NASA Watch reports that new administrator Mike Griffin has terminated the agency’s “roadmapping” effort, an agency-wide project to help chart the future of the agency. As the report notes, Griffin said earlier this month that he was disappointed with the pace of the roadmap efforts.
However, according to another source, the roadmapping effort is not being shut down immediately, but instead is being accelerated so that it can be wrapped up within the next month or so, perhaps by the shuttle’s return to flight. This may not be that different from termination—a lot of corners will doubtlessly have to be cut to finish the work in that short a timeframe—but it does suggest that NASA will try and salvage some of the work that has been done on the roadmaps to date.
It’s still not clear to me what this roadmapping process was anyway. Is it just an august gathering where people cement their views of the future into some sort of map? The only effect I’ve seen from the outside is to close people’s minds to emerging ideas; to reinforce “not invented here” syndrome.
“It’s still not clear to me what this roadmapping process was anyway.”
It is an attempt to establish long-range strategic planning for multiple areas of NASA’s mission.
“The only effect I’ve seen from the outside is to close people’s minds to emerging ideas; to reinforce “not invented here” syndrome.”
Given that they have not released any of the roadmaps yet, on what do you base this conclusion? Do you have any evidence?
Someone who was supposed to fund advanced technology once declined to meet with me for a year because my field wasn’t supposed to happen for another decade according to their roadmap. That was a couple of years ago now, but I’m still angry.
So these long range strategic plans, how accurate have they been in the past? I seem to remember seeing an ancient NASA one plastered on a wall at Caltech, so I know they’ve existed for a while.
The 1st Space Exploration conference went into detail and even showed some examples of the roadmaps. I think it was the Strategic Planning panel but the entire thing is interesting and informative. You can view the discussion panels online at the link below. This is from NASA’s point of view as of Jan. 31/Feb. 1, 2005. The direction of Mr. Griffin, I think is still very fluid. I wouldn’t expect him to have a plan for NASA for at least a month or two but I’m sure he has lots of ideas of his own and from many other people.
http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=521
“Someone who was supposed to fund advanced technology once declined to meet with me for a year because my field wasn’t supposed to happen for another decade according to their roadmap.”
Oh, so your opinion is not based upon logic, but emotion. That makes sense.
“So these long range strategic plans, how accurate have they been in the past?”
It’s not a horoscope. It’s not supposed to _predict_ the future. It’s supposed to guide near-term decision making based upon longer-term goals.
But to answer your question, in some cases strategic roadmaps have proven very good at outlining long-term goals. Hubble, for instance, is the result of a long-term roadmapping effort.
The best laid plans of… are useless unless followed.
I would edit my previous post but instead will simply restate it.
The best laid plans of.. are mostly useless unless followed. However long range plans are dynamic and things can always fall through the cracks. Most plans are better than none. One problem in the past is NASA never really had congress as a sponsor for advance technology programs but that may change.
“Oh, so your opinion is not based upon logic, but emotion.”
I’m simply saying that I’ve only ever seen a roadmap misused, so I am by default a skeptic. But with just 1 data point I am asking for more information, which I thank John Malkin and yourself for providing.
The AIAA pulled the webcasts
In any case, I have an idea. The British think tank Demos recently released a fascinating report on open source methods and their future potential:
http://www.demos.co.uk/catalogue/wideopen/
The authors explore future ways to apply the open source model, including to the formulation of public policy (blogs are a step in this direction).
It seems to me that a technology roadmap is something that could work as a wikipedia-style open source effort. By making it open source, the element of peer review is preserved, the NASA organizational bias is removed, and the cross-section of ideas is enormously increased. Furthermore, the unfinished NASA roadmaps could be used as a starting point…
AIAA has an accompanying CD for the 1st Space Exploration conference (don’t know if it included the videos) but it cost $320 (members $220). Maybe someone could make the videos available somewhere else if they are not included on the CD. They were really good.
http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=360&id=1284 — CD
The simplest explanation for the “roadmapping” business is that Griffin doesn’t like O’Keefe’s sources of advice. There is no reason for him to care what his advisory committees are called, but he might well not want the specific people on the committees.