CASIS Is Still Having Problems
U.S. National Laboratory on the Space Station: CASIS Continues To Have Problems Meeting Its Milestones
“NASA and CASIS finalized their agreement in September 2011. That’s 1 month of operations in FY 2011 and 9 months of operations in FY 2012. If CASIS is following the reference model, then it should be well along the way toward having raised $2,892,000 by now. Yet there was no mention of that by Royston. If CASIS is following this reference as Royston told Congress, then where is the money he’s supposed to have raised/generated? If he has not generated it yet, when does he project that this milestone will be reached. If CASIS does not meet this milestone, what will NASA do?”
CASIS Is Problem Free.
The outcome from the Senate CST Committee was cause for celebration by Executive Director Jim Royston and the entire CASIS team. The Senate bought the statements and declarations of CASIS’s progress, lock stock and barrel.Â
There were no questions as to whether or not CASIS was meeting milestones. Not one of the battery of Senators present questioned the failure to meet goals clearly defined in the Reference Model.  No one has interest or concern in the original representations, reference model plans, milestones, whether they ever read them or not.Â
The U.S. is in an era where 10,000 laws are legislated and none are enforced. The shell-game of accountability enables all to escape accountability. A hundred promises are made, none are kept, and no one cares. Wednesday was proof.Â
The $2.8 million dollar capital raise milestone may have been an initial representation, but it has long since been forgotten. CASIS will no sooner raise that amount than they will the $15 million in 2015 or the $37 million in 2020.Â
The last line of the 5th paragraph of the September 9th NASA-HQ notice states that the Cooperative Agreement will have an \initial\ value of up to $15 million dollars. It is obvious CASIS will go to NASA-HQ and request additional funds for the years 2015-2020. It’s only $124 million by 2020 and shouldn’t be a budget problem for Gerstenmaier; he has $8 billion a year to spend.
CASIS has a rosy year ahead. Apparently a permanent board will be in place. Most boards of such high standing require a several quarters to a year to get the rubber-to-meet-the-road. Members come from high-quarters and have many responsibilities with very little time to devote to a single effort like CASIS. And that is good for the CASIS team. The board honeymoon period will allow the staff to kick-down a notch and to relax, while the board figures out where the bathroom is and what business they are supposed to be governing.  A poorly performing or non-performing board has no go-to-jail consequence for failed performance, other than removal, so any upside is at their option.
Thanks to Nelson, absolute political protectionism is place and the next 6 months will afford the staff ample relaxation time, which is surely deserved.Â
As a Florida taxpayer, I don’t see how this could be a better circumstance for my tax dollars. Nelson’s actions will pull and keep jobs in my State. And it’s an election year, so it is about jobs and making Florida strong in the voters eyes. (Tough noogies Texas, Ohio, California, and Arizona).
The microcosm of CASIS fits in to the global space industry circumstances too. There’s no Shuttle. Payloads to ISS have to go up on other country’s vehicles. SpaceX’s ramp up will slowly progress as the years roll on 2013, 14, 15. No rush. The CASIS website looks great to me and should stay the same for another few years when payloads start going to the ISS. All CASIS press and articles on activity and performance should be quashed, suppressed, and banned for several years, say until 2015, so CASIS can work at its own speed, free from stress and oversight.
A question I have about CASIS is:  Can they spend $14.99 million of the $15 million per year of NASA money on themselves or is there some ratio and maximum or minimum they have to spend on grants they give to researchers in other States? Another question is: Why didn’t NASA give CASIS $100 million or evern a billion dollars instead of just $15 million? It would have made life easier for everyone at CASIS and made more jobs in Florida.
Clearly, npng, you don’t hold out much hope for this situation getting any better. Based on what you’re seeing, it seems the Americans involved divide cleanly into two categories on this issue: clueless and couldn’t-care-less, with a small handful of me-me-me’s actually on the job. If that’s truly the case, then maybe the ISS bashers are right and the whole thing should be written off and forgotten. There is certainly no shortage of alternative programs on which to spend the money.
　But I can’t buy it. Despite all the disappointing aspects that we can point to, there is a station up there and significant things have happened on it for many years. There’s no way that this could have happened by magic, so I’m forced to conclude that there have been many people working hard and working well over the years to bring us what has been accomplished. If we can believe the public domain documentation, then accomplishments to date were not all made only by other partner countries — America has done some really good work for and on the ISS, so there must have been a significant number of American workers who have believed in the promises of the ISS and have given valuable, heartfelt return for their paychecks. Did all of those people suddenly quit in the last little while and go elsewhere, leaving only the useless lackeys that you’ve described? Or could it perhaps be that are still two groups — the achievers and the drones — and unfortunately it is the latter who are both “managing” the fiasco and providing the public face for the whole show?
　As we’ve discussed before, I have no inside information on this program, and I haven’t seen the things that you’ve experienced first hand, but from what I can filter out of the publicly available information, it seems to me that all the nonsense and ineffectiveness have been either performed by or directed by the PR and management people. Details about the activities of the working class people are scarce to non-existent. But then again, if CASIS is nothing but PR and management people (is that the case?), then that puts a different light on things, and your assessment of CASIS may be entirely accurate. If so, who is the party that should be being held accountable for the failed work of CASIS? And why have they been getting away with their negligence for so long?
　No matter how I look at it, I can see that either there was never a proper management plan for this whole undertaking, or there was a plan worked out but those responsible for its implementation keep changing the plan (the epitome of amateur/incompetent management!).
　So, here’s my question for you. If we accept the implications of your CASIS assessment and agree whole-heatedly that something has got to be changed, what, exactly, do you propose has to be changed? We can’t get away with “throw the whole thing out and start over,” and that wouldn’t solve anything, anyhow. And we can’t simply pull out of the ISS, abandoning our investment and out partners. So, what specifically needs to be done/changed/replaced in order to fix this ISS utilization problem (both the US Lab and the US portion of the station as a whole)? Having come this far, I believe we can go the distance and do it right. What do we need to do?
　Steve