Academy Sharing Knowledge

The NASA Source for Project Management and Engineering Excellence | APPEL SUMMER | 2012

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Inside

The Sky Crane SoluTion

The Challenge

of CollaboraTion

kepler: The long road 

To oTher WorldS

W a n t t o 

k E E p 

R E c E i v i n g 

aSk?

SEE PAgE 1
 retnet Chgile Fcapd Sr

iod

ad

ut

do

 Sn

G/AS

atioz

A

i

: N

lau

ti

si

de

 V

r

c

o Ct

ntifi

o

ie

h

c

PS
Contents

15

Departments

3

In This Issue 

By Don Cohen

4

From the Academy Director 

Projects Built Around People and Networks

By eD hoffman

50

The Knowledge Notebook 

The Real Value of Knowledge

By LaurenCe Prusak

52

ASK Interactive 

InsIghts

19

There to Help: 

NASA’s Ombudsman Program 

By ruth mcWiLLiams anD rex eLLiott 

NASA’s ombudsmen offer a safe, confidential 

environment where employees can discuss 

workplace issues.

35

The People Behind the NASA 

Engineering Network 

By manson yeW Active facilitation and 

trust-building meetings help online 

communities thrive.

39

Knowledge Topics: 

A Vital Project Resource

By Don Cohen Complex projects depend 

on social capital: networks of trusting, 

mutually supportive individuals.

46

Is Your Project Viable? 

By keith L. WooDman anD PauL W. krasa 

Like living organisms, projects must adapt 

to changing circumstances.

26 5

To Our Subscribers 

ASK Magazine is updating its print subscription list. 

If you wish to continue receiving ASK in the mail after this issue, 

you MUST notify us at ASKmagazine@inuteqllc.com. Please put 

“Continue ASK” in the subject line and include your name and 

organization (if any) in the text.

ASK MAGAZINE | 1
Issue no. 47

Staff

acaDemy DIrector anD publIsher

Dr. Edward Hoffman

ehoffman@nasa.gov

eDItor-In-chIef

Laurence Prusak

larryprusak@gmail.com

managIng eDItor

Don Cohen

doncohen@rcn.com

eDItor

Kerry Ellis

kerry.ellis@inuteqllc.com

contrIbutIng eDItors

Matt Kohut

mattkohut@infactcommunications.com

Haley Stephenson

haley.stephenson@valador.com

senIor KnowleDge sharIng 

consultant

Jon Boyle

jon.boyle@inuteqllc.com

KnowleDge sharIng analysts

Ben Bruneau

ben.bruneau@inuteqllc.com

Ramien Pierre

ramien.pierre@inuteqllc.com

acaDemy program manager

Yvonne Massaquoi

yvonne.massaquoi@inuteqllc.com

DesIgn

Hirshorn Zuckerman Design Group, Inc.

www.hzdg.com

prIntIng specIalIst

Tun Hla

tun.t.hla@nasa.gov

The Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership (APPEL) and ASK 

Magazine help NASA managers and project teams accomplish today’s missions and 

meet tomorrow’s challenges by sponsoring knowledge-sharing events and publications, 

providing performance enhancement services and tools, supporting career development 

programs, and creating opportunities for project management and engineering 

collaboration with universities, professional associations, industry partners, and other 

government agencies.

ASK Magazine grew out of the Academy and its Knowledge Sharing Initiative, designed 

for program/project managers and engineers to share expertise and lessons learned 

with fellow practitioners across the Agency. Reflecting the Academy’s responsibility for 

project management and engineering development and the challenges of NASA’s new 

mission, ASK includes articles about meeting the technical and managerial demands 

of complex projects, as well as insights into organizational knowledge, learning, 

collaboration, performance measurement and evaluation, and scheduling. We at 

APPEL Knowledge Sharing believe that stories recounting the real-life experiences 

of practitioners communicate important practical wisdom and best practices that 

readers can apply to their own projects and environments. By telling their stories, 

NASA managers, scientists, and engineers share valuable experience-based knowledge 

and foster a community of reflective practitioners. The stories that appear in ASK

are written by the “best of the best” project managers and engineers, primarily from 

NASA, but also from other government agencies, academia, and industry. Who better 

than a project manager or engineer to help a colleague address a critical issue on a 

project? Big projects, small projects—they’re all here in ASK.

You can help ASK provide the stories you need and want by letting our editors know 

what you think about what you read here and by sharing your own stories. To submit 

stories or ask questions about editorial policy, contact Don Cohen, Managing Editor, 

doncohen@rcn.com, 781-860-5270.

For inquiries about Academy Knowledge Sharing programs and products, please contact 

Yvonne Massaquoi, InuTeq LLC, 6303 Ivy Lane, Suite 130, Greenbelt, MD 20770; 

yvonne.massaquoi@inuteqllc.com; 301-837-9127.

If you wish to continue receiving ASK in the mail after the Summer 2012 issue, you 

MUST notify us at ASKmagazine@inuteqllc.com. Please put “Continue ASK” in 

the subject line and include your name and organization (if any) in the text. 

2 | ASK MAGAZINE
In his “From the Academy Director” column, Ed Hoffman Knowledge, especially subtle, experiential knowledge, can 

argues that political and social skills are essential to carrying be most effectively shared by people who have a relationship 

out ambitious projects. “Politics” often has a negative characterized by trust and mutual understanding. That is 

connotation; “playing politics” suggests doing or saying why this article is the first in a series of “Knowledge Topics” 

anything for personal or party advantage while pretending to we will feature in ASK: articles that focus specifically on how 

act on principle. But Otto von Bismarck called politics “the knowledge is developed and shared.

art of the possible,” and Hoffman would agree. Political skill In “The People Behind the NASA Engineering Network,” 

involves understanding where power and influence reside Manson Yew illustrates this social-capital principle, showing 

and knowing how to gain the support of those powerful and how the agency’s online engineering communities thrive 

influential individuals and groups. Those abilities can be used when their members connect in a variety of ways, including 

for unworthy purposes, of course, but they are also necessary in face-to-face meetings that build relationships that make 

to achieve valuable goals, like launching a new telescope that effective electronic exchanges possible.

will help us understand the origins of the universe. Virtually every NASA story is at least in part a story of 

Or cooperatively building a space station used for trust-based collaboration. Helen-Nicole Kostis describes 

technological and scientific research by the space agencies how colleagues help one another in the open environment of 

of the United States, Europe, Japan, Canada, and Russia. the Scientific Visualization Studio in “Scientific Visualization: 

In “The Challenge of Cooperation,” Lyn Wigbels recalls Where Art Meets Science and Technology.” And “The Sky 

the long negotiations that turned a distant possibility into Crane Solution” tells the story of the massive collaboration 

an international project. Understanding and respecting necessary to solve the problem of landing the Mars Science 

the varied needs and concerns of all the governments and Laboratory. In Rob Manning’s opinion, “Only Apollo and 

agencies involved required significant political skill. Keith shuttle have brought NASA together to this extent.”

Woodman and Paul Krasa’s “Is Your Project Viable?” is “Kepler: The Long Road to Other Worlds” shows the 

also partly a story about political skill, since it identifies knowledge, social and political skill, and persistence 

understanding and adapting to changes in the environment sometimes needed to carry out a mission successfully. 

outside the project as essential to project survival. Political Scientists literally spent decades developing technologies, 

awareness (for instance, recognizing the limits of financial overcoming rejection, and winning the support of skeptics 

support) is important. to build and launch the telescope now discovering planets 

The social skills Hoffman discusses have a political orbiting distant stars.

dimension—connecting with people to gain their support—

but social skills are also needed to acquire the technical Don Cohen

and procedural knowledge that difficult projects demand. Managing Editor

”Knowledge Topics: A Vital Project Resource” considers 

the role of social capital in project success. The personal 

networks of trusted colleagues that team members go to for 

help and advice—their social capital—give them access to 

expertise that cannot be readily acquired in any other way. 

In This Issue

ASK MAGAZINE | 3
What is the most likely culprit in failures to meet In a May 10, 2012, New York Review of Books

grand societal challenges? How do we understand article, Steven Weinberg warns of the demise of big 

and address the increasing complexity of missions? science projects largely because of these factors. He 

To rephrase those questions in more general terms: points to increasing challenges to large programs 

What poses the greatest risk to projects? such as the (canceled) Superconducting Super 

A lot of observation and reading seems Collider, the James Webb Space Telescope, and 

to suggest that project risk exists within the the International Space Station and concludes that 

boundaries of technology, cost, and time. “big science” is entering a period of crisis. The same 

Certainly this is how professional project managers challenges affect every large project that relies on 

are schooled. The project management profession continuing public and political support.

equips its practitioners with the competence to We have entered a world that demands social, 

rationally manage technical, schedule, and cost strategic, and political sophistication. It is not 

risks. Project management literature and training enough to sell a project once and assume it will 

focus extensively on those areas. survive, and not enough to address only technical, 

Yet it seems increasingly obvious that the most cost, and schedule issues.

likely cause of project death is the social dimension. Instead, projects—whether in science, 

Look at the complexities that projects encounter. exploration, construction, or the Olympic 

Technical innovation and the interdependencies Games—need to have a strong social network of 

among technologies lead to technical complexity that people committed to their conception, design, 

can influence budget and schedule. But project teams development, implementation, and conclusion. 

have a relatively sophisticated set of tools and training to Organizations, leaders, and teams in the business of 

deal with technical issues. Organizational complexity creating and delivering large-scale projects will need 

stems from the interactions of the larger project team, to recognize that social risk has become the biggest 

including partners and suppliers. Strategic complexity project risk, and that a critical part of their job is 

resides in the project’s sociopolitical context, and generating and maintaining a large community of 

primarily concerns stakeholders and funding. Projects people who follow and support their missions.

today experience the dramatic and constant pressure Social skills are needed to gather multiof social and political demands—compromised cost disciplinary knowledge and expertise that is 

estimates resulting from the need to win support, distributed around the world. Necessary social skills 

complicated partnerships, challenges from external also include effective communication to inform 

budgetary and political stakeholders, and changes and educate a diverse stakeholder community. 

in popular support. Overcoming the social risks projects face calls 

There are many people in many positions who for widespread efforts to transform projects 

determine whether a program lives or dies, but the from circumscribed communities to networks of 

field of project management largely ignores all but advocates involving both internal team members 

the technical and cost factors. and a broader audience of external stakeholders. ●

From the Academy Director

P rojects Built Around People and Networks

BY ED HOFFMAN 

4 | ASK MAGAZINE
Title

By 

Intro

Navigating to alien planets similar to our own is a universal theme of science fiction. But how do our 

space heroes know where to find those planets? And how do they know they won’t suffocate as soon 

as they beam down to the surface? Discovering these Earth-like planets has taken a step out of the 

science fiction realm with NASA’s Kepler mission, which seeks to find planets within the Goldilocks 

zone of other stars: not too close (and hot), not too far (and freezing), but just right for potentially 

supporting life. While Kepler is only the first step on a long road of future missions that will tell us 

more about these extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, its own journey to launch took more than twenty 

years and lots of perseverance.

Kepler: The Long Road

to Other Worlds

BY KERRY ELLIS

Kepler-20e is the first planet 

smaller than Earth discovered to 

orbit a star other than the sun. 

A year on Kepler-20e lasts only 

six days, as it is much closer 

to its host star than Earth is to 

the sun. The temperature at the 

surface of the planet, around 

1,400oF, is much too hot to 

support life as we know it.

hcetlCa-LPJ/smeA/ASA N:tider CeagmI

STORY | ASK MAGAZINE | 5
Looking for planets hundreds of light-years away is tricky. The This particular orbit between Earth and the sun is relatively 

stars are very big and bright, the planets very small and faint. stable due to the balancing gravitational pulls of Earth and the 

Locating them requires staring at stars for a long time in hopes sun. Since it isn’t perfectly stable, though, missions in this orbit 

of everything aligning just right so we can witness a planet’s require rocket engines and fuel to make slight adjustments—

transit—that is, its passage in front of its star, which obscures both of which can get expensive. Reviewers again rejected the 

a tiny fraction of the star’s light. Measuring that dip in light is proposal, this time because they estimated the mission cost to 

how the Kepler mission determines a planet’s size. exceed the Discovery cost cap.

The idea of using transits to detect extrasolar planets was The team proposed again in 1996. “To reduce costs, the 

first published in 1971 by computer scientist Frank Rosenblatt. project manager changed the orbit to heliocentric to eliminate 

Kepler’s principal investigator, William Borucki, expanded on the rocket motors and fuel, and then cost out the design using 

that idea in 1984 with Audrey Summers, proposing that transits three different methods. This time the reviewers didn’t dispute 

could be detected using high-precision photometry. The next the estimate,” Borucki explained. “Also at this time, team 

sixteen years were spent proving to others—and to NASA— members like Carl Sagan, Jill Tarter, and Dave Koch strongthat this idea could work. armed me into changing the name from FRESIP to Kepler,” he 

recalled with a laugh.

Proving Space Science on the Ground The previous year, the team tested charge-coupled device 

To understand how precise “high-precision” needed to be for (CCD) detectors at Lick Observatory, and Borucki and his 

Kepler, think of Earth-size planets transiting stars similar to our colleagues published results in 1995 that confirmed CCDs—

sun, but light-years away. Such a transit would cause a dip in combined with a mathematical correction of systematic errors—

the star’s visible light by only 84 parts per million (ppm). In had the 10-ppm precision needed to detect Earth-size planets. 

other words, Kepler’s detectors would have to reliably measure But Kepler was rejected again because no one believed that 

changes of 0.01 percent. high-precision photometry could be automated for thousands 

Borucki and his team discussed the development of a high- of stars. “People did photometry one star at a time. The data 

precision photometer during a workshop in 1987, sponsored by analysis wasn’t done in automated fashion, either. You did it by 

Ames Research Center and the National Institute of Standards hand,” explained Borucki. “The reviewers rejected it and said, 

and Technology, and then built and tested several prototypes. ‘Go build an observatory and show us it can be done.’ So we did.” 

When NASA created the Discovery Program in 1992, They built an automated photometer at Lick Observatory 

the team proposed their concept as FRESIP, the Frequency of and radio linked the data back to Ames, where computer 

Earth-Size Inner Planets. While the science was highly rated, programs handled the analysis. The team published their 

the proposal was rejected because the technology needed to results and prepared for the next Discovery announcement of 

achieve it wasn’t believed to exist. When the first Discovery opportunity in 1998. 

announcement of opportunity arose in 1994, the team again “This time they accepted our science, detector capability, 

proposed FRESIP, this time as a full mission in a Lagrange orbit. and automated photometry, but rejected the proposal because 

Kepler’s focal plane 

consists of an array of 

forty-two charge-coupled 

devices (CCDs). Each CCD 

is 2.8 cm by 3.0 cm with 

1,024 by 1,100 pixels. The 

entire focal plane contains 

95 megapixels. 

ecapsorel Alad BnA aSA: Ntidero CtohP

6 | ASK MAGAZINE
ThE SCIENCE MERIT fUNCTIoN ThAT BILL dEVELoPEd wAS A BRIdGE BETwEEN ThE 

SCIENCE ANd ENGINEERING ThAT wE USEd IN doING ThESE KINd of TRAdE STUdIES ...

we did not prove we could get the required precision in the 

presence of on-orbit noise, such as pointing jitter and stellar 

variability. We had to prove in a lab that we could detect Earthsize transits in the presence of the expected noise,” said Borucki.

The team couldn’t prove it using ground-based telescope 

observations of stars because the atmosphere itself introduces 

too much noise. Instead, they developed a test facility to 

simulate stars and transits in the presence of pointing jitter. 

A thin metal plate with holes representing stars was illuminated 

from below, and a prototype photometer viewed the light 

from the artificial stars while it was vibrated to simulate 

spacecraft jitter. 

The plate had many laser-drilled holes with a range of sizes 

to simulate the appropriate range of brightness in stars. To study 

the effects of saturation (very bright stars) and close-together 

stars, some holes were drilled large enough to cause pixel 

saturation and some close enough to nearly overlap the images. 

“To prove we could reliably detect a brightness change 

of 84  ppm, we needed a method to reduce the light by that 

amount. If a piece of glass is slid over a hole, the glass will reduce 

the flux by 8 percent—about one thousand times too much,” 

Borucki explained. “Adding antireflection coatings helped by a 

factor of sixteen, but the reduction was still sixty times too large. 

How do you make the light change by 0.01 percent? 

“There really wasn’t anything that could do the job for 

us, so we had to invent something,” said Borucki. “Dave Koch 

realized that if you put a fine wire across an aperture—one 

of the drilled holes—it would block a small amount of light. 

When a tiny current is run through the wire, it expands and 

blocks slightly more light. Very clever. But it didn’t work.”

With a current, the wire not only expanded, it also curved. 

As it curved, it moved away from the center of a hole, thereby 

allowing more light to come through, not less.

maer TelpeK/ASA: Ntidero CtohP

This star plate is an important Kepler relic. It was used in the first laboratory 

experiments to determine whether charge-coupled devices could produce very 

precise differential photometry.

ASK MAGAZINE | 7
“So Dave had square holes drilled,” said Borucki. “With a mission,” explained Duren, “and this became a key tool for us 

square hole, when the wire moves off center, it doesn’t change the in the years that followed.” 

amount of light. To keep the wire from bending, we flattened The science merit function helped the team determine the 

it.” The results demonstrated that transits could be detected at best course of action when making design trade-offs or descope 

the precision needed even in the presence of on-orbit noise. decisions. One trade-off involved the telecommunications 

After revising, testing, publishing, and proposing for nearly systems. Kepler’s orbit is necessary to provide the stability 

twenty years, Kepler was finally approved as a Discovery mission needed to stare continuously at the same patch of sky, but it 

in 2001. puts the observatory far enough away from Earth that its 

telecommunications systems need to be very robust. The 

Engineering Challenges original plan included a high-gain antenna that would deploy 

After Kepler officially became a NASA mission, Riley Duren on a boom and point toward Earth, transmitting data without 

from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory joined the team as project interrupting observations. When costs needed to be cut later 

systems engineer, and later became chief engineer. To help on, descoping the antenna offered a way to save millions. But 

ensure a smooth progression, Duren and Borucki set out to this would mean turning the entire spacecraft to downlink data, 

create a common understanding of the scientific and engineering interrupting observations.

trade-offs. “Because we’re looking for transits that could happen 

“One of the things I started early with Bill and continued any time, it wasn’t feasible to rotate the spacecraft to downlink 

throughout the project was to make sure that I was in sync with every day. It would have had a huge impact on the science,” 

him every step of the way, because, after all, the reason we’re Duren explained. So the team had to determine how frequently 

building the mission is to meet the objectives of the science it could be done, how much science observation time could 

team,” said Duren. “It was important to develop an appreciation be lost, and how long it would take to put Kepler back into

for the science given the many complex factors affecting Kepler its correct orientation. “We concluded we could afford to 

mission performance, so early on I made a point of going to do that about once a month,” said Duren. Since the data 

every science team meeting that Bill organized so I could hear would be held on the spacecraft longer, the recorder that 

and learn from the science team.” stored the data had to be improved, which would increase its 

The result was something they called the science merit cost even as the mission decreased cost by eliminating the highfunction: a model of the science sensitivity of mission features— gain antenna. 

the effects on the science of various capabilities and choices. “The science merit function that Bill developed was a 

Science sensitivities for Kepler included mission duration, how bridge between the science and engineering that we used in 

many stars would be observed, the precision of the photometer’s doing these kind of trade studies,” said Duren. “In my opinion, 

light measurements, and how many breaks for data downlinks the Kepler mission was pretty unique in having such a thing. 

could be afforded. “Bill created a model that allowed us to And that’s a lesson learned that I’ve tried to apply to other 

communicate very quickly the sensitivity of the science to the missions in recent years.”

A single Kepler science module with two CCDs 

and a single field-flattening lens mounted onto 

an Invar carrier. Each of the twenty-one CCD 

science modules are covered with lenses of 

sapphire. The lenses flatten the field of view to a 

flat plane for best focus.

noisis MrepleK/ASA N:tide CrothoP

8 | ASK MAGAZINE
This image from Kepler shows the 

telescope’s full field of view—an expansive 

star-rich patch of sky in the constellations 

Cygnus and Lyra stretching across 

100 square degrees, or the equivalent of 

two side-by-side dips of the Big Dipper. 

The tool came in handy as Kepler navigated through other Extended Mission

engineering challenges, ensuring the mission could look at Kepler launched successfully in 2009. After taking several images 

enough stars simultaneously for long periods of time, all the with its “lens cap” on to calculate the exact noise in the system, 

while accommodating the natural noise that comes from long the observatory began its long stare at the Cygnus-Lyra region 

exposures, spacecraft jitter in orbit, and instrumentation. This of the Milky Way. By June 2012, it had confirmed the existence 

meant Kepler had to have a wide enough field of view, low-noise of seventy-four planets and identified more than two thousand 

detectors, a large aperture to gather enough light, and very stable planet candidates for further observation. And earlier in the year, 

pointing. Each presented its own challenges. NASA approved it for an extended mission—to 2016. 

Kepler’s field of view is nearly 35,000 times larger than “The Kepler science results are essentially a galactic census 

Hubble’s. It’s like a very large wide-angle lens on a camera and of the Milky Way. And it represents the first family portrait, if 

requires a large number of detectors to see all the stars in that you will, of what solar systems look like,” said Duren.

field of view. Kepler’s results will be important in guiding the next 

Ball Aerospace built an instrument that could accommodate generation of exoplanet missions. Borucki explained, “We 

about 95 million pixels—essentially a 95-megapixel camera. all know this mission will tell us the frequency of Earth-size 

“It’s quite a bit bigger than any camera you’d want to carry planets in the habitable zone, but what we want to know is the 

around under your arm,” Duren said. “The focal plane and atmospheres of these planets. Kepler is providing the information 

electronics for this camera were custom built to meet Kepler’s needed to design those future missions.” ●

unique science objectives. The entire camera assembly resides 

inside the Kepler telescope, so a major factor was managing the 

power and heat generated by the electronics to keep the CCD 

detectors and optics cold.” 

What might be surprising is that for all that precision, 

Kepler’s star images are not sharp. “Most telescopes are designed 

to provide the sharpest possible focus for crisp images, but doing 

that for Kepler would have made it very sensitive to pointing 

jitter and to pixel saturation,” explained Duren. “That would 

be a problem even with our precision pointing control. But of 

course there’s a trade-off: if you make the star images too large 

[less sharp], each star image would cover such a large area of the 

sky that light from other stars would be mixed into the target 

star signal, which could cause confusion and additional noise. It 

was a careful balancing act.”

And it’s been working beautifully.

ASK MAGAZINE | 9 hcetlCa-LPJ/smeA/ASA N:tider CeagmI
“... my purpose is to ascertain what lessons this disaster teaches us ...” 

—Senator I. Raynor, May 28, 1912, during the U.S. Senate Inquiry on Titanic Disaster

The Titanic, April 15, 1912.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

10 | ASK MAGAZINE | story
BY PEDRO C. RIBEIRO

On April 15, 1912, the “unsinkable” RMS Titanic sank during 

its maiden voyage only 2 hours and 40 minutes after hitting an 

iceberg. Investigations and inquiries led by the U.S. Senate and 

the British Wreck Commission indicated that a combination 

of overconfidence, ignored warnings, lack of communication, 

and lack of leadership resulted in one of the greatest disasters in 

maritime history. 

On April 10, 1912, when she steamed out of the harbor at 

Southampton, England, on her maiden voyage, the Titanic was 

the largest moving object ever built by man. The product of five 

years of planning and construction, Titanic was compared to the 

greatest monuments of the world. Proclaimed by a leading naval 

engineering journal as “practically unsinkable,” she sank during 

her maiden voyage, taking with her the lives of 1,517 people.

What happened? The Titanic disaster hearings and related 

sources offer some lessons to today’s project leaders and teams.

Compliance Is Necessary but Not Sufficient

Titanic’s original project plan included a configuration of fortyeight lifeboats, sufficient to accommodate all her passengers 

and crew. The original plans, however, were not approved by 

J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of White Star Line. Ismay’s arguments 

were based on the fact that Titanic could be in full compliance 

with the British Board of Trade rules with just twenty lifeboats, 

enough for 1,176 passengers. He reasoned that the ship was 

designed to be practically unsinkable, a lifeboat in itself. 

Additional lifeboats would unnecessarily clutter the boat deck 

that could be used as a promenade area. 

Titanic sailed on her maiden voyage in full compliance with 

legislation, with 2,223 passengers and crew on board, but with a 

total lifeboat capacity for just 1,176 passengers. 

Sometimes Leaders Have to Rock the Boat

Titanic’s original lifeboat plans were conceived by Alexander 

Carlisle, managing director of shipbuilder Harland & Wolff. He 

believed that new giant ocean liners needed a larger number of 

lifeboats than the number required by rules set by the British 

Board of Trade. He presented his plans during meetings held 

with White Star Line but did not press his views after the client 

refused to accept his plans, considering this to be a client decision.

Later, during the British Wreck Commission’s inquiry, he 

said he regretted not being forceful enough with his client and 

peers in defense of his call for more lifeboats. 

Near Misses and Mishaps 

Are Learning Opportunities

A trail of mishaps and near misses pointed to the challenges 

of controlling the hydrodynamic forces of the new class of 

ocean liners: 

• June 21, 1911: Olympic, Titanic’s sister ship, nearly sank 

the tug Hollenbeck by suction when it was caught in the 

ship’s backwash in New York. 

• September 20, 1911: Due to the suction effect, Olympic

was involved in a serious collision with Royal Navy cruiser 

Hawke in Southampton, and was left with a large hole 

punched in her side. The Hawke suffered major damage 

to her bow.

• February 24, 1912: The Olympic collided with the 

Grand Banks off Newfoundland, Canada, and lost a 

propeller blade.

• April 10, 1912: Departing from Southampton on her 

maiden voyage, Titanic caused a suction effect on the 

SS New York. Collision was avoided by a few meters. 

Near misses and mishaps are opportunities to learn and to 

take steps to make sure that similar problems will not happen 

in the future. However, instead of increasing awareness, they 

contributed to augmenting the level of confidence in the new 

class of ships in terms of maneuverability and endurance to 

collisions. According to author Leo Marriott, the fact that 

Olympic endured collisions with a warship and stayed afloat, 

ASK MAGAZINE | 11
with no casualties, despite serious flooding, appeared to 

vindicate the design of the Olympic-class liners and reinforcing 

their “unsinkable” reputation.

Confidence Is Important; 

Overconfidence Is Dangerous 

Confidence is a leadership virtue, but the border between 

confidence and overconfidence is easily crossed. 

Captain Edward Smith, commander of Titanic, was the 

most experienced captain of White Star Line. Talking about 

his experience during a press interview in 1907, he declared:

“... I have never been in an accident of any sort worth speaking 

about ... nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to 

end in disaster of any sort ... I cannot imagine any condition 

which would cause a ship to founder .... Modern shipbuilding 

has gone beyond that.”

It is important to note that according to White Star Line 

logs, Captain Smith’s experience prior to 1911 was based on 

ships no larger than 24,000 tons. Titanic and her sister Olympic, 

the largest ships ever constructed, were 45,000-ton ships.

Captain Smith’s assumption, based on his past successful 

experience, was that Titanic could establish visual contact with 

any iceberg in front of the ship in sufficient time to maneuver 

and avoid it. The report of the disaster hearings would find, 

among other conclusions: 

... Titanic rushed onward on her true course, one recognized 

as appropriate ... yet dangerous at this season of the year, 

when the Labrador current may be bearing vast masses of ice 

across the track of ships .... Ice positions so definitely reported 

to the Titanic just preceding the accident located ice on both 

sides of the track or lane which the Titanic was following. 

... No general discussion took place among the officers; no 

conference was called to consider these warnings; no heed was 

given to them. The speed was not relaxed, the lookout was 

not increased, ... [Smith’s] indifference to danger when other 

Report of Survey of an Emigrant Ship 04/11/1912. 

The Board of Trade Survey Report shows Titanic in 

compliance with twenty lifeboats on her maiden voyage.

Daily Memorandum from the Hydrographic Office Reporting 

Titanic Disaster, 04/15/1912.

The Hydrographic Office memorandum that registered on 

April 14 Titanic’s transmission of an iceberg message from 

SS Amerika reporting two large icebergs, and Titanic’s 

collision with an iceberg in the same area she reported.

noitartsinimds Adroced Rns aevihcrl Aanoita. NS.e Uh: Ttidero CtohP

K, Uyerru, Sdnomhc, Riwe, Ksevihcrl Aanoitae Nh: Ttideo CrtohP

12 | ASK MAGAZINE
and less pretentious vessels doubled their lookout or stopped 

their engines ... was one of the direct and contributing 

causes of this unnecessary tragedy. ... Overconfidence seems 

to have dulled faculties usually so alert.

Watch Out for Organizational Silos 

Organizational silos—bureaucratic or cultural barriers between 

departments or groups—decrease incentives to collaborate, 

share information, or team up to pursue common objectives.

The winter of 1912 was the mildest winter in thirty years, 

resulting in the creation of an enormously large crop of icebergs 

from the Greenland glaciers. Unusual winds blew these bergs 

far southward, crossing established ship routes. Accordingly, 

on January 16, 1912, the Hydrographic Office in Washington, 

D.C., sent a circular letter to shipmasters, requesting them 

to make use of the United States naval radio stations for the 

purpose of reporting to the Hydrographic Office ice or other 

dangers to navigation, using the telegraph as a navigational aid 

in addition to traditional lookouts.

White Star Line had a partnership with Marconi Wireless 

Telegraph Company, but Marconi telegraph operators were not 

considered part of the crew; they were employed by the Marconi 

Company, not by White Star Line. They had their own clear 

goals and priorities, namely to send and receive commercial 

paid messages for passengers. There was little established 

coordination or procedure, and no incentives for the radio room 

and the bridge to handle ice warnings cooperatively.

On April 14, 1912, the day of the disaster, Titanic received 

seven iceberg warnings. One of these messages was transmitted 

from the SS Amerika via the Titanic to the Hydrographic Office 

in Washington, D.C. The message reported ice along Titanic’s 

route. Titanic radio operators retransmitted the message to the 

Hydrographic Office but not to Titanic’s bridge. Later, the 

Hydrographic Office would mention in its annual report the 

irony that Titanic hit an iceberg she herself had reported: “It is 

a lamentable fact and a remarkable coincidence that the sinking 

of the Titanic was caused by an iceberg the report of which she 

had transmitted .... Had she but heeded the one warning that 

she transmitted she would probably have saved herself.”

The disaster hearings also discovered that an important 

ice-warning message was received approximately one hour 

before the accident. The SS Californian, on the same route of 

the Titanic, stopped due to ice and tried to warn Titanic. To 

this the operator of the Titanic replied, “Shut up. I am busy. I 

am working Cape Race.” He was focused on his work, that is, 

sending and receiving passengers’ paid messages. 

Ineffective coordination, procedures, and communication 

between organizations that should have worked together were 

contributing factors in blocking essential information that 

could help to prevent the disaster.

Listen to All Levels of the Organization

No job in an organization is too small to help break the sequence 

of events that create a crisis. Research indicates that 90 percent 

of employees can perceive far in advance when projects are 

doomed; 71 percent say that they try to speak up about their 

concerns to key decision makers but do not feel they are heard; 

and 19 percent don’t even attempt to speak. 

In the case of the Titanic, the disaster hearings reports and 

other sources indicate that lookouts who could have prevented 

the disaster did not have the tools or status needed to ensure 

their concerns would be acted on. According to the Boston 

Sunday Globe of April 21, 1912, and researcher George Behe, 

past vice-president of the Titanic Historical Society, lookout 

Frederick Fleet tried to warn the bridge about the apparent 

presence of icebergs before the fatal iceberg hit the ship. He was 

not heard because, due to weather conditions, he was unsure and 

could not confirm his sighting as an iceberg. The bridge did not 

take appropriate action because they needed confirmed iceberg 

sightings to change course or reduce speed. The lookouts had 

no binoculars, however, which made confirmation difficult. 

The binoculars in the crow’s nest were locked; nobody knew 

Titanic Disaster Hearings held at the 

Waldorf Astoria New York, April 19, 1912. Photo Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.

ASK MAGAZINE | 13
where the key to the locker was, and the officers did not provide 

binoculars to the lookouts. (The key to access the binoculars 

was later found and auctioned in the United Kingdom in 2007 

for £90,000.) Finally, at 11:40 p.m., lookout Frederick Fleet 

confirmed sighting an iceberg, but it was too late. Titanic would 

hit the iceberg 37 seconds later. 

During the hearings, the lookout said in his testimony that 

“... if he had been supplied with binoculars, which were denied 

him by officers, he could have seen earlier the iceberg with 

which Titanic collided soon enough to get out of the way ....” 

Almost one hundred years later, computer simulations proved 

that, had Titanic lookouts seen the iceberg a few seconds earlier, 

the disasters could have been avoided.

Build and Train Your Team Across 

Project Phases and Functions

The Titanic’s officers and crew were not trained as a team in 

the handling of lifeboats, nor were they aware of lifeboat tests 

done during the construction phase. Their lack of knowledge, 

training, and shared experience made the lifeboat situation

even worse.

According to the disaster hearing reports:

 “Officers and crew were strangers to one another. ... When 

the crisis came there was a state of absolute unpreparedness 

... Titanic’s crew had never acted as a team to lower the 

ship’s boats. ... Untrained and untried, and ... unfamiliar 

with the lifeboats’ capacity ... [they failed] to utilize 

lifeboats to their capacity ... [resulting] in the needless 

sacrifice of several hundred lives which might otherwise 

have been saved.”

Preventing Future Disasters

As a consequence of the Titanic disaster, the International 

Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea was created to apply 

lessons learned from the tragedy. The many factors leading to 

the sinking of the Titanic clearly demonstrate that crises do not 

just happen, they are created by a chain of events and conditions 

that can potentially be recognized and responded to before 

the damage is done. Learning from crises is important, but it 

is too expensive when the cost is measured in human lives as 

well as money. That unacceptably high cost makes it even more 

important to use the lessons of past disasters to avoid future ones. 

In addition, we need to start learning before crises happen 

by investing in learning skills, processes, tools, and new 

thinking models for teams and for leaders at all levels in the early 

identification and prevention of crises. In the centenary year of 

the loss of the Titanic, we should remember that crisis prevention 

is possible but depends on leadership, alertness, cooperation, 

and communication at all levels of the organization. ●

Pedro C. ribeiro is the founder of Stratech/TheProjectOffice. 

A director of the Risk Management SIG and a former member 

of the board of PMI Educational Foundation, he is the author 

of the book Licoes do Titanic sobre Riscos e Crises (Lessons 

from the Titanic on Risk and Crises), and has contributed 

to the PMI Practice Standard for Project Risk Management. 

E-mail: pedrocribeiro@stratech.com.br

ntiocello csr’oth: AuecrouS

Titanic crow’s nest key, Auction Catalog Cover, 2007.

14 | ASK MAGAZINE
The International Space Station (ISS) is a technological marvel. The size of a football field, with 

a mass of almost one million pounds, it has been continuously inhabited by astronauts and 

cosmonauts for more than ten years. A complex of modules that include laboratories, living 

quarters, a gymnasium, and observation areas, it circles Earth nearly sixteen times a day at an 

altitude of more than 200 miles.

BASED ON AN INTERVIEW WITH LYN WIgBELS

ASA: Ntidero CtohP

The ISS is also a marvel of international cooperation. Somehow develop the space station. NASA realized that it was necessary to 

the space agencies and governments of multiple countries found develop a different cooperative relationship for the next human 

a way to agree, not only on the technical standards that allow spaceflight program, one giving all partners a stake in its longcomponents developed by the agencies of different nations to term operation and utilization. Although each of those agencies 

function as a single unit, but also on issues of management and NASA conducted their own utilization studies, the teams 

and usage. Lyn Wigbels, who participated in planning and met regularly to discuss their ideas as well as potential hardware 

negotiation for NASA, reflects on the long, complex, and contributions to the finished space station. These Phase A, 

ultimately successful process. preliminary analysis studies were hypothetical—how might 

It began around 1980, with preliminary studies of how a an international space station be used if it were built?—but the 

permanently orbiting facility might be used. Applying lessons process of developing utilization concepts began to build the 

learned from international cooperation on the Space Shuttle, relationships that the later agreement would depend on. And 

NASA engaged directly with Canadian, European, and Japanese they generated shared ideas of what an international framework 

space agencies from the beginning, prior to a U.S. decision to for cooperation might look like.

Being able to use their own space transportation systems was an important part 

of ISS negotiations with international partners. In this photo, ESA’s “Jules Verne” 

ATV separates from the ISS on Sept. 5, 2008. 

STORY | ASK MAGAZINE | 15
ASA: Ntidero CtohP

... ThE AGREEMENT woULd NEEd To BE CLEAR 

ANd SPECIfIC ENoUGh To AVoId dISPUTES ANd 

INCoMPATIBILITIES BUT ALSo fLExIBLE ENoUGh 

To dEAL wITh ThE UNExPECTEd SITUATIoNS 

ThAT woULd UNdoUBTEdLy ARISE dURING ThE 

STATIoN’S LIfETIME of ThIRTy yEARS oR MoRE.

ISS continues to provide new and interesting observations from space, 

including this image of Aurora Australis, accompanied by star streaks 

and air glow, recorded by one of the ISS Expedition 31 crew members.

16 | ASK MAGAZINE
instance, would research projects be chosen by peer review (as at 

CERN, the international high-energy physics facility), or would 

each partner make its own choices; and would the partners use 

only their own research facilities or would they share them?

Two factors made this process successful. One was involving 

all interested parties at NASA in the formulation of the initial 

agreement that would be used to initiate the international 

negotiations. The International Cooperation Working Group 

(ICWG) included members from affected NASA program 

offices and centers. It had technical and operations people as well 

as lawyers and management. Simultaneously, Peggy Finarelli led 

discussions with the State Department and other government 

agencies to ensure the agreement would address the complex 

political needs of other agencies in the U.S. government, as well 

as the U.S. Congress. This process resulted in an agreement that 

NASA presented to its potential international partners early in 

the preliminary design phase. It then took months of bilateral and 

multilateral discussions and consultations between and among 

space agencies and their governments to arrive at decisions that 

these many and varied parties could agree on. Wigbels was a key 

member of NASA’s negotiating team, which was led by Finarelli. 

Wigbels was responsible for updating the agreements following 

each negotiation session. She continued to work with the ICWG 

to develop solutions to issues raised in the negotiations. 

Simultaneously, NASA worked with the State Department 

on negotiations with the governments of Canada, Japan, 

and European Space Agency member nations on an 

intergovernmental agreement that would capture the political 

commitments of these governments and address governmentlevel policy and legal issues. The space agencies participated in 

the government-level negotiations, which were paced in a way to 

enable the space agencies to develop the technical, programmatic, 

and management structure for the program in the agencyto-agency negotiations. Wigbels notes that this process was 

essential. Otherwise, the governments might have made choices 

that could have been unworkable in the implementation of this 

large-scale research and development project. Likewise, the 

space agencies could have made programmatic decisions that 

might not have received government approval.

From Concept to Commitment

In his 1984 State of the Union speech, President Ronald 

Reagan directed NASA to “develop a permanently 

manned space station” within a decade and invited other 

countries to participate in the effort and share in the 

benefits an orbiting laboratory could provide. The space 

station went from being a possibility to being a program, 

at least on the United States’ part.

Discussions began at the political as well as the 

technical level, involving the governments of the United 

States, major European spacefaring nations (the United 

Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy), Japan, and Canada. 

Meanwhile, the space agencies negotiated agreements 

covering cooperative activities during the next phase 

of the program, the preliminary design phase. As with 

the first phase, there was no commitment to future 

cooperation at this time, but efforts began to construct 

an agreement that would cover commitments for the 

lifetime of the space station program.

Wigbels led the internal agency process of drafting 

NASA’s version of an international agreement for the 

design, development, operation, and utilization of the 

station. The challenge was considerable: to come up with 

a plan that would satisfy groups within NASA and the 

U.S. government and would also be acceptable to other 

space agencies and their governments. The team working 

on the draft had to understand what NASA needed 

and the U.S. government required as well as what the 

partners needed to make the political decision to invest 

in the space station. In addition, the agreement would 

need to be clear and specific enough to avoid disputes 

and incompatibilities but also flexible enough to deal 

with the unexpected situations that would undoubtedly 

arise during the station’s lifetime of thirty years or more. 

One of the trickiest issues was how to devise a 

management structure that would give all the partners a 

say but would ensure clear, timely decisions about station 

development and operations. Another was to develop rules 

to organize use that would satisfy all the participants. For 

ASK MAGAZINE | 17
The success of the negotiations was based on understanding in space.” Ultimately, if consensus cannot be reached, someone

nd respecting international partners’ needs. Multiple has to be responsible for clear and timely decisions, especially in 

egotiation sessions were held on numerous drafts of the potential emergency situations. As the biggest contributor to the 

greement that led to an understanding of what each partner ISS, NASA has that final say when consensus cannot be readily 

eeded in order to be able to enter into cooperation. While some achieved. When and if partners disagree with a decision, they can 

f these needs were known at the beginning, such as matching appeal to a program coordination committee for development 

he benefits received to the investments made, others, such as issues or the multilateral coordination board for operations 

he management structure and how the utilization would be and utilizations issues and, if that proves unsatisfactory, to the 

pportioned, were only understood as the partners grappled heads of agencies. While many big challenges have confronted 

ith the many facets of the long-term program. Respecting the ISS partnership, the management mechanisms have stood 

ach partner’s needs and working through various alternatives up to the tasks. Importantly, since the agreements were signed, 

o address them ultimately led the partners to decisions that all the partners have sought and almost always achieved consensus 

ould embrace. For example, two provisions—agreeing that the through the lifetime of the ISS.

nternational partners would try to minimize the exchange of 

unds, including the use of barter, to offset their launch and Flexibility Put to the Test

perations costs, and giving partners the right to use their The flexibility built into the agreement includes the provision 

wn government or industry transportation systems as long as that current partners can share their utilization allotments 

hey were compatible with the station—were key steps toward with others, and Wigbels led the NASA negotiations with 

oncluding the agreements. These laid the groundwork for the Italian Space Agency to provide logistics modules under 

ubsequent agreements with Europe and Japan on the use of the this provision. The Columbia accident, which created delays 

uropean automated transfer vehicle (ATV) and the Japanese and higher costs, was obviously unforeseen, but the flexibility 

-II transfer vehicle (HTV) in the second round of space of the agreement and the strength of the ISS partnership 

egotiations involving the Russians. (The negotiations with the made the necessary adjustments possible. Russia’s Soyuz and 

ussians are another story, as complex as this one.) Progress vehicles filled the void left by Columbia until the 

Not surprisingly, management issues proved trickier than Space Shuttles began flying again and continue in that role 

echnological decisions. In keeping with the international, today along with the European ATV and Japanese HTV. Now 

ooperative nature of the ISS, consensus is an important the likelihood of U.S. commercial providers supplying the 

rinciple. A spacecraft cannot be run by committee, however. As station is another development in the evolving International 

he Japanese negotiators remarked, “It’s one big boat out there Space Station partnership. ● 

a

n

a

n

o

t

t

a

w

e

t

c

i

f

o

o

t

c

s

E

H

n

R

t

c

p

t

ASA: Ntidero CtohP

 The unpiloted Japanese 

Kounotori 2 H-II Transfer Vehicle 

(HTV2) approaches the ISS, 

delivering more than four tons of 

food and supplies to the space 

station and its crew members.

18 | ASK MAGAZINE
 There to Help: 

NASA’s Ombudsman Program

 BY RUTH McWILLIAMS AND REx ELLIOTT

“Chris” works on a project with a tight deadline as part of a small team at a fairly remote site. The 

new head of his group has been with NASA for six months, after a long hiring process that resulted 

in the selection of an external candidate. Chris’s new supervisor is technically knowledgeable but 

has found fault with almost every aspect of the team’s work. He shows his dissatisfaction by making 

belittling remarks and swearing at the employees. In one-on-one discussions, he makes personal and 

derogatory comments about people not in the room. 

InsIght | ASK MAGAZINE | 19
Chris isn’t sleeping well. He knows his work is suffering because immediate outside help. Otherwise, the ombudsman doesn’t 

the work environment has become so unpleasant and he’s worried reveal information about visitors (as those who bring issues to 

about meeting all the deadlines. He heard that one coworker ombudsmen are called) unless given express permission. This 

received a prescription for anti-anxiety medication. Chris doubts also means that the ombudsman can’t be called to testify within 

his boss will listen to his concerns; he thinks the project manager the agency, if a formal process occurs. Communications between 

is unlikely to fix the situation because of the intensity of the the ombudsman and visitor are not subject to the Freedom of 

project deadline pressure and the length of time it took to hire Information Act (FOIA) process.

the new boss. He doesn’t know where to turn for help. Informality ensures that conversations between visitors and 

One source for advice is the NASA Ombudsman program. ombudsmen are off the record. The ombudsman is the person 

who can listen and develop alternatives with an impartial view 

The Ombudsman Program of the situation. She doesn’t take sides and is an advocate only 

The NASA Ombudsman program operates in accordance with for seeking a peaceful resolution of workplace issues.

the International Ombudsman Association rules and guidelines. NASA’s ombudsmen are all civil servants who perform the 

It provides an independent, neutral, confidential, and impartial collateral duty of being an agency ombudsman. Their primary 

environment for employees and managers to raise issues and jobs and, typically, experience in a variety of jobs during their 

learn what alternatives are available for dealing with them. careers bring them a wealth of organizational understanding 

Every NASA center has at least one ombudsman, and most have that informs their ombudsman work. All NASA ombudsmen 

two or more. are required to complete the International Ombudsman 

If you’ve never heard of the Ombudsman program, you Association training course for new ombudsmen. In addition, 

may have questions about it, such as the following: NASA provides supplemental annual training. The agency’s 

ombudsmen also have monthly video teleconferences to share 

• What do ombudsmen mean by independence, neutrality, ideas and issues, while maintaining the confidentiality of their 

confidentiality, and impartiality? visitors. The NASA administrator has designated the assistant 

• H ow does the NASA Ombudsman program guarantee administrator for the Office of Strategic Infrastructure, Olga 

these protections? Dominguez, as the program coordinator.

• What’s the process to ask for help from your center The NASA Ombudsman program guarantees 

ombudsman? independence, neutrality, confidentiality, and informality by 

• W hat can the Ombudsman program do for me? setting the conditions and policies to ensure they are supported. 

• W hat are some examples of issues the ombudsmen see Some centers have a separate area for ombudsmen to meet 

and how do they resolve them? with visitors, ensuring confidentiality. Others meet in different 

locations around their campuses, ensuring there is no direct 

The service provided by the independent Ombudsman linkage between visitors and the ombudsman. At some centers, 

office is not a part of any formal process. Discussing an issue ombudsmen have a phone number that is separate from the 

with an ombudsman does not result in official notification to main system and accessible only by the ombudsman. 

the agency of issues, as it would if you went to the inspector Any employee, civil servant, or contractor can contact 

general or to the human resources director. The ombudsman any NASA ombudsman. NASA’s ombudsman web site lists 

can, however, provide the timelines associated with using one the individual points of contact for all NASA ombudsmen. 

of the formal notification processes, in addition to other advice. The link to the NASA Ombudsman program is ombuds.

Neutrality means that the ombudsman does not represent hq.nasa.gov/index.html. This is different from the NASA 

either the agency or the visitor and ensures the ombudsman listens Procurement Ombudsman Program, which exists primarily 

and advises without presenting a particular viewpoint of either for contractors and potential contractors bidding on NASA 

management or labor. The ombudsman can report trends to the contract opportunities (discussed at prod.nais.nasa.gov/pub/

highest levels of the agency while maintaining the confidentiality pub_library/Omb.html).

of the visitors. The ombudsmen are not in a position of authority Phone calls are preferred, but e-mail can also be a way to 

that would prevent them from listening openly and providing initiate contact. If e-mailing, visitors should keep the message 

a range of alternatives. Ombudsmen are not advocates for any and subject line as neutral as possible. 

parties in a dispute. They are a resource for all parties. Ombudsmen meet with each visitor at least once and often 

Confidentiality mandates that all communications are held several times. They listen with an open mind to help clarify 

in strict confidence, with one exception. If the ombudsman the issue or issues. They work with visitors to develop options 

perceives an “imminent risk of serious harm,” then she may seek for issue resolution and understand the pros and cons of each 

20 | ASK MAGAZINE
option. Visitors can be coached on how to communicate 

their concerns effectively when speaking with leadership or 

coworkers. The ombudsman can facilitate discussions between 

the visitor and other participants, if given express permission by 

the visitor. One outcome could be a referral to a formal process. 

In those cases, the ombudsman provides information about how 

to reach the formal process point of contact. Once a year, all 

agency ombudsmen compile general demographic and trend 

information, which is reported to the agency leadership in an 

annual report. 

The ombudsmen’s activities don’t supersede any formal 

resources or processes. They can’t conduct formal investigations 

or make binding decisions.

Helping “Chris”

In the hypothetical case of Chris, the employee with the 

disparaging supervisor, the ombudsman might suggest a variety 

of ways to address the situation. Chris then decides what steps 

to take next, if any.

The first option might be to do nothing. Many people 

choose the path of least resistance. They’re afraid to make waves 

or appear to not be a team player. But this creates stress and does 

nothing to fix the problem. 

Another option could be to document the situation, with 

the intention of presenting the information through a formal 

process like notifying the program manager or contacting the 

Anti-Harassment Program. The ombudsman would likely 

advise Chris to clearly and carefully distinguish between facts 

and his perceptions and feelings. He should try to document 

incidents as soon as possible after they happen to record events 

while they are fresh in his mind.

Chris could meet with the supervisor, either on his own, 

with the rest of the team, or with a mediator. This could be an 

informal meeting or a formal one. The ombudsman can serve as 

the mediator or as a nonparticipating observer.

Appealing to the next levels of supervision would be 

another option that Chris and the ombudsman might consider. 

Finally, an option to file a formal complaint under one of the 

employee-protection programs might be a step Chris would take 

(for instance, the EEO complaint process or the administrative 

grievance process). 

The ombudsman would work with Chris to look at the 

pros and cons of each course of action, trying to anticipate the 

secondary and tertiary effects of each choice. After Chris makes 

his decision, the Ombudsman office remains a place where 

Chris can return for more ideas or alternatives.

Broad Benefits

Program and project managers look for every tool and technique 

that will help ensure the smooth functioning of their teams and 

successful completion of their missions within budget and on 

time. Sometimes things happen that derail progress. Parts are 

delayed, funding is cut, or the team suddenly stops working 

cooperatively and starts exhibiting destructive behaviors. 

While the NASA Ombudsman program can’t speed up a 

production line or increase the budget, it can provide a safe, 

neutral, informal, confidential, and independent environment 

for the employee or the manager to identify issues affecting 

the workplace and potential ways to resolve them. The NASA 

Ombudsman program is here to serve. ●

In addition to being one of the Headquarters ombudsmen,

rex elliott is NASA’s contractor industrial relations officer, the 

NASA policy person for employee exchanges, and he also performs 

a number of procurement functions for NASA’s Logistics Division.

ThE SERVICE PRoVIdEd By ThE INdEPENdENT oMBUdSMAN offICE IS NoT A PART 

of ANy foRMAL PRoCESS. dISCUSSING AN ISSUE wITh AN oMBUdSMAN doES NoT 

RESULT IN offICIAL NoTIfICATIoN To ThE AGENCy of ISSUES, AS IT woULd If yoU 

wENT To ThE INSPECToR GENERAL oR To ThE hUMAN RESoURCES dIRECToR.

ASK MAGAZINE | 21
Snow and sea ice in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres grow and shrink at exact opposite times of year, constantly out of phase.

iodut Snioatzilausi Vicfintiec Srente Chtgil Fecap SdraddoG/ASA N:tider CegamI

BY HELEN-NICOLE KOSTIS AND DON COHEN

S

& TEchnology

CIE

W

MEETS

E

ERE ART

SCIENTIFIC VISUALIZATION:

22 | ASK MAGAZINE | story
But no spacecraft has followed the trajectory that has brought us 

to this spot above the Pacific. The video has been constructed of 

hundreds of separate images. Even that first view of the cloudcovered sunlit Earth is made up of several hundred images 

artfully stitched together. Creating high-quality computer 

graphics and videos from massive quantities of data from NASA 

satellites and other spacecraft is what we do at NASA’s Scientific 

Visualization Studio (SVS)1

 at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Process

It took two weeks of full-time work to build the two-minute 

video that incorporates data received from MODIS. The time 

it takes to develop a visualization varies from project to project 

and as a result of many different parameters. Some visualizations 

may take a day; other, complex ones may take many months.

At SVS, we use the same computer graphics animation 

software Pixar employs to create animated films like Toy Story 

and Wall-E, but we have added our own software modules to 

the commercial software to ensure the images we create reflect 

as accurately as possible the data they are based on. Faithfully 

representing that data is as essential to the value of scientific 

visualization as telling a good science story. In the recently 

published paper Scientific Storytelling Using Visualization,

2

 we 

describe in detail the production process at SVS, including skill 

sets, techniques, types, formats, and the breadth of our work. 

In the MODIS video, we even made sure that the stars in the 

background matched what an astronaut would actually see from 

that point in space. Although that view is not, strictly speaking, 

part of the MODIS “story,” portraying the scene accurately 

helps establish the credibility of the visualization as a whole, just 

as a random or fictional pattern of stars would undermine it.

Not every detail of the video can be derived directly from 

In this visualization from “Let It Snow,” a massive snowstorm covers much of 

continental Europe and the United Kingdom on December 29, 2010. 

At the start of the video, we see a bright sliver of Earth against a background of the star-speckled 

blackness of space. As we move toward the turning globe, a now-familiar sunlit scene is revealed: 

the swirls of white cloud, blue oceans, and brownish continents first seen when Apollo astronauts 

photographed Earth from space. We zoom closer, moving in on the north Pacific, while a narrator 

explains that Earth’s clouds reflect solar radiation and that atmospheric pollution can increase 

cloud cover. As we come even closer, we begin to see thin, curved tracks of cloud, which the 

narrator tells us form around sulfate particles in the exhausts of ships as they cross the ocean. These 

clouds have been recorded and revealed by the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer 

(MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites.

retnet Chige Flcaprd SaddoG/ASAt: Ndiee CrgaIm
satellite data, however. There are moments of transition—for necessary skills during my years of graduate work, when I found 

instance, when the “camera” zooms in—for which no data myself at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the 

exist. And there are data from different sources with different University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Since its founding in 1973 

resolutions that must be seamlessly stitched together. One of the as the Circle Graphics Habitat by artist and physicist Daniel Sandin 

big challenges in scientific visualization is understanding how and computer scientist Tom DeFanti, EVL has been a bridge 

to fill in those gaps and connect those disparate sources without between technology and the arts. A joint program of UIC’s College 

compromising the accuracy of the video as a whole, creating, in of Engineering and the School of Art and Design, it was one of the 

this case, a smooth transition from a more distant view to a closer nation’s first such labs.3

one. An accurate portrayal of the science is essential, but so is the The best way I can describe EVL is to call it an endless creative 

artistic component. An artist’s understanding of composition, playground. EVL is not only home to some wonderful people, 

color, and lighting helps guide the choices we make. So does a kind but it is also an environment for visionaries who experiment 

of educated intuition—a hard-to-pin-down sense, based on a lot of with advanced visualization and networking technologies 

experience, of what feels right. The process involves a lot of trial and and support high-tech artistic experiments in an open culture. 

error, and frequent consultation with colleagues. At SVS we work The lab emphasized and celebrated collaboration between art 

in an open environment, so it is easy—and common practice— and technology, high-quality work, immersive experiences, 

to discuss among team members our problems and choices and and artistic vision. During my studies for a master of fine arts 

consult each other on how to generate solutions. For example, in in electronic visualization, I worked and studied under the 

order to position the starfield background in the MODIS video, mentorship of Daniel Sandin, who is a computer graphics pioneer 

I collaborated with my colleagues Ernie Wright and Greg Shirah. and a visionary artist. Dan builds the technology4

 and develops 

Ernie, an amateur astronomer, has “starfield” expertise while Greg the software to make his art a reality. Working with him and 

developed software to put everything in place accurately. Every in EVL fed my own interests in artworks5

 that could not exist 

project brings with it unique issues and challenges. without the cutting-edge technologies used to create them. 

Art is not my only passion. In various phases of my life, I 

Learning the Trade taught in schools and community colleges and connected with 

I have been working at the SVS since 2007. Led by director students. I am deeply interested in merging art and technology 

Horace Mitchell, SVS is a world-class computer graphics for informal educational purposes, especially building novel 

production studio for scientific visualization of Earth, planetary platforms that distribute engaging scientific storytelling content 

sciences, and heliophysics. The knowledge and infrastructure using visualization. An example of such a platform is the NASA 

that reside in the SVS are impressive. The backgrounds and Visualization Explorer (NASA Viz) iPad app,6

 which we released 

expertise of SVS members are diverse, but we share a passion for on July 26, 2011.7

computer graphics, an appreciation or passion for art, and an A group of media experts at Goddard brought this app 

interest or expertise in science. to life. The multidisciplinary team includes members of the 

I have a passion for bringing moving images to life and relish SVS, the Science Data Processing Branch, and Goddard 

the challenge of balancing art and technology while maintaining Television. With story contributions from writers, producers, 

the integrity of the data. Combining art and technology to serve data visualizers, and scientists, the app features images, videos, 

science is an exciting challenge. I was lucky to begin developing the and text that provide information from NASA’s science research 

sitso KelcoiN-nel Hef oysetru coegmaI

 The NASA Viz app shares scientific 

stories through images, animations, 

articles, and more.

24 | ASK MAGAZINE
projects in a clear and lively form. The stories vividly portray 

findings in Earth science, ranging from wind and water patterns 

to seasonal changes in vegetation to fires to shrinking glaciers, 

as well as discoveries about the sun, planets, moons, and the 

universe beyond our solar system. As of May 2012, more than 

600,000 users have downloaded the NASA Viz app.

The contribution of artists in technology projects to science 

is not something new, but it is definitely not mainstream. 

Scientific and technology fields have their own metrics for 

measuring contribution and success, but what about the 

contribution of arts? One of my other interests is to work with 

fellow artists who are collaborators in science education projects 

and discover how we can articulate the contribution of such 

fields. A first attempt toward this direction is a collaborative 

paper, Media Arts in Support of Science Education.

8

Visualizations vary in subject area, style, and duration. 

For instance, the “Snow Leads, Sea Ice Follows” and “Let It 

Snow”9

 set of visualizations developed collaboratively with 

colleague Cindy Starr have been especially popular in the 

educational community, as they showcase how seasons change, 

and especially the difference in seasons between Arctic and 

Antarctic regions. These visualizations were produced in close 

collaboration with NASA scientist Thorsten Markus and are 

now used in many educational events. For the development of 

these visualizations, layers of different data sets blend together, 

including bathymetry in the oceans, Next Generation Blue 

Marble in the Land, AMSR-E sea-ice data, and Terra MODIS 

daily snow cover.

An example of a powerful educational and scientific use of 

these visualizations is in a recent live event combining music, 

art, and science with education in the NASA-sponsored program 

“Beautiful Earth: Learning and Experiencing Science in a New 

and Engaging Way.” Visualizations of snow cover and sea ice 

over the poles showcase dramatic changes occurring over seasons 

and demonstrate the relationship of snow cover and sea ice.

Principal investigator Valerie Casasanto believes that 

“audiences won’t be able to grasp such complex scientific 

concepts or even pay attention unless they are visually appealing. 

Through the use of SVS visuals combined with music, an 

audience can understand a scientific concept without being 

lectured to. In one look, the whole story is told. This may help 

inspire young people to study these sciences or take action for 

better stewardship of our home planet.”

The Audience for Scientific Visualization

The primary purpose of works like the MODIS video 

and the “Pulse of Snow and Sea Ice” visualizations are to 

help NASA scientists advance their research and support 

outreach communication and scholarly work (presentations, 

publications). The visualizations also support NASA’s education 

and public outreach activities that engage the public about 

research efforts. They present the story of scientific findings in 

a form that students and the public can readily grasp. Our job 

comes down to effective and accurate storytelling—creating a 

visual narrative that will be informative, visually compelling, 

and scientifically accurate.

The visualization-driven products are archived in the 

SVS repository (svs.gsfc.nasa.gov), which is a free and publicly 

accessible database with more than 3,000 entries. The products 

span many visualization forms, including 2-D, 3-D stereoscopic, 

Science on a Sphere, Hyperwall, Dome Show, and even touch 

display. Each production includes various formats, including 

frame sets, still images, movies, and, when appropriate, data in a 

wide gamut of resolutions. Upon release, the products often take 

on a life of their own, since the public can 

use them freely and without restriction. ●

1. Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov.

2. K wan-Liu Ma, Isaac Liao, Jennifer frazier, helwig hauser, and helen-Nicole Kostis, “Scientific Storytelling Using 

Visualization,” ieee Computer graphics and applications, January/february 2012, 12–19, doi.ieeecomputersociety.

org/10.1109/MCG.2012.24.

3. Stuart Luman, “future world,” uiC alumni magazine, winter 2011, www.uiaa.org/uic/news/uicalumni/1111a.html.

4. Video data Bank, Dan sandin, www.vdb.org/node/288.

5. Another Language Performing Arts Company, interPlay: Loose minds in a Box, 2005, www.anotherlanguage.org/

interplay/lmib.

6. NASA Visualization Explorer, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/nasaviz.

7. w ade Sisler and Michael Starobin, “NASA’s iPad App Beams Science Straight to Users,” Goddard Release No. 11-

044, www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/releases/2011/11-044.html.

8. daria Tsoupikova, Julieta Aguilera, helen-Nicole Kostis, Tina Shah, and Brenda Lopez Silva, media arts in support of 

science education, International Symposium on Electronic Art 2012 (to appear).

9. NASA Scientific Visualization Studio, “Snow Leads, Sea Ice follows,” svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/

a010881/index.html; “Let It Snow,” svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010850/index.html.

... wE EVEN MAdE SURE ThAT ThE STARS IN ThE BACKGRoUNd MATChEd 

whAT AN ASTRoNAUT woULd ACTUALLy SEE fRoM ThAT PoINT IN SPACE. 

ALThoUGh ThAT VIEw IS NoT, STRICTLy SPEAKING, PART of ThE ModIS 

“SToRy,” PoRTRAyING ThE SCENE ACCURATELy hELPS ESTABLISh ThE 

CREdIBILITy of ThE VISUALIZATIoN AS A whoLE, JUST AS A RANdoM oR 

fICTIoNAL PATTERN of STARS woULd UNdERMINE IT.

ASK MAGAZINE | 25
BY DON COHEN 

intr dehe kcoL/hcetlaC-LPJ/ASA N:tide CothoP r Ma

The finished heat shield for Mars Science Laboratory, with a diameter of 4.5 meters, 

is the largest ever built for descending through the atmosphere of any planet. 

26 | ASK MAGAZINE | story
The challenge was clear: how do you safely land a 2,000-lb. rover on the surface of Mars? 

Curiosity, as the Mars Science Laboratory is called, has nearly twice the mass of the landers 

that put Spirit and Opportunity on Mars in early 2004, and more than three times that 

of the Pathfinder lander that reached the planet in 1997. It is significantly larger than the 

Viking landers that touched down in the seventies.

For all these missions, entering and descending through the 

Martian atmosphere and putting an undamaged lander on 

the surface (the mission phase known as EDL, for entry, 

descent, and landing) has been technically demanding. It is 

much harder than landing on the moon—in part because 

of the planet’s greater mass and gravitational pull, but 

especially because Mars has an atmosphere that heats and 

exerts shear forces on objects moving rapidly through it, as 

well as strong winds that can blow a spacecraft off course. 

And the relative thinness of Mars’s atmosphere (it is less than 

1 percent as dense as Earth’s and as rarified at the surface as 

our atmosphere is at 100,000 feet) means it is not substantial 

enough to slow and land a sizeable spacecraft with frictional 

heating and parachute drag alone—the method used for 

Apollo and Soyuz space capsules returning to Earth.

Past Mars missions have used a variety of techniques 

to solve the problem. The Pathfinder and Mars Exploration 

Rover (MER) missions used parachutes and retrorockets to 

slow the spacecraft and airbags to cushion the landers and 

rovers when they dropped to the surface. But the Mars Science 

Lab (MSL) team quickly determined that airbags would not 

be a viable solution for something as big as Curiosity. An 

airbag system designed to accommodate the size and mass 

of Curiosity would be very large and heavy and significantly 

different from the Pathfinder and MER designs. In addition, 

egress from the top of the deflated airbags and lander platform 

is a complex and tricky maneuver; it would be even more 

complex with an airbag design large enough for Curiosity. 

Along with the huge difficulties presented by the 

physics of landing a large spacecraft on Mars, there are the 

challenges and pitfalls inherent in any ambitious mission—

the mistakes to be avoided, the risks to be anticipated and 

eliminated or minimized. As Miguel San Martin, who 

designed the guidance and navigational controls for the 

mission, says, “There are the problems Mars creates for you, 

and the problems you create for yourself.” A lot of learning, 

experience, design, testing, and review has gone into solving 

or avoiding both kinds of problems.

The novel solution the MSL team has developed is 

what they refer to as a “sky crane.” After reducing its speed 

through a combination of atmospheric friction, parachute, 

and retrorockets, a descent stage with Curiosity hanging 

from it in a bridle of nylon tethers will use its thrusters to 

essentially hover as it lowers the rover to the surface—“a way 

of landing without landing,” in the words of Steven Sell, 

who is responsible for verification of the EDL system. After 

touchdown, the bridle will be cut and a 6-second burn will 

ensure the descent stage crashes some 400 meters away.

Learning from the Past

After the failures of the Mars Surveyor and Mars Climate 

Orbiter missions in the late 1990s, it became clear that a 

Mars sample-return mission projected to launch in 2003 

would be canceled. Knowing the mission would not go 

forward but still funded for a time, the sample-return 

team decided to devote their efforts to going back to first 

principles and think about all the ways to design a lander 

and put it safely on the surface. One of the questions they 

explored was whether it was possible to get velocity control 

so good that you could land a wheeled rover directly on the 

surface, rather than cocooned in a lander. (At the time and 

for a couple of years afterward, the answer was “no.”) Rob 

Manning, now the chief engineer for Curiosity and, years 

earlier, the chief engineer for Mars Pathfinder, wrote to the 

chief engineer of the sample-return team, asking, “Have 

you thought about ‘helicopter mode?’”—what was also 

known at the time as “rover on a rope.” This was 1999, and 

they passed on the idea for fear of the two-body pendulum 

dynamics inherent in the architecture. With two bodies 

connected by tethers, there was concern over the potentially 

chaotic dynamics of the swinging pendulum motion that 

might result. Ultimately, this was a controls problem.

The concerns of the sample-return team represented 

an essential hurdle for the creation of Curiosity and the 

sky crane. Perhaps the key ingredient to getting past that 

hurdle was the experience San Martin had taken from MER 

ASK MAGAZINE | 27
development. MER had taught San Martin that he could 

effectively steer the pendulum and control the two-body 

dynamics, the key requirement to attempt what would be 

called the sky crane maneuver. The MSL EDL team even 

brought in a helicopter pilot from Sikorksy to apply his 

experience to plans for EDL. As Manning says, “Had they 

started from scratch, they never could have achieved this.”

The sources of earlier experience they drew on 

included the Viking mission, which reached Mars more 

than three decades earlier. The engines on Curiosity’s 

descent stage are an upgraded “reinvention” of Viking’s 

throttleable engines, which the MSL team developed by 

studying available Viking documentation (which was not 

as comprehensive as they’d hoped), talking with Viking 

people, and reverse engineering still existing Viking-era 

engines. According to one team member, they “scrounged 

up” all the Viking data they could, a search that included 

locating an informative film of a Viking parachute test in 

the attic of a NASA retiree.

Parachute experience on Pathfinder and MER has 

also contributed to the MSL design. Getting as much 

information as possible about the behavior of large 

supersonic parachutes has been essential, especially since 

the MSL chute will be larger and will deploy at a higher 

speed than similar systems on past missions.

Another issue is the danger of aerodynamic interactions 

between the reaction-control system thrusters and the 

atmosphere, which, in the worst cases, can result in control 

reversal. As the plumes of retrorockets flow over the backshell 

of the descent stage, they can generate forces—like the lift 

created by air flowing over an airplane wing—that create 

undesired motion contrary to the intended one. The MSL 

design had to avoid that possibility. The team again went 

back to study their history, looking at Mercury, Gemini, 

and Apollo data; they even took a trip to the Virginia 

Air and Space museum to look at one of the few Apollo 

capsules. The EDL team deployed a series of cutting-edge 

computational fluid dynamics analyses and scaled tests to 

select thruster positions and orientations and verify that the 

resulting aerodynamic interactions were acceptable. The 

MSL team even passed on their finding to the Phoenix 

team, a tip that led the Phoenix staff to choose to turn off 

their entry reaction-control system for fear it might generate 

control reversals.

MSL’s large heat shield was another challenge. The team 

determined that the shield material they originally planned 

to use would not survive the shear forces created as the 

spacecraft entered the Martian atmosphere at high speed. 

The team wanted to use SLA-561V, which had worked on 

all the past Mars missions from Viking on. They baselined 

SLA and started testing it. The old standard seemed to be 

working until some of the final tests in June 2007, when 

things went very wrong. 

“I was presenting the state of our EDL development at the 

project CDR [critical design review]. We thought everything 

was going well, including the TPS [thermal-protection 

system] testing, which was almost complete,” said Adam 

Steltzner, who led the EDL development for MSL, “when all 

of a sudden my cell phone starts vibrating in my pocket with 

news of a TPS testing failure. The SLA had just dissolved in 

testing—complete failure!” 

They were short on time for the 2009 launch and 

needed to solve this problem quickly. The team conducted 

a rapid search of possible replacement materials in a shortturnaround, make-or-break trade. “We really did not have 

much time to make the 2009 launch date,” said Steltzner. 

They ended up with a heat shield made of PICA (phenolic 

impregnated carbon ablator). A lightweight PICA heat 

shield had been used on the Stardust sample-return 

mission, and SpaceX uses a PICA shield on its Dragon 

capsule. NASA’s Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) team 

studied the material extensively. Although they eventually 

decided not to use PICA, their research was a tremendous 

boon to the MSL team.

That CEV work is one of many examples of research 

and experience elsewhere in NASA contributing essential 

knowledge to Curiosity. As Manning says, “The NASA 

community as a whole should be proud of MSL. Only Apollo 

and shuttle have brought NASA together to this extent.”

There were challenges, but, says San Martin, 

“No developmental shoe dropped during design and 

development”—that is, no major weaknesses in the concept 

were uncovered. Early, relatively small surprises meant 

small tweaks, but, he adds, “The final product looked like 

the early sketches.” That is a testament to a well-conceived 

design, a point of pride for San Martin, arguably the most 

important contributor to the sky crane’s architecture.

Although the team was able to get the EDL systems 

for Curiosity ready in time for the 2009 launch, the rover’s 

wheel-drive actuators and avionics hardware could not make 

the launch date. The project ultimately slipped to the next 

favorable date for launch to Mars, in 2011.

The Skeptics Test

Convincing people outside the team that the sky crane was 

the right solution for Curiosity took some doing, maybe 

because it is hard for people to give up their long-standing 

idea of what the “right” landing architecture is—that is, 

setting down on legs with the engines below the lander. 

That describes the lunar landings, of course, as well as 

28 | ASK MAGAZINE
hectalC-LPJ/ASA N:tider CegamI hectalC-LPJ/ASA N:tider CegamI

An artist depicts the moment that 

NASA’s Curiosity rover touches down 

onto the Martian surface. 

This artist’s concept shows the sky crane 

maneuver during the descent of the 

Curiosity rover to the Martian surface. 

ASK MAGAZINE | 29
the classic landing procedure in hundreds or thousands of 

science fiction stories and films.

The MSL team rounded up skeptics—veterans of 

Viking, Apollo, and the Delta Clipper reusable launch vehicle 

program, among others—to test themselves, to “make sure 

we’re not all drinking the Kool-Aid together.” As expected, 

the assembled skeptics picked at details of the plan, saying, 

“I don’t trust this; I don’t trust that.” A main concern was 

those two-body pendulum dynamics that had stopped the 

use of the architecture the first time back in 1999.

A year later, when they brought the group together 

again, the team had solid answers to all those concerns. The 

process was repeated—more doubts expressed; those doubts 

set to rest a year later—until the skeptics were convinced 

and the team was confident that the sky crane would work.

No Mars mission is certain, obviously, but the team 

believes the likelihood of a successful EDL is very high. “We 

have margin all over the place,” says system engineer Al Chen. 

Other team members agree that the risks are lower and the 

margin for error greater than on past Mars landings. In part, 

that is the result of having analysis and simulation tools that 

are an order of magnitude better than what was available for 

earlier missions. More computer power means better virtual 

testing; they have carried out more than 2,000,000 Monte 

Carlo landing simulations—randomly generated possible 

sequences of events played out on computers.

Partly, though, the sky crane landing architecture 

is clearly more robust than other options. For instance, 

landing on Curiosity’s six wheels is inherently more stable 

than landing on legs. With a landing on legs, accurate 

touchdown detection is critical because a retrorocket burn 

of even a few milliseconds too long threatens to tip over 

the lander. A wheeled rover like Curiosity has much more 

leeway—a full 1.5 seconds for cutting the bridle connecting 

the rover and the descent stage.

Planning for the Future

As ambitious as it is, the Mars Science Laboratory mission is

only one step in the ongoing history of planetary exploration. 

Vividly aware of how important their own learning from 

past missions has been, the MSL team is taking care to store 

documents detailing their work in an EDL repository that 

will be available to future project teams.

Equally or more important, they say, at least in the near 

term, is that “people will spread out.” Just as veterans of 

Pathfinder and MER brought their hard-earned expertise 

to MSL, members of the MSL team will go on to join other 

project teams and apply the knowledge they gained from 

their Curiosity work to the next generation of entry, descent, 

and landing challenges. ●

hcetlaC-LJP/ASA N:tide CrothoP

Engineers working in a clean room at the Jet Propulsion 

Laboratory installed six new wheels on the Curiosity rover. 

30 | ASK MAGAZINE
As the Space Shuttle program came to a close Good systems engineers can handle technical leadership and 

in 2011, hundreds of engineers at Kennedy systems management. Both skills are critical when developing 

Space Center began redirecting their efforts and operating any space-related system. We developed RU’s 

curriculum around this idea and built it using a combination of from shuttle processing toward flight-systems vendor-purchased training and civil-servant-developed courses. 

engineering. To support this new focus, An important goal of the RU curriculum is to incorporate 

Kennedy managers developed a small, low- the teachings of NASA’s well-respected APPEL (Academy 

cost training program: Rocket University. of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership) training 

into its program. By incorporating a technical curriculum to 

Rocket University, or RU, is a HOPE-style compliment the APPEL program, RU focuses on teaching 

(Hands-On Project Experience) program that systems engineering of the integrated project as well as within 

promotes agencywide collaboration, technical each discipline. RU students take classes that combine APPEL’s 

broad systems engineering training with technical training skill development, and technical team building in unfamiliar disciplines. Once trained, the students are 

while simultaneously fostering systems challenged to use their new skills as part of a project team to 

engineering skills. RU classes and labs provide conduct a lab flight project or experiment. They must work on 

valuable experiences similar to those gained this project from its inception to its completion, immediately 

demonstrating their new skills as they simultaneously apply during long-term, large-scale flight projects, their systems engineering training throughout a complete 

but on a smaller, short-term, low-cost scale. project life cycle. 

BY STEVEN SULLIVAN AND CHRIS IANNELLO 
This immediate application of newly learned technical 

and managerial skills is what makes RU different from other 

training programs.

Balloon Payload Launch and Recovery Lab 

In October 2011, RU began offering weather-balloon courses as 

part of its near-space environments lab curriculum. These classes 

were meant to introduce Kennedy engineers to the benefits of 

using balloons to achieve inexpensive and long-term science 

and technology objectives. The labs include a series of iterative 

challenges to be achieved during four incremental test flights.

According to one RU mentor, Nicole Dawkins, “Participants 

of Rocket University’s near-space environments team are 

developing expertise in everything from composite manufacturing 

to the latest in avionic and software design techniques. The added 

bonus is that the engineers are learning these skills as they build 

and fly real products that impact future NASA programs.”

For test flights, Johnson Space Center is the principal 

investigator. The students’ main flight objective is to provide 

Johnson with test-flight data that will help them create the final 

design for an unmanned capsule that can be deployed from the 

International Space Station to Earth. 

The first balloon-lab test flight has been completed. For 

this flight, RU students designed and built an instrumented 

payload, launched and tracked a balloon from the Kennedy 

Visitor’s Center, and tracked a dummy payload receiver using 

a global-positioning system (GPS). The balloon reached 

95,000 ft., but the payload landed 45 miles offshore and was not 

retrieved. This balloon flight was the first step in incremental 

development, where RU coursework and projects evolve into 

the avionics that will support our aeroshell drop-test customers 

as well as all other RU flight objectives. The lessons learned 

Students fill a balloon for the team’s project test flight with 

the Rocket University payload launch and recovery lab.

Photo courtesy of Steven Sullivan and Chris Iannello

from this first lab will also be used to improve the second 

balloon-flight test, which will feature additional challenges, 

such as using a flight computer, providing two-way telemetry 

that handles commands and responses, establishing a flighttermination system, providing data-recording capabilities, and 

predicting the balloon’s landing location within 1 mile. 

“Every time the near-space environments team successfully 

launches a balloon payload, we are demonstrating new skills 

and techniques learned within the curriculum of Rocket 

University,” explained Dawkins. “There is a lot of satisfaction in 

knowing that we designed, built, tested, and flew a product that 

will impact future NASA programs.”

Lessons learned from the second test flight will be used 

to plan and conduct the third flight, which will include 

deploying a small (7- to 8-lb.) capsule that will land in the 

ocean. This aeroshell-scale drop test will require new design 

efforts such as creating the small-scale test capsule and 

designing the landing parachute. Performing this small-scale 

model drop test will help the Johnson design team catch 

failures early as the data generated during the test will be 

used to design a larger, 200-lb. aeroshell capsule. This larger 

capsule will eventually fly on a stadium-sized balloon in Fort 

Sumner, N.M., and is being offered by the Wallops Balloon 

Program Office and the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon 

Facility in Palestine, Tex. The capsule will be dropped 

at around 120,000 ft. to collect data that can be used by 

Johnson to design their final product.

Focusing on the Individual

RU’s “technical discipline leads” teach a variety of classes. 

In several cases, the technical discipline training classes were 

conducted in collaboration with experts from other NASA 

centers who developed coursework and taught the classes. The 

curriculum also covers major technical discipline areas:

• Systems engineering (provided through APPEL training)

• Flight structures

• Avionics/embedded systems

• Propulsion (liquid and solid rocket)

Once students complete their technical discipline classwork, 

they apply their newly gained knowledge and can test their 

proficiency on a lab project or experiment. The final exam for 

the lab is the flight project itself. 

RU currently has four main lab/experiment project types:

1. N ear-space environments

2. Unmanned aerial systems

3. Rocketry (transonic and hypersonic)

4. Propulsion system test beds

32 | ASK MAGAZINE
To date, these labs have resulted in more than a dozen rocket 

launches and two balloon launches, each of which involved 

incrementally designing custom flight hardware and software.

RU labs operate with a large number of project teams, but 

each team is fairly small and given very small budgets. Limited 

manpower and a low budget: these realities set the stage for 

team labs.

The NASA model rarely leaves one person solely responsible 

for building a critical subsystem, but this is not the case at 

RU where, because of limited manpower, one engineer can 

sometimes be assigned to work within an entire system. This 

means a lot of hands-on engineering that provides lessons and 

insights that can’t be gained in any other way. Thomas Edison 

said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed 

in overalls and looks a lot like work.” At RU, our labs provide 

each student with lots of “overalls” moments and opportunities 

for personal and team successes.

Students work with a principal investigator to set project 

objectives as well as with mentors, who support them throughout 

the project. As students begin their work, they become believers 

in applying agency guidelines for program management 

because they quickly learn that organization can solve a lot of 

frustrations between systems engineers. They also soon realize 

that agency collaboration is required to help find technical 

solutions from experts across NASA and across different 

disciplines. Finally, the project team must report to all levels 

of management (that is, engineering director, chief, division/

branch chiefs), who actively participate in major project reviews. 

Given the limited manpower assigned to each project team, the 

entire process stresses responsibility and leadership on the part 

of each individual.

In addition, small budgets often force team members to 

build, by themselves, the functions or systems they require to 

complete their project (for instance, data-logging telemetry 

downlinks or inertial navigation systems). Doing this work gives 

team members a deeper understanding of flight functions than 

they would get if they could simply buy technical solutions. It 

also forces them to find and use low-cost materials and resources. 

Many students have become more knowledgeable about how 

to apply commercially available hardware and software to their 

projects, which opens their minds about using commercialgrade constituent parts as they create custom-built hardware 

and software designs to meet lab requirements. 

Additional Accomplishments

In addition to the success achieved with RU’s near-space balloon 

launches, several other labs have seen similar accomplishments 

since RU began in the early fall of 2011.

Avionics

The RU avionics discipline supported the balloon lab’s first 

untethered launch by designing a custom avionics system that 

used the latest in mixed-signal embedded electronics. This 

system is much more capable than similar systems available either 

commercially or within academia. Amazingly, the hardware cost 

of the system was under $350, with the majority of the expense 

going toward purchasing the downlink transceiver and the Ublox 

GPS with integrated antenna. The system consists of a 32-bit 

microchip PIC with 512 KB of flash RAM and, stretching 

outward from the microcontroller, high-speed synchronous 

and asynchronous serial busses that connect sensors as well as 

radiofrequency links. The low-cost, high-performance embedded 

ollennas Iirhd Cnn aavillun Sevetf Sy osetruoo ctohP

The RU team shows the Kennedy Space Center Engineering director 

the analysis associated with the team’s first certification build.

ASK MAGAZINE | 33
electronics used in this flight served to further develop RU’s 

technical skills in that we learned to use nontraditional hardware 

types. This avionics package is in its first revision and will be 

improved upon by RU avionics students with each balloon-lab 

test flight. 

Transonic Rocketry 

During the introductory class on basic rocketry, students 

learned about center-of-pressure calculations, center of gravity, 

available models and simulations, and their accuracy. In the lab, 

students handcrafted their own high-powered rockets and flew 

them with rocket-enthusiast clubs sanctioned by the Federal 

Aviation Administration. From these launches, students learned 

lessons regarding the performance of off-the-shelf accelerometer 

data-collection devices; the benefits of live video and sound 

streams to examine the environments, rate, and violence rockets 

are exposed to; and parachute deployments that resulted in 

either reparable rocket damage upon landing or no recovery due 

to high-wind conditions. The class was a great start for future 

transonic-rocketry studies.

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) 

A series of training sessions provided students with an 

introduction to UAS: practices and principles; flight dynamics; 

modeling and simulation; guidance, navigation, and control; 

communication systems; composite-material manufacturing 

complete with a familiarization of Kennedy’s prototype shop; 

and systems engineering and integration workshops. These 

courses were taught through a collaborative effort between 

NASA and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). 

The extremely challenging lab project for UAS students involves 

designing, manufacturing, and testing a viable UAS. The project 

anticipates flight testing to begin in summer 2012, culminating 

in a planned autonomous UAS mission.

Educational Outreach

As RU progresses, it seems natural that the university and its 

curriculum could also be used to foster outreach opportunities 

between NASA and public/private engineering institutions. 

Since all RU classes are videotaped, they can easily be offered to 

outside universities; and because of the low cost of lab materials, 

the program is affordable to implement. Already the University 

of Central Florida and ERAU have sent faculty to teach at RU. 

These institutions are also providing students to work as special 

teams to assist NASA engineers during design, manufacturing, 

and testing procedures. 

Hands-on opportunities and working side by side with 

NASA engineers help make these students workforce-ready. 

As RU’s educational outreach expands, it could also be 

disseminated to high-school or middle-school levels to support 

national science, technology, engineering, and math initiatives. 

The collaborative possibilities between educational institutions 

and government agencies will continue to grow. 

What Lies Ahead

Rocket University continues to expand its curriculum, finalize 

“graduation” requirements, further identify opportunities to 

collaborate with educational institutions, and work toward 

creating an exciting agencywide technical challenge. This 

challenge would be offered to all NASA centers and would 

culminate in a competitive, yet collaborative, effort among the 

centers. Each team would congregate at one NASA location to 

present their concept and design, conduct a demonstration to 

show how their design satisfies challenge requirements, and, 

finally, discuss their results and lessons learned. ●

RU interested? If so, please contact the Rocket University program

manager, Kathleen O’Brady, at 321-861-3300 for more information.

Chris iannello began his career at Kennedy Space Center 

in 1989 in the ground power systems group and has more 

than twenty years’ experience in power systems. He has been 

involved in some of manned spaceflight’s most challenging 

technical issues, and he has served or led on assessments for 

the NASA Engineering and Safety Center. As a researcher, he has 

published over twenty papers in engineering journals, leading 

discipline conferences, and tutorial seminars.

Computational fluid dynamics analysis for 

the Rocket University advanced rockets 

workshop. The second stage was analyzed 

at Mach 1.4 to determine the aerodynamic 

performance of the rocket at its maximum expected 

velocity. The colors in the image correspond to velocity 

of the air, with multiple minor shockwaves seen 

emanating from the rocket as it flies supersonic.

ollennas Iirhd Cnn aavillun Sevetf Sy osetruoe cgamI

34 | ASK MAGAZINE
This article has been several years in the writing. Sure, part of the reason it took so long was lack 

of time; part of the reason was fear of putting words out there, though I had no problem talking 

about the NASA Engineering Network (NEN). I have done presentations about NEN at countless 

meetings, at all NASA centers, and at conferences here and abroad. I talked about the ability of 

NASA engineers to search for knowledge across three million documents in forty repositories, and 

about leveraging the official lessons learned from NASA’s past, including more than two hundred 

new lessons from the Space Shuttle program. I talked about the resources from the twenty-eight 

communities of practice representing core engineering disciplines. But I wanted to write a story for 

the ASK audience that would show readers how and why NEN worked. 

The People Behind the 

N ASA Engineering Network

BY MANSON YEW 

InsIght | ASK MAGAZINE | 35
I found that story at the NASA PM Challenge in recreate. An online collaboration space for a specific discipline 

February  2012, at a session titled “Building Communities of might help reestablish these crucial interactions, creating virtual 

Engineers to Share Technical Expertise” and co-presented by watering holes where people could find knowledge and experts in 

Daria Topousis, NEN’s lead for the communities of practice their area of practice and interact with other practitioners. 

task; Lorraine Fesq; and Rich Mrozinski. As these three The beginnings were rocky. Having observed many 

wonderful presenters interacted at the podium with grace and instances on the web of discussion boards where people sign up, 

trust, it occurred to me: the story was not just about the NASA ask questions, present problems, and have a community of people 

Engineering Network. The story was about people: Daria at provide answers and feedback, we focused on discussion forums. 

the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Neil Dennehy at Goddard We seeded the forums with questions, we presented trivia and 

Space Flight Center, Dawn Schaible, Lorraine Fesq, Ed Strong, challenges, we asked people to post. Nothing much happened.

Michael Bell, and countless engineers, scientists, and managers 

who are working to make NASA better by building networks Success

across distance, time, and disciplines. The work of Daria and Neil changed that. The Guidance, 

Navigation, and Control community of practice was one of 

The Origins of NEN the first communities on NEN and a source of experiments, 

NEN started as the vision of Greg Robinson, NASA’s deputy lessons learned, successes, and failures in establishing a vibrant 

chief engineer. When he first assembled the NASA Lessons community. Neil is the NASA tech fellow for guidance, 

Learned Steering Committee, he heard about all the different navigation, and control (GN&C), and the lead of the GN&C 

ways lessons learned were missed—perhaps due to time community of practice. He did not need to be sold on the benefits 

pressures or culture or a lack of information technology of sharing knowledge and building a community of practice. He 

and knowledge management sophistication. He reached out was excited to have a virtual community that would reach out 

to Pat Dunnington, then NASA’s chief information officer, to all the practitioners, junior and senior, across NASA. Though 

who brought Jeanne Holm from JPL, a recognized expert Neil was a highly in-demand resource at NASA, a person 

in knowledge management, into the conversation. From whose voicemail would fill up within hours every morning, he 

the beginning, we knew that what was required was more committed to working with Daria to establish his community.

than just an upgrade of the Lessons Learned Information She started with two requirements: a picture of Neil and 

System. In the shadow of the Columbia tragedy and the a community charter. They worked together to establish 

accident investigation board’s conclusion that NASA did not the charter so that members understood the mission of the 

demonstrate the characteristics of a learning organization, the community (the picture was harder to come by). Neil recruited 

task had even greater importance. We felt that the solution Ken Lebsock, his deputy, to work with the practitioners to 

required much more than tools at hand, more than discussion collect key documents, standards, lessons learned, and best 

forums, wikis, search engines, lessons learned databases, and practices. They also published the “State of the Discipline.” 

content management systems. The strategy was to create vibrant engagement among a small 

We learned to take a chapter from the past, when communities group of practitioners, and then slowly build the membership. 

of shared practices would congregate in lunchrooms, at water The plan also recognized that there were different modes of 

coolers, and around common activities to share knowledge. The engagement. There would be a core group, but there would 

advent of technology had created a different way of doing business also be lurkers and seekers who visited to see if they could find 

that allowed greater personal efficiencies at the expense of social a solution to an immediate problem; there would be people 

interaction. What technology took away, technology could perhaps interested in periodic messages and announcements and people 

36 | ASK MAGAZINE
who belonged in another discipline that is loosely coupled to • T hey work best when community members also meet and 

GN&C. The collaboration tools, resources, and knowledge base work together in person and regularly connect in various 

were engineered so each type of member would find something ways (for instance, through teleconferences).

that catered to their needs. • T hey need to be actively facilitated by people who 

But perhaps the key ingredient of success was that Neil understand the community and are trusted by its members.

recognized that Daria was a part of the community, alongside the 

PhDs and branch chiefs. Her contribution was expertise in the The Autonomous Rendezvous 

practices and technologies of knowledge sharing. She participated and Docking Community

in every teleconference for GN&C, listening for opportunities The GN&C community of practice grew from approximately 

that would benefit the community as a whole if it were put up fifteen members in the first year to nearly two hundred registered 

on NEN. She was invited to the annual GN&C face-to-face members, plus countless visitors. Recently, the lessons it offered 

meeting. Kayaking with other members, catching lunch and about creating a successful community have been applied to the 

dinner with them, and talking in the hallways during breaks, she Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (AR&D) community, 

heard suggestions for knowledge to share and was asked about whose formation Daria has supported. Accomplishing their 

improved capabilities. Community members collaborated with work is helped by a synergistic blend of meeting face to face; 

her on deciding what online tools would enable their work. sharing knowledge in person, online, and by telecon; and 

Her role as community facilitator evolved into the role of providing energetic, informed facilitation. Despite the challenges 

technology steward. Groups often resist new technologies that of limited budget and changing priorities, the community has 

outside organizations try to get them to use; like the door-to- grown to ninety-eight. The persistent knowledge that emerged 

door vacuum cleaner salesmen of old, people selling tools are from those interactions can be found on NEN, including the 

looked on with suspicion. When trusted members of the group seminal white paper on AR&D, “A Proposed Strategy for the 

bring ideas, tools, or technologies they have tried, vetted, and U.S. to Develop and Maintain a Mainstream Capability Suite 

can recommend, however, those technologies have a greater (‘Warehouse’) for Automated/Autonomous Rendezvous and 

chance of being adopted. With Daria as technology steward, the Docking in Low-Earth Orbit and Beyond.”

community tool set grew to include a vendor database, “Ask an Since the early nineties, NASA had identified as a 

Expert,” ratings, reading room, standards, and advanced search. fundamental technology for all classes of future missions the 

Most recently, the community rolled out a monthly webcast ability for space assets to rendezvous and dock without human 

covering such topics as “Fundamentals of Deep Space Mission intervention. This technology requires the expertise of various 

Design” and “Space Situational Awareness.” NASA personnel sciences and disciplines, including guidance, navigation, software, 

can participate live or watch the webcasts online afterward. sensors, flight, and aerosciences. No single mission could fund the 

But the community was not mainly about the tools and complete suite of AR&D capabilities, and various missions that 

technologies; the most remarkable activities were people helping require AR&D have developed what their resources allowed, often 

people. Recently, when a member used “Ask an Expert” to gather trading long-term effectiveness for short-term capabilities. Despite 

information about reaction-wheel failures, Neil surveyed his these challenges, experts at NASA have continued to figure out 

core team, then contacted an expert in the Mechanical Systems ways to advance NASA’s capabilities. But 2009 saw perhaps their 

community of practice, and personally assembled the response. biggest setback, with the near simultaneous cancellation of the 

This led to other members providing input from their experience. Space Shuttle and Constellation programs.

The story of the GN&C community teaches two essential As they picked up the pieces of their work, the champions of 

lessons about what makes online communities successful: AR&D assembled a team of experts at Johnson Space Center in 

ASK MAGAZINE | 37
the spring of 2010 to ensure that NASA would not lose its hardearned AR&D expertise. The synergy exceeded expectations. 

Participants were energized by the new possibilities of working 

together as a community. But Neil understood that this 

commitment would not last long before the daily grind back at 

each person’s home center would dilute their enthusiasm. Having 

worked with Daria on the Guidance, Navigation, and Control 

community of practice, he invited her to join and facilitate 

this community’s development. Drawing on her expertise 

in the art of creating virtual communities, she led the group 

in formulating their charter, gathered key knowledge, helped 

members collaborate and share their plans, and established the 

AR&D community of practice on NEN. Though the experts 

dispersed to their various centers, they now had an online 

touchstone where they could continue their collaboration and 

knowledge sharing. The community was further invigorated 

by their work developing a coordinated flagship technology 

demonstration for AR&D, and the collaboration tools on the 

AR&D community of practice proved invaluable. They held 

a telecon at least monthly and shared their best technologies, 

practices, and theories toward developing the demonstration, 

and along the way used each other’s expertise to assist with other 

tasks and research at their centers.

In 2011, the flagship technology demonstration went away 

amid budget and strategy constraints, but the momentum of 

the community was not slowed. Now they met weekly. They 

uncovered opportunities to work together across centers and across 

projects; trust among participants allowed Langley Research 

Center, JPL, and Johnson to develop joint proposals and develop 

common sensors; Goddard offered their test bed for AR&D; 

others explored opportunities to collect data from existing missions 

to further AR&D; and Rich Mrozinski of Johnson led the writing 

of an AR&D strategy white paper that assembled NASA’s best 

practices and proposed a capability warehouse to ensure future 

efficiencies of their tool suite. When the Office of the Chief 

Technologist issued a new announcement of opportunity for 

AR&D, the community felt that NASA would be best served 

with a joint proposal from the community, not competing ones.

The story of AR&D at NASA continues to be written. 

The artifacts of their trust and collaboration, including the 

aforementioned white paper, can be found on NEN, but that’s 

just a small part of an amazing effort.

All forty engineering communities of practice on NEN have 

similar stories. Fault Management just held a workshop and is 

working to implement a new NASA standard and handbook on 

this critical discipline. The Structures community of practice 

has a thread of “Greybeards’ Advice for Young Engineers;” the 

Passive Thermal and Mechanical Systems communities have a 

cross-discipline discussion on piezo motors and actuators. NASA 

Deep Space Navigation holds monthly knowledge-sharing 

meetings. Program, Planning, and Control just came online after 

participants at the 2011 PM Challenge suggested it. And Daria 

or a member of her team continues to participate in the telecons 

with each community and to speak at face-to-face meetings, 

pushing people to continue sharing knowledge. Neil continues 

to shepherd the GN&C discipline as the NASA tech fellow.

Despite budget constraints, strategic course corrections, 

and any number of challenges our missions face on a regular 

basis, our engineers endeavor to come together and build the 

creative connections that contribute to solutions. I can honestly 

say that there is a seat at the table for anyone to contribute to our 

shared mission and shared future. Wherever one finds him or 

herself in their career at NASA, they are welcome in any of the 

communities on the NASA Engineering Network. ●

Note: This work was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 

California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration. © 2012 California 

Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged.

Manson YeW is the enterprise systems project manager at the 

Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

38 | ASK MAGAZINE
 Knowledge Topics: 

A Vital Project Resource

BY DON COHEN

NASA projects require a variety of resources. Money, of course. Appropriate technical and 

management skills. Raw materials and (often) existing components, an infrastructure of equipment 

for building and testing hardware, a launch vehicle or aircraft for flight projects. Enough time to get 

the work done.

InsIght | ASK MAGAZINE | 39
There is another resource vital to successful projects that working together over time. In an organization like NASA, 

is unlikely to be mentioned in plans, budgets, or technical where most work is project work, being part of a series of project 

documents: social capital. teams with overlapping but changing membership creates 

opportunities to form lasting relationships that are career-long 

What Is Social Capital? sources of knowledge and assistance. Opportunities to spend 

To put it in the simplest terms, social capital is the value of time with people involved in similar work at conferences and 

the connections between people. An individual’s social capital workshops also help build these personal networks.

typically consists of an informal network of relationships—the But there is nothing automatic or certain about that 

people you can go to for advice, information, knowledge, and relationship building. It depends on and benefits from a set of 

assistance. (And those same people will come to you for similar conditions that may or may not exist in a given organization 

help.) In organizations, these personal-professional networks or part of an organization. Foremost among them is a culture 

are essential to getting a lot of work done, but they are not of trust—a sense that good will, honesty, and cooperation 

recognized on org charts or other official documents. (though not universal in any organization) are the norm rather 

People naturally seek out colleagues they have gotten to than the exception.

know over the course of their careers whose abilities they respect Trust in organizations develops over time, built by 

and—equally important—whom they trust to understand their interacting with leaders, managers, and colleagues who are 

requests and respond to them constructively. When faced with trustworthy, by the experience of fairness in promotion and 

an especially tricky problem, established professionals are much giving credit for accomplishments, and by people being trusted 

more likely to go to these colleagues for help than they are to enough to be given some autonomy in deciding how best to get 

consult a database or other “knowledge repository.” Almost by their work done. Many experienced project managers at NASA 

definition, the tricky problem involves subtleties that cannot and elsewhere talk about telling their team members what needs 

be explained in a written report or database entry, subtleties to be done and when it needs to be finished, but leaving the 

that can be teased out and understood in conversation between how up to them. (The opposite of this kind of trusting behavior 

professionals. Discussing an issue with a colleague usually is micromanagement that overwhelms the micromanager with 

involves more than being handed an answer; it is an opportunity work even as it undermines the initiative, talent, and goodwill 

to collaborate on your problem, to think it through together. of the person being managed.)

That preference for going to a trusted person for help is For obvious reasons, having a shared meaningful goal 

doubly strong when the issue involves judgment and not just enhances trust and cooperation. Knowing that both you and 

technical expertise. In fact, though the personal connections of your colleagues are working toward an aim that you all value 

social-capital networks are essential pathways for the transfer of and that is larger than personal success or advancement is a solid 

technical knowledge, they are at least as important as sources foundation for a collaborative relationship. It can counterbalance 

of information and advice about “how things are really done some personal differences that might otherwise stand in the way 

around here”—the political realities, workarounds, unwritten of helping one another.

rules and expectations, and influences that have such a powerful Long tenure is also a social-capital builder. The longer 

effect on project and personal success. individuals are in an organization, the more people they meet, 

and the more chances they have to solidify relationships through 

How Is Social Capital Developed? repeated work together and opportunities to meet. And, in most 

Probably the most important builders of these social-capital cases, the more they know about the organization and how to 

networks in organizations are the experiences people have do their work—that is, the more knowledge they have to share.

To PUT IT IN ThE SIMPLEST TERMS, 

SoCIAL CAPITAL IS ThE VALUE of 

ThE CoNNECTIoNS BETwEEN PEoPLE.

40 | ASK MAGAZINE
No organization is uniform. NASA, like every diverse I’m thinking, I’ve got to get a horizontal velocity sensor. 

and dispersed organization of any size, has many subcultures If there’s a big steady wind pushing it along horizontally, 

and different employee experiences good and bad. So it is not right now the vehicle has no idea that’s happening. If the 

possible to generalize confidently about social capital at NASA. spacecraft knew the velocity, it could use the small rockets to 

But there are features of the organization that strongly encourage adjust for that. I told my friend Miguel San Martin, “I need 

these networks. I have already mentioned the extensive project to get Doppler radar on the vehicle to measure velocity.” 

work. As much as any organization in the world, NASA is He puts two fingers up and says, “Give me two pictures.” 

characterized by important shared goals. The vast majority of I said, “Oh, my God, what a brilliant idea. Who should 

civil servants and contractors are passionate believers in NASA’s I talk to?” He says, “Call Andrew Johnson. He does twomissions to advance science, technology, and exploration. dimensional image-correlation algorithms.” I knew this 

Experienced project managers talk about how reminding teams was not going to go over well with the project management. 

of their shared mission has the power to counteract personal Emergency systems engineering, adding new subsystems at 

disagreements and potential discouragement over budget the last minute, is a sign of weakness. Luckily, it turns out 

constraints or intractable technical problems. And people we built rover electronics with ten camera ports but only 

who work at NASA tend to stay many years, building up nine were needed. We wanted to modify one of the existing 

their networks over decades. Even many retirees stay involved, science cameras and put it looking down and have it take 

offering their “graybeard” expertise to younger colleagues both pictures on the way down. It could compare two pictures. If 

informally and through their involvement in review boards and they shifted by a certain amount and if you knew the time 

advisory groups. between them, you’d know how fast you were moving. We 

took three pictures—to double-check. Within six months 

Some NASA Examples it was in the design. Had we not used it, we would have 

Probably every NASA project can offer multiple examples of ended up bouncing at 60 mph right toward the southern 

social capital at work—instances where team members went rim of Bonneville crater, where those sharp, wind-carved 

to trusted mentors or former colleagues or other professional rocks called ventifacts lived.

acquaintances for help solving a technical problem or an issue 

related to how their project is being carried out or how it is Manning’s story offers a vivid picture of social capital at 

perceived or supported by others. work. A conversation with a friend quickly leads to an innovative 

Here is one example of the power of social-capital technical solution to a problem that a much longer formal 

connections to address a tricky technical issue. knowledge search of documents and databases would probably 

never have found. And the friend directs Manning to someone 

“Give Me Two Pictures” in his personal network who has the specialized expertise needed 

Rob Manning, chief engineer of the Mars Exploration program to make the idea work. Getting that new contact shows another 

at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, tells this story about a design aspect of the power of social networks: they frequently provide 

breakthrough for entry, descent, and landing of the Spirit and access to the acquaintances of one’s acquaintances, vastly 

Opportunity rovers: expanding the potential resources of knowledge and support.

 We put these three rockets in the backshell and a little The Orbital Boom Sensor System

inertial sensor that allows us to figure out which way was up. After the Columbia accident, the shuttle fleet was grounded until 

The problem is, winds could be pushing along horizontally. the orbiters could check for thermal-protection system damage 

ASK MAGAZINE | 41
before returning to Earth. Kim Ess was project manager for the pose tough questions that show the project team where serious 

orbital boom sensor system, which gave them that capability. work needs to be done.

She notes: Part of the process—the social-capital part—involves both 

the formation of the review panels and their questions and 

W e didn’t have to convince anyone that the work mattered recommendations. Often, the project team leaders have some 

to the space program and to the safety of our astronauts. say in who will be on the boards and suggest members whose 

And the importance of returning to flight and preventing expertise and commitment they especially respect. So, although 

future catastrophes gave us a defining and unifying goal they are outside the project and likely to be tough critics, they 

that inspired hard work and cooperation, although, as with are generally trusted colleagues, not strangers. Often, too, 

any project, it was important to help team members keep when they find a weakness or risk in the project that needs 

the goal in view as they dealt with the details, complexities, to be addressed, the review board members bring their social 

and inevitable frustrations of their parts of the work. networks into the picture, saying, “You probably want to talk 

to X at Langley,” or, “Y at Goddard is an expert in this.” So the 

An important shared goal—a “unifying aim”—fostered review process helps expand the network and the knowledge 

cooperation, building trust-based social capital. Ess also resources of the project team.

emphasizes the importance of personal contact. Teleconferences 

were important for sharing information, but, she says, “Travel, Maintaining the Resource

travel, travel was the most important part of our communication Managers who recognize the importance of social capital as a 

strategy.” It was the only way for people to develop real working project resource will take steps to protect and enhance it with 

relationships—robust social capital. She adds: the same kind of care they devote to other vital resources. 

Investing in social capital is not expensive and the dividends 

 Over time, we established a we-have-a-problem attitude it pays are immense. These are, in summary, a few of the ways 

rather than a they-have-a-problem attitude. Having people project leaders can help develop and maintain it:

travel from site to site contributed to this change. As people 

got to know and trust each other and recognize that we • Trust team members to make decisions about how best

were all working toward the same goal, information about to do their work.

problems became just data for the team to work with, not • Give people time and space to talk to colleagues inside

indications of failure. and outside the project. Recognize that informal 

conversations away from the computer or workbench (over 

Reviews and Social Capital coffee or a meal) often contribute to knowledge sharing 

The reviews that are a standard part of NASA projects are an and problem solving.

interesting example of a meeting place of formal process and • Invest in travel for yourself and others on the team: faceinformal social capital. Most NASA projects include milestone to-face meeting matters.

reviews (such as preliminary design review and critical design • H elp the team keep their shared goal in mind.

review) during which a board of experts from outside the project • Be open to good new ideas from any source.

examines its progress and questions project team members to • Give team members enthusiastic, public credit for the 

determine if the work is technically sound enough and adhering good work they do. ●

to schedules, budgets, and other managerial requirements well 

enough to proceed to the next stage of development. They often 

TELECoNfERENCES wERE IMPoRTANT foR ShARING INfoRMATIoN, BUT, 

ShE SAyS, “TRAVEL, TRAVEL, TRAVEL wAS ThE MoST IMPoRTANT PART of oUR 

CoMMUNICATIoN STRATEGy.” IT wAS ThE oNLy wAy foR PEoPLE To dEVELoP 

REAL woRKING RELATIoNShIPS—RoBUST SoCIAL CAPITAL.

42 | ASK MAGAZINE
The 46-year-old VAB is a massive structure, originally built to 

service Apollo Saturn V vehicles that were 363 feet tall. The 

building itself stands 525 feet tall on a footprint that takes 

up 8.5 acres. The Statue of Liberty could easily fit into each 

of its four high bays. The VAB is so large, it even has its own 

weather. Under certain conditions, small cloud formations have 

developed near the ceiling. 

The building was modified for the Space Shuttle program 

to assemble and service the solid rocket boosters, external 

tank, and orbiter. Now, the VAB will again be modified and 

refurbished to service not only NASA’s next-generation Space 

Launch System (SLS) program, but also other commercial 

launch vehicles. Being very conscious of federal funding 

challenges, we thoroughly studied options that involved a third 

modification to the original Apollo “box platform” concept. 

This would have been similar to the transition from Apollo to 

shuttle. The type of modifications, the cost, and the limitations 

to future operations made that option impractical. 

How do you prepare for the next generation of 

spaceflight at NASA? Well, at Kennedy Space 

Center’s Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, it 

requires a lot of creative renovations. Actually, 

it’s more like a home improvement project on 

steroids. Ultimately, the upgrades will allow 

more flexibility and reliability, as well as a safer 

environment, to service vehicles for the next forty 

years of space exploration. As the deputy project 

manager for the VAB, it has been an honor to be 

tasked with this undertaking.

RefuRbiShing The 

A floor-level look at the huge Apollo- and shuttle-era 

platforms that will be removed from high bay 3 of the VAB. 

ASA: Ntidero CtohP

BY JOSE LOPEz
The challenge is twofold. First, as with any aging structure, 

much of the piping, HVAC, fire-protection, electrical,

communications, and other systems are outdated or beyond 

their intended lifespan. In addition, the improvements must 

take into consideration the servicing of more than just one 

launch-vehicle configuration. 

The existing VAB access platforms used in previous programs 

are not able to be reused and must be demolished to make way 

for new platforms and infrastructure that can accommodate more 

than one launch vehicle. The challenge is to design and construct 

systems that are relocatable and able to access critical areas of 

multiple launch-vehicle configurations. It affects not only work 

platforms for personnel access, but also access for commodities 

such as power, communications, nitrogen, helium, compressed 

air, and other gasses. Given the variety of vehicles that will be 

serviced in the VAB in the future, including some that have not 

yet been designed, it was essential that the new access system 

be moveable and adjustable. In order to advance the concept of 

relocatable platforms, the VAB team consulted with operations 

and safety experts to understand the steps and duration involved 

with reconfiguring a high bay. We also coordinated with 

commercial and industrial entities to brainstorm various concepts 

to move massive steel structures with greater precision.

To arrive at our selected concepts for the overall VAB 

infrastructure, we developed an extensive partnering process 

between our project management team, the vehicle-processing 

operations, facilities operations, and safety communities. We know 

very well that without the collective buy-in of the larger NASA 

organization, we would not be assured of the success of our vision.

Much of the VAB’s current infrastructure, which is more 

than four decades old, is also in need of refurbishment. This 

massive building is as old as I am, and even I can admit to needing 

an occasional visit to a doctor, so why shouldn’t the VAB?

The first major renovation project consists of demolishing 

the seven access platforms in high bay 3 and replacing them with 

new platforms. The entire system will be vertically relocatable 

and able to translate horizontally to accommodate access points 

on different launch vehicles. Each platform of the new design 

will also be equipped with its own lighting, fire sprinklers, 

and interface panels for commodities. Other systems in the 

VAB structure, such as elevator landings and emergency egress 

paths, are also affected and must be considered in the overall 

operational design of the facility. 

With the advances in communications technology, much 

of the existing communications cabling in the VAB is now 

abandoned or antiquated. One project consists of removing 

about 150 miles of old lead and copper cables and replacing them 

with a state-of-the-art fiber-optic communications backbone. 

The backbone will provide the communications infrastructure 

needed to support multiple users during vehicle processing. 

The mechanisms that move the 45-story high-bay doors are 

being refurbished. Each of the four high bays contains a door 

that consists of two horizontal sliding sections and seven vertical 

lift leaves. Each door leaf is powered by a separate motor and is 

suspended on three wire-rope cables. The motors are being fitted 

with a secondary brake system and the wire ropes that move the 

doors, a total of 8 miles of cable, are being replaced. Not only 

will these changes make the doors more reliable, they will also 

be safer to operate. The mechanisms that operate the doors will 

have a backup brake system and new electronic controls that will 

enable smoother emergency braking operations. Other work is 

also being performed to improve access and lighting to be able 

to service and maintain the doors more efficiently in the future.

The VAB also houses five primary cranes ranging from 

175 to 325 tons in capacity. The 175-ton crane is receiving 

upgrades to its control systems. Installing advanced technology 

equipment will allow the cranes to operate more reliably with 

enhanced precision. This is a must when lifting and assembling 

critical flight hardware. These improvements require the cranes 

to be out of service for extended periods of time, making this 

the ideal time to perform these types of upgrades.

The fire protection and detection system in the VAB is in 

the process of being upgraded to support processing of future 

launch vehicles. Much of the fire distribution piping is at the end 

of its usable life and undersized to facilitate future operations. 

Additionally, the pumps that provide water to the fire sprinklers 

are being replaced with upgraded, larger, and more reliable 

pumps that can be serviced and maintained without affecting 

operations in the VAB.

Other building infrastructure such as potable water, 

sanitary sewer, storm-drainage piping, and low-voltage power 

systems are “original equipment” that was installed when the 

building was first constructed. After forty-six years, some castiron pipe systems have deteriorated, and electrical wiring and 

equipment have reached the end of their usable life. 

The refurbishment of the VAB 

will include removing seven 

Apollo-era platforms from 

high bay 3 and replacing them 

with modern versions that can 

be relocated and reconfigured 

for multiple launch vehicles.

Photo Credit: NASA

44 | ASK MAGAZINE
The launch vehicles are assembled on mobile launcher 

platforms that sit on top of a crawler transporter that moves 

from the VAB to the launchpad. Once the vehicles are stacked, 

the VAB floor, foundations, and other structural elements 

must be able to support the weight of the entire system. The 

previous Apollo and shuttle launch systems weighed about 

18 million pounds. The new SLS system will weigh considerably 

more—on the order of 25 million pounds. Consequently, the 

floor, foundations, and building threshold, as well as the crawler 

transporter itself, are undergoing modifications and upgrades to 

accommodate the additional weight of the new launch system.

All in all, it really is building renovation on a grand scale. 

The end of the shuttle program has provided a window of 

opportunity for us to perform necessary modifications to 

the VAB in preparation for future launch-vehicle processing 

at Kennedy—without the added expense and much greater 

complexity of doing the work while still processing flight 

vehicles at the same time. The work will require multiple 

construction contractors to work within the building confines 

simultaneously, safely, and efficiently. When it is all done, we 

will be able to assemble, service, process, and test America’s next 

generation of launch vehicles. On that day, we take a step back 

and reflect on the accomplishments that make us proud to be 

Americans—and say, “We are ready for tomorrow.”

If I were to capture some of the most crucial lessons learned 

during these critical phases of a project, I would remind anyone 

in my position to closely listen to the project managers and 

engineers that came before you, and capitalize on the nuggets of 

information from the years of excellent mentoring you received. 

Some of that great knowledge comes from engineers who were 

involved with the first major modifications to the VAB, between 

the Apollo and shuttle programs—some of whom are still here. 

Over the years, I have worked with many brilliant engineers. 

Most of them were great for providing “don’t do” lessons from 

their own experience: “Don’t limit your future load limits 

on ...,” “Don’t underestimate your future power loads on ...,” 

“Don’t forget to provide access to ....” It’s amazing how much 

wisdom we gain from our failures and successes. 

Remember, we don’t always need to reinvent the wheel—we 

just need to keep making it better. ●

Jose loPez’s twenty-five-year career at Kennedy Space Center

spans the areas of shuttle facilities systems operations and 

maintenance, facilities electrical-controls design, expendable 

launch-vehicle operations, base operations contract management, 

and project integration under the Constellation program. His current 

role as VAB deputy project manager for the Ground Systems 

Development and Operations program has been his most

challenging and rewarding position—in all his years with the 

administration and the military.

Image Credit: NASA/Boeing

A conceptual lo

w

o

it

k a

h h

t t

i

h

gh b

e fu

a

ture of t

Sp

h

a

y 3 c

c

onfigu

e V

e Laun

r

A

ed f

B, 

ch S

o

yst

r p

em

roc

 h

es

e

s

a

i

v

n

y-l

g t

if

h

t

e

 launch-vehicle series.

ASK MAGAZINE | 45
I s Your Project Viable? 

BY KEITH L. WOODMAN AND PAUL W. KRASA

Requirements change. Policies change. Personnel change. Projects are constantly exposed to internal 

and external challenges, and an inability to respond has been many a project’s demise. To survive, 

projects must learn to adapt. Stafford Beer, author of Brain of the Firm, created a model—the Viable 

System Model, or VSM—capable of determining an organization’s viability, that is, its ability to 

adapt to change. NASA project managers can use this model to help determine and maintain their 

projects’ viability. 

The Mars Science Laboratory entry, 

descent, and landing instrument (the 

black box in the middle left of the photo) 

will measure heat-shield temperatures 

and atmospheric pressures during the 

spacecraft’s high-speed, extremely hot 

entry into the Martian atmosphere. intr MadehekcoL/hcetlaC-LJP/ASA N:tide CrothoP

46 | ASK MAGAZINE | InsIght
The Viable System Model Development Program’s (ETDP) Entry, Descent, and Landing 

According to VSM, viable systems must have five functional (EDL) project. The goals of the EDL project were to develop 

subsystems: policy making, intelligence, adjustment, coordination/ and test new thermal-protection systems and materials, 

monitoring, and implementation. It is also a recursive model, modeling and simulation tools, and supersonic retropropulsion 

meaning each subsystem must itself be viable down to the lowest technologies to support human Mars-exploration missions.

subsystem. Ensuring a system has this recursion is extremely 

important as it allows a system to adapt more quickly to changes EDL as a Viable System

in the environment. To ensure the new EDL project was set up to be viable, then–

To determine whether or not their projects have well- project manager (PM) Paul Krasa from Langley Research 

functioning subsystems, NASA project managers should be able Center worked closely with the principal investigator (PI), Mike 

to answer several questions. Wright from Ames Research Center. The PI was in charge of 

technical direction while the PM monitored and controlled 

Policy Making managerial aspects such as performance, cost, and schedule. 

1. Which elements of the project are responsible for setting There was also a business office staffed to monitor the project’s 

its policies and requirements? risks, schedule, budget, and configuration control. But did the 

2. Do these elements have the authority required to make project successfully implement the five VSM subsystems? 

and implement decisions?

Policy-Making Subsystem

Intelligence The PM and PI initially set the vision and overall direction 

1. How does the project connect with and monitor the for EDL. As the team grew, the vision and direction changed 

outside environment? through a collaborative process that involved key individuals 

2. What information is the project monitoring in the from the project, including the PM, PI, deputy PM and PI, 

outside environment? deputy PM for resources, and element leads. Their decisions 

3. How is important information from the environment being also included input from their ETDP customer, key subjectcollected and then disseminated to the rest of the project? matter experts, and systems analysis, as well as knowledge of 

4. H ow does the project market itself, and to whom should other NASA EDL project activities. 

it be marketing? While the PI set technical goals for the elements, the PM 

determined how and when progress toward those goals would 

Adjustment be set, and they mutually determined financial splits between 

1. How is compliance to project policies and requirements technical elements. This information was captured and 

ensured? distributed through the official project plan developed by the 

2. How is project performance captured and reported? PM and PI, and approved by ETDP. In addition, the PM and PI 

3. Which project element(s) can negotiate adjustments to had total authority over their project and were able to control all 

project policies and requirements? resources and personnel issues. We knew who was responsible 

for which elements, and the responsible party had the authority 

Coordination/Monitoring to make decisions. Based on this, we knew the EDL project had 

1. H ow is coordination between project elements handled? a viable policy-making subsystem.

2. Is there an established channel to report progress and 

problems? Intelligence Subsystem 

3. Can the project’s elements handle the amount of internal Tying into and collecting data from the environment was crucial 

communication they are getting? to the EDL team. Project leaders and personnel participated 

in weekly and quarterly meetings with ETDP and also 

Implementation communicated regularly with sister EDL projects (for instance, 

1. W hat are the project’s technical elements? hypersonics efforts in aeronautics and planetary-landing efforts 

2. Is each element its own viable system? in science). EDL’s project leadership used this communication to 

3. H ow do the project’s technical elements connect to and collect needs and requirements while simultaneously conveying 

monitor the outside environment? their own project’s mission, capabilities, and importance. In 

other words, while we were collecting information, we were 

To determine whether or not one of our projects was viable, also marketing. The project was very active with outreach and 

we applied these questions to the Exploration Technology educational activities. 

ASK MAGAZINE | 47
Project leadership encouraged members to present their downselect of materials was approaching, but the element 

work at conferences. As important information was collected manager made the case that a downselect would be invalid 

from the environment, project leadership ensured that it flowed because of a lack of data from vendors and testing. The element 

to the project through e-mail, weekly staff meetings, and lead said another year would be required to make the downselect 

quarterly EDL project meetings—face-to-face gatherings that correctly. After much debate, the project’s management decided 

included representatives from the program, EDL sister projects, that a delay was warranted. Once a decision like this was made, 

and other individuals who were influential in the community. the change was communicated to the rest of the project and 

We carefully developed agendas to foster a relaxed and open captured in the project plan. By ensuring that progress was 

communication environment that resulted in active feedback being monitored and actively adjusting the project plan to meet 

and, thus, active intelligence gathering. By building relationships fluid program requirements, EDL’s project leadership created a 

with customers and stakeholders, encouraging other outreach viable adjustment subsystem.

activities, and ensuring dissemination of information to all 

project personnel, EDL’s project leadership ensured the project Coordination/Monitoring Subsystem

had a viable intelligence subsystem. Project elements use the coordination channel to let each 

other know what they are doing and what they think other 

Adjustment Subsystem elements should be doing. For example, project leaders would 

EDL’s adjustment subsystem consisted of the PM, PI, business use the coordination channel to communicate requirements and 

office, and the project’s technical leaders (the lead engineers policies to their project’s technical elements. 

of its major technical elements). The project’s policies and EDL’s project leadership knew coordination and monitoring 

requirements were captured in the project plan, which was would be crucial to success and established how these functions 

updated annually by project management and technical leads. would work before the project began. The plan established 

The task plans developed by the technical element leads were that information would be transmitted and progress tracked 

integrated “up” into the project plan, which was reviewed through e-mail, telephone calls, and meetings. EDL monitored 

regularly and updated based on progress made, new or evolving project progress by having the technical elements report their 

requirements, and resource adjustments. The business office accomplishments and problems at weekly staff meetings. Special 

tracked financial and schedule resources and produced reports meetings such as the EDL quarterly also enhanced project 

for review. Before being finalized, the project plan would be coordination and monitoring. 

distributed for comments to all project personnel, usually at The element leads had their own weekly meetings. On a 

the project’s quarterly meetings. This made the development of monthly or quarterly basis, element leads would invite their 

the project plan a collaborative effort of leadership and a broad NASA counterparts from other EDL projects to discuss issues 

cross-section of technical staff. and work across the agency. This allowed the EDL project to 

When problems arose—for instance, difficulty reaching continuously monitor the program’s mandate to ensure the 

a milestone—the PM, PI, business office, and technical leads project’s portfolio of investment was complementary with 

would discuss and decide upon the best remedy, which might other NASA EDL investments. This strong coordination 

include slipping the schedule (if possible), descoping the work, and monitoring subsystem helped ensure the EDL project 

or adding resources. For example, a milestone requiring a remained viable. 

ht SminaeS/ASA N:stide CrothoP

48 | ASK MAGAZINE
Implementation Subsystem

All project elements that develop and deliver products or services 

to customers make up the implementation subsystem. EDL’s 

subsystem consisted of three technology-development elements: 

thermal-protection systems that developed materials for reentry 

systems and conducted tests of those materials; supersonic

retropropulsion that developed propulsion systems for landing 

heavy payloads on the Martian surface; and models and tools 

development that studied and created new computational tools 

critical for developing EDL systems. 

Project leadership chose a technical leader for each of

these elements, and each was expected to implement policies 

and meet requirements set by the PM and PI, regularly report 

progress toward these goals, and coordinate and communicate 

with the other elements. In addition, each technical element was 

expected to communicate to the rest of the system any pertinent 

information gathered from the environment. 

When conducting an evaluation of the viability of each

technical element, EDL’s project leadership felt the elements’ 

intelligence subsystems were performing inadequately. There

was a serious lack of coordination with the EDL sister project 

in aeronautics. To address this issue, both EDL projects decided 

to share the same principal investigator. While this greatly

increased the PI’s workload, it was considered necessary to

improve information flow between the two projects. After this 

change, the technical element leaders of both projects began to 

communicate more and build working relationships. Also, the 

leadership of each of these projects began attending each other’s 

meetings, helping increase efficiencies and decrease redundancy. 

By improving the communication between the two projects, the 

viability of both was greatly increased.

Results

In EDL’s two short years of existence, the project experienced 

two major changes to its primary stakeholder. To begin with, 

ETDP was mandated to form the EDL project; they were not 

given a choice, which initially caused an uneasy relationship 

between the project and the program. EDL worked diligently 

to meet the program’s needs, and by the end of the first year 

was highly rated for its performance. In the second year, ETDP 

was completely reformulated, including the program’s top level 

of management. These changes at the program level led to 

many budgetary and scope problems for the EDL project. Even 

with these programatic challenges, though, the EDL project 

accomplished great things, such as the first design-to-test of a 

supersonic retropropulsion model in more than twenty years, 

and completion of tests to prove the viability of flexible ablative 

materials for EDL purposes. Because of the forethought of the 

project management to ensure their organization was a viable 

system, the EDL project was able to quickly adapt and succeed 

in meeting the constantly shifting goals and requirements of 

their stakeholders.

VSM can be a good lens through which to view NASA 

projects to determine if they have the necessary subsystems 

and communication channels. Doing so can help ensure these 

projects can withstand the changes inevitable in our complex 

and dynamic environment. ●

Paul W. Krasa is a project manager in the Aeronautics Research Directorate at Langley 

Research Center. He started his NASA career at Kennedy Space Center, where he worked 

on both the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. While at Langley, he has led a 

wide array of projects from subsonic flight to spaceflight. Mr. Krasa has a BSME and MS in 

engineering management from the University of Central Florida. His favorite part of project 

management is developing high-performance multicenter teams that meet the national needs 

of the agency.

Keith l. WoodMan is manager of the Exploration Research 

and Development Office at Langley Research Center, overseeing 

multiple technology development efforts. He is also an adjunct 

professor for the American Public University System, teaching 

graduate-level courses for the department of space studies. After 

taking his first APPEL course ten years ago, he became a devotee 

of the subject of project management, culminating in a PhD in 

engineering management from Old Dominion University in 2011. 

Photo captions from left to right

Much of Mars Science Laboratory entry, descent, and landing instrument, 

including the sensor support electronics box, was designed, built, and tested at 

Langley Research Center. 

Ronnie Barnes, of the Aerospace Composite Model Development Section 

at Langley, assembles one of forty-four arc-jet models for the Mars Science 

Laboratory entry, descent, and landing instrumentation program.

Chuck Antill (NASA, right) and Lewis Horsley (SSAI) perform verification testing 

on a flight board of the Mars Science Laboratory entry, descent, and landing 

instrumentation signal-support electronics.

ASK MAGAZINE | 49
The Real Value of Knowledge

BY LAURENCE PRUSAK 

The Knowledge Notebook

The question I most often hear when I speak to So what can we say to those people?

people about how to work with knowledge is For a start, we can examine what organizations 

some variation of “How can we measure the value actually spend on knowledge. How much do you 

of knowledge activities or projects? What is the think an organization spends on knowledge as a 

return on knowledge projects?” Since knowledge percentage of all spending in any given year? When 

is intangible, it is, not surprisingly, notoriously I ask audiences this question, I almost always 

difficult to measure. Think of measuring the get an answer that ranges from 3  to  8  percent 

value of some other intangibles: love or honesty or thereabouts. What if the real answer is much 

or the relationship between parent and child. (I higher? What if it were more than 25  percent, 

am writing this on Father’s Day!) But saying that and even higher in some industries and fields? 

knowledge value can’t really be measured seldom Wouldn’t that fact make for a strong case for 

satisfies budget-conscious mangers. We have to actually managing this resource to optimize its 

come up with something better. use? After all, 25 percent or more of spending is a 

Happily, there has been some real progress big investment.

in this area. A volume published last year by the How do we get this higher number? One way 

National Bureau of Economic Research entitled that is both rigorous and makes intuitive sense is to 

Measuring Capital in the New Economy is the first look at the salaries paid to workers who share the 

sustained effort to apply rigorous methods to same formal qualifications but differ in the extent 

measuring intangibles, including knowledge, in of their experience. I’ll use myself as an example. 

our economy, and to specify how these methods I joined IBM when I was about fifty years old. I 

can be used to take a better shot at resolving this was paid quite a bit more than the typical salary 

thorny issue. offered to a thirty-year-old junior manager who 

Some of you may be thinking, “Why bother to had equivalent degrees from equivalent schools. So 

do this?” Whether or not you can measure its value what did IBM buy with that additional money? 

precisely, knowledge is obviously very important Why pay me more when I had less energy, not to 

in organizations, and possibly the most important mention less hair and a few other effects of two 

resource. Without knowledge, organizations wouldn’t more decades of wear and tear?

know how to get things done. So any attempt to The only thing that made me worth more 

make it more efficient, effective, or innovative than that bright young man or woman was the 

must be a good thing, right? How could anyone knowledge I had developed over time—knowledge 

think otherwise? Well, many people do. They feel “measured” by my work history, accomplishments, 

that, without some logical and robust measures, publications, and reputation. Even if you assume 

attempts to work with knowledge and learning can that knowledge was only part of the value I brought 

never have the impact they may well deserve and to IBM, it was a big part. When you add the 

will have a hard time getting the necessary support premium paid for my knowledge to money paid 

from leaders. to attract the 250,000 mostly quite knowledgeable 

50 | ASK MAGAZINE
employees IBM then had, you are dealing with a huge outlay for 

knowledge. Add to that the cost of training, R&D, and all other 

knowledge development activities, and you reach a number that 

commands attention.

This is only one way to make the case for the value of 

knowledge and the importance of investing in the structures 

and strategies that support its effective development and use.

This book from the Bureau of Economic Research—admittedly 

a rather difficult read unless you posses an economics degree 

or two—offers several others. For instance, read the chapter 

on organizational capital, a subject one rarely hears about. It 

suggests many ideas about the true worth of an organization 

and how it might be measured.

Wall Street and our own government oversight agencies 

rarely, if ever, use any of these new metrics. They assume that the 

level of success of these organizations will tell them something 

about the value of their knowledge. For those of us who actually 

work in organizations, though, the time to act is now, not after 

the results are in. We need to figure out how to use these new 

methods to make a stronger, more convincing case for working 

to enhance this most elusive yet critical resource. ● 

... wIThoUT SoME LoGICAL ANd RoBUST 

MEASURES, ATTEMPTS To woRK wITh 

KNowLEdGE ANd LEARNING CAN NEVER 

hAVE ThE IMPACT ThEy MAy wELL 

dESERVE ANd wILL hAVE A hARd TIME 

GETTING ThE NECESSARy SUPPoRT 

fRoM LEAdERS.

ASK MAGAZINE | 51
Did you know you can receive ASK digitally?

To subscribe for e-mail alerts, download issues and articles, or read 

ASK online, visit askmagazine.nasa.gov.

If you like ASK Magazine, 

check out ASK the Academy. 

ASK the Academy is an e-newsletter that offers timely news, updates, 

and features about best practices, lessons learned, and professional 

development. Learn more at askacademy.nasa.gov.

Scan this code with 

your mobile device 

to read ASK online.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

naSa Headquarters 

300 E Street SW 

Washington, DC 20546

www.nasa.gov

NP-2012-07-887-HQ