Christyl Johnson has been assistant associate administrator in the Office of the Administrator at NASA since fall of 2005. She joined NASA in 1990, designing and building laser systems for remote sensors at Langley Research Center.
Don Cohen, Managing Editor At the Academy’s Masters Forum in April, the word “risk” turned up in many presentations and discussions: how to anticipate and mitigate risks; how to learn from risks that turn into real problems; how much risk is acceptable in robotic and human space flight.
Don Cohen, Managing Editor The success of complex project work depends on good communication. That’s such an obvious truth, it may hardly seem worth mentioning: if the many people building a spacecraft or pursuing some other ambitious goal can’t understand one another and coordinate their efforts, the project will fail.
By Don Cohen Jay O’Callahan is one of the world’s best-known storytellers. He has performed at Lincoln Center, at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin and other theatres around the world, at the Olympics, and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His work appears regularly on National Public Radio.
By Jessica Fox and Don Cohen “I know what I have given you. I do not know what you received.” When he wrote these words, Antonio Porchia, an Argentinean printing press owner in the 1930s, wasn’t thinking about project management.
Don Cohen, Managing Editor Most NASA missions have majestic goals. The Apollo program that put men on the moon, the rover landings on Mars, flights to the outer planets, and the space telescopes and other instruments revealing truths about distant galaxies and the origin of the universe are tributes to the ambition, curiosity, and resourcefulness […]
By Don Cohen John C. Mather was study scientist and project scientist for the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and principal investigator for the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on that mission.
Don Cohen, Managing Editor The articles in this issue of ASK touch on themes already familiar to regular readers of the magazine. Learning from hands-on experience is one.
By Don Cohen Robert C. Seamans was appointed associate administrator of NASA in 1960 and became deputy administrator in 1965. He later became secretary of the U.S. Air Force and then dean of the School of Engineering at MIT. Don Cohen spoke with him at the Robert C. Seamans Learning Laboratory on the MIT campus […]
