russia or China. Better tack a Russian or Chinese language course elective on to that STEM curriculum kids.
We need to have more programs like HUNCH. Good HUNCHES may enable the space community to distance itself from programs like CLUELESS. You haven’t heard of CLUELESS? Google in: “CASIS’s Lagging Utilization Execution Leads to the Extinction of the Space Station”.
Are you Clueless? Apparently NASA and the
Administration is on this.
Can’t find the CLUELESS acronym on Google? That’s
because Google doesn’t list non-functional entities.
Beyond creative acronyms, CASIS may need the space community’s help to compress their four year start up time. Consider donations. Register them for Save the Baby
Space Whales. Call CASIS and offer aid. If they don’t answer, conclude they like to avoid contact with the public or anyone, conclude they are busy with others and are never busy with you.
Donate unneeded articles of clothing. Ship them that space hardware you’ve been storing in your lab or basement. Consider local car wash events to raise money for the researchers and PIs. Unemployed octogenarian space workers and retired Hill staffers might want to consider listing CASIS in their Will. Bake sales and raffles may be good; try to donate ISS foods developed by NASA Spin-Offs. If the Nat Lab guys don’t show for the raffle drawing, be positive and conclude that they “no-show” at ISS events deliberately, using their absence to elevate their mysteriousness and heighten the intrigue.
Remain blindly optimistic that CASIS will eventually do something, that’s what the bureaucracy does.
Be sure to have one of those Lifepak 1000 Defibrillators
they use on the ISS nearby so if you do see a twitch or sign of ISS National Lab life you will be able survive the shock from your cardiac arresting disbelief.
Its like Gerstenmeyer said at the FAA Conference, NASA forgot to plan how to use the ISS. Now CASIS, which has no knowledge of how an integration process ought to be run, is responsible? For what. At the moment there is little upmass available,. There is no downmass available. The crew is up there playing with legos, taking samples of their blood, urine and feces, but burning it up in the atmosphere. Take a few more pictures out the windows boys. That is almost the limit of science on ISS today. Maybe in a few years commercial cargo will be up and running and we will be able to do something.
Representative
Ralph M. Hall (then Democrat-Texas, now a Republican and Chairman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology), speaking at the American Astronautical
Society’s Goddard Memorial Symposium in 2001:’After all of the taxpayer dollars that have been invested in the Space
Station, we will need to ensure that we wind up with the world-class research
facility that we have been promised…NASA had better find a way to use the ISS effectively…some astounding scientific discovery had better be forthcoming…perhaps a cure for cancer…or the agency’s stock will sink and it could lose critical political support’
Do not look for a cure for cancer. The assertion that medical research in space has significant benefits to medical care on earth is simply not supported by any unbiased study of these claims. The widespread claim of a “vaccine for salmonella” is just the latest such snake oil. Here’s a cure. Cook your eggs. Note that a very effective vaccine is already in use in Britain and has virtually eliminated salmonella in humans there.
Nevertheless there can be useful and important science in space. It is a travesty that only after a decade in space is one small multispectral camera mounted in the cupola window, and the AMS was nearly cancelled entirely by the Bush-era decision to eliminate ISS entirely.
The buzzword seems to be that somehow CASIS will use a few million in state funding to find “industry partners” who will “pay” to use NASA’s “world class laboratory”. This is just naive. NASA will have to fund any research done on ISS.
If anyone has any data on how CASIS was selected this would be of interest; the process seems rather opaque.