CASIS Is Seemingly Oblivious To Large ISS R&D Conference
First Annual International Space Station R&D Conference
“Manuscripts are solicited on topics related to science and technology activities (past, present, planned and proposed) on the ISS, including but not limited to Biology and Biotechnology, Earth and Space Science, Human Research, Physical Sciences, Education Activities, and Technology and Exploration. The abstract deadline is January 15, 2012.”
Keith’s 6 Jan note: There is still no mention of this conference on the CASIS website even though CASIS is a co-sponsor. Abstracts are due in 10 days. Tick tock. Someone please wake CASIS up. This conference is precisely the sort of thing that it is chartered to do and yet it can’t even post a simple link on its website? Not a good sign.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Until NASA (and CASIS) figure out how to go about developing some new real R&D projects, they’re mainly just talking to the choir and we’ll see no knew science or research. More flame balls, taking astronauts urine and psych surveys.
NASA has had ten or twenty years to figure out how to develop new real R&D projects. CASIS has been dead silent for half a year. Why would anyone think that NASA or CASIS is going to have some sudden brilliance and do anything useful? Come back in about one or two years James and then see if they’ve managed to conjur something other than a flame ball a novelty toy or a rat in a wheel.
One thing that I hope CASIS will do is develop a master list of science experiments that can be done on the ISS that will get us the most/best science over the remaining life of the station. Instead of just facilitating investigators who have experiments that they want to do, perhaps CASIS can seek out investigators who can develop and then execute experiments from the master list in a logical order that gives us the most synergy and reuse of equipment.
Steve
Steve,
If you want a list of experiments there are many listed on the nasa.gov website. Hours worth of reading. Or you can peruse papers with science experiment summaries, like this:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/389…
If you want to understand what CASIS is doing I think there is an original plan on the web:
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/487…
Or maybe not. That’s from a different company even though it’s on a nasa.gov website. Maybe CASIS is not following the plan at all. Steve, do you know what plan CASIS has? Does anyone know? Has anyone ever spoken to anyone at CASIS?
GA,
I read through the documents you suggested (thank you) and here’s my evaluation:
—————————————————————————————————http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/389…
International Space Station — Science Research Accomplishments During the Assembly Years: An Analysis of Results from 2000-2008
This is a history document, a summary of past ISS experiments and their results.
—————————————————————————————————http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/487…
Reference Model for the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory
This document (prepared by ProOrbis and commissioned by NASA) is about the program management protocols (as defined by the ProOrbis method) and includes nothing about the science experiments to be conducted on the ISS, just the program practices that are being advocated for whoever won the contract (this document was prepared a full year before CASIS was chosen).
—————————————————————————————————
GA, I have no idea whatsoever as to what plans CASIS have. However, if we consider that NASA commissioned ProOrbis to do the second document that you list above (in September 2010), then the statement that Justin made in another thread about CASIS being chosen (in September 2011) because they proposed using the ProOrbis method to manage the program makes more sense. We don’t have any information from other parties (that I’m aware of) which says that the ProOrbis method is a good choice for ISS, and we don’t know whether CASIS in fact has any experience using ProOrbis, but obviously someone at NASA and someone at CASIS have agreed on this.
So, I still haven’t seen any method proposed/described for organizing the experiments to be done in the future under CASIS (or anybody eels) that takes advantage of either previous ISS on-board equipment or the synergy that would accrue by doing experiments in an order optimized to build on preceding experimental results.
Steve
Steve
Since ISS is a construction plate form, Why not make a list of things to do to build a spaceship. Things like flying tethered spaceships adding Bigelows rubber room, adding a clear room to do serious Agriculture experiments. Build a prototype moon recycler. ISS is building platform first the world should use that resource first I think.
DTARS,
Personally, I think that would be on very logical use for the ISS, but, right now, I’m not at all clear as to what CASIS is going to be doing. We’ve all become used to thinking of the ISS as an “international” resource, but now they’re talking about a “national” lab. Also, we’ve all become used to thinking of the ISS as a place for doing science experiments for the furthering of our scientific understanding of life in LEO/space, for the benefit of everyone, but there are now indications that the US portion of the ISS is being turned into a commercial lab for hire, with services being sold to commercial companies for product development and testing. If this turns out to be the case, then it changes everything and most, if not all, of our previous ideas and discussions about the ISS are now irrelevant. Until we get some clarification on the future of the ISS (or at least the US portions), I’m going to avoid making any suggestions about its use.
Justin, in another thread, has indicated that this new accessibility for industry is in addition to and separate from any NASA experiments, and the intellectual property (knowledge gained) is retained by the experimenter and not available to any other users, including NASA. Add to that the fact that we were led to believe that under the new system NASA’s operating budget for the ISS will reduced (other programs are already lining up looking for the money), it doesn’t look good, since NASA, it appears, will still be doing basically everything that it has been doing all along, maybe more, but will be getting less money to do it.
This new industrial access is what CASIS will managing the payload integration and contracting for, as per Congress, but I have yet to read where any income derived from this will go (I highly doubt it will go to the NASA ISS budget).
So, my friend, as far as I can tell, NASA will be getting less money to do more work on the ISS, and in addition, will itself have less access to the ISS facilities than it had before. Another dumb plan by Congress which takes away from NASA, but has been presented to us as a gain.
Steve
Steve,
“…indications that the US portion of the ISS is being turned into a commercial lab for hire, with services being sold to commercial companies for product development and testing.”
Incorrect. The ISS National Lab is just that, a U.S. Government asset. The asset has not been sold to a private firm for commercial purposes. ISS Lab use is split between NASA and external researchers. It is balanced.
Realize that if someone wanted to buy the Space Station, many in NASA would wet their pants, drool at the offer, and instantly say “Sold! Sign Here!”
Why? Because NASA is more about building Space Stations than using them. Sell the ISS today and then they get to build something new tomorrow. NASA’s culture is about getting 20 or 50 or $100 Billion to build space stuff. There are tons of engineers and hardware builders that are always hungry for the next multi-billion dollar system to be funded and built. The names are endless Orion Constellation SLS keep going. Build build build more than use make produce. Look at NASA and for that matter add in aerospace, the Lockheed, ATK, Boeing, Space-X, Bigelow groups, they are only interested in multi-billion dollar rocket building games. Do any do “utilization”? No. It’s not even in their vocabulary.
What do you think Charlie Bolden and NASA HQ management focus on? BIllions to build rockets or to utilize the Space Station? The funding that’s been allocated to using Station you could find in a NASA waiting room couch.
If you are an executive at NASA, what do you think makes you a hero? Funding some test tube work in an orbiting lab? Or building a gigantic rocket that makes tons of noise, vibrates your chest and is televised in high-def to thousands?
Also, from your post, we detect you are getting cranked up about the word “product” and that you have a strong preference to have pure science be the mainstay of the Space Station. That’s nice. But in the amazingly rare circumstance that a product is actually developed on the ISS, don’t scowl at the result.
Steve
We were unaware of the situation with CASIS and the ProOrbis method and we appreciate your mention of it in your post. It led us to examine the ProOrbis website and we found what appears to be some kind of CASIS disclaimer.
The disclaimer states that ProOrbis was a member of the Space Florida proposal team. It states that ProOrbis has not been engaged with CASIS since last August 2011 and that ProOrbis does not endorse CASIS actions. Do you find that odd or is that a normal distancing practice of a team proposer?
We looked at the CASIS website for plan information but found little of use. We did notice the website changed. There have been staff descriptions and names added. Those additions might indicate healthy CASIS growth or at least that CASIS can add people and spend NASA money.
We were concerned by the website descriptions of the staff additions. It appears the CASIS staffing plan has been based on either an Obama Jobs Program or a State of Florida space jobs program or a “phone-a-friend” or “hire-a-friend” model.
If that is confusing the CASIS staffing activity is what
appears to be a pick-your-buddy hiring scheme.
Maybe this is a common way of doing business today, but not in our labs. It’s who you know before what you know? You decide. What appears in each instance is the latter pulling in the former:
Brian Harris, CASIS Director of Marketplace, former SpaceHab VP, SpaceHab position omitted on CASIS
page, pulled by former SpaceHab President Jim Royston, currently CASIS Director of Strategy; Melissa Schwaller CASIS IP Attorney, former Baylor College, listed, pulled by CASIS Executive Director Dr Jeanne Becker, former Baylor; Duane Ratliff CASIS Director of Operations, former Dynamac which was in partnership with SpaceHab, ties to Jim Royston, former President SpaceHab; CASIS Director Jim oyston, former President of SpaceHab, long standing relationship with Dr Jeanne Becker from NSBRI and Baylor also as Officer of Astrogenetix, ties to SpaceHab; Charles Resnick CASIS Director of economic Valuation, from Inflexion Fund with multiple transaction ties to Frank DiBello,
President of Space Florida also Chairman of the Board of CASIS; Dr Jeanne Becker, confidante of NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and other HQ Executives. All of this information is openly available
on the internet.
While there is a clear and consistent appearance of cronyism, we are not judging the properness, but are pointing out the presence and pattern. Cronyism may be an effective means by which an organization such as CASIS is stood up. Long-standing friendships may enable the CASIS team to grow more rapidly. Adults all know that it takes time to develop a mature organization when strangers are brought in and that efforts move faster if you can work with those you’ve been sleeping with, meaning have prior
relationships with. Pulling in friends and family may be considered an acceptable way to solve Florida’s job problems. From Space Florida press releases, it appears that Frank DiBello may hold the final responsibility for CASIS’s success or failure although generally we have found the research community is in the dark as to who is in charge.
We recognize the space community is small. CASIS may have had little choice but to hire using an inbreeding friends and family scheme. Still of concern is that the qualifications and skills necessary for the organization’s success may suffer and NASA the ISS and particularly the ISS research community may suffer. We never envisioned and doubt that anyone in the space research community would have ever envisioned the ISS being managed by a group constructed in this manner.
We’ve read your other comments Steve and conclude that you might not be very surprised by these things, that crony business actions are commonplace in this country today. You mentioned precedence setting and you may be correct. Decades of precedence setting has ‘turned a blind eye’ to such business behavior. No one cares anymore.
We conclude that NASA, the Congress, and the White House established CASIS as a private sector firm possessing great power and autonomy to manage and control a $100B national asset with little oversight. Then, if there is a strong relationship between Bolden and Becker there may be more oversight than we know. Since the transactions and relationships between NASA and CASIS are hidden we in the ISS user community cannot see what is transpiring, good or bad. Even NASA Watch with its unceasing daily pursuit of NASA transparency feels blinded as to the important issues of the ISS and from that justified to continue throwing stones.
We observe little activity from CASIS. The opening conference was a pathetic display of ineptness. Your mention of a June conference is notable. If CASIS can show extraordinary progress then with the way humans are the misbehaviors or problems will likely be cast aside. All will quickly join to bask in the success of it all and ignore all wrongdoings.
Whether from U.S. economic crisis distractions or from a general disinterest in space and the ISS, Congress may be unaware or indifferent to the growth methods of CASIS or how they conduct business.
The funding and program efforts associated with ISS utilization are possibly of little interest or consequence to the White House or Congress. Their attention and NASA’s attention tends to be upon the processes of multibillion dollar development programs not the health of the space research community or the beneficial results they can provide. The ISS and its use may not matter to them at all so throwing ISS Laboratory responsibilities to CASIS may be the expedient way to shrug off their problems.
GAOrwell.
Please clarify: who is the “we” in your posts?
Steve
1/4 Steve
We were unaware of the situation with CASIS and the ProOrbis
method and we appreciate your mention of it in your post. It led us to examine the ProOrbis website and
we found what appears to be some kind of CASIS disclaimer.
The disclaimer states that ProOrbis was a member of the Space
Florida proposal team. It states that
ProOrbis has not been engaged with CASIS since last August 2011 and that
ProOrbis does not endorse CASIS actions.
Do you find that odd or is that a normal distancing practice of a team
proposer?
We looked at the CASIS website for plan information but
found little of use. We did notice the
website changed. There have been staff descriptions and names added. Those
additions might indicate healthy CASIS growth or at least that CASIS can add
people and spend NASA money.
We were concerned by the website descriptions of the staff
additions. It appears the CASIS staffing
plan has been based on either an Obama Jobs Program or a State of Florida space
jobs program or a “phone-a-friend” or “hire-a-friend”
model.
National Lab