Stovepipes Vs Synergies At NASA

Keith’s note: I find it interesting how two similar tweets at totally different scales / disciplines can often appear in sequence on social media. Look at the video in the left post – Molecular machines moving on a backbone – do so in a somewhat similar fashion to the way that the Mobile Servicing System moves on ISS. This is also somewhat of an example of NASA stovepiping. No one in NASA Science world or NASA Human Spaceflight world really thinks like this. I do – and lots of people would – if someone had the task of making NASA 21st century compliant in a world where emergent properties like this from different fields of study spawn new ideas and inventions. Funny thing – the thing happening on the left is part of what is studied inside the thing on the right – and NASA loves to crow about the end result biotech goodies form ISS – but never the synergies that might stop people for a moment to think differently – out of the box – in ways NASA has yet to do. Just sayin’