Internal Memos from NASA Administrator Michael Griffin

NASA E-mail via SpaceRef.com ^ | Monday, December 12, 2005 | NASA Administrator Michael Griffin

[anymouse]

The top brass at NASA are worried about their future - worried enough to release this candid e-mail communication discussing how worried they are. What I am seeing, reading between the lines, is that Griffin and his management team have inherited a train wreck in progress and are despirately trying to figure out how to survive it.

[anymouse]

Space ping.

[RadioAstronomer]

What I am seeing, reading between the lines, is that Griffin and his management team have inherited a train wreck in progress and are despirately trying to figure out how to survive it.

I concur. Sigh.

[Talking_Mouse]

I have somehow been dropped from the space ping list, would you please reinstate me? Thanks

[DoughtyOne]

While you guys have touched on the obvious issue, you haven't seemed to touch on the not so obvious issue, at least directly.

Yes they are concerned about how to survive this train wreck ("The top brass at NASA are worried about their future"), but I believe it goes beyond that. I believe they are concerned if NASA will survive it.

Perhaps that's part of what both of you meant.

In this instance the cost of keeping the space station afloat is offset by the disgrace of watching it die. Either eventuality could be the death knell to NASA IMO.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

From an engineer on the inside (me) at Goddard - NASA is a train wreck in and of itself because "diversity" is what rules the day. It's n o longer excellent engineering. And they are overloading all of the engineers with paper work. Ridiculous stuff that is simply make-work for the many highly diverse peoples of NASA who can't do actual engineering because they were hired for their diversity factor, not their talent...

[jaguaretype]

3.5 years @JPL.

Have friends there including 1 section manager(and am hiring a recently layed off MER EE) still and and some "not so good stuff" seems to be happening there.

MSL seems to be the only larger scope hope at least at JPL.

And WOW! Who got their hands on this email??

[anymouse]

KevinDavis runs the space ping list.

[RadioAstronomer]

Was at JPL myself. :-)

I worked in the SFOF "dark room" (flight operations).

[RadioAstronomer]

I cringed when Prometheus was cancelled. Not sure where we are going now. Funding will be a huge prob for a long time I fear.

[jaguaretype]

Europa/X2000 conceptual, MER design and MAM/Kite testbed for me.

[anymouse]

Actually I have a high level of regard for Griffin and most of his top management (finally the Bush Administration has pushed out the deadwood.) These are bright folks who know they will survive.

What they are worried about is whether NASA and American government-sponsored manned space exploration will survive.

The good news is, that I just got a great deal on car insurance at GEICO. :)

I'm only half joking about that. For those who don't know that GEICO originally was an acronym for Government Employees Insurance COmpany. They went private back in the 80s and have succeeded famously - to the point that most people don't know their history and assume they were named after a lizard and have silly, annoying, yet memorable commercials.

The lesson is that space development needs to shift to the private sector as well, in order to not only survive, but excel. And yes, some of the process of getting us into space will be silly, annoying, yet memorable.

[RadioAstronomer]

Wait till you see how much paperwork is required for a manned system.

I still have:

the 14 volume set (NSTS 07700) with appendix 1-10;

The ICD 2-19001 (Shuttle Orbiter Cargo Standard Interfaces);

Flight Data File System Data Book;

Payload Support Capabilities Description, JSC, POCC, Remote POCC;

just to name a few sitting in book cases here in my office.

(I prob have close to 100 docs here)

[RadioAstronomer]

Way cool!

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

Oh, yeah... Manned systems = nightmare. NASA is driving the good people out.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the comments, but I'll never look at that little GEICO (Gecko) the same way again.

I agree with your comments.

[anymouse]

The "Diversity tax" is only part of what grinds NASA and other government agencies, and any company with any government contracts down. It is a mentality in management that following the government rules (to avoid being sued) is more important than good business practices. ISO 9000 and other management fads ensure that both managers and employees are more concerned with C.Y.A. than with innovation.

You can bet that workers and management in India, China, Mexico, etc. don't give a damn about Political Correctness, sexual harassment, ISO 9000, and other arbitrary government rules. They care about how best to keep making money selling things that people want to buy.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

Yeah, the "process" has become NASA's main focus. Who really cares if it works or is near budget... Now we're doing a bunch of CMMI crap. It requires a small staff for each project and probably 10% of each engineer's total time. Glad I'm accumulating enough to retire soon.

[MikeD]

And they are overloading all of the engineers with paper work.

Preach on, brother! We're on the third iteration of an instrument, one that is a virtual carbon-copy of a previous instrument. The cost has gone *up* since the original was made, despite the NRE expense on the first one, and despite the use of spares on the new one. The difference is that the paperwork keeps increasing...

[MikeD]

My boss tells me horror stories of trying to get a laptop and a telescope to fly on the shuttle. They flew twice, but not before going through mountains of paperwork, and discovering the hard way that the shuttles are not built the same. Mounting holes present in one shuttle are not present in another, things like that. One of our engineers joked about getting out the power drill and "fixing" the problem...