CASIS Review Report To NASA (Update)
The final report is expected in the next few weeks, and NASA anticipates making the report public no earlier than early February.
— Thomas Zurbuchen (@Dr_ThomasZ) January 10, 2020
Keith’s note: Update and clarification: I’ve had multiple reports inside the NASA/CASIS community that the final report has been delivered. That is not exactly accurate. In fact, an out briefing on the final results has been made to NASA but the actual, formal document is still in preparation – as noted in these tweets today from SMD AA Thomas Zurbuchen.
Keith’s earlier note: The final report of the CASIS review panel has been delivered to NASA. It is not expected that we’ll hear anything from NASA until the end of the month or the beginning of February. CASIS has been in stand down or “strategic pause” since this review committee was initiated. The CEO has been on leave ever since and several other senior staff have been reassigned. The acting CEO has kept the organization running smoothly in the interim – and both the review team and NASA have noticed this relative improvement.
The review has seen and highlighted the strengths (and there are many) among the folks at CASIS who do the real work. They have also documented all of the needless “drama” (a word commonly used in the review) associated with the prior management team. One would hope that the CASIS review team recommends that NASA continue with what works at CASIS and strives make it and its relationship with CASIS better while ejecting the people and things that hinder or undermine CASIS as it accomplishes its tasks.
The review panel has found many things at CASIS that are broken that are the fault of CASIS management. But they have also found that NASA was an absentee landlord and neglected to provide appropriate oversight of this activity. Without a healthy two-way relationship, NASA and CASIS failed to make the most of the relationship. That needs to change. NASA and CASIS need to redefine what CASIS is and is not expected to do, what NASA is and is not expected to do, how NASA and CASIS can better communicate and coordinate, and how they can both work together in synergy as a team – not as dysfunctional competitors.
The International Space Station is too vital a national – indeed a global – asset to waste. It has only begin to prove its value.
– NASA Orders A Review Of CASIS (Update), earlier post
– Former CASIS Employee Indicted For Charging For Prostitutes on Travel Reports, earlier post
– CASIS Quarterly Reports To NASA Are Now Online at NASAWatch, earlier post
– Previous CASIS postings
Very unfortunate that so many were placed into management at CASIS who should have had no role-they had no legitimate and applicable experience. So too that the NASA people provided no supervision, guidance or support, of course you had people at Headquarters and JSC who had as much legitimate and applicable experience to guide CASIS as the CASIS people themselves-none at all. Read some of the stories of how a Program Manager selected people for oversight and management of CASIS and commercialization and the people themselves said they had no idea why they were selected because they had no knowledge that would provide the basis of capable guidance. You really have to wonder what happened to NASA and ISS management over the last 15 years. They were absent.
When you think about how much ISS cost, the waste of resources thanks to these clueless NASA managers is just astounding; just an enormous opportunity cost.