Synthesis of Presentations
Langdon Morris
If you take a seat we'll start the report-out. We'll have the odd-numbered teams report first
then the evens. The even teams were the "enthusiastic" point of view and the odds
were the "skeptics". Please be concise.
Assignment
Please discuss the questions below with the members of your group, and use the flip chart paper provided to record your conversation.
Teams 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13
“Why it won’t work.”
As you think about and discuss the concept of biotech on ISS and the development of a dynamic commercial participation in biotech and space infrastructure activities, please synthesize your individual thoughts into a team perspective that answers the question “Why won’t it work?”
Please examine this question from the perspectives of biotech, aerospace/space infrastructure, organization and organizational culture, and any other viewpoints that you feel are relevant, and on the flip chart that you’ve been provided, please prepare a list of the key obstacles, potential big problems, etc.
From your list, then select the 3 issues that you consider to be the most significant, most important, or highest priority to solve.
You’ll have about 30 minutes for this activity, following which you’ll be asked to present your work to the other teams. Your presentation should last no longer than 4 minutes.
Teams 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14
“Make it work!”
As you think about and discuss the concept of “biotech on ISS” and the development of a dynamic commercial participation in biotech and space infrastructure activities, please synthesize your individual thoughts into a team perspective that answers the question, “How do we make it work?”
Please examine this question from the perspectives of biotech, aerospace/space infrastructure, organization and organizational culture, and any other viewpoints that you feel are relevant, and on the flip chart that you’ve been provides, please prepare a list of the key breakthroughs, solutions, and insights that are required to make this work.
From your list, then select the 3 issues that you consider to be the most significant, most important, or highest priority.
You’ll have about 30 minutes for this activity, following which you’ll be asked to present your work to the other teams. Your presentation should last no longer than 4 minutes.
Team Assignments
Team One Report Rene Fradet |
Team Two Bruce Pittman
|
Team Three Report Philip Smith |
Team Four Report Greg Schmidt |
Team Five Report Cheryl Nickerson |
|||
Team Twelve Report Allen Marty
|
|||
|
|
Team One Report
I'll give you the top three things we looked at. 1) Cost of the the whole enterprise. The assumption is that too little money would come from the private industry and the competing environment would be a very hard sell. 2) To entice the commercial folks we need more data. So data is a potential show stopper if you don't have it. 3) From the organization point of view, who is going to take the lead? Who is going to be the integrator of this environment?
Team Three Report
For us the top three were: 1) The management team needed to do this. Unfortunately
NASA has a lot of baggage in the commercial realm. 2) The thought is if
you build it they will come, but there are technologies on earth that
are already in use that are being underutilized. 3) Finally, it has to
be reliable, affordable, and dependable, and right now the shuttle has
a four year lifecylce and people don't know what comes next.
Team Five Report 
We came up with reasons for why it won't work. Here are the top things
we looked at. 1) The first one is reliable and affordable up and down
payloads. 2) Second, is the notion of the incompatibility with government
plans. Also, NASA needs to get its priorities together. 3) The last thing
is making the business case. We tend to look at this as US only, maybe
we should focus on what we are good at and look to partner more.
Team Seven Report 
We looked at what if commercial entities take over. Will they be able
to fly more frequently than the government? I think this morning's speakers
were too kind dealing with the entrenchment of the current gatekeepers.
Then we noted that there is currently inadequate market definition. The
biotech reason should not be the only strange attractor.
Team Nine Report 
Many of the things we brought up have been talked about. From the biotech
standpoint it's too expensive, not flexible, and takes too long. In the
infrastructure it's the whole verification and documentation procedures.
Transportation up and down is very expensive and we need to figure out
how we can cut cost. Docking standardization is key too. Political change
is also a huge factor to consider. What happens when the administration
changes? Do our priorities change too? We need to remain consistent in
our mission.
Team Eleven Report
We came from the approach that commerce is not shy and there are companies
that recognize the potential of this and don't take part in this with
us. They would go off and do their own thing and we are left with the
luke warm participants. There are certainly issues of cost that must be
considered. The lab is not actually empty, it needs to be focused.
Team Thirteen Report 
Spending decisions at NASA are often made for political reasons, not science
ones. NASA has low credibility in the biotech world currently. The final
perception is that the ROI will be better for ground based research than
it is for space-based research.
Team Two Report 
There's no one model that fits here. There's a whole list of government
enterprises that turned into viable commercial things, like the 707. The
second point is that if this is going to be successful then NASA can't
run ISS. There has to be an order of magnitude reduction in cost. NASA's
criteria for success is exploring the universe, not serving the commercial customer.
Team Four Report 
The first point is that there needs to be long-term programmatic stability.
Secondly is that the space infrastructure needs to be more efficient.
Crew time is key. The final thing is that NASA should not be the integrator.
The government shouldn't control prioritization -- we need an NGO of some
sort to do that. The last thing is that the friendly front-door is a port-authority.
Team Six Report 
Our group had a long discussion. We discussed the fact that what we talked
about this morning could be leveraged by an existing program. I'm talking
about the Research Partnership Centers Program. There are centers that
work in different areas. The RPC has been around for at least 18 years.
The essence of the program is to work with industry for commercial development.
The mission has changed to meet NASA needs while supporting industry.
So far there has been reasonable success. This can be looked at as a model,
but it has to be scaled up. We have to look at where it was successful
and where it wasn't successful. Our program has done the friendly front-door
reasonably well. Biotech wants to come in and conceive their research
program and hand-off samples then get their samples on return for analysis.
They don't care about the details of the means of transportation.
One of the things that will be very important is building a market for this. Even if you had all of the technical issues solved that's not enough. Industry needs a lot of education upfront. It will have to be subsidized for a period of time in the beginning. This is not an immediate process, the relationships with industry have to be built over time. The commercial industry has to look at NASA as a significant ally and that will take time. That's basically it.
Team Eight Report 
Our group did a great job of why it won't work but that wasn't our assignment.
In terms of biotech there needs to be a compelling case. But there needs
to be some government money for basic research. Launch needs to be standardized
and rendezvoused needs to be automated. We need cooperative cost sharing
and to some degree revenue sharing to make this possible. There have been
other models of companies that are usually competitors coming together
to work on things of mutual benefit and we should look at those examples.
Team Ten Report
The first thing we did was talk about the problems that have to be overcome.
First, we have to overcome cost. Cost has to be in proportion to the investment
involved. One of the conclusions is that NASA should be out of the loop
with the exception of ISS itself. When you get NASA involved you get a
lot of overload. Investigation independence is the next big thing. So
that drives us to much smaller vehicles. The capability issues should
be driven by the market, not by what's there. We need to figure out how
to bring small stuff up economically. There's going to be a lot of oversight
in the docking procedure. The idea is to move the actual docking away
from the station and get that oversight away from your vehicle. No contractor
oversight is important too. We could use a mixture of contractors and
civil servants and that brings up a lot of ownership issues that we will
have to address. You want the basic research tools in orbit but you want
to bring the samples down to earth to utilize the latest cutting edge
technology.
If you want to move to being more commercial then you'll have to move more things away from NASA. We need the commercial ability to bring people to space and investigators.
Team Twelve Report
First ISS needs to fulfill the customer's needs. Transportation cost needs
to go down and frequency needs to go up. The space station operations
need to be distanced from the government. Then we suggested that a port
authority model where NASA plays a role needs to be implemented.
Team Fourteen Report
OK, we felt that NASA would have to prioritize the research and eliminate
the conflict between public and private research. We need an independent
project office, some type of NGO. If you're investing private dollars
you don't want to worry about how the resources are being allocated. There's
work to do on selling the business case to biotech and the space entrepreneurs.
We have to get the expense lower and figure out just what, and how much
government will pay for. Next is the IP issue. And finally there's the
technical issues involved.
Langdon
Thanks that was a very exhaustive list. We'll create a synthesis of these
list for you to look at later. Now I want you to go right into the break-outs
and look at your new assignment. Cheryl and Tim talked about the need
of faster cycle times and we'll model that here in our work process.