Possible Lawsuit Will Damage Our Ability To Use The International Space Station
Keith’s note: Sources report that ProOrbis is considering taking formal legal action against the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS). It is expected that this will be made public in the very near future. The specifics of this possible lawsuit are unclear. But it would beinstructive to recall that when Jeanne Becker, the first Executive Director of CASIS resigned, she said:
“Unrealistic expectations have been levied collectively by Congressional staffers, by NASA (Mr. Uhran) and by ProOrbis. These pressures have placed unnecessary stress and hardship on CASIS, not only organizationally butalso on management, forcing a defensive posture with constant focus on mitigation strategies to fend off political threats of the elimination of CASIS. … Now, for unknown reasons, following selection of that proposal andstand up of the organization, the Space Florida interim board persists in pursuing engagement of ProOrbis on behalf of CASIS, with CASIS management forced to bear the responsibility of mitigating ensuing organizationalrisks occurring as a result of the interim board’s actions.”
To which ProOrbis responded
“However, since taking on this role, [Dr. Becker] has not engaged ProOrbis in the stand-up activities of CASIS as was contemplated. Issues of conflict of interest for all the principal parties were satisfactorily addressed inthe Cooperative Agreement and provisions were put in place to mitigate any potential conflicts.”
Jeanne DiFrancesco from ProOrbis developed a significant portion of the procurement package for NASA’s ISS National Laboratory non-profit partner: the National Laboratory Reference Model. Oddly, DiFrancesco andProOrbis ended up as a major part of the winning team’s bid (CASIS). How is it that a contractor that NASA specifically uses to write part of a solicitation is then allowed to bid for – and win – the contract awarded inresponse to the very same procurement they helped craft?
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has already been asked to look into this. The NASA Office of Inspector General (OIG) and Office of General Counsel (OGC) are also looking into this as are several congressional offices.
So here’s the picture to contemplate: While the International Space Station orbits overhead, complete after two decades and ready for us to use it, we collectively fumble the process of tapping its great potential back onEarth. Lawsuits and investigations by GAO, OIG, OGC and others will inevitably hobble whatever progress CASIS would have otherwise made – just as CASIS was starting to make visible steps toward getting itself ready to do the important tasks that it has been assigned.
Net result: Lawyers and accountants will kill the usefulness of the International Space Station – for all of us.
Earlier posts on CASIS
One problem is congressional expectations that CASIS will get millions in private investment and produce billion-dollar miracle drugs with ISS tomorrow. The CASIS web page does nothing to disillusion them with its emphasis on intellectual property and industrial partnerships.
In reality the pharmaceutical industry has no interest in space unless someone pays them to fly an experiment. Usually this ends up being the taxpayers through a complex funding arrangement, even if the experiment is called “commercial”. The industry is not uninformed, just realistic.
ISS could be really useful for earth observation. How much of the weather satellite debacle could have been avoided if prototype sensors had been stuck on the ISS truss years ago? Even a variety of astronomical observations could be made with small telescopes mounted on the truss and controlled from earth. Yes, the environment has occasional contamination, but we would have a lot of research that we cannot currently do at all.
Which all have to be shipped up and bolted from earth, so by the time you clear the safety and other ISS committees, you’d be better of simply launching a free flyer satellite…
Point taken; but free flyers aren’t cheap to launch either. Simpler interface definition could make it easier to meet ISS requirements, as with the interior express racks. Shipping cost is reduced if there are periodic logistic flights. Where our administrative procedures are creating unneeded cost we need to change them. Having crew available can make mods, updates and maintenance easier.
See, this is where I get annoyed. NASA spent billions learning how to build a space station. Okay, they did it wrong, starting out trying to build the biggest station, then whittling it back in the face of reality (rather than starting small and building larger stations as they learnt more.) But nonetheless, like the shuttle before it, against the odds and working ass-backwards, they actually built it. And then having gained that knowledge, nothing. Just like the shuttle.
Where’s the follow up? Where’s the use of the knowledge gained and the tools developed?
For example, there are things that it’d be cool to do at the ISS, but you can’t because… vibration, contamination, safety, whatever. So why isn’t there an unmanned experimental facility based on ISS? ISS truss, ISS solar panels, ISS power & comms, MDA robo-arm, etc. Preferably in an easier to reach orbit.
For projects that would benefit from an existing platform, power & comms, but can’t be done on ISS. And for prototyping new systems that might be added to ISS in the future.
The same framework would make for an interesting new way of doing multi-national space probes, assembled in space rather than in a clean on Earth restricted by the payload (and payload diameter) of a single launch vehicle. Imagine instead of JWST, a 50m wide telescope array, multiple 1-2m mirrors, ISS-like truss/panels/comms plus an ion-drive, assembled and tested in LEO for a year or so before being sent to ESL2.
You don’t preserve knowledge by not firing people. You preserve knowledge by working it, having the new guys learn at the feet of the old guys, watching them work on the next project, then going out and working on their own while a new generation apprentices under them.
“they did it wrong, starting out trying to build the biggest station, then whittling it back”
In the mid 70s NASA did a study that identified that a small station would be useful but not a large one; a large one would be too costly to build, maintain or operate.
“they actually built it. And then having gained that knowledge, nothing”
I think its an organizational thing. Human space is not set up as a learning organization. It is on a mission: design it, build it…this time with ISS the design and build were in a prior generation. The current organization only knows assembly ops. In fact it seemed to lose interest in designing and building in the last century when we started outsourcing the US hardware to other international partners. Utilization is something that was done in other programs but the current crop of ISS people never let the earlier knowledge in.
“there are things that it’d be cool to do at the ISS, but you can’t because… vibration, contamination, safety”
No, plenty of things that can be done but you have to have thought about what to do, how to do it, make it an efficient integration process, accommodate the challenges; mentor and sponsor the people who want to do the job. Too often in ISS the experimenter comes in and is told “you cannot do it that way; we don’t work to a reasonable integration schedule; to fly something on this station you are talking a three to five year plan”.
“why isn’t there an unmanned experimental facility based on ISS? ISS
truss, ISS solar panels, ISS power & comms, MDA robo-arm, etc.
Preferably in an easier to reach orbit.”
There are experiment location sites on the exterior of the vehicle. There are robots and facilities to accommodate them. There were plans for co-orbiting man-tended platforms and for transfer vehicles to carry payloads from ISS to other orbits. All of those plans were cancelled long ago. No one is thinking about how to expand or utilize beyond what we have today; now we have a new and different mission to go to an asteroid. We finished the assembly ops on this one.
“You preserve knowledge by working it, having the new guys learn at the feet of the old guys”
Not in ISS. In ISS you get the most inexperienced, give them a task, and see if they can figure out a way to do the job. With enough money and time eventually they’ll figure something out.
SkyKing_rocketmail,
“In the mid 70s NASA did a study that identified that a small station would be useful but not a large one; a large one would be too costly to build, maintain or operate.”
I have no objection to a large station like Freedom, just the lack of smaller stations to build up knowledge. That a small station was considered useful in its own right makes it even worse.
“Human space is not set up as a learning organization. It is on a mission:”
Those aren’t mutually exclusive. HSF in the 1960s was on a singular mission, but they still went through that learning process. Mercury and Gemini. And within that, flights to learn how to EVA, how to dock, how to train for weightlessness, etc.
And it’s no good blaming funding. Congress clearly wants to protect shuttle jobs and favourite contractors. Incremental development of shuttle technology would have done more to protect jobs than just running the first generation for 30 years.
“Where’s the follow up? Where’s the use of the knowledge gained and the tools developed?” Right on, Paul. These are the issues that have disappointed me all along. In my own mind, I use the term megaprogram — they try to go straight to the end point with the first (and only) step, instead of taking incremental steps applying the knowledge and experience gained along the way in subsequent steps. This, I believe, is one of the major contributing factors in all the of the cost and schedule overruns we’ve seen. And likewise, this knowledge and experience is typically neither applied to nor the instigator of later programs. It often shows up in the studies, but is then ignored during the strategy development and actual execution of following programs (the Mars exploration teams got it right; what’s wrong with the HSF planners?). Throughout 30+ years of Shuttle, the best that was done was putting bandaids on safety problems. The way that any program (or any business) is operated is very much a direct consequence of the expectations for that program. Your goals determine your strategy, which makes a lot of sense. However when your expectations, your goals, are not clear, or not understood, or not appropriate to the program, it all goes downhill pretty fast (i.e., nowhere quickly). I see ISS lately, under the CASIS umbrella, as being planned for the expectation of making money. But in the ISS proposal stages I saw no indications that earning income was a goal, so it was neither designed nor built to facilitate earning income. The ISS was sold to the decision makers as a facility for doing research, with the understanding that it would cost money to build, and then more money to maintain and operate, and now those same decision makers are trying to change its goals after the fact, and it’s a major mismatch. I think this change of purpose could possibly be implemented to some degree, but only after infusing considerable additional money, which no one is proposing to do, quite the opposite, actually. In the grand debate over the ISS, I’ve always argued that it’s the ideal (and currently only) place to do certain kinds of essential research which requires the environmental conditions that ISS provides, and my disappointment results from the fact that I can see no evidence that this important research has been done, or is being done, or even planned. And time is running out with ongoing talk about discontinuing the ISS (sinking it in the drink), and the “motivation” for this is, of course, money, or rather, not spending the money that was assumed by the planners and operators to be available. In short, a commitment was made and a large chunk of money was allocated to build and operate a research station in space, but now that it’s finally finished being built, the powers that be are essentially reneging on their commitment by slowly but steadily withdrawing the operating capital, leaving many experiments undone and a great many very important questions still unanswered. “having the new guys learn at the feet of the old guys” Thanks for bringing this up, Paul. It is a critical issue. Over the years, I’ve worked for and with different companies of different sizes, in several different industries, and knowledge transfer is a key to survival. I found the same thing working at IBM and Westinghouse and working in a four-man electrical shop — the younger (and new to the industry) people have to be “taught” by some means by the experienced older people. The “new” guys don’t read minds and can’t magically draw needed knowledge from those who already have it. The new guys have to be willing to learn; the old guys have to be willing to “teach”; and the company has to be willing to commit to the time and cost of facilitating the ongoing teaching/learning process, and commit to preparing relevant documentation where appropriate and archiving it for access. Failure to do this results in taking a much bigger hit when a key person retires or moves on. This hasn’t been done on the ISS (or Shuttle) program (as far as I know) and the ability to do it is eroding quickly. There are situations in operations, just like in design engineering, where it is necessary to effectively pass on the knowledge gained to the next “generation” and to newer programs. NASA has not only failed to do this, on ISS and elsewhere, but they have, for quite a while now, been force-fitting ops people into critical engineering positions; square pegs into round holes. And likewise, senior ops people have been “promoted” into managerial positions for which they are not qualified, creating all kinds of problems. All of this is well understood, and in some cases even being admitted to, at all levels, and yet the damage continues to be done. Of all the “problems” that I’ve mentioned (following in Paul’s footsteps), there isn’t a single issue that hasn’t been raised time and again, on NASA Watch and in many other places, and I don’t think there’s a single item among them that is impossible to “fix” or at least significantly improve upon. To my mind, maintenance and application of new knowledge, good and bad lessons learned, is the most immediate problem in need of “fixing.” Steve
This is partially why CASIS is DOA. Get rid of a committee that really is just in the way.
The ISS safety thing is not as big a deal as people think. The first time it is hard, after you know what you are doing it is not that big of a deal.
CASIS isn’t DOA. CASIS has Nanoracks. CASIS is doing good things and just needs time and money. The staff people there were nice.
Yes, the Nanoracks deal was a smart move. CASIS still has a long way to go but this deal was a very good first step. But CASIS needs Nanoracks and their existing capability much more than Nanoracks needs CASIS. In this instance 99.999% of the technical capability is being brought *to* CASIS – CASIS just signed an agreement but provides nothing that I can see other than TBD access to the ISS for a TBD cost on a TBD schedule facilitated by TBD staff.
Nanoracks predates CASIS.
Dennis, good comment, NanoRacks did exist before CASIS. People might ask why NASA didn’t give the CASIS effort to NanoRacks, seeing how well NanoRacks has performed already and how well they work with NASA.
CASIS was forced upon NASA by Jeff Bingham and other staffers. NASA fought it for years and then gave in. Given the slightest excuse they will start to go back to the earlier, established process of getting research on the ISS – and they will call it crew health or advanced technology or whatever words are needed to circumvent the CASIS MOA. The only way that CASIS can prevent this is to do a better job than NASA has done in explaining and marketing the ISS’s research value and potential. Since NASA can veto a lot of what CASIS does, people should not expect to see CASIS exert much independence in this regard. Even if it tries to do so CASIS simply does not have the expertise on tap to do so.
In reality the pharmaceutical industry has no interest in space unless someone pays them to fly an experiment. Usually this ends up being the taxpayers through a complex funding arrangement, even if the experiment is called “commercial”. The industry is not uninformed, just realistic.
This is incorrect. I can’t say why or who, but there are things in process even as we speak, they just have no connection with CASIS.
The reasons why pharmaceutical companies do anything has to do with the bottom line. They are not philanthropic entitites. Until/unless CASIS demonstrates that they are going to facilitate access to ISS – in a predictable, timely fashion – with all costs clearly identified up front – they are going to find few takers. Also, given the way that U.S. assets and research were parsed in order to form CASIS, NASA still has a broad range of crew health and technology topics wherein they can form research relationships outside of CASIS. The slower CASIS is, the more the probability that NASA will start to do end runs around CASIS and do things on ISS the way that NASA (not CASIS) wants them to be done.
The fact that CASIS did not hit the ground running and put up a simple concise website that explains things speaks volumes. Why is it taking so long to put together simple panels of experts? I used to assemble peer review panels of experts for NASA in a matter of days. So have others. Why is CASIS so slow in this regard? Answer: they had zero expertise to start with and have still not gotten anything close to a critical mass of people with actual experience doing research on ISS. The clock is ticking and people at NASA are already past the head scratching phase – they now realize that a big mistake was made in choosing this team.
CASIS has taken a lot of heat over the last few months, but it’s hard miss the fact that ProOrbis seems to be at the center of the majority of the controversy. I’m not a lawyer and I certainly don’t have all of the facts of the matter, but it seems to me that ProOrbis is guilty of conflict of interest in this whole business, and now they are talking about initiating legal action. Is ProOrbis, for some reason, out to kill the National Lab program. It almost appears like they’ve decided that they can’t wring any more money out of the deal so they’re going to make sure that nobody else does either. To me, this new action is reminiscent of two children arguing and the ProOrbis child’s latest come back is, “Oh yeah?”.
From the point of view of the companies involved, it’s all simply business, but to do good business you have to care , to some extent. It don’t think ProOrbis much cares about this program past the money they can get out of it. I’d like to see them gone.
Steve
Steve, you win the yellow-journalism of the month award. You excuse yourself by claiming you’re not a lawyer and that you don’t have all the facts of the matter. Unskilled and uninformed you’ve freed yourself to cast a volley of aspersions.
You make a series of damning statements about ProOrbis: (1) that it “seems” they have a “conflict of interest” (2) that they are “talking” about “legal action” (3) they are out to “kill” the Lab (4) their aim “almost appears” to “wring more money out” and “make sure” nobody else does and that (5) they don’t “care” about anything but the money.
If someone that was unskilled and untrained and uninformed and had never met you decided to levy unfounded aspersions against you, would you consider it just and fair? If, never even meeting you, they suggested that it “seems” you treat small animals abusively or that you are out to “kill” that noisy neighbor’s dog or that your aim “almost appears” to be that you want to “rob a bank” would you consider that acceptable and not defamatory and libelous?
I’d love to see you presenting your arguments here to a federal judge, just to see how many seconds he’d put up with your veiled aspersions. It would be interesting to see you serve as a juror and during deliberations say “I certainly don’t have all of the facts of the matter, but it “seems” to me “the defendant is guilty” “.
I wonder who else here has a legal comment or ethics position, one way or the other, regarding your statements.
Wonder no more. My reaction to Mr. Whitfield? It’s his opinion. That’s what the comments are for. It’s his point of view.
You just made some accusations of your own …
What right do you have to limit Mr. Whitfield’s freedom of speech? He has a right to voice his opinion whatever it is whether you like it or not.
Mr. Cowing has more power and influence on a daily basis than all of the management in NASA and he is certainly on Mr. Spencer’s side and right too. Let Mr. Cowing and Mr. Spencer have their say and if it happens to damage other firms that’s just tough. It will help CASIS and Space Florida to take over the ISS the way they need to for Florida.
Lawyer or not, since Mr. Whitfield is a publisher he must know the libel laws and know his First Amendment rights even if he is in Canada. You should know that all of the people that know what they are doing are together. Mr. Whitfield, Mr. Cowing, and many others. Since Mr. Whitfield publishes space books for everyone, they certainly must respect him: cgpublishing author bios.
They know how the space industry should be run and who should “be gone”. You certainly don’t.
I think you grossly over estimate my “power and influence” WRT NASA.
in response to Steve_Whitfield:
“Where’s the follow up? Where’s the use of the knowledge gained….”
You figured it out. At one time the experienced people were required to write lessons learned..but no one ever read them. I think they finally figured out this was a waste of people’s time so its no longer required.
…this knowledge and experience is typically neither applied to
nor the instigator of later programs…what’s
wrong with the HSF planners?
Maybe the human space folks already know what they need to know? Don’t you remember during Columbia, the deputy program manager saying that even if she knew more, what would she do with the information? She knew how to run the kind of mission she was already running.
Throughout 30+ years of Shuttle, the best
that was done was putting bandaids on safety problems.”
As much by luck as by planning, this was adequate to keep Shuttle flying. Read Wayne Hale’s recent essay on how after a massive soul-searching effort they thought they resolved the foam problem only to find on the first post Columbia mission that it recurred all over again. Is it any wonder that the problem was never fixed because the research was in adequate to find a new and different solution? They figured they had the right design but needed a ground ops workmanship solution.
ISS…is now being
planned for…making money.
Reagan’s original rationale for approving station was to enable research by US industry. Industry exists to make money. NASA’s goal was to assemble a big structure in space. Two different goals. Only recently is NASA half-heartedly trying to figure out if they missed something min the intervening 28 years. Without launch and return capacity does it matter for the time being?
Why are there not new goals, changes to the design, etc?
Because the ops folks who are in charge claim that it requires all those ops folks and many more just to maintain the status quo. The status quo is even more ops products. Though in reality its the same products and the same missions as for the last 25 years (actually far fewer). 25 years earlier there was lots of R&D and lots of ops. 25 years ago there were double the number of manned launches. Almost every flight was completely different from the one before. Is there something wrong in this picture?
“having the new guys learn at the feet of the old guys…This hasn’t been done on the ISS (or Shuttle) program…in operations, just like in design engineering,..it is
necessary to effectively pass on the knowledge gained to the next
“generation”…they have.. been
force-fitting ops people into critical engineering positions..
Think of all the experienced people who do not have an opportunity to use their experience and knowledge because they were summarily replaced. Is there any wonder that improvements will not be forthcoming?
I have been involved in a number of procurements that are associated with NASA contracts and agreements. They do the needed homework to make sure things such as COI don’t influence the selection process. The unfortunate part about this is that if you really support human space exploraion it is important that the NL Office and CASIS be successful. Lawsuits and protests only delay good people trying to work hard to meet the goals of the agency and the taxpayer. As observed in the CJS Bill markup released today, Congress is pressing NASA to make sure the ISS utilization program gets moving faster with all the support it needs. I can only hope that this get doesnot become another distractor for people to meet personal aganda’s versus important work that is to the benefit of futrue human space flight. Hopefully folks will work this out and it not become a real issue. From what I have seen and what I know about CASIS they seem tobe trying hard to do the right things.
I agree, lawsuits only delay and distract – and as that happens the lifespan of ISS slowly slips away. Alas, CASIS was not equipped for the task they stepped up to do. While there has been some activity of late they still have woefully inadequate scientific and technical expertise. They are playing catch up at a time when they should be surging ahead and signing up real researchers and real research. Tick tock.
A primary residue of lawsuits is the great enrichment of lawyers and delay and distraction too, everyone knows that.
Thousands of lawsuits are filed everyday in order to address either complaints, wrongdoings, or violations of law. While people may chat about lawsuits here, there is no filing, no complaint, and nothing in the courts, which leaves one to wonder why it’s being discussed. If frivolous, our courts dispose of them. If warranted, then a judicial review has determined there may be some tort or wrongdoing and then it can be formally addressed.
If some undefined source thinks that in this case Pro-Orbis would take action against CASIS, reasonable people would know it is imperative that legal action would have to be predicated upon some significant wrongdoing or damaging act, in this case a wrongdoing by CASIS. CASIS is an entity not a person, so the wrongdoings would be those done by people. The simple question is then, what have CASIS people done wrong? Absent that information, buzz about lawsuits is a poor use of time for those involved and even as a topic here.
I don’t understand why you say CASIS was not equipped for the task. The declaration suggests that NASA did not select a viable proposing entity. Is it a matter of a poor plan or more a matter of inadequate execution of plan Keith? You levy your expectations regarding where CASIS should be. Are your expectations consistent with those of CASIS or NASA or in accordance with the governing documents of all parties or a function of externalities (ISS costs, etc.) are they just your own? Please explain what you mean by “not equipped”, not equipped with people, hardware, structures, money, skill and expertise, time, support, some, all?
Also Keith, it is intriguing, but unclear why you say they should be surging ahead to sign up “real researchers and real research”. In part, your comment appears offensive. Are you suggesting that NanoRacks is a bogus research effort? But in part your comment is important since engagements in fake (not real) research would be catastrophic to the ISS. Your “should be” (suggesting they are not) is of much concern. Your further comment on the fake vs. real aspect of ISS research would be appreciated.
Why is it taking so long for CASIS to find experts to serve on its panels/committees? This should already be completed. Their staff is not even complete – yet they must have shown some capability to hire a staff when they prepared their proposal – so where is the staff that they listed? Why is the website so useless after half a year? As for Nanoracks – and BioServe – they are the only professional aspects of what CASIS has done to date – and all CASIS did was agree to utilize their existing capabilities. CASIS has brought nothing new to the table. As for your statement of “fake vs. real aspect of ISS research” if you are claiming that I said that then you are incorrect. As for being “offensive” – do you work for CASIS or Space Florida? Is that why your are offended? If so you have very thin skin – not what is needed right now. If you take offense from comments on a blog you are most certainly going to be ill-prepared for what happens when Congress and NASA go ugly on CASIS/Space Florida for non-performance.
bh, you are positive and optimistic and would be a good supporter for the CASIS communications team. Your comment here about Congress pressing NASA to make sure things move faster and with support is somewhat confusing. Wouldn’t you appreciate the urgency and pressing the CJS has enunciated? In your CASIS activities, aren’t you pressing forward in a fashion similar to what CJS is suggesting? Your comment on “personal agenda’s” above is confusing. Why did you insert it?
So CASIS communication team only likes people who say nice things? Shouldn’t they be more interested in people that say correct things?