There was some post on the internet recently about Rules for Radicals - I don't remember where exactly it was and don't really care; it was some trite thing about Thinking Outside The Box or some such nonsense. But after skimming over the article, I realized that several of the notions actually apply to what I do at work.
For those who don't know: I work with a very small group of people at Johnson Space Center researching advanced human interfaces for future crewed spacecraft. Technically we're a Constellation lab, which means that if the proposed FY2011 budget is approved, my work becomes de-funded and I'm out job hunting.
At least that's the first thing that people think when I tell them I work in a Constellation lab. It's not what I think though. The Constellation program has advanced the state of the art in many spacecraft systems (including regenerative environmental systems, high-speed data networks, automated systems), but beyond that I personally don't believe that it's the right vehicle for the future. My personal opinion is that the architecture is a nostalgic throwback dreamed up by uncreative people, and it will not serve us well once it is created. The future isn't a 2-week round trip to the moon, or a small crew ferry vehicle for the ISS (the latter is the only thing being designed right now). The future is a spacecraft designed and built for long-duration missions to celestial bodies: moons, asteroids, and planets. Orion won't take us there, for several reasons.
In all the patriotic hand-wringing about gaps and job loss, people are forgetting that we're not designing a vehicle that is appropriate for a long-duration mission to Mars. I think this fact rests in the back of many minds, but the only things we are able to focus on are Orion 1 and Orion 2, which are moving us toward a 4-person capsule that can only survive unassisted for long enough to reach the ISS. Is this progress?
A new kind of space mission demands a new kind of spacecraft, and we're not creating one. My constant frustration at work is that despite the fact that people are aware of this, there is no funding or desire to actually do the kind of basic research and blank-paper design that will be required to make the new spacecraft happen. The FY2011 budget actually makes the funding available and enforces the desire, which is why it's so important to pass it - "saving" Constellation as a jobs program is a waste of time and money. Continuing development of Ares/Orion to minimize the "gap" is also a poor choice; the gap will be there regardless and once we're able to launch a crewed Orion capsule, we're stuck with a very expensive suite of machines and processes that aren't robust enough to do the things we need.
While the notion of designing a vehicle I personally dislike is somewhat frustrating, I'm well aware that I'm not the smartest person at NASA and given such a complex problem (how do we explore space?) there are bound to be a multitude of paths that can be followed. I don't feel that my dislike of an idea makes it bad (a quick read of the discourse on the proposed NASA budget will show you that this attitude is unusual). My frustration comes from the fact that so many people in positions of power at NASA are uncreative, uninformed, and unmotivated. There is no will to explore new ideas; there is no tolerance for risk; there doesn't even seem to be a recognition that we're making shortsighted decisions that will become very costly in the future. The recent NRC report on the state of NASA labs was dead on target when it made the point that R&D labs are forced to use their limited resources buying basic equipment and begging for further resources; it's a big part of what I do. Though the report explicitly did not address JSC, the little R&D work that we do is hobbled by the same problems that frustrate scientists and engineers at other centers.
When I'm wallowing in frustration, I write long-winded ranty e-mails and fire them off to co-workers and managers. It's somewhat therapeutic, but in the end it's worthless because my co-workers and managers are not motivated enough to pursue important changes. Since I don't know anyone who is motivated, I'm going to start posting them here as well. If you're patient and bored, you can kill some time every once in a while wading through my nonsense, until someone at work finds it and I end up unemployed, living under an overpass or something. Ah, the grand possibilities of the future!