Note: This is cross-posted with the Cosmo.Sphere blog at the Houston Chronicle, where I am also a contributing author.
The Advanced Planning Office at Johnson Space Center has recently started a series of presentations on-site for the JSC community to help NASA civil servants and contractors learn about other perspectives.
I have a very practical problem, and I’d like to get some opinions on it from this crowd. My organization (Flight Dynamics Analysis Branch) at NASA does trajectory design and navigation work and in past years we’ve published end of year reports. Usually, this report is sent out via email (or snail mail) to a particular distribution of individuals who are already connected (in some way) to our branch. After a meeting today, we starting thinking about how we can get this information out to a wider audience. Ultimately, we’d want anyone who thinks “how can I find out what NASA is doing in the area of mission analysis?” to be able to find our end of year report and see what we’re doing.
So we were wondering if there’s an appropriate social networking-type tool (or something else?) that fits this kind of purpose that we can use to get the word out about the work that we do. Any ideas? How do we publish our work in such a way that anyone can find us and learn about what we do?
I thought it was interesting that JSC decided to suspend operations for Tropical Storm Edouard. Yesterday was a blue-sky day, perfectly clear night. Then we had steady but light rain all day today.
How has the 1.5 day hiatus affected your work? Will you be able to accomplish everything you needed to get done this week?
One morning this week on the way to work, I saw a truck with a “failure is not an option” bumper sticker. It got me thinking about the role of failure in my own life and at NASA. After all, I don’t know that there are many other phrases as closely associated with our organization! I appreciate the sentiment behind the statement, but I wonder if it is really such a good thing for a perspective like this to permeate our organization.
Personally, I’m on the verge of taking on a new role as a supervisor at work. I know that what I want to do is to lead people; yet, a change like this is pretty scary! I’m basically abandoning many of the technical skills that I’ve learned through four years of aerospace engineering education and six years of experience at NASA. I’m taking on a new challenge in my life, and there’s a chance I might fail. I’m very clear, however, that I can’t grow and develop as an individual if I’m not willing to take on new challenges that stretch my abilities. In the process of stretching myself, I am also keenly aware that I am going to fail, at least every once in a while. I understand that it is in those failures where true learning takes place.
The young professionals’ panel at the 2008 International Civil Service Commission conference was a truly remarkable event. Nick, Garret, and I met with our UN counterparts at United Nations Plaza 2, one of their main office buildings, to go over final preparations and introduce everyone face-to-face for the first time.
We then crossed the street to enter the UN Headquarters grounds. It’s hard for me to put in words even now the sense of honor and amazement I felt at being an invited guest there. After we passed through security and were given our access passes, the group made its way to the Secretariat building for the conference session.
Last night (7/22/08), the JSC 20 Year Vision Team held a forum for all the JSC co-ops and interns (CS and contractors).
For those who were able to make it…Thanks for coming! We really enjoyed sharing the Vision with you and hearing all of your thoughts, comments, feedback, and concerns.
For those of you who don’t know, you can actually go to the LEGO website and design custom LEGO creations. Cool, huh? Well, someone on the Lunar Reconnsaissance Orbiter (LRO) project made one for LRO, which you can order here: http://tinyurl.com/legolro
I think this is really cool - I now have a LEGO version of “my” spacecraft! This seems like it could be another pretty cool way for us to engage the public! Anyone out there want to make a LEGO version of your spacecraft?
I wrote an article on the vehicles of the Constellation Program for the June 2008 issue of the Houston AIAA chapter’s monthly newsletter and our sister section in Toulouse, France. If you aren’t familiar with the Orion crew vehicle, the Ares launch vehicles, and the Altair lander, feel free to take a look!
You can find it in PDF format at the Horizons website.
I have always been fascinated with what makes a situation, person, or event succeed or fail. The psychology of it fascinates me. I studied psychology as an undergrad and in graduate school, but it wasn’t until I read The Tipping Point by Malcome Gladwell that I really became hooked on social psychology and specifically the power that people have to make an impact or be change agents.
Gladwell starts his book with a description of the successful come back of Hush Puppies. Yes, it is true Hush Puppies weren’t always popular and the brushed suede shoe line was down to 30,000 pairs per year in 1994. Then people started showing up in the trendy clubs and bars in Manhattan and it was on. People bought up the shoes from anywhere they could. Issac Mizrahi (before he was so famous and designed for Target) was wearing them, another designer wanted them for spring fashion shoot, someone created Hush Puppy boutique, as so on and so on. By the end of 1995, they had sold 430,000 pairs. Word of mouth drove the demand and ultimately the supply. Amazing!
I knew that I was joining a special group of people when I became a contributing author here because of the passion everyone has shown for making NASA the kind of organization we all know it can be. I consider myself fortunate to be in the company of such a group.
I have learned a heck of a lot in a relatively short period of time about the various perspectives that people bring to the table from all over the space exploration community. I expected and hoped that would happen, though. What I didn’t expect was that participating in this electronic forum would lead to even wider, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
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