Collaborative Government and Space

In some ways, I’m a pragmatist. My conservative attitudes would prefer not to see government as the primary spender and actor in space activities, but the economic situation is what it is. Uncle Sam is the 800-pound gorilla in the room when it comes to space spending. So the question that occurred to me was, “How do you get more government agencies that have a vested interest in space to push for more space-related spending?”

Most people, if they think of the federal budget at all, assume that the only space spending the U.S. Government does is on NASA. However, nearly all government agencies have activities that affect, or have their operations affected by, space technologies. For example, the Department of Commerce regulates space tourism; the Department of Agriculture relies on LANDSAT data to forecast crop yields and environmental health; the Department of Defense (DoD) uses satellites for everything from communications to directing smart weapons to their targets; the Department of Labor tracks job descriptions and employment trends for technical personnel. And so forth.

So my thoughts ran something like this: someone should review all of the agencies in the U.S. Government and determine exactly what parts of their activities are directly affected by space-based activities. From there, look for a way to connect all of those activities on the web (hat tip to Darlene for her emphasis on open government) so all of them can see the connections/overlaps. Open government web sites should make that process easier.

Darlene directed me to the Data.gov site, which allows citizens to pull up all of the reports from the “Open Government” sites the Obama administration has set up. You can search for specific reports, search the “raw data” by keywords, or even a database dedicated solely to “geodata” (satellite imagery of the Earth). Unfortunately, the sorts of data I discussed above are not available on the Data.gov or NASA’s open government site…at least not yet. Hm. Might have to do some clever digging and sorting of my own before I go making suggestions.

Regardless of the present state of affairs, what needs to happen is for all of the agencies affecting or affected by space to meet—in person or maybe through some sort of online forum/summit/collaborative environment—and discuss needs, policies, and long-term plans that would meet and simplify the government's requirements for space-based products and services.

For example, let’s say multiple agencies depend on a particular satellite constellation to conduct business and transfer information. Or, more likely, suppose different agencies are using different constellations instead of all using the same one. How much taxpayer money would be saved by sending data on one service instead of many? Or perhaps several agencies decide/discover that they would benefit from having access to a heavy-lift launch vehicle that could launch an entire satellite constellation all at once. Suddenly a space vehicle/infrastructure project would have multiple constituencies fighting for it instead of just the NASA lobby. From such discussions, multiple federal agencies could come a list of requirements for both the satellite system and its launch vehicle. One hypothetical example might be:

“The U.S. Government has identified the need for a communications satellite constellation capable of handling X bit rate of data traffic with Y encryption and an ability to be on station within Z days of tasking.

“This system would further require a heavy-lift launch vehicle with A capacity able to launch B times a year within C days.

“Such an integrated system would enable D, E, F, and G agencies to:

• Reduce redundant capabilities/costs by $X billion,
• Meet cross-cutting data handling capabilities/long-term goals, and/or
• Share costs / information between or among agencies.”

The advantage of meeting uniform needs, standards, and requirements for a large customer, as my private sector friends are eager to point out, is that it drives specific technological innovations, mass production, interoperability, and ultimately lower costs.

In addition to identifying government needs for space hardware, a government-space forum could be used to identify places where existing laws and regulations conflict with each other, stifle development (e.g. International Traffic in Arms Regulations/ITAR), or affect public safety.

This forum also could attract policymakers interested in consolidating or developing the nation’s space policies in the future. Experts could be included from public policy think tanks from the left and right (as well as space advocates eager to advance particular forms of space development) to arrive at integrated plans for legislation. Rather than just have NASA and, maybe, the National Science Foundation and DoD at the table talking about space, the entire government could have space on its mind, which it should anyway. :-)

This is not quite as glamorous or “sexy” as advocating for rockets that go where no one has gone before, but it is one way to play the government game to the advantage of space exploration. After all, if you had mass-produced tools that improved space operations for Earth applications, it is entirely likely that such capabilities, once built, can and will be used for exploration. Funny how that works out.

Bart Leahy is a technical writer. The opinions expressed in this editorial are his own.

Missing Pieces: What NASA’s Gen Y Keeps Missing

I invite you to visit this web site, and read where Nick Skytland, a Gen-Y civil servant at Johnson Space Center (JSC), posted a presentation from the PM Challenge conference entitled “Participatory Exploration: The Role of the User Contribution System.” Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Okay, now that you’ve read that, I’ll make some obligatory grumpy comments. These are being written in the spirit of constructive criticism, not "Siddown, kid, and wait your turn!" I'm looking at specifics in the presentations and so am asking/commenting about specifics.

I’ve met Nick once or twice at space-related events, and he’s a friend in Facebook. I'm not sure he reads this blog, but I might direct him to it just to provide him with food for thought for his next presentation. Nick is one of many under-30 contributors at the agency who’s trying to get NASA to think more like a dot-com (e.g. Google) and less like a command-and-control military organization. I wish him and his compadres well. Gosh knows all government agencies could think more quickly on their feet. However, being a Gen-Xer who’s spent most of my career in large, command-and-control organizations, I suspect that Nick has bigger challenges ahead than he realizes.

One of the gripes I’ve had about these types of presentations is that they are very brain-heavy. Here’s what I mean: despite the fact that, until the recent recession, America has continued to break records in the amount of manufactured stuff we export, media pundits and younger folks focused remain captivated by the "service economy" and the “information age."

Now admittedly a lot of our mass-produced products can be assembled, packaged, or shipped robotically, and that trend will no doubt continue. However, one of the largest contributors to America’s exports has been The Boeing Company, which depends on a large, skilled workforce capable of bending metal, installing wiring, turning wrenches, welding structures, and all the rest. All of this is still too complex for robots and likely will be for some time to come. These activities involve people doing physical labor, not just sitting in front of a laptop at Starbucks, sipping lattés. I don’t know what the specific percentages are, but I think I’m safe in assuming that not all of the people producing or building stuff—from farm goods to airplanes and spacecraft—went to college. Skytland is “privileging” (a favorite phrase of one of my grad school profs) intellect and symbol manipulation over physical labor. This is a mistake because not everyone can contribute this way, nor do they necessarily want to. Any future educational system—and any future space program—must find ways for individuals with mental and physical skill sets to contribute, because we will need both educated minds and skilled hands if we want to get to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Another issue I have with these Gen Y presentations—and I apologize now if Nick covered this, all I have to go by are the PPT slides—is how they emphasize collaborative technological tools but do not specify how these tools will enable people to make fundamentally better contributions than they might make through, say, face-to-face meetings, phone calls, or memos. I would also be interested to see what specific engineering or scientific contributions have been made in the aerospace industry using Skytland’s proposed new work environment. One example I can think of off the top of my head is the "virtual collaboration" Boeing has been doing to design and build the 787 Dreamliner at multiple locations around the globe. However, that plane is now likely to start deliveries more than a year late. Was that the result of--or despite--worldwide, international collaboration? That question should be answered.

Next on my nitpicking list: the global marketplace. It is one thing to have global “participation” in a robotic exploration mission (the standard example I’ve heard is allowing people to vote on “where to plant the flag”). It is another to have people from other countries reviewing and building the rockets--see the 787 example above. Since the dawn of the space age, rockets have been a critical national and strategic technology because of their ability to carry weapons. As noted above, if America has had one distinctive competitive advantage over the past 50 years, it has been in aerospace technology. This includes everything from materials to aerodynamic shapes or computer codes for analyzing flight paths to the guidance systems that allow a rocket to travel 25,000 miles per hour and reach a target millions of miles away with a margin of error measured in inches. These are all technologies that require United States citizens to produce them—at least if the United States wants to remain a spacefaring nation. There are some jobs that NASA and its primary contractors simply will not and cannot outsource to other countries because it’s the law.

We have a truly unique and challenging future ahead of us. I look forward to future contributions by Nick and others like him. I’d just like a little more organizational, cultural, and operational realism brought into the discussion.