Robert Brand - Moderator
Robert Brand - Moderator
“Who Is Or Has Been The Greatest Leader and Visionary for NASA?” (In the last 50 years and More recently.)
This question was posed to the LinkedIn NASA group as I thought it was best to address this question to those at the heart of the aerospace industry. Feel free to login and add your own thoughts in the comments box. They were offered the chance to be “anon.” and here are their answers. The responses below are numbered and the names of those commenting are highlighted. This question is one of four that I asked the group, but it was the only one that got answered.
1. Ed Lee, Sr. CAD Designer at Orbital Sciences Corporation
as little as 33 years ago or so, we still had werner.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
gotta admit, i can’t get enough of carolyn porco: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Porco
her TED talks are outstanding: http://www.ted.com/talks/carolyn_porco_flies_us_to_saturn.html
http://www.ted.com/talks/carolyn_porco_could_a_saturn_moon_harbor_life.html
part of the ability to inspire a vision is to share it with your whole heart. Neil [Degrasse Tyson] does it better than anybody: http://en.wikipedia.org
Carl Sagan
well, except maybe this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_sagan
but it would be difficult to single out any one talent.
2. Shannon Bohle, MLIS
Without a doubt, Wernher von Braun was a true visionary and leader.
3. Lynn Baroff, Executive Director, California Space Education & Workforce Insititute
Werner von Braun, together with John F. Kennedy
4. Jack Crenshaw, Author, Consultant, Embedded Systems, Aerospace
Nah, not Kennedy. His speech inspired and motivated us all, but he was no space scientist, he was a politician, and the speech was a political speech.
5. Lynn Baroff, Executive Director, California Space Education & Workforce Insititute
Sometimes the great leader is not the creator of the vision, he is the person who can express the vision in a way that inspires others.
6. Scott McFarland, Business Development
Interesting. Has the United States or the World / Earth for that matter, had any other great space leaders since Von Braun 33+ years ago or Kennedy 48 years
ago?
7. Ed Lee, Sr. CAD Designer at Orbital Sciences Corporation
Well, something to keep in mind: each of these individuals (and more!) have inspired us according to their own nature and position in society. von braun was the quintessential engineer. his dedication, not just to building something, but building it to a single-minded purpose with the utmost confidence of success. and applying that attitude to his career made him a great inspiration.
sagan and degrasse tyson use higher thinking to remind us we have the abilities now to take the next steps and the possibilities and opportunities that will come with those steps. and the steps after. they make it clear to all of us why we should explore.
and leaders like kennedy open doors for us. even though a politician, i’m pretty sure he wanted to fly to the moon as a kid just like the rest of us. so even though he chose politics and law for his career, when the time came and he had the influence, he gave help that others might explore.
8. Jack Crenshaw, Author, Consultant, Embedded Systems, Aerospace
For the record, when Kennedy made his “man on the moon” speech in May 1961, we had already been working on the project that came to be called Apollo for at least three years. The Space Task Group was created in November 1958. The Goett commitee was formed in Apr 1959 (coincidentally, the same month I joined NASA. That committee recommended a lunar mission in June 1959.
The project was named “Apollo” in July 1960, and the three Apollo study contracts, to Convair, General Electric, and Martin, were awarded in October 1960.
My own AIAA paper on circumlunar missions was published Jan 1961, but the work had been done a year earlier.
All of this was done, you will note, before Kennedy had even been elected.
Look, I’m not trying to minimize Kennedy’s memory or role in inspiring the nation — including Congress — to get behind the Moon program. He deserves all credit for his speech. But people who think nothing was being done on Apollo until his famous speech simply don’t know their history.
9. Scott McFarland, Business Development
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Ed, Interesting thoughts. Reading the comments here, it seems like much of our great space visionary and thought leadership thrived decades ago. Where are the truly great visionaries and thought leaders in 2010? What are their names? What concepts do they have? How do they tie fundamental purposes and pursuits to real, substantive and justifiable actions?
10. Jack Crenshaw, Author, Consultant, Embedded Systems, Aerospace
For my money, von Braun was in a class by himself. He was one of those rare individuals that have both the imagination, the engineering, the organizational skills, and the drive to get things done. Those folks don’t come along often. About the only modern person I can think of with that kind of persuasiveness and foresight is Steve Jobs.
Maybe Elon Musk?
In 1959, The American public was already primed and eager to see us go to space, thanks to von Braun’s popular series in Collier’s magazine, written with Willy Ley in 1952-4, complete with those absolutely stunning, photograph-like paintings by Chesley Bonestell.
Though Carl Sagan popularized unmanned space probes in the 70′s, I can’t recall him championing those missions, or inspiring anyone to root for them.
Ed Lee mentioned Carolyn Porco, and I agree, she’s the only individual in NASA whose name we know, and whose enthusiasm is contagious. But she’s no public speaker, and doesn’t claim to be.
Who can we think of who inspired this kind of support for the Shuttle? The ISS?
Next question: How long must we wait for a leader with the charisma of a von Braun?
11. Scott McFarland, Business Development
Jack, Do we have an issue of – leaders in the shadows vs. leaders in the open? – of solid defendable vision vs. weak or absent vision? of majority championed visions vs. conflicted visions? Today, we have numerous leaders that hold bonafide titles and positions of responsibility, whether in agency or branch or administrative or academic or industry or special panel venues. I am not seeing them mentioned here. Why is that? Are there underlying reasons, impediments or issues?
12. Jack Crenshaw, Author, Consultant, Embedded Systems, Aerospace
Scott, I think the short answer is, NASA is much more of a typical government bureaucracy than it used to be. Like all other government bureaucracies, there is little incentive in doing great things, and even less in championing impossible ones. Managers tend to think more about what they can sell to Congress, and about playing CYA, than about inspiring those around them. You don’t want to go out on a limb and champion a certain approach, for fear the administrator will think his is better.
I remember when I first joined NASA, I said “I can’t believe that they’re letting me do this stuff. I’d pay _THEM_ for the chance, just to be part of this effort.”
We would have walked through fire if we had been told to.
Who can say that now? Who can name someone in NASA that feels that kind of inspiration anymore. Who can name a NASA manager who inspires that kind of enthusiasm?
Wernher Von Braun
The only person I can think of nowadays who has both the orginizational skills and vision to do this kind of thing is Burt Rutan. Trust me, if Rutan said, “We’d like you to come work on this project with us,” you could next find me towing a trailer to the Mojave.
I can’t think of anyone else that would inspire me that way. Perhaps the difference is, I believe he could actually do it. Can’t say that for anyone else.
13. Jack Crenshaw, Author, Consultant, Embedded Systems, Aerospace
When put on a new project, even if it’s designing a new paperclip, I want it to be the Best Danged paperclip the world has ever seen. I don’t say this to brag, because I’m not sure if this is a Good Thing or not. My last boss often said, “Jack, sometimes people don’t want the best. They only want ‘acceptable.’”
Once I got a call from a NASA manager. He wanted me to help him choose a minicomputer system that would cost $100k. I said, “Well, let’s not spend all your money if we don’t have to. I’ll come over and we’ll talk about your requirements, then we’ll pick a system that meets them.”
He said, “No, you don’t understand. I only have one requirement, and that’s to spend $100k.”
I’m sure y’all know the syndrome. It was near the end of the fiscal year, and if he didn’t spend the $100k, it would be deducted from his budget the next year.
We had a support contract with NASA. We supplied bodies as needed. Sometimes we’d end up almost stumbling over each other; several guys assigned to support the same NASA project administrator, but with very little to do. Turns out, the administrator’s salary was decided, in part, by how many support folk he had working for him. He didn’t really need all that many people, but he wasn’t thinking about actually getting something done. He just wanted the higher salary.
Once we were asked to build a simulation for an attitude control system. It seems that the vendor had run into problems with singularities in the “steering law.” We could see in about ten minutes thought that the singularities were real. We didn’t need a simulation to tell us that.
I went to my boss, and said, “What these people need is not to prove what we already know. What they need is a solution — a new steering law that works.” He agreed, and gave me a couple of months to work on it.
I did, and I got a solution. It was a success. I got a little plastic paperweight, and $25. My two NASA administrators split a $2000 award.
The funny thing was, everybody I had worked with at NASA suddenly turned hostile. They were decidely unfriendly, and they pretty much cut me out of the loop on later projects.
I told this story to a friend who worked at NASA, and he said, “Just be glad you don’t work for NASA. If you had done this for them, you would have gotten fired.”
Carolyn Porco
I go “WHAAT? They needed a solution. I gave it to them. How is that grounds for firing???”
He said, “They didn’t _ASK_ you for a solution. They asked you for a simulation, and you didn’t give them one.”
The biggest disappointment of my young life was when I realized that no one on a big government contract shared my desire for “Best Danged.” They were all satisfied with Mediocre.
We had a contract as a sub on a large government procurement. As usual, I wanted excellence, but the company disagreed. They defined “quality” as “the minimum that it takes to pass the next review.” Anything more, they argued, was wasted profit money.
The depression really set in when I realized that this attitude extended right up the ladder, from us subcontractors to the prime contractor to the government reps to the Project Manager himself.
He was a senior officer nearing retirement. He was completely uninterested in Best Danged. His goal was, “get through this project without anything that could affect my retirement income.” Everyone else downhill was simply reflecting his own attitude.
Personally, I found the whole attitude to be deeply depressing. We’re talking about a system, here, that involved people’s lives. You’d think that everyone involved would want the system to save as many as possible. We needed excellence. We got apathy and mediocrity.
From personal experience, I know with certainty that mediocrity wasn’t in von Braun’s vocabulary. I wonder if there’s anyone in NASA, today, who feels the same.
14. Gary Waits, Senior Sofware Development Manager at United Space Alliance
If you never saw Gene Kranz in action, you have missed something. He is tough and compentent and very skilled at his task. I once had to brief him after we had failed to include a main engine software patch in the Orbiter’s mass memory unit.
I was told I would have to brief Mr. Kranz on why the problem occured and what we had put in place to prevent a repeat from happening. A lot of work went into the presentation, and many hours of sleep were sacrificed thinking about the impending meeting with the head of Mission Ops (MOD). On the day of the briefing, I entered his office at JSC in Bldg 1. He was very easy to talk to, asked only a few questions, and stated he was convienced we had a handle on the problem and its ultimate solution (and we did!). It was like talking to your friend – and he was indeed that. We were soldiers in arms with a common task, and we all worked together to a common goal….and….failure was not an option.
John F. Kennedy
15. Jack Crenshaw, Author, Consultant, Embedded Systems, Aerospace
“We were soldiers in arms with a common task, and we all worked together to a common goal….and….failure was not an option.”
And I guess that’s the bottom line, isn’t it? It’s a group attitude.
Kranz is one of my many heroes, though we’ve never met. Not sure he’s a visionary, though. But maybe that’s point worth making.
We need visionaries, sure. Very much. But when the metal (or bytes) is starting to get cut, you also need an extremely competent and confidant team.
And for that team, you also need a team leader that can inspire the team and invest them with the same determination and focus on excellence.
When mentioning visionaries, I should have mentioned Kelly Johnson of Lockheed Skunk Works fame. Not just a visionary, but also a great team leader.
Where are Kelly and Wernher when you need them?
16. Scott McFarland, Business Development
Somewhat fascinating to see that this is the only question that members have answered of the four that Robert Brand
