NASA Upper Management Needs More Flexibility

[stickmaker]

The National Reconnaissance Office recently gave two very good but incomplete satellites with large telescopes to NASA. Which is trying very hard to ignore the gifts, because their operational plan has no place for them:

http://nasawatch.com/archives/2012/06/these-are-not-t.html

This is the same management by flowchart which cost us _Columbia_. These are valuable assets which could do important and useful science. They could even be a good stopgap substitute if something happens to Hubble before the over budget and behind schedule James Webb Space Telescope is finally launched.

Come on, NASA! You used to be good at improvising.

Comments

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

What would you do?

It would cost hundreds of millions to fly one of these things. The existing space-science program is part of a carefully-built consensus in a time of tightening resources. Remember that this is tied up with the politics of WFIRST and the Decadal Surveys.

"Cautious" is not "stupid."

How do you build support to turn some free optical hardware in Rochester into a flying space telescope?

I think you're hinting that NASA should kill one or more of its existing projects, then persuade the people who supply the money that it should be spent instead on flying a retired spysat. Is that the course you would choose?

For technical information about these telescopes, which I know will interest you, see the first Paul Hertz briefing and Alan Dressler's briefing here.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

I am definitely not suggesting NASA cancel anything to use this donated equipment. However, doesn't NASA have discretionary funds to at least study using them?

What I'm getting from multiple sources (who know a lot more about the inner workings of the agency than I do) is that they not only literally have no idea what to do with this donation, but are resentful that it is upsetting their carefully laid plans.

I didn't make my comment until after reading three different bulletins on the situation. It could be that those columns were being unfairly critical of NASA's reaction. If so I will withdraw my comment.

I also admit to being hypercritical of NASA since reading the _Columbia_ accident report. I still think there should have been felony prosecutions of some NASA managers over that.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

What I'm getting from multiple sources (who know a lot more about the inner workings of the agency than I do) is that they not only literally have no idea what to do with this donation, but are resentful that it is upsetting their carefully laid plans.

As the Hertz and Dressler PDFs indicate, they have had a team quietly studying what could be done with the NRO hardware for some months. The obvious use for at least one telescope is to fill the role of WFIRST, the wide-field infrared scope that emerged as a flagship, and quite expensive, mission in the Decadal Survey. "Reference designs" have been talking about 1.5 meter mirrors; these reconsat mirrors are 2.4 m. Dressler's group has been looking at how well such a scope could do the WFIRST's various science jobs. Dressler himself says he is optimistic about this.

So, yeah, NASA has spent some time, and presumably money, to study using them already. It is not true that NASA has no idea what to do with the NRO sats. It is true that they are cautious about disrupting the valuable Decadal Survey process, which is carefully done, reaches way beyond NASA into NSF and other agencies, and is the envy of other Big Science disciplines. The Nature article and Marcia Smith's article, to which Keith Cowing links, say a bit about this.

A lot more work would be needed to understand the optimal use of one, let alone two, of these telescopes. They are White Elephants in the sense that to make use of them will cost the recipient a lot of money, probably billions. Even keeping them in storage costs money, as the articles point out.

I didn't make my comment until after reading three different bulletins on the situation. It could be that those columns were being unfairly critical of NASA's reaction. If so I will withdraw my comment.

No need to withdraw your comment! All these guys are entitled to their opinions, and so are you. I wanted to know more about your thinking.

For myself, I would disagree that "NASA is stupid" is the obviously correct conclusion.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Blog in haste, repent at leisure.

I will try to change the heading, or maybe just delete this whole topic.

I partly blame the people I was reading for not going into the details on what was actually done by NASA in re. those two satellites, and myself for not checking a wider range of sources.

I certainly never meant to insult any of the fine engineers, scientists and technicians at NASA who do more with less than anyone should have to. I have read several things NASA's upper management has done lately which I disagree with and it just boiled over.