Inside Managing the Bad Day Why Wikis at Nasa? Rendezvous with an Asteroid Photo Credit: NASA
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration Academy Sharing Knowledge The NASA Source for Project Management and Engineering Excellence | APPEL FALL | 2011 Inside MANAGING THE BAD DAY WHY WIKIS AT NASA? RENDEZVOUS WITH AN ASTEROID Photo Credit: NASA ON THE COVER On July 31, 2011, Expedition 28 astronaut Ron Garan looked out his window aboard the International Space Station and saw the moon. In fact, he saw it sixteen times. “We had simultaneous sunsets and moonsets,” said Garan. For him and the rest of the station crew, this extraordinary event is a daily occurrence. Since the station orbits Earth every ninety minutes, each day the crew experiences sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset about sixteen times a day. ASK MAGAZINE | 1 Contents 5 46 50 DEPARTMENTS INSIGHTS STORIES 3 19 5 In This Issue Interview with Jeffrey Hoffman Managing the Bad Day BY DON COHEN BY DON COHEN The scientist-astronaut BY DANIEL ANDREWS Faced with a possibly talks about the value and challenges of mission-ending problem, a project manager 4 doing science in space. helps his team focus on a solution. From the Academy Director Action at the Boundaries 29 11 BY ED HOFFMAN Fluids Management for Affordable From the Soviet Union to NASA: Spaceflight An Intern’s Journey 58 BY RUSSEL RHODES To reduce spaceflight BY ALINA ZATER Her family’s passionate The Knowledge Notebook costs, designers should simplify fluid involvement in the Soviet space program Indicators requirements. leads a young woman to NASA. BY LAURENCE PRUSAK 33 15 60 Government and Academia Study International Life Support ASK Interactive Systems-Thinking Development BY KERRY ELLIS NASA and the Russian BY DANIELLE WOOD, HEIDI DAVIDZ, DONNA space agency work together to reduce a RHODES, AND MARIA SO A NASA–MIT space station risk. collaboration investigates the making of good systems engineers. 24 The Dream Chaser: Back to the Future 43 BY JIM HODGES Building on decades of Viewpoint: Putting the Science Back research by NASA and the Soviets, a private in Rocket Science company is designing a new crew vehicle. BY GLEN A. ROBERTSON The author calls for new research to advance space propulsion. 38 Weathering Ike 46 BY HALEY STEPHENSON Maintaining space Why Wikis at NASA? station operations during Hurricane Ike BY JON VERVILLE, PATRICIA JONES, AND MARK required both planning and flexibility. ROBER Wikis support collaboration at many NASA centers. 50 Rendezvous with an Asteroid 54 BY ANDREW CHENG The NEAR mission: Managing Stakeholder Styles science on a budget. to Optimize Decision Making BY VANIA NEVES Understanding how people decide leads to better project decisions. Issue No. 44 Staff ACADEMY DIRECTOR AND PUBLISHER Dr. Edward Hoffman [email protected] EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Laurence Prusak [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR The Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership (APPEL) and ASK Don Cohen Magazine help NASA managers and project teams accomplish today’s missions and [email protected] meet tomorrow’s challenges by sponsoring knowledge-sharing events and publications, providing performance enhancement services and tools, supporting career development EDITOR programs, and creating opportunities for project management and engineering Kerry Ellis collaboration with universities, professional associations, industry partners, and other [email protected] government agencies. CONTRIBUTING EDITORS ASK Magazine grew out of the Academy and its Knowledge Sharing Initiative, designed Matt Kohut for program/project managers and engineers to share expertise and lessons learned [email protected] with fellow practitioners across the Agency. Reflecting the Academy’s responsibility for Haley Stephenson project management and engineering development and the challenges of NASA’s new [email protected] mission, ASK includes articles about meeting the technical and managerial demands of complex projects, as well as insights into organizational knowledge, learning, SENIOR KNOWLEDGE SHARING collaboration, performance measurement and evaluation, and scheduling. We at CONSULTANT APPEL Knowledge Sharing believe that stories recounting the real-life experiences Jon Boyle of practitioners communicate important practical wisdom and best practices that [email protected] readers can apply to their own projects and environments. By telling their stories, NASA managers, scientists, and engineers share valuable experience-based knowledge KNOWLEDGE SHARING ANALYSTS and foster a community of reflective practitioners. The stories that appear in ASK Ben Bruneau are written by the “best of the best” project managers and engineers, primarily from [email protected] NASA, but also from other government agencies, academia, and industry. Who better Ramien Pierre than a project manager or engineer to help a colleague address a critical issue on a [email protected] project? Big projects, small projects—they’re all here in ASK. ACADEMY PROGRAM MANAGER You can help ASK provide the stories you need and want by letting our editors know Yvonne Massaquoi what you think about what you read here and by sharing your own stories. To submit [email protected] stories or ask questions about editorial policy, contact Don Cohen, Managing Editor, [email protected], 781-860-5270. DESIGN Hirshorn Zuckerman Design Group, Inc. For inquiries about Academy Knowledge Sharing programs and products, please contact www.hzdg.com Yvonne Massaquoi, InuTeq LLC, 6303 Ivy Lane, Suite 130, Greenbelt, MD 20770; [email protected]; 301-837-9127. PRINTING SPECIALIST Hanta Ralay To subscribe to ASK, please send your full name and preferred mailing address [email protected] (including mail stop, if applicable) to [email protected]. ASK MAGAZINE | 3 In This Issue One of NASA’s stated goals is to “expand scientific on a relatively tight budget when the team is dedicated, understanding of the earth and the universe in which we ingenious, and united. live.” Advancing science has been a primary aim of the In “Putting the Science Back in Rocket Science,” Glen agency’s from the beginning; its contributions to science Robertson argues for a refocusing on science—devising are too numerous and varied even to begin to list. This and testing new ideas—in the field of rocket propulsion, issue of ASK includes several articles that focus not on which he believes has been dominated in recent years the science itself, but on how much NASA’s scientific by an engineering emphasis on reliably putting old ideas accomplishments depend on close cooperation among into practice. the scientists, engineers, and managers who share Some of the articles here are not explicitly about responsibility for its missions. science, but they touch on the essential elements of In his “From the Academy Director” reflections, Ed cooperation that have made and will continue to make Hoffman describes the conflicts among those groups NASA science possible. Jim Hodges’s report on the Dream in the first project team he worked with as a new hire at Chaser and Haley Stephenson’s story about keeping space Goddard—how hard they found it to function as a team. station operations going during Hurricane Ike—as well as Recognizing that essential work happens when these pieces about wiki use at NASA, decision-making styles, communities interact, he quickly saw the importance of and encouraging systems thinking—illustrate, in different bringing them together around the one goal they shared: a ways, the importance of communication and the sharing successful mission. of expertise. Most of all, they show the importance of a Jeffrey Hoffman, the subject of this issue’s interview, shared passionate commitment to mission success. is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist and a veteran astronaut who has helped explain some of the benefits and limitations of research in space to scientists Don Cohen and clarify science needs to astronauts and operations Managing Editor staff. He talks about the change in focus and operational flexibility needed to realize the International Space Station’s great potential for scientific discovery. It is hard to imagine a more vivid demonstration of scientific discovery hinging on excellence in engineering and management than Daniel Andrews’s story of LCROSS’s “bad day,” when an unanticipated expenditure of propellant almost ended the spacecraft’s mission to measure water ice in a crater at the moon’s south pole. And the NEAR story (“Rendezvous with an Asteroid,” by Andrew Cheng) takes us back to the scientific and engineering challenges and accomplishments of NASA’s first Discovery Program mission—a demonstration of how much can be done 4 | ASK MAGAZINE From the Academy Director Action at the Boundaries BY ED HOFFMAN Many years ago, I was hired to design and The scientists informed me that the whole implement strategies that supported teams at notion of “team” was suspect. Science, I was told, Goddard. Because performance happened at the happened at the edge of rebellion; conformity to team level, the idea was to complement traditional team norms and roles was the enemy of scientific individual-development activities with team support. discovery. The only communities scientists NASA’s grand science challenges depend on recognized were other scientists. One scientist engineering expertise to design and build the needed asked, “What do you notice in my dress?” I looked instruments and sound project management to at his shorts, sneakers, and T-shirt. Before I could ensure overall value and execution. I have always been answer, he told me, “My clothes represent my fascinated by what happens when these communities difference. I am deliberately unlike anyone else come together. It is at these organizational boundaries around here.” In other words, get the engineers and interfaces that projects are tested for strength, and project managers to work as a team, but leave teamwork, and resilience. us alone. My first project team was responsible for a I wondered what planet I had landed on. My large science program led out of Goddard. The retreat sponsor was increasingly worried about project manager asked me to design a retreat with taking time away from the project.