New opportunities :-)
Mar. 10th, 2002 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayNow that I can catch my breath... sitting still, drinking cappuccino on another airplane (CO1769 to Houston). Actually, it's OK coffee.
This past week has been reassuring and exciting at work... after wondering if I would ever get another new project (or was considered passé) one practically dropped into my lap, rapidly evolving as the week progressed.
Background: NASA has had a "next-decadal planning commission" in place since 1998. Their mandate was to re-examine the agency's portfolio of space science and human exploration, coming back with recommended re-positionings. Now that we are into the next decade, the group has become a mechanism for funding small-scale studies and technology demonstrations that are pertinent to their previous recommendations, and their name has been changed to the NASA Exploration Technologies (NEXT) committee. They have about $4M/yr spread over 8 NASA labs and industry. But my NASA lab (Ames, in Silicon Valley) had no participation... but is the internal NASA lead in information technologies and astrobiology. So NEXT offered Ames the chance at $200K to secure our participation... A couple of weeks ago, we had an afternoon to throw together brief proposals describing various NEXT-relevant things that we could do with the money. I put together two proposals, one for a prototype Mars drilling demonstration (extending a current project) and another to hook together and do an end-to-end demonstration of various pieces of science collaboration and wireless field communications that we'd tested before at the Haughton Crater test site. The latter was just tossed together in 15 minutes, almost an afterthought. There were four other proposals submitted by the end of that day from other folks, including one that would use field tests of science collaboration with increasing injected time delays to evaluate the feasibility of controlling Mars rovers from different locations (surface, orbit, a libration point 1M miles away, and Earth).
Out of those submitted, the two field-test proposals were selected by the NEXT reviewers. After a week of discussions, we decided that there would be a high degree of overlap between the two efforts - actually, my end-to-end digital communications was almost a prerequisite for the time-lag study.
Given that the author of the time-lag study didn't want to get involved in day-to-day planning, I was picked as the joint PI of both projects (grin). Best of all, I was given a green light to proceed for this summer, not 2003 - Ames management worries that we need results by next fall or risk being dis-invited for "next" year. A budget, four months, and a green light... now that sets my juices going!
So I talked Friday to my colleagues who separately handled field-wireless and science-backroom demos in 2000 and 2001. The former is on board and we have a tentative schedule and budget agreement. The latter is doing a rover proposal for a Scout mission, due in two months, but will cooperate. But I'll have to get someone else to pick the outside scientists and set of test locations at Haughton for this summer.
The time-lag study involves comparing the data return (including overall geological "story") of a trained geologist with that of a time-lagged "rover", directed at various time lags by a remote science team. Since we can't obtain a rover from 10 years in the future, we will use a human test subject (CS grad students? Non-geologist Canadian faculty? Off-duty astronauts? Inuit?) as our simulated rover, carrying around a 360-degree panoramic camera assembly and directed by IRC-like text communications from the science team. Or at least that's our current thinking, it may evolve as I talk to colleagues at the lunar and planetary conference this week.
At the same time... the reusable launch vehicle folks are trying to recruit me to serve on a panel this spring to evaluate the huge proposals from industry to design the next-generation shuttle. It would involve six weeks total effort, so I'm reluctant. But I'd be a bit less reluctant if they decide to hold the week-long sessions near Washington, DC instead of Alabama. It?s called a ?source evaluation board? and is viewed as thankless-but-necessary, kind of like jury duty.
And while the above was spinning around, I still had to get my drilling automation report revised, edited, and in the hands of reviewers before leaving town. And get my Haughton geomagnetic study data together on a 4?x4? poster to be shown in Houston on Tuesday. So? it has been very busy this week, but in a good way :-) .
This past week has been reassuring and exciting at work... after wondering if I would ever get another new project (or was considered passé) one practically dropped into my lap, rapidly evolving as the week progressed.
Background: NASA has had a "next-decadal planning commission" in place since 1998. Their mandate was to re-examine the agency's portfolio of space science and human exploration, coming back with recommended re-positionings. Now that we are into the next decade, the group has become a mechanism for funding small-scale studies and technology demonstrations that are pertinent to their previous recommendations, and their name has been changed to the NASA Exploration Technologies (NEXT) committee. They have about $4M/yr spread over 8 NASA labs and industry. But my NASA lab (Ames, in Silicon Valley) had no participation... but is the internal NASA lead in information technologies and astrobiology. So NEXT offered Ames the chance at $200K to secure our participation... A couple of weeks ago, we had an afternoon to throw together brief proposals describing various NEXT-relevant things that we could do with the money. I put together two proposals, one for a prototype Mars drilling demonstration (extending a current project) and another to hook together and do an end-to-end demonstration of various pieces of science collaboration and wireless field communications that we'd tested before at the Haughton Crater test site. The latter was just tossed together in 15 minutes, almost an afterthought. There were four other proposals submitted by the end of that day from other folks, including one that would use field tests of science collaboration with increasing injected time delays to evaluate the feasibility of controlling Mars rovers from different locations (surface, orbit, a libration point 1M miles away, and Earth).
Out of those submitted, the two field-test proposals were selected by the NEXT reviewers. After a week of discussions, we decided that there would be a high degree of overlap between the two efforts - actually, my end-to-end digital communications was almost a prerequisite for the time-lag study.
Given that the author of the time-lag study didn't want to get involved in day-to-day planning, I was picked as the joint PI of both projects (grin). Best of all, I was given a green light to proceed for this summer, not 2003 - Ames management worries that we need results by next fall or risk being dis-invited for "next" year. A budget, four months, and a green light... now that sets my juices going!
So I talked Friday to my colleagues who separately handled field-wireless and science-backroom demos in 2000 and 2001. The former is on board and we have a tentative schedule and budget agreement. The latter is doing a rover proposal for a Scout mission, due in two months, but will cooperate. But I'll have to get someone else to pick the outside scientists and set of test locations at Haughton for this summer.
The time-lag study involves comparing the data return (including overall geological "story") of a trained geologist with that of a time-lagged "rover", directed at various time lags by a remote science team. Since we can't obtain a rover from 10 years in the future, we will use a human test subject (CS grad students? Non-geologist Canadian faculty? Off-duty astronauts? Inuit?) as our simulated rover, carrying around a 360-degree panoramic camera assembly and directed by IRC-like text communications from the science team. Or at least that's our current thinking, it may evolve as I talk to colleagues at the lunar and planetary conference this week.
At the same time... the reusable launch vehicle folks are trying to recruit me to serve on a panel this spring to evaluate the huge proposals from industry to design the next-generation shuttle. It would involve six weeks total effort, so I'm reluctant. But I'd be a bit less reluctant if they decide to hold the week-long sessions near Washington, DC instead of Alabama. It?s called a ?source evaluation board? and is viewed as thankless-but-necessary, kind of like jury duty.
And while the above was spinning around, I still had to get my drilling automation report revised, edited, and in the hands of reviewers before leaving town. And get my Haughton geomagnetic study data together on a 4?x4? poster to be shown in Houston on Tuesday. So? it has been very busy this week, but in a good way :-) .
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no subject
Date: 2002-03-10 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-11 06:30 am (UTC)