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Showing posts with label Mike Griffin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mike Griffin. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Experts on the Future of Space

For a space geek like me, the nice part about living and working in Huntsville, Alabama is the ready access one can have to hearing and speaking with some of the eminent voices in the human spaceflight community. This week, a former program manager, former Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Director, and former NASA Administrator held forth at a lunch-and-learn session at MSFC's Activities Building titled "The Evolution of Space Flight from Government to Private Sector."

The talk actually mirrors the careers of Steve Cook, Dave King, and Mike Griffin, who were leading NASA, Marshall, and the Ares Projects a scant four years ago and are now all in the private sector to one extent or another. Cook and King are senior managers at Dynetics while Griffin has been an engineering professor at University of Alabama-Huntsville.

Much to my surprise, the gentlemen did not prepare any remarks. This was a straightforward ask-the-experts panel, with the audience members asking questions on a microphone or on 3X5" cards. Given the stated topic of the appearance, the questions quickly honed in on where government would most likely play and where in the space business.

Getting Started
Griffin started off the discussion, stating that he believed government should most likely fulfill the role of providing the first guaranteed market(s) for private industry, which would attract private investment. Another future role would be for the government to build what it thinks it wants first, then license the intellectual property so others could build it. However, right now Griffin believes that, "Regrettably, the market's not big enough." The biggest barrier to private-sector entry into space right now was the prohibitive cost of RDT&E (NASA-speak for Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation).

Cook answered the rhetorical question, "Do we (commercial entities) have the ability to launch cargo into space? Of course. Crew? Hasn't been done yet." For Cook, the issue wasn't capacity, but market size. "Committed investment by the government could provide that and it would justify the investment."

Griffin's ideal choice of a guaranteed, lucrative government market would be providing cargo for an established lunar base. Yet he cautioned enthusiastic supporters of commercial space, stating that human spaceflight carries with it huge risks, and that while large commercial firms like Boeing might absorb the damages from a catastrophic failure, smaller firms could get wiped out.

Cook suggested future needs for the super-heavy-lift Space Launch System, including the lunar base Griffin alluded to and space solar power systems, both of which would require large payload space initially. Cook likened SLS to the Transcontinental Railroad or Interstate Highway System: a large investment made by the government for the benefit of all.

Government and Private Sector Roles

Griffin pointed out that venture capitalists like investments that give them a return on investment (ROI) ten times their initial input. Proven space-based investments like communication satellites only provide 13 to 15 percent. He pointed out that space investments are on the high end of risk for business investments. This fit well with my own personal view, and the card with my question came up next, which was "What activities do you think it's crucial for government to do in space, and what activities are crucial for the private sector?" Griffin responded that "Nobody is stopping anyone in the private sector from doing what they want in space. If they've got a proven business model, they should do it." A self-described fiscal conservative, Griffin did not think government should have a say in where the proper balance point is, that's for the citizenry to decide and for the private sector to conduct as much private activity as the market will bear.

King felt government should help the market along, taking the lead on strategic capabilities and ensure that commercial capacity is a going concern. He did point out the need to get access to low-Earth orbit (LEO) at a lower cost, but didn't make any specific recommendations as to how to effect that outcome.

Cook shifted gears a bit, talking about the regulatory environment and how government should ensure consistent safety standards for astronauts and passengers. He felt that safety standards should be the same whether someone was flying aboard a NASA spacecraft or commercial one. He also noted the difficulty in defining "commercial" missions right now (I suppose an example would be something like NASA astronauts flying aboard a private vehicle to the International Space Station--the launch provider might be getting paid, but is the flight really "commercial?") In any case, Cook felt the rules should be the same, and that would take some negotiation among NASA, the FAA, and private industry.

The Long View

The panel also touched on international affairs, with Griffin stating emphatically that "Space is a strategic human frontier for the future" and that the only way to ensure that Western values and practices such as freedom and capitalism are continued as human civilization expands outward is for the United States to participate. However, the entrepreneurial investments would not occur without a long-term commitment by the U.S. government to space activities.

The Local View

Someone asked what Dynetics' new rocket-launching partnership with SpaceX and Scaled Composites, Stratolaunch, would mean for Huntsville. Dave King felt that the Stratolaunch vehicle would be able to transform how we view space tourism, space launch, and other activities. Stratolaunch is based in Huntsville, and Dynetics has responsibility for a major component of the system as well as systems integration. One side effect would be to bring more commercial space activity to Huntsville, which King felt was too dependent on the government dollar anyway.

Life "Outside the Gate"

Marshall Space Flight Center is situated in the middle of Redstone Arsenal, which is the property of the U.S. Army and thus "gated" off from the general public. A member of the audience asked the panel about the difference in their lives outside the gate. Cook was the first to answer. He talked about the similarities first, emphasizing the need for a manager to communicate a clear vision and to get employee buy-in for what you're trying to do. He also felt the employees' passion for the work was kindred. The biggest differences he cited were the smaller bureaucracy and the lack of distinction between "institutional" and "project" functions. King felt that privately held companies could make longer-term decisions with fewer rules and less institutional friction when it comes to making decisions. Griffin added that there was less work in the private sector related to "grooming the institution."

One thing King suggested to anyone interested in jumping outside the gate was that the individual should pick an environment where the values match yours. Along similar lines, Cook stated that you need to "hold onto your core values, but be willing to change everything else" to adapt to the market environment.

What Next?

Someone had to ask the magic question: "How do we assure long-term support for programs that take 20 to 30 years to execute?" Griffin, typical of his sense of humor, responded, "Why are you asking me when I'm obviously inadequate to the task?" Still, Griffin felt that long-term support for large national programs are possible. He cited examples such as the Transcontinental Railroad system, which took over 50 years to complete; the Social Security system; and maintaining funding for the armed forces. He believes NASA has long-term public support. However, Griffin did not agree with the administration's call for a mission to an asteroid: "You're not going to have long-term support for a vision when the goals make no sense."

Another question concerned keeping the workforce motivated in periods of institutional or programmatic uncertainty. The advice wasn't too unfamiliar: decide what you want to be passionate about, focus on what you can control, and "Run to the fire, go find some hard problems to try to solve and be bold about it."

Parting Thoughts

Returning to themes that began their discussion, the panel members reiterated their belief that the future of commercial spaceflight wouldn't be too promising without a guaranteed government market as a matter of public policy. Griffin noted that "Europe sees the strategic value of owning the space launch market. What's wrong with us that we do not?"

Dave King had one of the closing comments of the afternoon in responding to the ongoing rivalry between government and commercial space, stating that people were focusing on an unnecessary conflict. He wished "we could see value in each, concentrate on the genius of the 'And' instead of the tyranny of the 'Or'."

We'll see what happens next.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

First Meeting of Huntsville Space Professionals

One of the advantages of being on a no-overtime type of schedule is that if you work really late one day, you can get out early on, say, a Friday. That's what I did yesterday after kicking it until 10 p.m. Thursday. Since I had the time and might face employment drama after September 30, I decided to attend the first meeting of Huntsville Space Professionals (HSP), a group formed by some downsized NASA folks here in Rocket City, at Chan Auditorium at University of Alabama-Huntsville. The goal of the group is "Preserving and promoting Huntsville's talented human space capital." In short, they want to keep space jobs--or at least the people who filled them--here in Huntsville.

Also in attendance were Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle and WAFF TV, Channel 48. (Note to the media: never mind your pushy questions--some people don't like your Very Bright Lights shining in their face--and I was in the back of the room.)

One of the speakers was Lori King-Taylor from Trinity Performance Solutions, which appears to be a staffing company of some sort. Another site she referenced was by the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce. Trinity is helping HSP with establishing a career center, which will assist people with a job search web site, resume writing, interview skills, 401(k) options, entrepreneurship, and counseling. King-Taylor encouraged the crowd: "Keep your head high. This is not your fault. You have done nothing wrong."

Tommy Battle indicated that his office is talking to some of the likely "winners" under the Obama administration's space policy, including firms like SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace, and Virgin Galactic. There are a lot of smart, space-minded people in Huntsville who would prefer to stay here, thank you very much, and there is a lot of specialized equipment and infrastructure needed to build and test rockets here in Alabama, so the road to space will still go through Huntsville. We'll see if these other companies bite or not. And we still don't know what Marshall Space Flight Center will end up doing under the new policy/budget. In any case, Battle is covering all the bases and working with the Alabama Governor's office as well. He had to go to a meeting, so he wasn't able to take Q&A.

The HSP guys also contacted former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, who is now an "eminent scholar" and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UAH. Griffin was out of the country, but responded to Q&A via email. His general comments were that (unsurprisingly) he was not happy with the new policy, but that he has "no influence over this matter." With regard to people worried about looking for jobs, he recommended that people "look in Huntsville first," pointing to opportunities on the Army side of Redstone Arsenal. For dedicated souls who still want to work for NASA, he recommended reviewing the Space Policy and "go where the money is." On the whole, Griffin hoped that Congress "just says no to the ridiculous space policy advocated by the Obama administration."

After reviewing Griffin's emailed-in responses, the HSP folks reviewed the status of the NASA budget. H.R. 5614, the "Protecting Human Space Flight Act," which was introduced by Congressman Robert Aderholt (R-AL) "To impose certain requirements on the expenditure of funds by National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the Constellation Program." More to the point, the point of the bill is to slow down or stop what's going on with Constellation. Otherwise, the NASA budget is entering the "markup" part of budget cycle, where Congress takes what it's been given and starts fiddling with the numbers. The House started its markups June 29, the Senate is due to start theirs July 14. The main difference in the Senate bill is the addition of one more Space Shuttle flight in June 2011. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes "number crunching" going on at the moment, so we'll see what happens. While NASA received a $19 billion budget from the House, they deferred a decision on how to appropriate (spend) that money. We're very likely looking at a Continuing Resolution (CR) come the start of the new fiscal year (October 1).

The HSP guys opened the mike to public comment. There were some questions from the audience on job assistance--the primary reason most folks were there, I'd gather. If the HSP guys were disappointed that more people weren't fired up or getting up to speak, they covered it pretty well. That's not how this town works. Engineers aren't that exciteable, in my observations, and excessive activism is sometimes a political risk.

One gentleman from Southern Capital Management said that he would be willing to share proceeds from a property that he is selling as a commercial property--if folks are willing to put in "sweat equity" to help improve it. Sounds like it'd be serious digging and sweating. He was looking for people with their own Bobcats. Still, the offer's there if you're willing to work...

Otherwise, several Human Resources reps from Technicore, MTS, and United Space Alliance went up to the front of the room to talk to people and collect resumes or other contact information. The HSP guys mentioned that Jacobs was hosting a job fair at the Huntsville Museum of Art 9 a.m. to Noon July 13, and that HSP would be having a meeting at the Monte Sano Lodge next week sometime. Then the meeting more or less broke up.

I am not certain how to rate the effectiveness of this meeting. As I walked in, they were passing out copies of the Obama administration's space policy to make people aware, and they "weren't asking people to take a stand either way." About 50 people showed up, and they managed to get the mayor and the media to show up, so that's a step in the right direction. The HSP guys were looking for feedback on what else they could be doing. I honestly couldn't say. The uncertainty around Huntsville will be around for awhile. "We're caught in a big political game that's going on over our heads," as more than one person said. What happens next is anyone's guess. In the meantime, unfortunately, this group will be necessary for awhile.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Potpourri L (for 50, not for Large)

Holy cats! WAY too much stuff in the inbox this evening. Well, I'd best get cracking. I've got a couple letters to write tonight, too. The wild, out-of-control life of a space geek blogger.

The Space Frontier Foundation has extended the deadline for its space business plan prize to June 19. Don't have time for it myself, but there might come a day when $5,000 might come in handy. I have ideas, mind you, just haven't got the time to focus at the moment.

The web site for the Human Space Flight Panel is now up. If you're ready to tell the representatives of your elected officials what they should do with the human spaceflight program, now is the time. Go get 'em!

Some more stuff from Lin on the potential for hyperinflation, which I've addressed on this site before.

For those of you who are familiar with the term, my apologies. The point is that we are almost out of wiggle room when we have to send the US Secretary of the Treasury hat-in-hand to grovel to the Chinese to keep buying our worthless paper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing
http://dailyreckoning.com/us-stuck-in-inflation-causing-positions/print/
http://dailyreckoning.com/the-gold-bull-market-and-the-fed-it-rode-in-on/print/

Tip o' the fedora to Martin for finding this: a diorama of a sort of Mount Rushmore for the Moon. It's pretty cool.

I got this summary on the Air France crash from my daily AIAA news feed:

ABC World News (6/4, story 5, 2:15, Gibson) reported, "Next, to the investigation into Air France Flight 447. ... French investigators reported that automatic messages from the plane indicated it was not maintaining consistent air speed. And that prompted the plane's manufacturer, Airbus, to issue a warning to all airlines flying its planes." ABC (Stark) added, "Late today, Airbus warned airlines that fly all models of Airbus planes to follow correct procedures if pilots are dealing with unreliable speed indications or data. ... In what's called an accident information telex, Airbus reminded airlines that if that occurs, pilots should maintain their power and level off if necessary, and start troubleshooting procedures. Aviation experts say in some cases, such air speed problems can be difficult for cockpit crews to detect."

Jeff Foust found some insightful stuff from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel on former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin.

Ian Murphy asks some tough questions about the "why" of space exploration, a topic that motivates most of why I do what I do for the space business.

Need free internet "radio?" Doc had a couple of suggestions for me the other day:

Bored with "Whack a Mole?" Try "Whack a Kitty." I am not kidding--the couple who put this video together--and it really is pretty harmless--were on one of the cable news shows because some folks on the internet were utterly offended and thought they were encouraging cruelty to animals. And speaking of cats, someone else sent me an internet video on cat yodeling. No doubt someone will raise heck about this as well. This is probably why Robert D. Raiford calls us the United States of the Offended. Sense of humor is apparently out the window.

Congress is cutting the exploration portion of the NASA budget. Oh, joy.

Okay, I don't talk about my day job much, but I thought I'd share this. Dan Kanigan, the NASA Public Affairs Office (PAO) guy I work with on Ares I-X, got a break from I-X to travel along with the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) 747 as it ferried Atlantis back to Kennedy Space Center. He did a couple of cool live reports, which are worth watching:

Guy Laliberte, the founder of Cirque du Soleil, has bought himself a ticket to be a tourist at the International Space Station.

There's a great editorial on CNN.com on why the future ain't what it used to be. It called to mind the Avery Brooks commercials done for AT&T, where he railed, "Where are the flying cars? There were supposed to be flying cars!"

Some good stuff from Tracy:

From the NASA PAO, a notice of NASA research opportunities.

Some great discussion at work today. I learned, for example, that it's often cheaper to buy Xbox 360 to play Blu-Ray DVDs than to buy a straight DVD player. What else? Oh yeah, Doc also mentioned that Microsoft has an online store for buying music and podcasts via Xbox and the Microsoft Zune marketplace. This is akin to the Amazon store feature available via Kindle. The convergence of new media continues. If I want to make money in the future, I'm going to have to describe myself as a "content developer," not a "writer." Writing implies pens, typewriters, paper, and other archaic technologies. We'll have none of THAT stuff on the Internet, pal...

We also had a discussion about some guy plugging an eyeball-size camera, which transmits images to a server via wireless internet. This might be a next step toward connecting the camera to the human brain--the Singularity moves ever closer.

Doc and I had an extended conversation on the merits of various adults beverages. He's a beer and whiskey snob, I'm a wee bit of a wine snob. We're both occasional fans of bourbon whiskey. He recommended a few brands that I might consider trying "if you have some money to burn." They include:

And here's the quotation of the day, also from Doc (though a bit altered, as I didn't write it down precisely when and as he said it): "You can't help having ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) anymore. It's not an affliction anymore, it's a survival skill." HA! Perfect!

And lastly, there's a new Star Wars video game coming out about the Old Republic. The lead villain looks like a character I created for my own sequels and prequels backindaday. I probably won't play the game, as I don't own a game console (I waste enough time "talking" to people who are reputedly "real" on the internet as it is). The game's "trailer" looked pretty cool, though.