Fledgling NASA Nonprofit Starts To Liftoff, NPR (Morning Edition)
“At a hearing later in March, Congressman Frank Wolf, R-Va., asked the head of NASA, Charles Bolden, what grade he would give CASIS on its progress so far. Bolden said it was too soon to tell. “I’d give them a D-plus overall,” says Keith Cowing, who runs the website NASAwatch.com. He worked for the agency in the early days of the space station program, and has been a persistent critic of CASIS. “They’re making incremental progress, but I just don’t think they’re going fast enough,” he says. “I don’t think that they’ve engaged the people who have decades of experience in doing research in space. And I’m a little frustrated that they haven’t gotten that message.”
– More Whining From CASIS: Its Not Our Fault, earlier post
– CASIS: It Takes More Than Golf to Utilize the ISS, earlier post
– CASIS & ISS National Lab: Still Ignoring Their Own Stuff, earlier post
– Wake The Kids: CASIS Has A New Logo, earlier post
Other CASIS posts
Keith’s note: It has been a week since the CASIS-cosponsored ISS utilization conference in Denver. Nothing has been put online by CASIS in terms of presentations, videos, written summaries. Nothing. Alas, in this interview, CASIS representatives once again proclaim that “CASIS has to succeed” yet they seem to be going out of their way to help it fail by continuing to avoid explaining what it does outside of a very small constituency.
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/…
Fledgling NASA Nonprofit Starts To Lift Off
by NELL GREENFIELDBOYCEI think what they missed was that CASIS has been underway for a year and has not really gotten started. They also missed that ISS has been underway for more than a quarter century and is just now turning its attention to how it might be used for its originally conceived purpose.
I’m happy that the ISS Program has come to the realization that utilization is their mission and they need to make it happen. Its like a 180 degree shift of priorities in the last couple of months. Maybe they came to the realization that without it, there is really little going on in NASA’s HSF program for many years. They could afford to put some priority on it. The shame is they did not start on it 5 years ago, in order to move the utilization curve up by the time assembly was complete. Even CASIS seems to be moving in a positive direction. Maybe they can pull it together?
Dear Nell,
You were spoon-fed exactly what people wanted you to say and in that respect you did a great job.
It would be interesting to know the specific individual in CASIS that invented the “Space Is In It” seal and phrase. It’s catchy. I like it.