CASIS Ignores Interesting Research Partner News
CASIS Announces Upcoming Requests for Proposals in Materials Science and Earth Observational Science
“The ISS National Lab supports a variety of platforms to exploit the space environment in the development and testing of new materials for both commercial and academic investigators. Through these solicitations, CASIS continues in its mission to promote the full utilization of the ISS. … This RFP will utilize the NanoRacks External Platform.”
NanoRacks Announcement of Opportunity-1: Building a NanoLab Community for Space Station Users
“NanoRacks, the leading company in low-earth orbit research and educational utilization, seeks to further stimulate the market for International Space Station usage by offering to designate and promote up to five (5) companies that can offer for retail sale NanoLabs for use in NanoRacks hardware now on the space station and on suborbital platforms.”
Keith’s note: CASIS makes a big deal out of its agreement with Nanoracks – but they don’t seem to be interested in making any mention of this Nanoracks Announcement of Opportunity utilizing the ISS. Baffling – especially given the bundle of money CASIS gave Nanoracks.
The CASIS people are tied up fighting over the Board of DIrectors positions, so perhaps there’s nobody at the helm giving day to day orders. “Aye, Cap’n; the orbits decayin‘ and there’s no a thin’ we can do aboo tit!”
Bingo Steve — CASIS currently has no intellectual leadership. The Board of Directors was envisioned to be the best minds the U.S. has to offer, and in order to ensure this they were to be recruited by White House invitation. There was even test marketing done to verify that individuals of such stature were willing to serve — and it was confirmed. That all flamed out when the entrenched special interest groups seized control and CASIS pitched into its’ now famous nose dive.
Despite the one year delay, a draft slate of candidates with reasonably suitable stature did finally emerge. However, they were stopped dead in their tracks by a NASA HQ demand for “politically correct” cultural diversity. Well, Win The Future (WTF).
Talk about Nero fiddling while Rome burns… the ISS meanwhile depreciates at a rate of over 75 million $US per month. Instead of a “world class” research lab, we’re seeing a world class missed opportunity. So much for US leadership…
Amazing how open the communications has become now that you have left! Is the lack of communications inside symptomatic of a much deeper problem within NASA? I think your last few words “so much for US leadership” are the real issue.
When the perceived or real enemies and demons are internal to an organization, internal communications are usually squelched, distorted, barriered, covert, or altogether muted.
When the perceived or real enemies and demons are clearly external to an organization, internal communications are usually open, fast, free-flowing, loud and clear.
Thanks for your openness, Mark. This explains/confirms a lot. What I’m wondering now is, when NASA HQ interrupted things with their cultural diversity demand, were they acting in accordance with established NASA or government agency doctrine, or were they just throwing more sand into the gears? Was it just a matter of NASA trying to make it look like things were better under them than CASIS, or is the diversity requirement legitimate? (If you’d rather not answer that please just ignore it.) And either way, one has to wonder, who is the policing/ruling body responsible for dealing with resolving this. It’s looking more and more like a town with no law.
“a rate of over 75 million $US per month“
I wonder how many hospital beds that translates into per month, or school books, meals for the homeless, roads paved,… $900million for the last lost year. That’s a couple of planetary missions!
Steve
Truly amazing that given the attention this has received, and especially given the potential for attention to be on ISS when there is nothing else, how CASIS and the program cannot seem to get their act together.
Graham,
And yet, it would seem that CASIS is not entire problem, as it previously seemed. Clearly there are people at NASA who are still refusing to let go of things and are continuing to involve themselves in matters that were supposed to have been handed off long ago. And I’d be very surprised if there weren’t WH diplomats as well as congress people who haven’t contributed to the delays.
Steve
I tend to agree with you on this Steve. CASIS really isn’t the “entire” problem. My guess is that CASIS is working along lines that they perceive, that they’ve concluded are correct (that would of course be a kind of: grading their own performance view.)
Didn’t they used to have kids grade themselves years ago? Was that in the No Child Left Behind era or in the ’69 Hippie era? Maybe we need a No Non-Profit Left Behind Act. An act like that might yield a bump from $15M/yr to $25M/yr for CASIS.
I think we’ll see CASIS headed strongly toward the use of the ISS for academic study and pure research, lots of studies and papers, particularly since those seem to be strong preferences of the current Administration.
As for NASA, there may be some “let’s not let go”, but I don’t think it’s to an unusual degree. The offload of some of the utilization burden on to CASIS is probably welcomed by NASA. CASIS’s presence is probably experienced as “freeing or liberating” by NASA. Consequently the NASA / CASIS interaction is very likely congenial.
As for the White House, I wouldn’t characterize their behavior as delaying, but more asiding or distancing. The White House, more specifically groups like OSTP and OMB were intensely involved in CASIS at the onset. As mentioned below, they were intimately well informed, fully understood structure and actions, and even understood their role and involvement. OMB for instance, would have played a pivotal role in a very strong way. Now, all that has changed. Involvement has dropped to zero. They have other issues of priority and the last thing they want to hear about is NASA, the ISS, or space. I’d bet that Olson and Shawcross break out in hives if they even hear the word “Space” uttered in the room and tend toward anaphylatic shock if “space” and “more-money” are used in the same sentence.
Keith,
It is somewhat puzzling to see CASIS, in conjunction with NanoRacks, prepare to release an RFP for Materials Science. In itself, it sounds like a good priority and pursuit. The focus, studying and testing the effects of the space environment on materials, is certainly valuable to a large number of users in multiple aerospace and space hardware sectors.
What is not fully clear is why CASIS and NanoRacks are pursuing this area. NASA has already established a comprehensive and sophisticated program to perform very similar studies if not the exactly same studies. Materials have been tested on the ISS continuously for over ten years, they are being tested now, and there is new and even more sophisticated hardware in development to continue those tests through 2020.
One would assume the NanoRack efforts will be relatively small, in both literal size and scope. But wait. Elephant in the room! NASA-OCT has funded an ISS material test program at a $38 Million dollar level and the Langley and Glenn teams are actively working the programs.
It’s certainly possible that the CASIS and NanoRacks ISS material study activities will be very different compared to the existing efforts. If the CASIS NanoRacks scope is going to be different, it would be useful to hear that stated or certainly to see it clarified in the RFP, in a differential way.
If NASA and CASIS and NanoRacks have collectively generated a fully integrated plan where the material test work scopes result in accretive value outcomes, that’s good. Have they? But if the two efforts are simply action-and-expense duplicative, then I question the cost redundancy. Explanations from these parties would be helpful.