Knowledge Category: Articles & Publications

By Randii R. Wessen and David Porter One of the many challenges of growing up as an identical twin, as one of us (Wessen) did, is learning how to share.

By Robert K. Hurley and Joseph T. Jimmerson “If you’re going to be a project manager at NASA, you need to be prepared for cancellation.” –Gene Austin, X-33 Space Plane program manager

By Ed Campion A blind engineer at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, had the vision for a solution to a problem that ultimately required him to fly to Europe to obtain potentially important data on the flight of a Soyuz capsule returning two International Space Station crew members and spaceflight participant Richard Garriott […]

By Krisztina Holly As a leader, imagine trying to manage more than 7,000 scientists from eighty-five countries around the world—with their own languages, cultures, and expertise—on a twenty-year collaboration to create the most complex system ever built.

By Brent Cobleigh On October 18, 2007, I received an e-mail from Thomas Zajkowski, remote-sensing analyst for the USDA Forest Service’s Remote-Sensing Application Center.

By Noel W. Hinners One of the great mysteries of life is that very few of those we work for have the least inclination, or possibly the needed skills, to consciously mentor us in the fine art of management.

Don Cohen, Managing Editor To accomplish its mission of developing new launch vehicles and manned spacecraft, NASA must excel at learning. We need to learn lessons from the extraordinary technical advances that culminated in the moon landings of the sixties.

By Gene Meieran Almost forty years ago, when I worked for Fairchild Semiconductor, I received an unusual telephone call from Andy Procassini, head of Fairchild Quality Assurance.

By Matthew Kohut The opportunity to build a new launch vehicle that can loft humans into space does not come along often.