NASA Talk

Okay so administration did not fit in the description I guess there is a text limit...

SOOooo, I thought I would open a discussion topic on something that relates to some of us a little better then just generally bashing the government!! Because we all know that politics is inefficient and over all is supposed to not work at what it does. It is only scary when they actually start passing laws! However, it seems this bureaucracy is starting to infect NASA... okay probably not starting too, it has!

NASA on NPR

The video was actually solicited by management to find out what was wrong with part of nasa. He decided to make a video instead of a boring power point in hopes that it will hit home a bit more. *note: if you watch the video make sure you read the subtitles...*

The problem: NASA as an entity has started to budget their time of every individual for the whole year. They decide to do this through programs aka the program office. If you are not working on something that you can charge to a program then you are not doing your job! Well this kind of makes sense in that we know they are doing their job if we make them charge it to a particular spot. If their results do not reflect the time they charge then they are obviously not doing their job. Or so this is how I envision it (I do not actually do this I just have sat in meetings and have gathered this information, the army does not do this).

The Real Problem: NASA does not give employees time to work on their own project and become innovative and creative. You know creating projects that they would enjoy doing and would probably be successful and give the scientific community more insight into those areas of research. There is probably other pros and cons you can post reply too!

My Solution: Start making projects pay an additional 10% of the time of the employee to work on their own project! (Also an additional time for training they should be allocated for instead of assuming they can get it done in 0% time.)

NASA Solution: I am not exactly sure what NASA's solution is yet at this moment. I know that the RTD (research technology directorate) director is coming to visit the aeroelasticity branch (which is who NASA attached the army too... at least our team) to have an open discussion on innovation and creativity.

BTW- if you have anything else to post about NASA please do!