Space Golf Update: NASA Inspector General Has Noticed That CASIS is a Flop
NASA OIG: Extending the Operational Life of the International Space Station Until 2024
“In addition, while utilization of the ISS for research continues to increase, NASA and its partner responsible for attracting private research to the Station — the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) — continue to face challenges. For example, to date CASIS has raised only $14,550 in cash and received pledges of $8.2 million to supplement NASA’s $15 million annual cooperative agreement. In addition, CASIS officials reported that provisions in its agreement with NASA that require researchers to assign certain patent licenses and data rights to the Government are deterring commercial stakeholders from conducting research on the ISS. “
A better golf club? Space may play a role in that., Florida Today
“This is not research on a golf club,” said Duane Ratliff, CASIS chief operating officer. “This is industrial research and development on materials that is clearly targeted for the improvement of products that will go to the marketplace. … Ratliff likely spoke for most of them when he joked, “Honestly, I’m hoping that whatever comes out of this will straighten out my slice.”
CASIS and COBRA PUMA GOLF Team Up For Commercial Research Investigation On ISS, CASIS
“Through this investigation, the research and design team at COBRA PUMA GOLF hopes to gain a better understanding of certain material characteristics that can be used to create some of the most innovative and technologically advanced golf products in the market.”
Keith’s note: OK Duane – if this is not “golf club” research, then what other “golf products” are you doing research on? Why hasn’t the past 2 years of CASIS-sponsored golf research on ISS yielded any published results or status reports from CASIS? As for your attempts to downplay the golfing aspect of what you are doing – your logo for these payloads clearly emphasizes golf over everything else.
As for the IG’s report, “$14,550 in cash”? I have to wonder what a “pledge” actually entails – obviously not much in terms of actual cash. CASIS is clearly falling well short of where NASA – and everyone else – expected CASIS to be at this point.
Baseball raffles and golf-themed co-branding do not a vibrant ISS research program make.
– CASIS Announces Baseball Raffle in Space, earlier post
– CASIS Would Rather Go Golfing Than Do Actual ISS Research, earlier post
$14,550? And by ‘to-date’ may I assume that’s in the 2-3 years it has been in operation? That’s beyond sad.
I agree the choice of CASIS over USRA was political and not based on their capabilities at the time, in which USRA was clearly superior. However, since then several members of what was once a very capable KSC life science payload organization have migrated to CASIS and the organization now has over 100 payloads in the pipeline. Not all are going to be of value, but CASIS has issued a solicitation for Earth observation payloads for ISS, an area NASA sorely neglected amid organizational bickering over whether the Earth can be observed from something other than a sun-synchronous orbit. I would like to suggest you consider the entire payload manifest, not just the bloopers.
If you wish you could occasionally spotlight valuable payload proposals that have been overlooked by NASA, such as an excellent plan to assemble and test medium-aperture astronomical telescopes there.
Another problem is little money for outside investigators to develop valuable science payloads. Most of the effort has to be on the ground. It’s when we are pressured to “fly or die” that packages go up that are not scientifically meaningful. One thing CASIS does not do is create the payloads. It’s just the pipeline. Outside investigators, particularly those with new ideas, need resources to fill the pipeline with something more meaningful than golf balls.