Assessment of the NASA Applied Sciences Program (2007) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Current NASA Applied Sciences Program
2 The Current NASA Applied Sciences Program
Pages 27-46
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From page 27... ...
DETAILS OF THE CURRENT PROGRAM The ASP is a component of NASA's Earth Science Division -- one of five divisions of the Science Mission Directorate (Figure 2.1)
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5) : "the process of interacting with other federal agencies to reach a broad group of users is a viable and appropriate avenue to pursue." FIGURE 2.1 The Applied Sciences Program in the current NASA organization structure.
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embodies a linear transfer of data and research from NASA to its partners with the decision-support tools. In this representation, the ISSA constitutes an "open loop" system without any prescribed feedback mechanism from the partners to NASA for improving earth science models, earth observations, and/or decision support tools.
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, "The purposes of this rigorous approach are to identify and resolve data exchange problems, build partners' confidence and reduce risk in adopting Earth science products, and strengthen partners' abilities to use the data and predictions in their decision-support tools." The next section describes the systems engineering process and subsequent sections present other contextual information on ASP's approach.
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BOX 2.1 Benchmarking Benchmarking is one of the primary objectives of ASP's systems engineering process. ASP indicates that "benchmarking refers to the task of measuring the performance of a product or service according to specified standards and reference points in order to compare performance, document value, and identify areas for improvements." Part of NASA's definition of a benchmark is "how the Decision Support System that assimilated NASA measurements compared in its operation, function, and performance to the earlier version." NASA considers benchmarks an important measure of program quality and claims that "the benchmarking process (1)
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From page 32... ...
The relationship between the 12 ASP application areas and NASA's six Earth Science Focus areas is shown in Table 1.2 of the web site http://science.hq.nasa.gov/strategy/AppPlan.pdf. The committee supports the fact that ASP is presently evaluating the 12 application areas to determine if they require modification in number or scope.
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. A new ROSES 2007 solicitation announcement was issued as this report was being finalized, and ASP has one element in that solicitation (Decision Support Through Earth Science Research Results)
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In developing this metrics system an MPAR working group was charged with reviewing and recommending program-level performance metrics and collection tools to measure how well each activity supports NASA Earth Science Enterprise science, application [italics added] and education programs (Rampriyan, 2006)
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, or "coin chart" of the enormous variety of NASA products. This chart is an attempt to consolidate all the Earth Observation sources, physical parameters measured, models and analysis systems, model outputs/predictions, and decision support tools in NASA's portfolio for access by the community interested in using NASA data and research for DSS.
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5 Volume of Data The volume of data and/or data products distributed to users Volume distributed is a useful measure but one that depends Distributed during the reporting period (in gigabytes[GB] or terabytes[TB]
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The focus areas are weather, climate change and variability, atmospheric composition, water and energy cycle, Earth surface and interior, and carbon cycle and ecosystems. 9 Support for the ESE REASoN projects include a quantitative summary of the data To enable the ESE program office to determine which ESE Applications of products supporting one or more of NASA's Applications and applications goals are supported by the activity, and to assess National Importance report any changes at the next monthly metrics submission.
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The program element and project applications teams made up of NASA and partner agency personnel determined the form and structure of the benchmarking process and the content of the benchmark report. It is apparent that the benchmarking is driven more by the characteristics of specific applications and the tools and procedures of the partner agencies than by any standard format.
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They include the quantification of such performance indicators as product quality, ease of application, ability to meet customer schedules, time from product development to application, customer response, and the ability to meet goals or product targets.
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. The ASP has the opportunity to greatly enhance the benefits of NASA applied science products and services to society.
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, responsible for national emergency preparedness and response in DHS, has had little to do with the ASP's Disaster Management application area. The Minerals Management Service, a potential partner with Energy Management, noted that improved remote sensing products are needed immediately for support of management of oil, gas, sand, gravel, and other extractive activities in the Gulf of Mexico, but no discussions have been opened with ASP (Lugo-Fernandez, 2006)
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From page 42... ...
The largest drawbacks evident to the committee in ASP's management of the solicitation process were complications created by regular, significant, and sometimes hard-to-find changes in the program documentation which has made the proposal process difficult or discouraging for potential partners. In addition, the expectation for independent (nonfederal)
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From page 43... ...
Other valuable applied remote sensing metrics include publication of results in refereed journals, masters and doctoral dissertations completed as a result of the applied research, presentation of applied results at meetings of learned societies or in public forums, and documentation of the use of NASAderived data or models in the user's DSS. Fortunately, recent improvements in the Metrics Planning and Reporting System allow the
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Numbers of published papers, or scientific citation indices, or even professional acclamation from scientific peers will not be enough… The degree to which human welfare has been improved, the enhancement of public understanding of and appreciation for human interaction with and impacts on Earth processes, and the effectiveness of protecting property and saving lives will additionally become important criteria for a successful Earth science and observations program. The private sector (see also Chapter 4)
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3. The program is underpinned by a systems engineering process that provides a framework to transition NASA products into decisionsupport systems operated by other agencies.
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46 Assessment of the NASA Applied Sciences Program makes it difficult for ASP to build bridges between NASA and partner agencies and larger user communities, and to develop effective mission plans.
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