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.
Commercialization

Does CASIS Know What It Is Doing?

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
May 16, 2012
Filed under , , ,

Grading CASIS On its ISS National Laboratory Performance Thus Far
“Clearly the clock is ticking. Given CASIS’ chronic tardiness and lack of performance thus far, by the end of June NASA and Congress will either know a lot more about what CASIS has been doing and plans to do with the ISS – or they’ll be asking if it is time to pull the plug on this half-hearted management experiment and try again. Meanwhile, this amazing facility orbits overhead while its return on investment diminishes with every single day that it continues to be underutilized.”

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

23 responses to “Does CASIS Know What It Is Doing?”

  1. Jerry_Browner says:
    0
    0

    Why would anyone have ever thought that CASIS would be successful especially within a matter of months, or even within years? CASIS had essentially no one who knew what was required. They had a host, in the form of their NASA counterparts, who had not been able to get their act together. It hadn’t happened in the last five years or in the last 25. On the NASA side its mainly been a game of musical chairs with largely the same people coming and going and going and coming. On the CASIS side, besides being neophytes in this area, they are far from where the action is or needs to be.

    Yes, its a $100 billion+ shame that the ISS goes to waste  but unless some of the people in charge start getting replaced with success the price for making ISS work for America, nothing is going to change.

  2. Anonymous says:
    0
    0

    This monomaniacal focus on microgravity is a dead end without a LOT more money.  It looks to me that they are picking over the dead bones of previous experiments just so that they can get something to fly.

    There were a lot of experiments for new activities in the 1990’s that were in the pipeline but that did not get funded that could be very attractive.  The problem is that the robust microgravity research community that was around back then has been destroyed and it will take a LOT of time and effort to get it reestablished.  I don’t really see anyone on the CASIS team that was a player back then or who knows what was going on and who to go to in order to pick the low hanging fruit for future efforts.

    The bottom line is that we are spending several billion dollars per year for operations and a rounding error for utilization.  Until this is fixed, CASIS nor NASA can make any progress.  

    This is especially the case in that other NASA centers for the most part don’t want anything to do with human spaceflight…

    Ironic isn’t it.

    • kcowing says:
      0
      0

      Not only are they picking over the bones, so to speak, they don’t even bother to pick over the entire skeleton – or utilize multiple reports that have examined all of this multiple times every few years for the past several decades.  Inexorably these reports said that much of the science was doable and had potential – – if and only if NASA reduced the cost of launching something into space; clarifying exactly what those costs were in terms of hardware, safety, payload integration, and ops; what the timeline was from start of project to completion of project;  and simplified the process such that a marching army was not required every time a simple little experiment was to be flown.

      • npng says:
        0
        0

        Unfortunately it’s worse than just partial bone-picking.  When an organization behaves in a powerfully isolationistic way and avoids integrating with those who are truly experts, they create a highly adversarial environment.   There have been a few fast-track exceptions but, for the most part, process rules are excessively burdening and impede progress.  Business rules are undefined and go unenforced from flaccid leadership and the global result is lose-lose-lose.

  3. 2814graham says:
    0
    0

    I’m not quite certain why we are going after CASSIS. Sure, they haven’t done the job, but who selected them? And you have JSC people, many of them the current high ranking ISS managers, managing the whole payloads process since the inception of ISS in 93. If you want to hold someone accountable….

    • kcowing says:
      0
      0

      Oh I agree – picking CASIS was NASA’s decision – and there were many factions within NASA that did not want this to happen.  Congress pushed NASA relentlessly to do this and then put it into law so they had not choice but to do so. Then, Congress continued to meddle in the background before and after the decision was made. They are still meddling as we speak.

    • npng says:
      0
      0

      graham,

      Everyone that’s in-the-know has known for years that at JSC Mary Beth Edeen, add Julie Robinson. have had the payload process, science and ISS use underway and maturing for years.  A key impediment that limits them is that they are .gov people.  As civil servants they have fundamental restrictions what they can do with respect to marketing, engaging the private sector, and certainly in the areas of raising capital and handling patents and intellectual property tied to commercial activities on the ISS.   They have a range of execution authority they perform in very well.  But they are handicapped by regulations and law too.  That’s certainly part of the good reasoning that led to the formation of a non-profit, a .org, one that had the regulatory and legal freedoms to handle the above beyond .gov scope actions.

      You say “Sure, they [CASIS] haven’t done the job, …”  Hell. CASIS has been so isolationistic, how could anyone possibly know if they did the job or not?  The website static, no-shows at meetings, non-engagement of PIs, searing resignations, and more.  They have alienated many key users and groups in the past 10 months and that alienation comes at a point in time when CASIS should desperately be looking for allies and outside expertise, not intensifying their alienations. Today, CASIS is its own worst enemy and they need to look in the mirror and realize that. 

      Becker did the cut-and-run.  Now Royston is in command.  Royston will either do the right thing and have CASIS perform exactly as CASIS represented in their proposal, or they will be subject to being thrown in to a legal and performance wood chipper.  Royston is the Executive Director. He has the authority to act and has CASIS’s fate is in his hands.  Jim isn’t going to find shelter hiding behind Space Florida or NASA or Congress or walls of attorneys (although $800/hr attorneys would drool at that opportunity).  He has the opportunity to either be a hero or to be branded as the commander-in-chief of a disaster.  His life, career, the jobs of others, the fate of CASIS, the use of a $100B ISS, the years of work by PIs and researchers, decades of work by aero contractors, the reputation of NASA, and the actions of Congress and the Administration, all hang in the balance, on one man.  Jim.  So ideally we should be supporting and praying for CASIS and hoping that Jim does the right thing.

      • Jerry_Browner says:
        0
        0

        I think you are making excuses. What are the backgrounds of these individuals and did they have a mature understanding of how to interest outside industries in use of ISS ? NASA has 40 years of experience at this. Did these individuals have some experience at it, or were the individuals doing the maturing after being thrown into a function they knew nothing about? ISS payloads has been around for a quarter century. We knew how to do this work in prior programs and had gotten pretty good at it. It was not a 3-5 year convoluted process. What is the ISS program’s excuse for throwing all that knowledge away and trying to reinvent the wheel?  What government regulations  preclude NASA or its hundreds of contractor personnel  from researching the industries, universities and companies that might find a use for ISS research, and then to approach them whether in large groups through conferences or individually through approach identified key management in those other industries? I can tell you it was done routinely and frequently in prior programs, by people at the field centers and HQ, and out of that came JEAs, SAAs, CCDSs, and many payloads. I am aware of the ‘user conferences’ held in close proximity to JSC and Ames space centers and drawing large crowds of NASA contractors all eager to fill their coffers with money from NASA, but how many times did these individuals take the story to other industries to tell them about new opportunities? Maybe they did this and I’m unaware of it? You are saying that because of government regulations they couldnt do this! Bullsh t!! Show me what regulations preclude NASA from educating people about the facilities and capabilities. ISS should have been getting ready for utilization for decades. All these organizations were well emplaced with hundreds of people. Edeen and Robinson are recent additions. If someone was trying and they failed then that is a lesson. If they did not try, did not make the effort, did not know what they were doing because they had no prior experience in these areas, had the opportunity to gain the knowledge from prior programs and instead threw it all away, then the people responsible have wasted $$billions, critical time, and a space program.

        • npng says:
          0
          0

          Jerry, you’re right, I was moving in to the “making excuses” zone.  I’d like to think I was trying to cut-some-major-slack for these folks, but in your cold light of day assessment I suppose most of it wound up in excuse-ville.

          And I agree, people at all of the ‘user conferences’ had and have many opportunities – but at best I think the activities have largely been relegated to ‘evangelizing’ or having those wretched outreach discussions. 

          With respect to fed regulations and your reaction of “Bullsh t”!!, I still don’t see how .gov civil servants can raise private capital, and that is a necessary component of PI, researcher and utilization activity. Over and over again, most all of the researchers need funding for ground science prep and to cover integration costs, whether that is $100k or $1M, it’s necessary and it’s something .gov is unable to provide.  They can provide the ISS and ways to get there, but not the other funding.

          There is no question that many billions have been wasted – ask anyone in this industry in gov or edu or org or com and they will surely agree.   Everyone is exempt from accountability for the billions wasted daily, it’s just another day in Washington D.C.   

          • Jerry_Browner says:
            0
            0

             “.gov civil servants can’t raise private capital, and that is a necessary
            component of PI, researcher and utilization activity. Over and over
            again, most all of the researchers need funding for ground science prep
            and to cover integration costs”

            I think you must be confused. The idea is to find companies who want to do research on the ISS. they will have their own reasons. Companies have R&D budgets. The bigger ones spend a lot of money. They might be non-applied science, in which they are simply trying to understand physical processes or capabilities, or they might be applied in which case they would be manufacturing something specific.  The companies cover the costs of their design and development.

            Universities have professors and grad students that want to do research because that is what they do and that is what many companies will pay for through grants and other mechanisms.

            NASA already has a huge infrastructure of integrators, operators and safety overseers. The organization to perform these functions is as large now as it ever has been and the people have far less to do since there is not a lot of Shuttle activity or ISS assembly operations.

            The company covers its costs of development and works to specified standards for safety, interfaces, etc. All of these need to be laid out properly. The time for review and approval needs to be short. The big challenges for ISS is that their standards and processes are not well defined, there are too many organizational convolutes between payload integration, mission integration, operations integration, and safety. This is what should have been fixed a long time ago. The costs of all of these overlapping organizations is wasted government money and time; time drives the company’s money and it drives disinterest because no one wants to enter into a five year effort during which government changes will, based on past performance, mean the company will not be able to rely upon any agreements. Universities do not want five year long efforts during which nothing happens until the end. Their grad students are usually on 2-3 year schedules.

            If, as you indicate, NASA wants reimbursement for their poor integration effort, then that leads us to where we are today. 

            If NASA puts people who have no payloads experience, or no integration experience, none of the other knowledge of the processes and shortfalls, in charge of fixing the system, that is why they cannot figure out what to do and why the system does not get fixed.

             

        • npng says:
          0
          0

          Jerry,

          On your comment below:

          “The idea is to find companies who want to do research on the ISS. they will have their own reasons. Companies have R&D budgets. The bigger ones spend a lot of money. They might be non-applied science, in which they are simply trying to understand physical processes or capabilities, or they might be applied in which case they would be manufacturing something specific. The companies cover the costs of their design and development.”

          If you knew that a dozen people spent 9 months contacting and briefing the VPs of R&D at 400 U.S. Fortune 500 firms that do everything from bioscience to pharmaceuticals to imaging to materials and physics to see if they’d be interested in doing science, development and R&D research on the ISS, would you be surprised?  Most of them are really busy and focused and wouldn’t give someone the time of day unless they knew the calling party was really significant.  Care to guess what 95+% of the responses were?  You say they spend a lot of money – yeah, on ground based things in their own labs.  Asking the question is a bit like asking “Are you interested in doing your research work on the tippy top of Mount Everest?  There are a lot of impediments to just getting there.

          I have a suggestion.  Take a day.  Call 10 or 20 of the top VPs of R&D in the Fortune 50.  Go for the corporate Goliaths.  Go for any of them.  Ask them if they’d be interested in some R&D on the ISS.  Take notes.  Report back here and tell us what they said.  Oh, and these folks are nobody to fool around with, so I suggest you be locked-and-loaded with solid reasons they should be interested, if you dare to make the calls.  People of the VP R&D ilk are not into toying in space, they are in to heavy hitting highly competitive business.

          • Jerry_Browner says:
            0
            0

            Its hard to tell from your description, were these dozen people spending 9 months real or imagined?   What were these dozen people offering?  “Your company pays NASA for NASA’s inefficient working processes, and in 3 to 5 years we promise to fly your 1 cub ft box? (assuming we have some kind of launch capacity in place because we can’t guarantee it)”. Make sure your box is fully automated since our astronauts have little time for science?   What exactly were they presenting? I know that in the early Shuttle era we had a roadshow with a 30 min executive level summary, and more detailed systems summaries showing every potential interface. I have not seen such a set of presentations or knowledgeable people for ISS. So far the ISS program has not figured out they have the problems to fix so its not much of a sales pitch.    Yes, if you pinpoint the individuals who might have an interest, and you approach them with a proposal that lines up with their interests, in most cases they would not turn NASA away.

        • anirprof says:
          0
          0

           >large groups through conferences

          Well, as one small and emerging regulatory issue, the new rules coming out of OMB due to the GSA scandal are going to make it incredibly difficult for agencies to put on conferences (or to pay contractors to put on conferences for them).  That’s obviously not at issue in past NASA performance but it is something that is going to make people’s lives much harder doing the kind of outreach you’re suggesting.

      • Littrow says:
        0
        0

        npng; It is difficult to understand your perspective.

        For several days you’ve
        been saying we need to identify specifically who is at fault. Earlier
        in this post you proceed to list a bunch of DC and Headquarters people all of
        whom are ‘guilty’. You identify the CASIS people, all of whom are ‘guilty’. But suddenly you seem to be saying don’t blame these
        new young kids from JSC who are after all are doing their best to “mature the system”.

        The Headquarters people try to set policy but have few resources to implement anything. The entire office focused on ISS is no more than a dozen people.

        The CASIS people for some reason were selected to do a job and obviously have not figured out just what that job is or how to go about doing it. Is CASIS’ contract with Headquarters or with JSC?

        The people with all of the resources, which includes billions of dollars and thousands of people, are at JSC. They alone are responsible for implementation. If something is not happening, they are the people who need to fix it. If these are new young kids at JSC, as you seem to imply, why? JSC has been managing payloads and payload integration on manned space missions for decades. They have a lot of competent experienced people available. Why after a quarter century are they just now trying to “mature the system”?

        This is a hundred billion dollar program that deserves the best, most competent, most experienced people and most effective processes you could find. So why put new young kids in charge of trying to reinvent a system that should have been in place long ago?

  4. npng says:
    0
    0

    CASISWatch

    When football fans watched the Giants and the Patriots play in Super Bowl XLVI were they ignorant of who the players were?  Of course not.  They knew them name by name and knew every play they ran right and ran wrong throughout the game.   Those in the bleachers make better and more informed viewers and fans if they know exactly who the players are and how they perform.  So as with the opening ceremonies before Super Bowl kickoff, we should give those ‘on the field’ in the CASIS / NASA game the same recognition and visibility:

    Currently quarterbacking for CASIS is James D. (Jim) Royston, Executive Director. CASIS’s owner (Board Chairman) is Frank A. DiBello, also Chairman of Space Florida. Head of CASIS Communications is Robert “Bobby” Block. Carrie Chess handles Legislative Affairs and Washington D.C. Martin (Marty) Monaco heads legal at Duane Morris for CASIS. The CASIS line up also includes Brian Harris, Director of Marketplace Development for CASIS and  Duane Ratliff Director of Operations for
    CASIS;  Dr. Timothy Yeatman, Chief Scientist and Alan Stern, Advisor.

    Quarterbacking for NASA-HQ  as AA for HEOMD is William H. (Bill)
    Gerstenmaier.   NASA’s Players include  Michael T. Suffredini , ISS Program Director;  John P. Shannon DAA for Exploration Planning;  supporting players Brad Carpenter, Acting Director, HEOMD, SLPSRA (Space Life and Physical Sciences Research and Applications division).  Key players also include Waleed Abdalati Ph.D., Chief Scientist, NASA-HQ;   Teresa Fryberger, Associate Chief Scientist NASA- HQ;  Mary Beth Edeen, U.S. National Laboratory Manager, NASA-JSC and Eve Lyons, Office of General Counsel, NASA-HQ along with a string of additional 9th Floor NASA attorneys. 

    Sponsors and Referees include Congress and the Executive Offices of the President (OSTP and OMB), the IG, the GAO.  A number of private sector law firms may join the game soon.  The First Line Sponsor is William H. Gerstenmaier on behalf of NASA. The Second Tier sponsors and referees include:  Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX);  Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL);  Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV);  staffers Dick Obermann (D), Ann Zulkosky (D), Jean Toal Eisen (D) and Jeff Bingham (R); for the White House (EOP) – Paul Shawcross, OMB; and Damon Wells for OSTP (no longer at OSTP), Rebecca Sharek for the IG and Cristina Chaplain, Director for the GAO.

    • kcowing says:
      0
      0

      Totally inappropriate analogy since football has published rules that everyone has to follow.

      • npng says:
        0
        0

        You’re probably referring to the NFL Rules Keith.  I was referring to the CASIS / NASA Rules and my guess is that neither you nor anyone else has that rule book.  If you do have a copy, please post them here. 

        • kcowing says:
          0
          0

          A NASA rule book? Oh they don’t write that stuff down. OGC and OIG would then ask to see it.

  5. SkyKing_rocketmail says:
    0
    0

    NASA managers are held to a lower standard: best effort. They don’t have to be successful. In the case of payloads for ISS, it seems like they were not even playing the game.

  6. npng says:
    0
    0

    Would anyone here be interested in a completely separate entity, self-funded, full-up professional organization that would pursue commercial R&D, research, discovery in space, on-orbit and beyond, with strong applications, value-added and product outcomes?   With or without the ISS.  Successful, whether done with NASA or completely independent of NASA. 

    An organization that included the U.S.’s top, best-of-breed, world-class researchers and whose credentials and abilities were fully visible and clearly vetted?  An organization that would had the ability to handle the scope of and be powerfully connected to all markets – bio, pharma, materials, physics, nano, robo, physics, imaging, mining, and energy – openly, with a strong integrating abilities U.S. wide?  An organization that didn’t burden you with business and finance problems, but instead solved them for you and with you?   An organization that had high trust, seasoned, accomplished leaders who have a demonstrated track record that is fully visible, no-nonsense, fair, fast, and capable?  Not an organization interested in working with the fringe or the wild-eye crazy, but an organization with the charter and aim of driving space utilization to a new, powerful, and sustained level, with you.

    Granted, most of the readership here is space and NASA-centric and focuses more on transportation and operations.  And NASA Watch does not reach many “other market” industries and end-user domains; so these questions are directed more at the Fortune 100 VP’s of R&D, CEOs, Technology Directors and innovators in all of the aforementioned market domains. 

    Hit “Like” or say “Yes”, if you would like to see such an entity existing and thriving here in the U.S.

    • Jerry_Browner says:
      0
      0

      A single organization that covers space research for all industries, all technologies, all sciences, and housing all the best researchers (by whose definition)?

      Here in the US we have competition in commerce and even friendly competition in Academia. Its one of the things that makes us strong, efficient and resilient. 

      Self-funded? What does that mean?

      No, what you suggest doesn’t make any sense at all.

      • npng says:
        0
        0

        Perhaps you’re right Jerry.  Skip the organization idea and let anyone make-up the definitions.  The competition is great and follows the ‘thriving on chaos’ model. Surely no one would fund such an effort (re: what was meant by self-funded).  I suppose your competition comment is what makes us strong.  And from the way our country is structured today, our government works efficiently, the ISS is used in a highly effective way, NASA functions flawlessly, and our economy is strong and resilient.