Life Sciences in the Space Program 



Agency reexamined its programs and procedures, these possibilities became more 

 constrained and involved greater competition. In the succeeding months, changes 

 in experiment manifests have become the rule, rather than the exception. Carefully 

 crafted program plans, and national and international agreements developed to 

 assure maximum yield from the already scarce flight resources, have been 

 restudied, reprioritized, and reassigned. 



Other challenges for the Life Sciences Division are caused by disconnections in 

 many areas between ground-based research and space-flight experiment programs. 

 When flight opportunities diminish, it is natural that more ground-based research 

 is supported. As noted earlier, the POP process for Flight Programs is focused on 

 specific projects amenable to traditional management rigor — timing, deadlines, 

 and deliverables. By contrast, the science planning process (through RTOP's) uses 

 a longer period of time; deadlines for results are usually inappropriate with this 

 procedure. Most of the funding for ground-based research has been generated by 

 unsolicited proposals from offerors acquainted with the programs in question. 

 Space-flight experiments, on the other hand, have been selected through 

 organized competitions and are not always ideally related to the ground-based 

 program. Life Sciences Division staff are initiating the coupling of these activities 

 through integrated project and program management. 



In the past, the Division has found it difficult to plan and implement programs in 

 an unstable environment. The uncertainty of a steady resource commitment has 

 characterized the planning setting, making it challenging for the program to 

 achieve an orderly implementation of strategies. 



Headquarters and Center Roles 



As indicated by the Phillips Committee, headed by former Apollo Program 

 Director, General Samuel E. Phillips, post-Challenger NASA is not clear about the 

 respective roles of the Centers and Headquarters. The Committee found that 

 Headquarters program direction is not always firmly established — this is a special 

 problem when the technical demands of some programs require contributions by 

 more than one Center. The Committee's assessment of the technical requirements 

 for long-duration flight emphasizes the need for more clearly defined roles to 

 manage the competition among program components. The Life Sciences program 

 shares the problem. 



It is probably inevitable that there will be some level of competition between the 

 Centers and 1 leadquarters and among implementing Centers. From the per- 

 spective of the Centers, attempts by Headquarters to limit the autonomy of Center 

 researchers and managers are a form of "micromanagement." They argue that 

 Center researchers have had less autonomy than the academics who also receive 

 NASA funds. From the perspective of Headquarters' staff, the Centers cannot 

 operate as if they were separate NASA entities without policy direction and guid- 

 ance from Headquarters. Because of competition among the C enters for major 

 programs of the I ife Sciences Division, Headquarters emphasizes the need to 

 establish an overall framework to define the Centers' activities. A recent emphasis 



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