NASA Creates Space Technology Mission Directorate
Investing in Technology to Enable the Future: NASA Creates Space Technology Mission Directorate
“As part of the Obama Administration’s recognition of the critical role that space technology and innovation will play in enabling both future space missions and bettering life here on Earth, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has announced the creation of the Space Technology Mission Directorate. The directorate will be a catalyst for the creation of technologies and innovation needed to maintain NASA leadership in space while also benefiting America’s economy.”
With luck they will support science and technology that will provide practical benefits for the nation even if it isn’t absolutely critical to sending a few astronauts to Mars. Without new high-value commercial products and exports, new manufacturing technology and new high-tech jobs, we won’t have the taxes to pay for the luxury of human spaceflight.
After decades of operations and eating the seed corn, there are many technologies that would reduce the cost of HSF missions that simply need higher readiness levels with funding and very little luck would be required.
I suppose the luck part is that adequate funding is provided in the first place. Each of the technologies has significantly more chance of spinoffs than engine, capsule, lander development required for missions.
Just once I wish NASA would put out a press release or similar document that actually said something useful instead of trying to sound like a Philosophy textbook. “cross-cutting, transformational technologies,” for instance, doesn’t tell us a thing. What are the technologies in question? Do they do this because they don’t want us to know, or because they don’t actually know yet themselves?
On the Space Technology Mission Directorate web site, if you go to the “About Us” page, it says —By pushing the boundaries of technology and innovation, STMD allows NASA and our nation to remain at the cutting edge. STMD:
• Advances broadly applicable, transformational technology to infuse solutions into applications for which there are multiple customers
• Competitively selects research by academia, industry, and the NASA Centers based on technical merit
• Leverages the technology investments of our international, other government agency, academic and industrial partners
• Coordinates with internal and external stakeholders, including academia, industry and other government agencies
• Results in new inventions, new capabilities and the creation of a pipeline of innovators aimed at serving future national needs
• Grows the nation’s innovation economy and creates high-tech jobs
—
First party of the second part…
This basically says they could be working on absolutely anything, and therefore tells us absolutely nothing. What areas of technology and science is STMD supposed to be working on?
My expectation would be the areas listed in the Technology Roadmap:
http://www.nasa.gov/offices…
It seems logical to assume that the stated “cross-cutting, advanced and pioneering new technologies needed for NASA’s current and future missions” are included among the contents of the 14 roadmaps, but the word “missions” suggests that it is not everything, but rather a subset of technologies. Which ones; why these ones; and why was it necessary to create this STMD to do them?
To me, the words “cross-cutting, advanced and pioneering new technologies” sort of suggest that they’re talking about new technologies not currently being addressed by NASA, or at least not being addressed to a significant degree so far, but that’s just a guess because the whole thing is very ambiguous.
It is an ongoing difficulty that NASA technology development solicitations tend to ask for totally new ideas that will solve all problems, i.e. warp drive on a one-year grant. Then after a year the TRL-1 grant runs out and there is no way to continue. The project falls into the “valley of death”. Successful researchers generate piles of proposals a few of which get funded. The challenge is to find something different enough to get another low-level grant that uses anything of what you spent the last year on.
Of course it would be more effective if intramural researchers got line-item funding and their management kept an eye on their productivity. Time could be spent on existing or new projects as indicated by their value. The cumbersome proposal process could be required only for large projects or proposals from outside organizations.
Do you see a practical way to transition to a line-item approach for one or more smaller trial projects? Nothing speaks louder than good results. If it could be demonstrated that what you suggest gives a way to retain what’s been gained from a project instead of basically letting it fall by the wayside, then it might get some attention in the right places. Is this possible at NASA (or at least in some centers), do you think, or is the concrete already too set to make changes?
NIH is line-item for inhouse work, proposal-based for extramural researchers, and NIH labs are quite productive.
I recently saw an article on a new development in aircraft technology, a method to attach fasteners to composite skins using out-of-autoclave laser heating. Useful and innovative! It was done with a grant from …. NSF!! The people who supposedly don’t do anything practical!
The central problem with NASA technology development is that anything you propose has to be essential to the “NASA mission” which is arbitrary and limited. Then if it has a practical application we call it “free” spinoff that justifies the huge cost of the “NASA mission”. We should be asking industry what they need to make the US more competitive, to generate commercial products, high-tech jobs, and value-added exports, not as an unintended byproduct of human spaceflight, but as a primary NASA mission.
vulture4,
So, once again, it seems, based on what you’re saying, that it’s NASA’s totally mission-based thinking that’s at the heart of the problem.
I see NASA’s thinking as “mission-based” in two different ways: first is that everything funded must fall within the work breakdown structure of a specific mission, otherwise it is discretionary spending, and discretionary projects seem to get one shot to prove themselves as world-changers or they’re not given any further funding. The second aspect of mission-based thinking relates to the NASA mission statement (which we seem to be calling Vision this month). But since the NASA mission statement is not particularly concise, different interpretations of it at different times seem to contribute to sudden changes of “direction” every so often, leading to a lack of consistency over time.
There seems to be very little room (or money) in the system for any activity that doesn’t directly support a specific mission, or to a lesser extent the mission statement (which accounts for promoting STEM, doing web sites, PAO, and the like).
If mission-based thinking is actually the culprit in all of this, then my question is: which approach is less daunting, trying to change this cultural shortcoming, or trying to find/create processes for getting around it without actually breaking the rules? It seems to me that wither one is going to meet with stiff opposition from those people who never want to see things change.
Steve
vulture4’s comment below is a key:
“We should be asking industry what they need to make the US more competitive, to generate commercial products, high-tech jobs, and value-added exports, not as an unintended by-product of human spaceflight, but as a primary NASA mission.”
The needed concept is pretty simple: Draw a horizontal line, put Congress and money on the left end of the line, put NASA in the middle of the line.
So, who is on the right end of the line? Let’s say that industry, commerce, people and valuable uses and outcomes are on the right end of the line.
Now ask yourself, of the activities that NASA pursues, the missions, how do the outcomes of their missions satisfy the needs and demands of those on the right hand side?
If for instance, NASA chooses to pursue an asteroid for mining metals, or say the moon, does it provide a solution for the metals and mining industry here on Earth? Does NASA have mining expertise or does it have decades of close connection with the world mining industries? Is there a business linkage between NASA and the top five mining firms in the World? Would NASA be responding to a need coming from those on the right end of the line? If not, then NASA’s position at the line midpoint goes nowhere.
To be effective, to be of use or to have worth, NASA must have fundamental and useful connections to productive firms and entities on the right end of the line. And I don’t mean connection to someone on the right that has a hobby or wild idea or fixation, nor a group that has no money, nor a group that has no productive result or that simply wants to play or study or write a paper that has no clear value.
The above comes with a warning too. With NASA, or any agency, connecting to industry can be similar to walking through a field full of landmines. Because whenever a multi-billion dollar agency, taxpayer funded, creates millions or billions of dollars worth of technology, if it acts to move that valuable technology out into the private sector, it is very difficult to avoid moving it out fairly, to move it out without giving it to a favorite or selected group, resulting in the group’s biased advantage. And while laws attempted to guide and regulate that, there are a 1000 ways to avoid a 1000 laws, whether by intent or innocent action.
Part of the issue is that as the TRL level increases so does the budget needed to mature the technology. TRL-4 through 6 seems to be the graveyard. A center, lab, or company can incubate the TRL-1 through 3 with internal funds, but to get it to “a flight-like environment” of TRL-6 can require serious change that only a mission can provide. But, in order for the mission to exist, the technology has to be mature enough for the proposal to have been won. And for the proposal to have been won, it sure helps if it’s TRL-6! It’s almost a Catch-22. Hopefully part of what the new Directorate can work on is a way to move technology that isn’t tied to a specific mission through the middle TRLs. I think the OCT has made strides in this with its various challenges and current program direction, but a Directorate can give move weight to this area (and hopefully more budget! 🙂
spacer1966,
Thank you for this comment. It presents the situation clearly and completely, and makes it obvious why new and “unattached” projects can’t survive past a certain point, regardless of their individual merits.
You say it’s “almost” a Catch-22. It sounds like complete Catch-22 to me.
Do you think that the creation of the STMD will possibly help correct, or at least get around, this problem?
Steve
There is also a matter of risk allocation: a proposed mission has a certain amount of risk in the proposal (otherwise, you’re just redoing something already done). Do you put that risk into the science measurement, or into infrastructure like power or telecom? Most PIs (and proposal review boards) would rather have the science be risky, than the platform on which it’s carried. Whatever the limitations of off the shelf infrastructure, the PI will work within it, rather than spend risk/budget/schedule on it.
Steve,
I have no idea. 🙂 I sure hope so! From one standpoint, I could see that having an Directorate devoted to technology will get a more permanent seat at the table. On the other hand, I can’t deny that this may lead to more bureaucracy. It will be interesting to see how it turns out!
jimlux, I agree 100%. The PI and review board would prefer the risk not be in the spacecraft.
Vulture,
You make a good point here. Some NASA technologies can tend to get stuck in the TRL1 to TRL3 swirl. Papers fall out of the back end of the effort at TRL3 and then nothing happens. There is no money to move from TRL3 to TRL9. The valley of death prevails.
At other times, great technology things do happen and they move to TRL9, prove they can land on a planet and take a million pictures, and then that’s done and they go back for another $10 billion to do a different technology thing.
Typically, entities like OCT and STMD have charters that say “Go forth and develop new technologies.” But that’s it. They are exempt from any mandate to integrate them into some greater purpose yielding value and utility.
NSF is my favorite example. They chant “We only do pure research! We are fully exempt from any applied use and have no requirement to show our research has value.” Wow! They have an accountability-exemption that researchers can only dream of. (Don’t get me wrong. I think NSF is cute and fun, and if you are a money-rich nation – which we used to be, that’s all good.)
Maybe more to the central issue here:
Above, spacer1966 points to NASA’s Technology Roadmaps. Lots of details in those roadmaps. But they have a profound flaw. No matter how robust or huge or complex or beefy the technologies are, that “technology” sits within a larger national and economic universe. Of course, many of the techno-centric folks are content to remain myopic and remain within their techno bounds – trying hard to not think of the grander scheme of the nation, economy, or why the technology effort is or isn’t justified. (they prefer the mindset of: built it and they will come. b.s.)
For technology to be effective, it must be incorporated fully into the financial and economic sphere and into the domains of business and commerce. So where do you see that in the plans? See a business plan anywhere?
Isolated, “technology” inventing a “golden hammer” or a magic wand or the holy grail, but not integrated into the business and economic fabric of the world, is useless.
NASA will always be faced with the unsolved problem of “proving its worth” until the day it can tie its technology advancements and innovations and missions to outcomes that are of obvious value to the nation. That’s why it’s budget is ‘stuck’ at a pathetic $18 billion a year, when it should be at $36+ billion a year.
npng,
It would appear then, based on what you’re saying, that the TRL3 roadblock is yet another NASA dysfunction resulting from totally mission-based thinking (one of many).
We all know the good feeling that comes from being part of a team that’s working on a successful program or project. It seems that perhaps at NASA, in order to perpetuate and maintain that good feeling, they have developed a “Long Live the Mission” attitude, and most everything else is subservient to maintaining that good feeling. If so, I doubt that it’s actually conscious with most people, but rather a set of cultural habits. This seems like something that, if it’s happening, would be extremely hard to change, because first you’d have to convince people that it’s happening, and then you’d have to convince them to give up the personally satisfying approach in exchange for facilitating “the greater good.” An uphill battle.
If any of this is actually happening, then I think it would be a lot easier to find/create a process detour around the TRL3 roadblock instead of trying to revise entrenched cultural habits.