Volume 10, Number 5 • September/October 2002 • Welcome

Innovation . . . As Only NASA Can

By Walter Hussey
Director, Inventions and Contributions Board Staff

Innovation, the cornerstone of NASA’s existence, was recognized by the Space Act of 1958 as a key to the success of the United States civilian space efforts. As they crafted the original charter for NASA, both our executive and legislative leaders wanted the space scientists and engineers—then all working on military rocketry—to contribute to civilian space programs. Also, the nation’s leaders wanted the best and brightest of the US scientific and technical community—not just the rocket scientists—to work on catching up with the technical achievements represented by Sputnik.

In their wisdom, they gave NASA a unique tool to meet this challenge with the creation of the Inventions and Contributions Board (ICB), along with its authority to reward scientific and technical contributions to NASA aeronautical and space activities. With our resource environment and the challenges that NASA currently faces, this tool is every bit as important today as it was when first initiated more than 44 years ago, and it will provide welcome assistance to our ability for doing things “ . . . as only NASA can.” Through the efforts of the ICB, NASA is recognizing some truly valuable scientific and technical contributions to our mission from our partners in industry, academia and other government agencies, as well as NASA’s own scientists and engineers (see the articles that follow for examples).

However, the challenges for NASA are not all in the past. NASA will need even more innovation to move forward to meet the goals set out in new programs such as the Space Launch Initiative (SLI), the Nuclear Systems Initiative (NSI) and the Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) Technology and Commercialization Initiative (HCTI). The ICB is interested in using the Space Act Awards authority to increase incentives to satisfy the greater-than-ever need for innovations in NASA programs. In accordance with the President’s Management Agenda, we are expanding the use of electronic government to enable user-friendly Web access for our innovators and awards personnel to input their award information, and we will automate much of the existing process that reviews and evaluates awards. These efforts will make the awards more timely, and thus more of an incentive to performance, as required by another of the President’s Management Agenda initiatives—Strategic Management of Human Capital.

We are increasing awareness of Space Act Awards to further inspire contributions of science and technology to NASA’s aeronautical and space activities. We will be providing more publicity for the awardees and for their science and technology innovations, as the widest dissemination of the technologies ensures the widest use of these technologies for the benefit of NASA programs and the nation.

The Space Act Awards program will provide a valuable contribution to NASA’s mission of “ . . . inspiring the next generation of explorers.” Recently, during the Take Our Daughters to Work Day here at Headquarters, the ICB staff sponsored a workshop entitled “NASA Innovators.” We were able, through video teleconferencing, to put the children in touch with two of our more prolific inventors, Dr. Ruth Pater and Dianne Stoakley of the Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA. The children were so energized and inspired by these inventors that at the end of each session, we had to almost literally kick the group out so another group could come in. As a result, each of the more than 175 children who participated had the opportunity to begin to think of themselves as future innovators working on space programs. These children will become our next generation of explorers by providing the innovations needed for all of us “to understand and protect our home planet, to explore the universe and search for life.”

The Space Act Awards provide a tool that we will use to achieve even greater innovation in the future. If we expect “to improve life here, to extend life to there [and] to find life beyond,” then we will need to continue and improve upon NASA’s innovative history. Space Act Awards can be a part of the incentives to do that. It is the job of the ICB and the Space Act Awards program to recognize the benefit of these future innovations to NASA. I invite each of you, as you read the following articles, to think of your contribution or one that you might make, and initiate the process to apply for an award, either now or as a result of your future endeavors. Q

NASA Official: Jonathan Root • Web Design: Printing & Design Office, NASA Headquarters • Credits