National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Attachment A: Committee and Panel Members
Suggested Citation:"Attachment B: Statement of Task." National Research Council. 2003. Interim Report of NRC Review of NASA's Pioneering Revolutionary Technology Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10605.
×

Attachment B Statement of Task

This project will produce biennial assessments of the programs within NASA's Aerospace Technology Enterprise—the Pioneering Revolutionary Technology (PRT) program, the Aviation program, and the Space Transportation program. The first review in the series will be of the PRT program group; other reviews will follow in subsequent years. Programs within the PRT group are the Enabling Concepts and Technologies (ECT) program, the Computing, Information, and Communications Technology (CICT) program, and the Engineering of Complex Systems (ECS) program.

The committee will assess the overall scientific and technical quality of the PRT program elements. These assessments will include findings and recommendations related to the quality and appropriateness of NASA's internal and collaborative research, development, and analysis. While its primary objective is to conduct peer assessments that provide scientific and technical advice, the committee may offer programmatic advice when it follows naturally from technical considerations or is requested by the NASA Associate Administrator for Aerospace Technology.

The committee will be assisted by three NRC panels that each focus on one of the three elements of the PRT program listed above. Each panel will assess the scientific and technical quality of selected programs in the element under their purview. Each panel will provide input to the committee's report via internal working draft reports to the committee. Panels will meet twice during the study to receive technical presentations about the projects under review by their group and formulate final findings and recommendations. Panel members will also make site visits as deemed necessary in formulating the assessment. Portions of each meeting will be highly interactive with NASA personnel. After completion of its deliberations and investigation, the panel will report to the committee on its findings via internal privileged correspondence and working papers.

The main committee will meet twice during the review: once to plan the review process, meet with the panel members, and discuss the charge to the committee and panels, and a second time to discuss in a closed session the working papers and findings and recommendations. This meeting will also involve interactive discussions with NASA personnel from the program. A final report will be developed from discussion at this final meeting. Before the final report is published, committee and panel members may revisit select programs within the PRT group during a short re-evaluation process. This re-evaluation will assess progress made by individual programs within the PRT which were initially deemed to be problematic.

While the committee's observations will follow broad themes concerning technical and scientific quality and appropriateness of research, the research performers, and the research plan, the panel assessments should use specific criteria, where appropriate, such as the following:

Suggested Citation:"Attachment B: Statement of Task." National Research Council. 2003. Interim Report of NRC Review of NASA's Pioneering Revolutionary Technology Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10605.
×

Research Portfolio

  • Is the balance between fundamental and user-driven research proper?

  • Is research being conducted in the proper areas?

  • Are there plausible hypotheses supporting each of the research plans?

  • Is far-term research at the forefront of science and determined to be a world-class endeavor?

  • Is the proper amount of high risk/high payoff research being pursued?

  • Is the application of fundamental science to solve real-world problems adequate?

Formulation of the Research Plan

  • Are the program’s goals and objectives clearly defined and consistent with relevant documents such as NASA’s Strategic Plan?

  • Is there evidence of a clear understanding of the need by NASA’s enterprises, other organizations (e.g., the FAA, DOD, etc.), or the aerospace community at large for the R&D or analysis, and the potential benefits? Are the program’s deliverables to those organizations clearly articulated and are those organizations adequately involved in the planning and review process?

  • Can the expected benefits be accomplished by the proposed research? If not, is the path to adequately maturing the research clear? Is this planning well supported by sufficient decision points, downselects, customer agreements, and/or unallocated outyear funding?

  • Are there sufficient near-term deliverables or progress metrics by which the program can be regularly assessed? Are there sufficient off-ramps or sunsets to ensure that funding is reallocated within the program or to other programs if the program does not make adequate progress towards one or more of its goals and objectives? Are the program’s plans for independent and/or external reviews adequate and appropriate?

  • Are appropriate scientific and technical objectives being posed, taking into consideration program goals, NASA's strengths, and the time horizon for the project? Are critical personnel and facilities required to support the program well defined?

Connections to the Broader Community

  • What programs or program elements should be performed in-house at NASA and be exempt from competition with industry or academia?

  • Is there evidence that the research plan for the area under review reflects a broad understanding of the underlying science and technology and of comparable work within other NASA units as well as industry, academia, and other federal laboratories?

  • Is there evidence that the research builds appropriately on work already done elsewhere? Does it leverage the work of leaders in the field? Is the strategy for out-of-house work (competitions, partnerships, etc.) well chosen and managed?

  • Is the research being accomplished with a proper mix of personnel from NASA, academia, industry, and other government agencies? Is the program using high-quality research performers or is there untapped talent outside the program that can be brought to bear?

Suggested Citation:"Attachment B: Statement of Task." National Research Council. 2003. Interim Report of NRC Review of NASA's Pioneering Revolutionary Technology Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10605.
×

Methodology

  • How well crafted are the research plans for the areas under review? In general, is the use of laboratory experiment, modeling, simulation, and/or field test appropriate? How well are these methods integrated?

  • Have the appropriate supporting system-level assessments been conducted?

  • Do both the researchers and managers understand and manage the risks involved to an appropriate level?

  • Are the plans for further study reasonable and justifiable?

Overall Capabilities

  • Is the scientific or engineering quality of the work (including work performed in academia and industry) comparable to similar world-class efforts at other institutions, and is it appropriate for the goal?

  • Are the qualifications of the scientific and engineering staff (including researchers in academia and industry) sufficient to achieve program goals?

  • Are the capabilities, quantity, and state of readiness of equipment and facilities sufficient to achieve program goals?

  • Are personnel, equipment, and facilities supplied by support contractors used efficiently; do they fill gaps in government capabilities without duplication?

The selection of criteria for each assessment and the relative weights given to each criterion are within each panel's discretion and can vary from program to program. Neither the committee nor the panels will make explicit budget recommendations to NASA, but will instead comment on program content, gaps in technology, and other issues outlined above.

Suggested Citation:"Attachment B: Statement of Task." National Research Council. 2003. Interim Report of NRC Review of NASA's Pioneering Revolutionary Technology Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10605.
×
Page 14
Suggested Citation:"Attachment B: Statement of Task." National Research Council. 2003. Interim Report of NRC Review of NASA's Pioneering Revolutionary Technology Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10605.
×
Page 15
Suggested Citation:"Attachment B: Statement of Task." National Research Council. 2003. Interim Report of NRC Review of NASA's Pioneering Revolutionary Technology Program. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10605.
×
Page 16
Next: Attachment C: Acknowledgement of Reviewers »
Interim Report of NRC Review of NASA's Pioneering Revolutionary Technology Program Get This Book
×
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

This review is part of a project that will produce biennial assessments of the NASA Aerospace Technology Enterprise programs—the PRT program, the Aviation Program, and the Space Transportation Program. The PRT program is designed to develop and demonstrate revolutionary computing, information and communications technologies for aerospace systems. NASA requested a review of the technical quality of the program from the NRC. This letter report presents the initial assessment of the program. The details of the review will be presented in the final report.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!