Clearly NASA is concerned about losing expertise as people retire, but we need to build a system that does not depend on the "expert guru" model and instead relies on a shared knowledge community that does not retire but evolves with time. The knowledge management challenge regarding human talent is not how to capture knowledge from people as they leave the organization but how to build learning into all that they do while they are here, so when they are ready to leave, most of their knowledge is embedded in the organization, people, processes, and policies that remain. Such a system will both sustain knowledge and produce more reliable results. This is the goal of Goddard's learning practices system.
Knowledge sharing behavior attracts bright people to organizations. Intellectually curious people know that they have the best chance of being stimulated, creating new knowledge, and participating in exciting discoveries where a team or community of like-minded thinkers are engaged in open and honest sharing of their ideas, insights, and experiments.
Goddard wants to continue to attract these people to build on the competencies that have characterized the center for forty-seven years. Though much remains to be done, we have embarked on an ambitious plan to help us function more like a learning organization and in so doing achieve mission success.
http://askmagazine.nasa.gov/issues/22/2 ... ng_day.php
---------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 451_2.html
David Leckrone, the senior project scientist for the Hubble, said NASA's new strategy for the post-space-shuttle era does not include servicing scientific instruments in space, and he fears that vast amounts of accumulated knowledge and technical expertise will quickly vanish.
"It just makes me want to cry to think that this is the end of it," Leckrone said at a news conference earlier this week. "There is no person out there, there is no leadership out there, there is no vision out there to pick up the baton that we're about to hand off and carry it forward."
His words, streamed around the planet via the NASA Web site, ruffled the agency and incited rebuttals from headquarters. But Leckrone, who plans to retire in October, is not backing down, and yesterday he reiterated his case.
"I feel like NASA's doing what it's done before -- it comes up with a great capability and, for political or budgetary reasons or whatever, it abandons it," Leckrone told The Washington Post. He added: "I've been besieged by NASA people thanking me for saying what they think needed to be said."
NASA released a statement saying Leckrone's comments reflect a faulty assumption about the design of the next generation of spacecraft. "There is nothing about the architecture that would preclude satellite rescue work," said NASA spokesman Grey Hautaluoma.
The dispute has created a rift between Leckrone and the head of space science at NASA, Edward Weiler. The two scientists have devoted much of their long NASA careers to the Hubble -- they hugged after the successful shuttle launch last week in Florida -- but Weiler, from his perch at agency headquarters, has a dim view of sending astronauts to fix things in space.
"Servicing was great on Hubble, but it cost a few bucks," Weiler said. "The Hubble program has cost about $10 billion."
He said the agency is conducting a $20 million study to see how orbital servicing might be included in future missions. But he noted that none of the many instruments currently in orbit, other than the Hubble, were designed to be serviced.
"What are you going to service? There's nothing up there that's serviceable," Weiler said.
Leckrone responded that the shuttle and the Hubble were designed with each other in mind. That could be the template for the next generation of spacecraft and orbiting instruments, he said. For example, the next big optical telescope, which might be launched in the early 2020s, should be designed with servicing in mind.
This policy dispute reflects deeper questions over what, exactly, is the purpose of human spaceflight. NASA is in the midst of a difficult and awkward transition as it retires the shuttle and changes its sights. The Constellation initiative promises to send astronauts to the international space station in low Earth orbit, but the real target is the moon -- and perhaps Mars at some point down the road. NASA's new strategy doesn't envision playing Mr. Goodwrench with fancy telescopes, even one as beloved as Hubble.
====
http://www.newser.com/story/32006/there ... osing.html
There's a New Space Race, and US Is Losing
While the rest of the world cooperates incessantly on all matters extraterrestrial, the US, hampered by self-imposed regulations meant to keep weapons out of enemies' hands, is swiftly losing dominance of the final frontier, the Washington Post reports. The US’ military space program is still gargantuan, but the civil program, NASA included, suffers from limited public interest in space activity.
The US used to launch satellites for other countries, and export technology and material that other nations used in their space programs. But the country is largely out of the launch business, and fears that China and Iran will weaponize space have decimated exports, leading one expert to say other nations are "falling over each other to work together in space; they want to share the costs and the risks,"
http://www.newser.com/story/32006/there ... osing.html
====
Wellesley, Mass The Baby Boomer generation is at retirement’s doorstep. And, although the situation doesn’t often approach the gravity of the nuclear weapons scenario mentioned above, many organizations face serious limitations on their ability to innovate, grow, and operate efficiently because veteran workers aren’t passing on critical lessons of experience to the next generation.
With this urgent warning, David DeLong opens his provocative new book, Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce (September ‘04, Oxford University Press; available to order on amazon.com). Despite recent hand wringing about whether baby boomers can afford to retire, the fact remains that millions in this post-World War II generation will soon begin leaving key professional and managerial positions. And the real threat of this major demographic trend won’t be a labor shortage. It will be a knowledge shortage.
http://www3.babson.edu/Newsroom/Release ... elease.cfm
====
The world knows the huge potential China and Russia have for space exploration. Russia is maintaining a strong presence in space with their sturdy Soyuz program and China has set its sights on having their very first taikonaut EVA at the end of this year. But where does this leave NASA? The US space agency has spearheaded the exploration of space for the last 50 years, but amongst all the talk about NASA setbacks, overspending and delays, could the glory days be coming to an abrupt end? In May, the legendary astronaut John Glenn spoke out against Shuttle decommissioning and last week, US Senator Bill Nelson called a meeting at Cape Canaveral to raise concerns about announced job cuts in 2010. Now, the most famous NASA ex-employee and second man on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin has voiced warnings that the US could lose its grip on space and begin to be left behind by Russia and China
On July 20th, 1969, the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot waited for Neil Armstrong to make the first footprint in the lunar dust. Soon after, Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on this momentous step and making world history, setting the world alight with optimism that man was just about to embark on the next phase of evolution: leaving Earth and exploring the stars. Unfortunately this dream was only realised for three years (until 1972) after six successful lunar landings (Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17), and to this day the Apollo 17 mission touch-down (December 15th, 1972) remains the last time we landed on the Moon.
Although we may not have revisited our natural satellite for the best part of four decades, we have been busy with our focus on the robotic exploration of the Solar System. But work has started on the Shuttle replacement, the Constellation Program, with the promise of sending man back to the Moon by 2020 and then Mars soon after, can we begin to get excited that NASA is gaining momentum for the next giant leap for mankind?
Many prominent figures are now worried that the light is beginning to dim for the future of NASA. NASA prides itself on developing new technologies, spearheading the push into space, but what happens when the funding dries up and other nations pick up where they left off? One voice that cannot be ignored is that of Buzz Aldrin who has voiced his grave concern that NASA, and indeed the USA, risks falling behind China and Russia in the space race if efforts were not redoubled by future US governments. With the US presidential elections looming, Aldrin has vowed to lobby both Barack Obama and John McCain to retain the vision for space exploration, not only to maintain, but increase NASA funding
During an interview with the UK’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper he said, If we turn our backs on the vision again, we’re going to have to live in a secondary position in human space flight for the rest of the century. And he is not alone with this concern. Both fellow retired astronaut John Glenn and US Senator Bill Nelson have recently spoken out about their concerns for NASA’s future, ensuring the space exploration debate will remain alive over the coming months.
Although Russia has a long and proud history in human space flight, the Chinese are showing their thirst for a big push into space, with a manned mission to the Moon on the cards. All the Chinese have to do is fly around the Moon and back, and they’ll appear to have won the return to the Moon with humans. They could put one person on the surface of the Moon for one day and he’d be a national hero, Aldrin added. Plus, Russia’s Soyuz program could be extended for manned missions beyond Earth orbit he pointed out.
There is a real worry in NASA that the US could lose its foothold in the leadership of space exploration, so it is hoped big voices within the ranks of legendary astronauts might begin to get the future government thinking about how important space exploration is to the US.
http://www.universetoday.com/2008/06/30 ... ploration/
======
NASA chief: U.S. losing space race to Russia and China
http://www.truveo.com/Falling-Behind/id/2785340444
======
Among those sharing Leckrone's unhappiness about that strategy is Frank Cepollina, deputy associate director for the Hubble Space Telescope Development Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Cepollina, whose bio calls him "the father of on-orbit servicing," would like to see still another servicing mission to Hubble. He says he thinks it is wrong to launch expensive scientific instruments that cannot be fixed if they have a glitch.
"God, it's a mistake. It's a terrible mistake. It's a mistake to the taxpayer," Cepollina said. The NASA officials rushing to complete Constellation, he said, "can't be bothered or distracted with anything other than getting to the moon and back."
Constellation's "architecture" resembles that of Apollo, with a capsule called Orion perched on top of a rocket. That will remove much of the hazard associated with launching the shuttles, nestled as they are next to powerful solid rocket boosters.
But Orion is much smaller than the shuttle. It lacks a robotic arm like the one used by the shuttle in its Hubble repair job. Orion will have nothing comparable to the shuttle's payload bay. And although Orion astronauts will be able to conduct a spacewalk, that is more of an emergency capability, one requiring depressurization of the entire spaceship.
"If we develop a new vehicle, damn it, that vehicle should have all the capabilities that [the shuttle] has," Cepollina said.
Former NASA administrator Michael Griffin, responding by e-mail to Leckrone's comments, said Orion will be capable of servicing missions. And he pointed out that the Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope -- scheduled for launch in 2014 and destined for an orbit a million miles from Earth -- will have a docking ring in case it needs to be fixed robotically, or even by astronauts.
If the money spent on the recent Hubble mission were spent on an Orion servicing mission, Griffin said, it could fix a telescope.
"It is all just budget," Griffin said
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 451_2.html
======
Middle and high school students across the country are generally falling behind in life sciences, and the nation is at risk of producing a dearth of qualified workers for the fast-growing bioscience industry, according to a report released Monday.
Students are showing less interest in taking life sciences and science courses, and high schools are doing a poor job of preparing students for college-level science, says the report, funded and researched by Battelle, the Biotechnology Industry Organization and the Biotechnology Institute. The deficiencies will hurt the country's competitiveness with the rest of the world in the knowledge-based economy, the report concludes.
The report also found a wide disparity among the states in student performance in biosciences and science in general. Many states are turning to biosciences and biotechnology industries that require a more educated workforce because they no longer can rely on the manufacturing sector.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30810627
======
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram