Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Wait-a-Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David

In a new Wait-a-Minute report, the prestigious National Academies has taken a hard look at the NASA of today and what’s ahead.

For a space agency that has been a leader in exploring our planet and other worlds, it is in a world of hurt, the report suggests.

Sign of the crossroad.

The report identifies out-of-date infrastructure, pressures to prioritize short-term objectives, budget mismatches, inefficient management practices, and nonstrategic reliance on commercial partners as the core issues.

That said, the report explains that NASA should rebalance its priorities and increase investments in its facilities, expert workforce, and development of cutting-edge technology, “even if it means forestalling initiation of new missions.”

As noted in an Academies press statement, “NASA’s portfolio is based on accomplishing things that have never been done before, but the environment in which the agency functions is complicated by several factors,” including:

• Rapid advancements in technology
• The need to compete for talent with the commercial space sector, other space agencies, and other high-tech sectors
• A declining federal discretionary budget and a flat agency budget (in terms of purchasing power)
• Lack of timely congressional authorization acts
• Shortfalls in the nation’s pre-K-12 education system
• Increasing competition in space from China

Astronauts explore lunar south pole crater. A water ice-rich resource ready for processing awaits?
Credit: NASA

Core findings

The committee offers seven “core findings” that, in its view, rise to the highest level of priority. They are:

Core Finding 1: NASA’s ability to pursue high-risk, long-lead science and technology challenges and opportunities in aeronautics, space science, Earth science, and space operations and exploration has arguably been the agency’s greatest value to the nation. Pursuit of such potentially transformative opportunities requires constancy of purpose, consistent long-term funding commensurate with the tasks it has been asked to undertake, a technically skilled workforce able to devote sustained effort to address challenging problems, and leading-edge equipment and supporting infrastructure that enable work at the cutting edge of science and engineering.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Core Finding 2: NASA faces internal and external pressures to prioritize short-term measures without adequate consideration of longer-term needs and implications. This produces adverse impacts on contracting, budgeting, funding, infrastructure, R&D, and execution of NASA’s mission portfolio. If left unchecked, these pressures are likely to result in a NASA that is incapable of satisfying national objectives in the longer term.

Core Finding 3: NASA’s budget is often incompatible with the scope, complexity, and difficulty of its mission work. The long-term impacts of this mismatch include erosion of capabilities in workforce, critical infrastructure, and advanced technology development. The current relative allocations of funding to mission work as compared with that allocated to institutional support has degraded NASA’s capabilities to the point where agency sustainability is in question.

Image credit: NASA

Core Finding 4: NASA’s shift to milestone-based purchase-of-service contracts for first-of-a-kind, low-technology-readiness-level mission work can, if misused, erode the agency’s in-house capabilities, degrade the agency’s ability to provide creative and experienced insight and oversight of programs, and put the agency and the United States at increased risk of program failure.

Core Finding 5: Mission effectiveness across NASA is compromised by slow and cumbersome business operations that have been a consequence of legitimate efforts to increase efficiency and better coordinate complex tasks.

Artemis 2 crewmembers will cruise by the Moon during their mission, an eye-encounter of the lunar kind. 
Image credit: NASA/Kennedy Space Center

Core Finding 6: Over the past decade, significant responsibilities and authorities for major programs previously delegated to the NASA center level have been shifting to the mission directorates. This may have potentially compromised checks and balances for a clear and independent technical oversight. While the optimum allocation of checks and balances can depend on the needs of a particular organization and mission, incorrectly establishing this balance can have extreme impacts.

To read the full and troublesome report — NASA at a Crossroads: Maintaining Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology Preeminence in the Coming Decades – go to:

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/27519/nasa-at-a-crossroads-maintaining-workforce-infrastructure-and-technology-preeminence

Wait a Minute!
Image credit: Barbara David