This is not a NASA Website. You might learn something. It's YOUR space agency. Get involved. Take it back. Make it work - for YOU.
ISS News

Where's The New CASIS Board of Directors?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
October 23, 2012
Filed under , ,

James Royston Statement at Hearing Highlighting Research, Discovery aboard the International Space Station, 25 July 2012
“Through a series of evaluations, interviews, and down-selects, the Interim Board has identified the first group of permanent Board of Directors candidates, all of whom represent the best American minds in the fields of scientific research and management from academia, government, and industry. An announcement of the first set of Board members will be made shortly, with the remaining 15-member Board finalized soon thereafter.”
William Gerstenmaier Statement at Hearing Highlighting Research, Discovery aboard the International Space Station, 25 July 2012
“NASA is working with CASIS’ interim Board of Directors to identify and evaluate a diverse group of outstanding individuals for that board, and the Agency is also in the process of transitioning existing National Laboratory agreement holders to CASIS.”
Letter from NASA to CASIS regarding Notification of Actions Following Dr. Becker’s Resignation, 21 March 2012
“Moreover, the functions identified in the Cooperative Agreement and the milestones in the Annual Program Plan (APP) are critical given the limited amount of time remaining to do research on the International Space Station (ISS). NASA would like assurances from the Board that CASIS will be able to meet the milestones in the APP.”
Letter from CASIS to NASA: Response regarding Notification of Actions Following Dr. Becker’s Resignation, 28 March 2012
“A Selection process for the full Initial Board has been approved and is underway.”
Keith’s 23 Oct update: Three months since the hearing. Seven months since the memos. Still no news from CASIS as to who is on their board of directors or when this board will be announced. Sources report that no one (White House, NASA, Congress, research community) likes the names that CASIS has floated.

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

15 responses to “Where's The New CASIS Board of Directors?”

  1. Steve Whitfield says:
    0
    0

    An announcement of the first set of Board members will be made shortly, with the remaining 15-member Board finalized soon thereafter

    How many will there be all together?  This is sounding less like a board and more like a whole lumber yard.  With so many people sitting on the Board it’s likely to keep showing the same dismal rate of progress that it has so far.  That many “best American minds in the fields of scientific research and management from academia” are never going to agree on anything.

    Steve

    • npng says:
      0
      0

      Steve,

      CASIS is not a government agency, as you know, it’s a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation.  Complaining about their actions or inactions is different than complaining about NASA public agency activities, even while it is recognized that the bulk of CASIS’s capital and funding has been provided directly from NASA. 

      Because CASIS is a non-profit, they can generally ignore any negative press, concerns about performance or commentaries.  Comparatively, Battelle is a 501(c)3 founded in 1929 with 20,000 employees.  Battelle has managed multiple U.S. National Laboratories for many years. 

      When was the last time anyone complained about Battelle’s performance or actions?  Ever?  I’ll hazard a guess that CASIS would enjoy having its ISS National Laboratory management activities viewed with similarly minimal external commentary and oversight.

      Admittedly though, with CASIS there is a difference.  CASIS controls 50% of ISS utilization, which correlates to control of $30B to $50 Billion
      dollars worth of taxpayer funded federal assets.  Further, the ISS is not an asset like Livermore Labs that will be around for ages; the ISS is a
      relatively short-lived asset, with a mere 8 years of life left on its clock.  If CASIS performs well, the $50 Billion capital investment will have been well spent.  If they fail, part of it will be a $50 Billion dollar U.S. loss.
       
      In a post here, Mark Uhran states the ISS depreciates at over $75 Million dollars $US per month.  I believe the complete depreciation amount is around $600 Million per month given the current scheduled 2020 operational end date.  Part of the problem is, and we all know it, is that the Congress and Administration are overwhelmed today by multi-trillion dollar issues.  To pay attention to $600 Million, even when it is being burnt monthly, is an in-the-noise issue.  Worse, given the current U.S. economic conditions, the use of a federal asset worth $100 Billion is probably also viewed by those decision makers as in-the-noise.
       
      Research on learning curves shows that, in general, 10,000 man-hours of concerted effort in a field are required for an individual or group to
      gain the level of performance needed to produce powerful useful results and to be seen as competent or possibly expert in a given field.  CASIS management and staff are years away from the 10,000 man-hour milestone. 

      Even when the career paths of those on staff are considered and even given that some of the staff has had years of payload experience or ISS related operational experience, the focus of those efforts were for the
      most part only tangent to or adjacent to work that would directly
      involve true ISS utilization. 

      To surpass the 10,000 man-hour level, CASIS management and staff will require three or four more years of hard, continuous work.  Then, let’s say around 2015, they might have a level of expertise that some seem to be expecting or hoping for in these posts.  To expect a newbie staff to be instantly smart or to expect them put out ISS value quickly simply is not in the cards. 

      I suspect there will be a similar 10,000 hour learning curve timeline from the CASIS permanent Board, if or whenever it is put in place. 

      I hope your expectations of the Board are not too high.  If the
      members consist of (A) nobel laureates and university chancellors, you’ll get one outcome.  If the members are (B) Gates, Buffet, Ellison, Koch, Walton, Bezos, Brin, Page and Allen you’ll get a different outcome. 

      Which do you think will be chosen A or B? What would your choice be, A or B? What is your guess as to what the actual outcome of the choice will be?

  2. npng says:
    0
    0

    The more the merrier Steve.  Maybe they’ll have a Board by Christmas.  Apparently NASA HQ is holding things up due to some issue involving politically correct Board composition, ensuring the Board has sufficient diversity, sort of like the U.N.  When done, we may see a Board with – 10 Lords A Leaping, 9 Ladies Dancing, 8 Maids a Milking, 7 Swans A Swimming … and a Partridge in an ATV.

    • Steve Whitfield says:
      0
      0


      The more the merrier

      npng,

      I’m afraid I see it differently.  The more opinions there are contributing to each decision, the longer it’s going to take to reach consensus, assuming that consensus is the method to be used for their decision making.  There are too many clichés and bad jokes about committees to be taken lightly.  I’d be more comfortable with a diverse, but much leaner Board of Directors; there is too much lost time to make up and I think we really need expediency there, not complexity.

      Steve

      • npng says:
        0
        0

        I understand your view Steve.   A large Board can result in long drawn out decision processes, so if you want speed and efficiency, a “bigger is better” argument doesn’t hold water.  We assume speed and efficiency is desired though, right?

        But Boards, and even moreso large Boards provide other advantages.  If there are 15 people on a Board and they make a motion to do something, they can vote on the motion as a group and be done with it.  If it turns out they made a bad call, they can simply point to the others and say the others voted it in to existence.  That enables them to escape individual accountability and responsibility.  Pretty clever, eh?

        To truly optimize the configuration of a Board, you select individuals whose primary work, income, and benefits are drawn from a remote location (say a different firm or institution).  Then you equip them with signficant powers in the firm or entity they serve as a Board member on.   As you know, this arrangement occurs very frequently.  The result is a Board member that has little or no personal or financial risk or consequences, but has been given substantial influence and power over other assets, business, resources, and people.  The member’s risk is removed from his involvement in the activity.   Given that structure, their actions can be those driven by good and responsible decisions or by eccentricities, whims or just poor decisions, all free from consequence.  I see this occurring far more in 2012 than I did in 2002 or 1992 in many work venues.   I suspect that anyone of any age that has been involved with Boards has seen fundamental defects in the structure and function of Boards time and time again.

        So sure Steve, I agree.  Leaner.   The important aspect of a Board is about the quality of its members, not the quantity of its members.

  3. Scot007 says:
    0
    0

    Can anyone say “Enron”?

  4. Russell says:
    0
    0

    “given the limited amount of time remaining to do research on the International Space Station (ISS)” … uhh ?  ISS operational life is limited only by the budget, which will change as the “end of service” date approaches. 

    • mattmcc80 says:
      0
      0

      Technically, perhaps, but there will be a point where too many components need to be refurbished or replaced for it to be worth operating.  With any luck it’ll occur to somebody involved in planning ISS’s future that they could build a roomier station out of just three BA-330 modules for a relatively modest price tag compared to maintenance or replacement of station modules.

      • dogstar29 says:
        0
        0

        Most components can be replaced. Nevertheless unless we can come up with a productive science and applications program soon there isn’t much reason to continue. I don’t think microgravity science is the answer (ground-based alternatives exist for most microgravity science) nor is space medicine in itself a justification (only needed if we have a good reason to be there in the first place). Except for AMS, Earth observation and astronomical observation have been neglected and might be more productive.

  5. dogstar29 says:
    0
    0

    And what names have been floated? What about scientific staff, as opposed to the board of directors?

  6. npng says:
    0
    0

    It’s great to think that CASIS, NASA, Space Florida, Korn Ferry, the White House and Congress are all working together so swiftly and diligently to get a permanent Board of Directors appointed.  It is reassuring to reread Jim Royston’s statement that  “…the best American minds in the fields of scientific research and management from academia, government, and industry.” will be at the helm of CASIS.  Of course great patience is required, even if that is a patience that must extend beyond the election or inauguration or some future time, even if for the advantage or convenience of a few and the cost of many.

    But then, the process seems puzzling.  If the best American minds from the loftiest realms in the land have been around, and so stellar and so capable, why haven’t they acted in recent years, of their own accord, to advance ISS research and to create and provide amazing science benefits?   Has there been some sort of organizational coulomb barrier that prevented their action and interaction? 

    Is there some special space-oil that will at some moment be collectively rubbed upon the Board’s members that will anoint them and give them some instant or magical powers to produce remarkable science and ensure our American science leadership?   What light-sabre technology and innovation powers will they wield as a Board that they lacked before they converged in to a singular functional body?

    How could it be that 15 brilliant American minds, all nobel-prized and super-skilled in the same space science realm have simply not chanced to know one another or act or think together?  How is it that until they were unified by some mystifying motions of Korn Faerie magic, they did not coalesce and act of their own accord?  Do you not find that strange? 

    If the process ever moves to completion, the formation of the Board in itself may be one of the most outstanding accomplishments, not just of CASIS, but of the space industry overall.

    Three dazzling American achievements:  First Man on the Moon, Rover On Mars, and CASIS Permanent Board selected. 

    • Steve Whitfield says:
      0
      0

      npng,

      If we take your questions seriously for a moment, then I would say that it pretty much comes down to motivation; what’s been missing, and continues to be missing, is anything driving the personal incentives of the highly-lauded people you refer to.  I don’t think it’s at all crass for these talented and respected people to think in terms of “what’s in it for me?”

      Although we mere mortals don’t generally acknowledge it, the fact remains that we’re all motivated by personal gain, or gain to the small group to which we belong (as Heinlein said, altruism is just a word).  Many people like to believe (falsely) that they’re above that sort of thing (while never willingly believing that others, outside of their group, are above it).

      Personally, I believe that we’d all be better off if we’d just own up to the fact that we’re, all of us, driven by personal/group gain.  Then we’d be working within the realities that actually exist, instead of continually failing (and canceling and wasting) because we started out with an unreasonable set of expectations, and then stood by those expectations rather than admitting we were wrong right from the outset.

      Steve

      • npng says:
        0
        0

        Steve, the personal gain elements that may occur as part of a board member’s participation is an interesting aspect of the non-profit organization.  If, as you’ve said, we all miraculously own-up-to-that-fact, then what are the most likely personal gains to be had by members?  Lofty title?  Power? Influence?  Elite networking? Hobnobbing?  Free golf memberships? Perhaps an invite to the Davos WEF?  Or things more like ego-trips? cross country or international trips? Leveraging other business opportunties?  Access to high government or Fortune 50 corporation execs?  Or could it be compensation?  

        Somehow I doubt it would be compensation.  If a 15 member board was compensated at $250,000 per year plus expenses, that would put nearly a $4 million dollar burden on what is now a mere $15 million dollar per year organization.   More likely it would be a $50,000/year compensation, but require a limited number of man-hours to be devoted by each member to the business of the non-profit.  You know the typical gig – attend 4 meetings a year, try to do something useful, and certainly avoid doing anything at all if it might be wrong.  Oh, and as for the rest of your income needs, do keep your day job.

        Perhaps twistedly, all that tends to be typical.  But if so, then the question might be, how effective can fifteen brilliant people be at an activity if they devote their attention and hours only a half dozen times a year?

        I think you are spot-on with your personal gain comment, especially in 2012.  And in all likelihood the personal gain requirement will probably be increased given the fact that risk, just that of association, has been heightened over the past year, witness the road kill to date.

        Unfortunately your personal gain aspect seems to fly-in-the-face, no, slam into the face of what many may perceive to be the proper role and demeanor, being:  A 15 member board that serve as the custodians of the Nation’s most remarkable government funded $100B space laboratory, a federally owned asset, or more accurately a technology resource owned by and the property of the citizens of this country.    To be brought in as guiding member of such an enormously expensive asset, only to have the primary aim as personal gain, may rub folks the wrong way, admitted or not. 

        It will be interesting to see if there is ever a public disclosure of the board arrangements, or not.  Who knew that the proper or less than proper use of the ISS would fall in the hands of a group, chosen by another group, which was too chosen by yet another group, which was appointed by another group that was originally elected all topped with multiple layers of lawyers and opinions. 

        Perhaps the one aspect that may provide a good result is the attribute of simple heroism.  A high moral ground member may simply rise to the level of hero, beyond personal gain (granted there may be gobs of ego in that) and beyond compensation and duty, with their own time and at their own cost to work the magic necessary to achieve the results we have all hoped for. 

  7. npng says:
    0
    0

    Vulture4, your microgravity comment is probably the commonly accepted view of many.   But I believe that in time good science will prove that your “think” that “ground-based alternatives exist for microgravity science” is fundamentally incorrect in a specific fractional way. 
     
    All of the rotating wall bioreactor vessels and systems (think shear) that exist are basically a bunch of balls or cylinders that constantly rotate to produce a “weightless effect”.   All that really produces is a constant, or variable if you wish, redirection of the 1-G force vector acting on any particle in the containment. 
     
    If you’re a particle in an RWV, you’re either floating and aimlessly tumbling on one side of the system or if you’re turning with the system you’re possibly near weightless for half the time and then at 2-G’s the other half of the time.  Think ferris wheel.
     
    If a micro-g system on the ISS is System A and a RWV (rotating wall vessel) on Earth is System B, it should be pretty simple for a Physics 101 guy to see that the process characteristics of Sys A vs. Sys B are very different.   On the ISS near ‘true’ micro-g exists.  With an RWV every tug of 1-G is fully there, it’s simply getting revectored constantly, add-on a bunch of shear.
     
    I am not suggesting that RWV’s do not possess interesting and possibly useful process capabilities.  I think they may and do.  But they are NOT the same as the processes of weightlessness.   [ If your technical assessment is different, I would like to see your posted counter here; it would be valuable. ]
     
    I kindly refer to the RWV folks as the “Rock Tumbler” gang.   Rock tumblers take lumpy rocks and change them into nice shiny rocks, so yes, a process occurs and a new result is produced.  If you look at RWV science, as done with cancer cells or other cellular science materials, those science activities produce results, some of which are interesting maybe even useful.  But those results are from cells floating and tumbling and dealing with shear and rubbing cell walls (until they are either shiny or fretted or rubbed away or aggravated to the point of producing other biological reactions).  Whereas on the ISS all of those shear, constant re-vectoring processes are not there.   Is this Sys A / Sys B process difference clear?
     
    Along with RWVs, you can add those magnetic levitation systems to the 0-G attempt pile.  Sure, they may float an object, mag-lev’d, but everyone can plainly see that 1-G forces are still fully there, mag-lev in no way shifts the object from 1-G to 0-G.
     
    If there is a RWV or mag-lev system that can create true weightlessness on Earth, on the ground, I would like to see it immediately.  It would be a breakthrough to have a ground based system that produces real weightlessness that exists within our 1-G gravity well on Earth.  I won’t hold my breath for it.
     
    It’s very difficult for most scientists to get on the ISS or in a truly weightless environment and it’s expensive too, so most take the next best, pauper’s, path and buy an RWV, hopeful it will mimic micro-g to some sufficient level.  It won’t.  It just provides a very different process.  Something like 25,000 RWVs have been developed, sold and used worldwide, so it’s a very widely used alternative to being-up-there where the real weightless science can be worked.  Fortunately the few top scientists that have conducted research on the ISS understand the energy, force, G process differences summarized here.  They will be the ones that secure the real breakthroughs in weightlessness.
     
    In your post you say you don’t think microgravity science is the answer.   I think microgravity is one of most potentially promising of a dozen unique process conditions on-orbit from which unique value may be discovered and used to great advantage in space and even moreso here on Earth.   The ISS is the only lab currently in existence, manned, that has the resources researchers need to make the breakthroughs we all hope to see.   We can certainly scoff and abandon the effort.  The Chinese and Japanese are very interested and smart in these areas.  We can let them secure the breakthroughs and identify the extraordinary economic and technology outcomes and then perhaps they will someday export the value they have created and we can simply become buyers of yet more technology they possess.   Is that what we prefer?

    As for AMS and earth observation and astronomical observation they are all fascinating and knowledge building.  Certainly the stuff of the stars.  You say the pursuit of those areas might be more productive.  While I agree, I would like to see you post a few specific reasons why those pursuits are more productive.   How exactly are they productive?  What is produced?  Knowledge?  Information?  If all three areas were infinitely funded and pursued, what would be delivered from those activities beyond illumination?  (I have answers, but I want to see your answers or anyone’s answers here.)