National Aeronautics and Space Administration Academy Sharing Knowledge The NASA Source for Project Management and Engineering Excellence | APPEL SPRING | 2009 Inside IS SOFTWARE BROKEN? FILLING THE KNOWLEDGE GAPS PLAN, TRAIN, AND FLY Photo Credit: NASA ON THE COVER The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is shown sporting new and modified solar arrays stowed against its barrel after its first servicing mission in 1993. An astronaut begins other repairs of the HST while perched atop a foot restraint on shuttle Endeavour’s remote manipulator system arm. NASA is preparing for its final HST servicing mission in 2009, when astronauts will install two new instruments, repair two inactive ones, and perform component replacements to keep the telescope functioning at least into 2014. ASK MAGAZINE | 1 Contents 22 6 13 DEPARTMENTS INSIGHTS STORIES 3 10 6 In This Issue Integrating Risk and Knowledge From Generation to Generation: BY DON COHEN Management for the Exploration Filling the Knowledge Gaps Systems Mission Directorate BY JIM HODGES Langley engineers working 4 BY DAVE LENGYEL The ESMD uses a variety on an Ares test vehicle draw on the From the APPEL Director of media and methods to make important expertise of their Apollo-era counterparts. BY ED HOFFMAN knowledge accessible. 13 58 17 Plan, Train, and Fly: Mission The Knowledge Notebook Interview with Kenneth Szalai Operations from Apollo to Shuttle BY LAURENCE PRUSAK BY DON COHEN The former director of the BY JOHN O'NEILL The technology of Dryden Flight Research Center explains why preparing for human space flight has 60 flight programs matter. changed over the years, but the basic ASK Interactive principles of careful planning and 22 exhaustive training remain the same. Is Software Broken? BY STEVE JOLLY Increasingly complex and 26 central to spacecraft design, software Project Lessons from Code Breakers makes new demands on systems engineers. and Code Makers BY JOHN EMOND Faced with the life-and­ 30 death intelligence issues of WWII, the Allies Leave No Stone Unturned, Ideas enlisted the talents of surprisingly diverse for Innovations Are Everywhere individuals; NASA’s challenges call for a BY COLIN ANGLE To keep innovating, iRobot similar approach. listens to customers, partners with other organizations, and welcomes new ideas 34 from its own employees. Mars Science Laboratory: Integrating Science and Engineering Teams 43 BY ASHWIN R. VASAVADA Close collaboration Viewpoint: Building a National between engineers and scientists is helping Capability for On-Orbit Servicing MSL meet its ambitious goals. BY FRANK J. CEPOLLINA AND JILL MCGUIRE The authors argue that NASA and the 38 Department of Defense should collaborate ESA, NASA, and the International on satellite-servicing technology. Space Station BY ALAN THIRKETTLE International 50 cooperation works best when the Things I Learned on My Way to Mars partners make essential, interdependent BY ANDREW CHAIKIN The author of A Passion contributions to clear common objectives. for Mars discusses the perils and rewards of exploring the red planet. 46 Building the Team: The Ares I-X Upper-Stage Simulator BY MATTHEW KOHUT An in-house development project at Glenn calls for team members who are flexible and ready to learn by doing. 54 Apollo 12: A Detective Story BY GENE MEIERAN How one contractor team helped decide that Apollo 12 was safe to fly. Issue No. 34 Staff APPEL DIRECTOR AND PUBLISHER Dr. Edward Hoffman [email protected] EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Laurence Prusak [email protected] MANAGING EDITOR Don Cohen The Academy of Program/Project and Engineering Leadership (APPEL) and ASK [email protected] Magazine help NASA managers and project teams accomplish today’s missions and meet tomorrow’s challenges by sponsoring knowledge-sharing events and publications, EDITOR providing performance enhancement services and tools, supporting career development Kerry Ellis programs, and creating opportunities for project management and engineering [email protected] collaboration with universities, professional associations, industry partners, and other CONTRIBUTING EDITOR government agencies. Matt Kohut [email protected] 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 SENIOR KNOWLEDGE SHARING with fellow practitioners across the Agency. Reflecting the Academy’s responsibility for CONSULTANT project management and engineering development and the challenges of NASA’s new Jon Boyle mission, ASK includes articles about meeting the technical and managerial demands [email protected] of complex projects, as well as insights into organizational knowledge, learning, collaboration, performance measurement and evaluation, and scheduling. We at KNOWLEDGE SHARING ANALYSTS APPEL Knowledge Sharing believe that stories recounting the real-life experiences Ben Bruneau 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, Katherine Thomas NASA managers, scientists, and engineers share valuable experience-based knowledge [email protected] and foster a community of reflective practitioners. The stories that appear in ASK Mai Ebert 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 than a project manager or engineer to help a colleague address a critical issue on a APPEL PROGRAM MANAGER project? Big projects, small projects—they’re all here in ASK. Yvonne Massaquoi [email protected] 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 DESIGN stories or ask questions about editorial policy, contact Don Cohen, Managing Editor, Hirshorn Zuckerman Design Group, Inc. [email protected], 781-860-5270. www.hzdg.com PRINTING SPECIALIST For inquiries about APPEL Knowledge Sharing programs and products, please contact Hanta Ralay Katherine Thomas, ASRC Management Services, 6303 Ivy Lane, Suite 130, Greenbelt, hanta.ralay- [email protected] MD 20770; [email protected]; 301-793-9973. PRINTING To subscribe to ASK, please send your full name and preferred mailing address GraphTec (including mail stop, if applicable) to [email protected]. ASK MAGAZINE | 3 In This Issue To accomplish its mission of developing new launch Learning from people who have been there before vehicles and manned spacecraft, NASA must excel at is indispensable when there are difficult tasks to be learning. We need to learn lessons from the extraordinary accomplished, but much of what they learned and what technical advances that culminated in the moon landings of current team members learn comes from doing the work. the sixties. We must share what we know effectively within Several articles here are about the irreplaceable value of and between projects. And, as we work on programs that learning by doing. In the interview, Kenneth Szalai talks will establish our space exploration capabilities for decades about what can be learned from flight programs, which to come, we are obliged to make sure that knowledge we he describes as “the truth serum and lie detector of what are developing now will be available to the engineers, is possible.” John O’Neill’s history of mission operations scientists, and managers who will face new challenges in (“Plan, Train, and Fly”), Matthew Kohut’s discussion the future. Many of the articles in this issue of ASK consider of building a team for in-house development at Glenn, these learning issues. and Alan Thirkettle’s “ESA, NASA, and the International In “The Knowledge Notebook,” Laurence Prusak reflects Space Station” highlight knowledge that can only be gained on how much of our knowledge we owe to those who came from experience. before us, and Jim Hodges offers a vivid contemporary How much you learn depends in part on whom you example of learning from the past in “From Generation work with. “Mars Science Laboratory: Integrating Science to Generation.” The Langley team developing an Ares I-X and Engineering Teams” by Ashwin R. Vasavada, “Project test vehicle turned to the people who carried out a similar Lessons from Code Breakers and Code Makers” by John project for the Saturn V in the sixties because documents Emond, and Frank J. Cepollina and Jill McGuire’s “Building from that period did not say enough about the how and why a National Capability for On-Orbit Servicing” all argue of those earlier tests and test results. The retirees who did for the value of bringing together diverse expertise. Colin that work provided detail that brought the documents to life Angle’s “Leave No Stone Unturned” shows that the new as useful guides to the Ares team. learning we call innovation comes from being open to as Dave Lengyel’s update on the Exploration Systems many sources of knowledge as possible. Mission Directorate (ESMD) efforts to capture and share Finally, Ed Hoffman’s “From the APPEL Director” column essential knowledge (“Integrating Risk and Knowledge about attending a Flight Readiness Review makes powerful Management”) looks at the same issue in relation to points about the conditions that make learning and sound recent and current work. By focusing on knowledge decision-making possible. Without trust, openness, about recognized risks, the ESMD ensures