Beyond Earth (ATWG) - Chapter 15 - Space Exploration and a New Paradigm for Education and Human Capital Development by Michael J. Wiskerchen

From The Space Library

Chapter 15

Space Exploration and a New Paradigm for Education and Human Capital Development

By Michael J. Wiskerchen

Introduction

Beyond Earth - Future of Humans in Space formulates a vision that is rooted in the following precepts:

• Humans are genetically disposed to explore and to find new ways to survive;
• Space exploration, habitation and utilization by and for Earth's humanity will be an increasing phenomenon as the future unfolds;
• Human outward migration into space will present an opportunity to develop a rewarding and exciting future of global collaboration to capitalize on the lessons learned from human history on Earth;
• The successful migration of humans into space will be highly dependent on the development of a responsive and evolving educational system that focuses on the increasing influence of space on Earth and its humanity. Can we study history and learn how to create a responsive and evolving educational system? Is it possible to use the lessons-learned of the space age to create a learning environment that could evolve as humans migrate into interstellar space? It is obvious that educational capabilities of the Apollo era have been transformed today into global information access and knowledge sharing systems. This rapidly advancing educational technology is outpacing the ability of people and organizations to use it productively. This Chapter will attempt to look at education and human capital development through a past and present "space environment" window to derive lessons-learned that will allow us to develop a responsive and evolving "interstellar" educational system.

A Historical Perspective on the High Technology Human Capital Crisis in America

A Personal Perspective - The future of exploring and living in space will greatly depend on our ability to appropriately educate and train the next generation of explorers. During the past ten years, many experts have questioned the will and/or ability of the United States to lead this effort and as a long time space scientist and educator I have broached this issue from many directions. I have asked the question: Why does a young person select a science, technology or engineering career path? What are their motivations and/or influences? In an attempt to address these questions I have examined what influenced my own career choices and that of my children.

I was raised on a small Midwest dairy farm and educated in a small town of fewer than 300 citizens, an extremely different childhood than my children have experienced. In 1960 I was starting my first undergraduate year with a double major in physics and math and my choice of majors was based on a persistent childhood curiosity and lots of hands-on experience with nature and mechanical systems. I was also strongly influenced by my parents and the community we lived in which instilled a strong work ethic and acceptance of daily responsibility. My high school was very small and offered only a basic science and math curriculum from teachers that may or may not have had a degree with a minor or major in the courses they were teaching. But one thing was certain: everyone in the community knew you and your parents and they were there to mentor you.

The space program didn't exist for me until I entered college. I viewed it as an exciting venture but didn't think that a "farm boy" from the Midwest would ever be able to participate. Throughout my undergraduate years that viewpoint did not change but at the start of my graduate work the opportunity presented itself to actually get engaged in the space program. Looking back, my career was built on serendipity, grasping opportunities as they appeared: during the 60's many space-related opportunities appeared.

My children's formative years were considerably different as they were continuously bombarded with space-related people and events. Although one would have thought that this environment would stimulate their interest in a space-related career, it didn't. What was missing? They had a similar curiosity about nature and an interest in observing processes in nature, but they had very little day-to-day hands-on experience with nature and mechanical systems. The community connectivity and mentoring was hard to develop in the large urban environments where we lived, and establishing a strong work ethic or acceptance of daily responsibilities was not automatic in this environment either. The quality of K-12 science and math education, although on a much broader scale than what I had experienced, was, from my perspective, less stimulating or effective. The number of qualified science and math teachers (those with majors in the courses they taught) was about the same as I had. In summary then, the only apparent difference between my early science and technical learning environment and that of my children seems to be hands-on experiences, and the prevalence of community mentoring.

America's Human Capital Crisis

Congress, the Executive Branch, and a number of Federal and State Agencies have recognized the critical need for a skilled aerospace workforce supported by many K-12 science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) initiatives. This critical need is clearly stated in numerous reports and studies, including: "Report to the President: The Crisis in Human Capital" (Voinovich, 2000); the "Final Report of the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry" (Walker, 2004); the "Roadmap for National Security" (Hart-Rudman, 2001); and "NASA's Human Capital Strategic Plan" (NASA, 2004). It reminds me of the old country saying, "Everybody talks about the weather but no one does anything about it". More than twenty years of reports and statements have lamented the crisis in our nation's educational, scientific, and technological infrastructure. In 2001, the Hart-Rudman commission on national security clearly stated the problem as follows: "The inadequacies of our system of research and education pose a greater threat to U.S. national security over the next quarter century than any potential conventional war that we might imagine." The weakening of science and technology in the United States will inevitably degrade its social and economic conditions and in particular erode the ability of its citizens to compete for high-quality jobs.

The time for bold and decisive action is long overdue so one might reasonably ask why corrective action has not been taken by some combination of the government, industry and academia. What's missing from the last two decades of human capital development efforts relating to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers? What's it going to take to turn this crisis around? What cultural and organizational change must occur in the government, industry, and academic sectors to make progress on this critical human capital issue? As the future unfolds, can the quest for space exploration, habitation and utilization by and for Earth's humanity be a driving motivation for today's youth to embrace science and technical learning?

Learning from History

It's instructive and relatively easy for those of us that started our scientific, technical and/or management careers in the 1960's to compare what's happening now to those Apollo era years. In 1958, this nation was stimulated by the Soviets' launch of Sputnik One into collective national action to upgrade its educational and technological infrastructure, as it was clear that the Soviet emphasis on math and science would put our Cold War adversary ahead of the United States in ten years.

Even though the United States had demanding fiscal constraints at that pre-Apollo time, Congress appropriated a billion-dollar National Defense Education Act ($6B in today's dollars) that emphasized the study of math, science, and foreign languages, and it led directly to the creation of NASA. NASA then developed unique and extensive partnerships with U.S. colleges and universities by establishing scholarship and fellowship programs and campus research facilities. Through procurements, NASA encouraged partnerships between industry and universities for R&D as well as workforce development. The number of science and engineering Ph.D. degrees awarded annually by U.S. colleges and universities rose from 8,600 in 1957 to almost 4 times that in 1973. That type of integrated public - private partnerships dissipated after the mid 1970s.

Historical Impediments to STEM Human Capital Development in the Government, Academic, and Industrial Sectors

Why did the political system so readily take action then yet find it so difficult to do the same thing today? One answer is the high level of public awareness of the Cold War impacts while today's declining technological prowess and economic security does not seem to generate the same public awareness or response. Without this pressing public awareness, many federal and state office holders do not perceive this as an important re-election issue.

Thus, it's important to examine the political or social environment that persists and hinders sustained state and federal government responses to this decline in our nation's high technology workforce that will be required for humanity to venture out to the space frontier. First, no long-term vision has been implanted into the general public psyche that requires this sustained effort. Also it's difficult to attack the STEM-related human capital problem since you must address the entire STEM workforce pipeline (K-12 through adult continuing education) to produce long-term results. This adds extreme bureaucratic complexity since it crosses multiple local, state, and federal agencies and institutions. The sustained general public support is necessary since most STEM career education and training programs will not produce quantifiable impacts in less than one to two decades. This is a much longer period of time than the re-election time scale for most federal and state elected officials. The collection of problems reveals a disturbing picture—a definite pattern of short-term thinking and insufficient long-term investment.

Another historical factor that is complicating the development of a competitive scientific and technical workforce is the United States' strong dependence on immigrants and foreign nationals to populate the high technology industry workforce as well as most major university science and engineering graduate programs. A decade ago this worked in our favor with most foreign students and H1-B Visa workers staying in the U.S. and contributing to its technical success. Given that 55% of the engineering doctoral students in the United States are foreign nationals and that many of these students are leaving the United States, the effect could be to drastically reduce the U.S. talent pool.

As a result of all these trends, human capital development is one of the major challenges facing the U.S. aerospace industry today. Historically the U.S. aerospace industry allocated minimal resources for developing and maintaining a trained workforce. Instead the industry has followed the practice of laying off workers with the wrong skills and hiring the new workers with the skill mix required by specific government contracts. This human resources practice was a natural outcome of the industry's dependence on government contracts for revenues.

A 21st Century Solution to the Aerospace Human Capital Problem

What does this tell us about the high technology and aerospace human capital problem? What are the implications to the "Future of Humans in Space"? My views are as follows:

• The political, social, and organizational forces of today are far different than during Apollo, and consequently most Apollo-era human capital approaches will not work today;
• The education and learning must be driven by a common long-term vision of the future for humanity;
• Solutions must address the entire human capital "pipeline" (K-12 to life-long learning);
• Solutions must be based a "Systems Approach" to human capital problems crossing government, industry, and academia;
• Any sustainable solution must develop and provide long-term budgetary stability;
• All education and human capital development programs must be directly linked to the economic development strategic plan of the local, regional, and national communities. My more than thirty years in the space program, in both the private and public sectors, has taught me to focus on the long-term economic issue first. Vision and funding issues are similar to the old chicken and egg problem. If you don't have a believable and accepted vision no one will provide the necessary resources to implement the vision. Visionary ideas without funding are worse than useless—they also waste good people's time and energy. For the Apollo-era vision, the federal government was the primary funding arm for most education and workforce training programs. Today, where we lack a common vision, depending only on government funding for education and human capital development is impractical.

A recent Report of the Government Accounting Office (GAO) to the U.S. House Committee on Rules entitled, "Higher Education—Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Programs and Related Trends Report" (GAO, 2005), reports that 13 civilian federal agencies allocated a total of $2.8B in 2004 for promoting STEM-related education and training programs. Compared to the National Defense Education Act of 1958 ($1B or $6B in 2004 dollars), the Federal Government is spending far less ($3.2B less) on science and engineering education. With the seriousness of the STEM human capital problem, this is very disturbing.

So the question becomes, "How do you create and sustain an environment where the government (local, state, federal) and private investment jointly provide stable long-term funding for human capital development?" What is the role of government in this new "business model"?

First, the government will still have to provide at least 50% of the funding through a proposal - peer review process that teams the private sector with educational institutions. Second, the government should include a mandatory human capital development requirement in every Request for Proposal (RFP) issued, which should reserve (fence off) between 5 and 10% of the total proposed budget for human capital development. But beyond this, an integrated approach must be adopted.

An Integrated Approach to Human Capital Development

In 1988 Congress established the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program (Space Grant) in the NASA Authorization Act. The NASA managed Space Grant Program, through the network of 52 Space Grant consortia in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, was designed to play an important support role in the nation's science and technology mission particularly in areas that pertain to aerospace-related research, education, human capital development, and public outreach. In carrying out its mission, Space Grant partners with academe, industry, and government agencies (Federal, state, local) to provide educators, researchers, students, and the general public with the experiences that capitalize on the excitement of United States' unique aerospace research, exploration, and discovery environment.

Each year, the Space Grant programs involve over 500 Colleges/Universities, provide over 2000 student awards, performs over 500 student-mentor programs and engages over 40 State/Local government partners and over 100 aerospace industry partners. The extensive Space Grant network of affiliates has become the de facto national facilitator/coordinator in the quest to develop an integrated approach to the aerospace human capital crisis.

The Space Grant human capital development effort involves two integrated elements relating to education and training. The first engages students (K-12, higher education and life-long learning) in formal and accredited science and engineering education programs. This includes incentives for many of the higher education students to become K-12 teachers of math and science, inspiring even more students to pursue these fields.

A second critical element in a human capital development strategy is the implementation of an experiential learning environment. I have named this type of training effort, "student - mentor". Student - mentor programs, as developed by Space Grant, demonstrate baseline characteristics that industry, NASA, and the government agencies have realized are critical for solving the high technology workforce problems. Those baseline characteristics are as follows:

• Team participation of students from K-12, undergraduate, and graduate levels (pipeline);
• Experiential learning through "hands-on" aerospace-related projects;
• Highest priority given to workforce skill development of students & mentors;
• Emphasizes that students should experience the full mission life cycle including mission definition, design, build, fly, and analyze in less than two years;
• Community-based private - public partnerships involving industry, government, and academia for mentors, facilities, and investment;
• Addresses "Human Capital" issues of the local, State, and Federal Government.

Space Grant and the Human Capital Development Model

Over the past 15 years, Space Grant consortia across the nation have implemented aerospace human capital development efforts that involve science, engineering, and management student teams at all levels in hands-on aerospace projects. These programs were created to provide students with practical experience and scholarships/training grants while under the guidance of mentors from the industrial, academic, and government sectors. Many of these projects involve unique aspects of public - private partnerships, government procurement processes, intellectual property agreements, and human resources efforts across the government, industry, and academe. It is instructive to fully examine several of these efforts that were implemented by the California Space Grant organization. First, a few words about the structure of the NASA sponsored Space Grant organization in California. There is the congressionally designated and NASA managed part, the California Space Grant Consortium (CaSGC) that consists of more than 25 California universities and colleges with the management lead directed by UC San Diego. From a procurement point of view, the only legal aspect of the Consortium is the NASA grant administered by UC San Diego. The Consortium itself has no legal organizational identity so that the enactment of any government procurements with the entire Consortium requires a legally recognized organization to represent all of the CaSGC affiliates. A separate California non-profit 501(c) 3 organization called the California Space Grant Foundation (or the Foundation) was formed.

The Foundation is structured to assist Space Grant in enabling students of all ethic and financial backgrounds to attain high skill technical and professional careers through education and exciting programs. It creates, facilitates, manages and integrates K-12, college and university and life long learning opportunities built around real world space, land and sea projects.

On a national level the same legal situation affected the 52 Space Grant Consortia, which led to the formation of the National Space Grant Foundation (NSGF). The NSGF is a tax exempt 501(c)(3) organization whose purpose is to support and enhance the Space Grant Consortia in every state to carry out education, research, and public outreach activities in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology and additional fields related to space, aeronautics, aviation, and Earth system science. The partnership between the California and National Space Grant Foundations provides an effective coordination/facilitation mechanism to address local, regional and national human capital development efforts.

Applying the Human Capital Development Model — The AERO Institute

With this organizational structure in place, Space Grant was prepared to address the aerospace human capital issues in a pilot effort in California. Through the opportune conjunction of a number people and organizations, the pilot location was picked to be the "High Desert" of California. The High Desert, an hour north of Los Angeles, is the home of Edwards Air Force Base, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, the Department of Defense Plant 42, Mojave Test area, China Lake, and the fast growing cities of Palmdale and Lancaster. The one community college is Antelope Valley Community College and there are no 4-year institutions. Over the last two years, a Space Grant led team of dedicated people and organizations has created the Aerospace Education, Research and Operations Institute (AERO Institute - non-profit educational partnership) which has proven to be an excellent environment to test and evaluate what works or fails in the Human Capital development model.

The vision of the AERO Institute was to enable competitive U.S. utilization of industry, university and government assets by:

• Leveraging the assets of NASA Dryden, local, state, & Federal government agencies, Space Grant Universities and local industry;
• Creating strategic private/public human capital and education partnerships;
• Leveraging the intellectual capital of the academic community.

The AERO Institute's long-term goals are to act as innovator, facilitator and integrator for joint government (local, state, federal), university and industry projects. It will focus on:

• Human Capital development;
• Educational outreach;
• Applied Research and;
• Operations Improvement.

To that end AERO will:

• Provide comprehensive technical, undergraduate and graduate education;
• Conduct leading edge aerospace research and provide an experiential learning environment for students;
• Incubate, stimulate, and commercialize new intellectual property;
• Promote aerospace science and engineering. With all of these lofty visions and goals, what became reality and why? The reality part was amazing but the why is more instructive to enable propagation of the model to other parts of the nation. The following is a partial list of accomplishments over the past two years:
• Completed a Space Act Agreement signed between NASA Dryden and the California Space Grant Foundation creating the AERO Institute;
• Created a partnership between the City of Palmdale and the AERO Institute - a 20,000 sq. ft. building was provided by Palmdale to the AERO Institute for education and human capital development of the High Desert;
• Relocated the NASA Dryden Office of Academic Investments to the AERO Institute. This Office serves as an education center providing K-12 students with NASA Education materials and resources, serving as a Higher Education center providing on-site and distance-learning access to universities, industry, government, and serving as a focal point of general public aerospace-related education;
• Established NASA Dryden - AERO Institute Space Act Agreement research partnerships with Space Grant universities (across the nation) exceeding $3,000,000, including a faculty and graduate/ undergraduate student intern program;
• Implemented an effective Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) program to allow NASA and Air Force personnel to transfer and work into the AERO Institute;
• Initiated a distance education program offering Engineering Masters Degrees through Purdue University, University of Southern California, and University of California, San Diego, and MBA Degrees through CalPoly Pomona and University of Southern California to government and aerospace industry personnel;
• Established regional partnerships with Workforce Investment organizations at the state and Federal level;
• Initiated a partnership with the Air Force at Vandenberg AFB to provide engineering education and hands-on training for payload integration and launch operations. Thus, the AERO Institute has been more successful than I could have ever imagined. Since I have been exercising parts of the model for more than 20 years with varying degrees of success, I asked myself why was it working so well this time. The simple answer is that the right people at the right time are working together in a government, industry, and academic collaborative environment.

A more complete answer is given below that explains what I mean by the "right people" and a "collaborative environment."

Who are the "right people" who made this vision a reality? Some were visionaries, others were educators/researchers and a number were experienced business and organizational people. A common thread that linked all of the key team members was that they had "history" together and they all could be identified as "passionate advocates" for the AERO vision. They had already developed a respect and trust relationship that made the collaboration process efficient and productive.

The "collaborative environment" is also an intricate combination of elements that are necessary and sufficient to produce a successful outcome. A few key necessary and sufficient elements are listed below:

• A "fair broker" facilitator/coordinator organization must be established to operate and maintain the enterprise. For AERO, the provision of management services was assigned to a non-profit facilitator organization

- California Space Grant Foundation (low overhead business office and "passionate advocate" for aerospace-related research, education, human capital development, and public outreach);

• It is important to have a "passionate advocate" team member representing each key organization (government, academia, industry). This team member must be able to influence the upper administration of their organization;
• The utilization of the Space Act Agreement procurement vehicle was critical in establishing the public - private partnership in a timely way. This procurement mechanism created a shared resources environment (facilities, funding, and personnel);
• The AERO Institute was, both in reality and perception, an "inclusive" partnership organization. It can never become a competitor to its partners and its principal role is to serve as the team facilitator/coordinator between industry, government, and academia;
• Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) was employed as an excellent mechanism for placing key civil servants within the AERO Institute. They retain all of their government status but work day-to-day in the Institute;
• Industry and academic personnel can also be temporarily assigned to the Institute for varying periods of time (several months to two years) similar to IPAs;
• The Institute budgeted 5% of its gross revenues for human capital development (scholarships, fellowships, and training grants);
• The Institute plays the role of regional facilitator/coordinator for K-12 outreach, university level education, distance learning, and life-long learning for STEM related careers;
• Institute budget was derived from multiple private and public sources including local, state, and Federal government agencies, industry, academia, and philanthropic organizations.

ACES - Reapplying the Human Capital Development Model

The amazing part of the AERO Institute story is that the concept and initial discussions took place in late October 2003 - that was just two years ago. One would therefore ask if this model could be implemented elsewhere with different initial conditions. That opportunity appeared in the summer of 2005 relating to an effort by NASA Ames Research Center to address commercial enterprises in space. The California Space Grant organization has responded to this opportunity by taking the lessons learned from the AERO Institute to promote the creation of the Alliance for Commercial Enterprises in Space (ACES - a 501 (3) C performance based private - public partnership for commercial space enterprise).

The ACES was formed to advance the development of the low Earth orbit environment for all users - scientific, technological, and commercial, in order to more efficiently advance scientific knowledge, technological capability, and commerce on Earth as a gateway to 21st Century exploration and development of space.

It's purpose is thus to engage a new business model for achieving research and development (R & D) in low-Earth orbit in a way that is consistent with the present and future goals of the U.S. Space Program. The goal is to create an Alliance that will aggressively pursue science, technology, human capital development, and commercial development programs with clearly defined roles for government, industry, and academic partners.

The ultimate success of ACES will depend equally on the efficient operation of existing and emerging space, transportation, and ground assets (laboratories, launch & retrieval vehicles, spacecraft and space station among others), and on the optimal utilization of those assets by the R & D, business, and private investment communities. As with any technical or business venture, the level of success will depend upon the long-term education and training of the workforce involved.

Although ACES could eventually be several orders of magnitude larger than the AERO Institute, the organizational and management structure, the human capital emphasis, and the budgetary breakout would remain similar. Successful implementation of the model will also depend strongly on having the right people at the right time working together in a government, industry, and academic collaborative environment. However, there are a number of "very" different initial conditions. These include:

• A strong historical government and industrial culture involving marginally successful commercial space ventures;
• Historically strong scientific, technical, and educational community (Silicon Valley);
• NASA and associated contractor support personnel experiencing human capital downsizing;
• Extremely constrained budgetary environment particularly in human capital development. At this time the most that can be said is that the core group of "passionate advocates" is very experienced, talented, and determined: overcoming the existing and inhibiting organizational cultures is the greatest challenge they currently face.

Summary

In the AERO and ACES environments, I see the 85-12-3 Rule to be fully in play. The Rule refers to the different classes of people who exist in any organization that is undergoing cultural change (i.e. implementing the model). 85% of the people in the organization will prefer to keep the status quo. They generally do little to help or hinder your progress. 12% of the people in the organization will be adamantly opposed to any change, since change is generally perceived as a negative impact to their personal reward and/or risk systems. This group often attempts to impede the progress of the change. The third group (3%) is made up of the natural "change-makers" in every organization. These are the people who form the core planning and implementation group and become the "right people" that help create successful programs.

The above discussion was given to characterize the environment one faces when implementing the Space Grant Human Capital Development Model in a community of government, industry, and academic organizations. The "fair broker" facilitator/coordinator is the key element to success. It is the "glue" that that holds the private public partnerships together. For a facilitator/coordinator to be successful one must identify the people in each organization that fit into the 85-12-3 classes. Strategies must be planned and exercised to involve each group at the appropriate time and manner and to anticipate and mitigate problems in a timely way. This is not as easy as it sounds.

The real question to ask at this point is whether the above pilot activities (AERO Institute & ACES) demonstrate any applicable answers that could be applied to the future space exploration, habitation and utilization by and for Earth's humanity. Does the model provide a framework that will address the "need to develop new ways to collaborate within competitive boundaries" as stated by Dr. Ken Cox? Also does the model provide a fundamental organizational structure that could be applied to the ATWG proposed "Interstellar Space University" (The Interstellar Space University mission is to create and archive space knowledge and discoveries; provide the networking focus for space academics, practitioners and students; and supervise research that will peacefully and productively weave the future of space exploration, habitation and utilization for the benefit of Earth's humanity)?

I have arrived at the following conclusions about the past and the future potential for human capital development as humans explore, inhabit, and utilize space:

PAST and PRESENT

The U.S. aerospace human capital problems are at a crisis level and no national action plan is presently being implemented;

• Apollo era human capital approaches are difficult or even impossible to implement in the political, social, and budgetary climate that exist today;
• Nationalism permeates human capital development programs while knowledge creation and sharing is net-worked globally;
• Government - industry, university partnerships for R&D and human capital development are severely constrained by historical procurement regulations and processes and budgets that are limited by insufficient political will;
• Existing STEM-related civilian agency programs are under-funded (by more than 50%) and many of those that are funded are the result of ill-conceived Congressional "Ear Marks". Most don't align with any unified national human capital development strategy and many have never been peer-reviewed for quality and/or STEM workforce impacts.

FUTURE

The Space Grant Human Capital Development Model possesses the following elements that are needed to foster and maintain a successful future human capital development program:

• Grass roots, community-based human capital development goals and objectives based on aerospace-related projects;
• Private - public shared resources environment; and
• Emphasis on hands-on student - mentor learning.
• The migration of humans into space will require a global educational and human capital development infrastructure that emphasizes shared knowledge and resources;
• Although the future education and Human Capital Development Model will be practiced and shared globally, all implementations will be driven by local considerations (organizations, resources, personnel, and outcomes). My major personal conclusion is that every local community must stop looking to their government for the answer. Government responds to the strongest demands of its citizens, and if the local citizens, whether from the private or public sectors, speak with a unified voice concerning STEM education and training, resources will be available and significant progress will be made. The Future of Humans in Space will depend on each one of us taking action. As members of the human race, the future is ours to win or lose.

References

GAO Report, (October 2005), Report to the Chairman, Committee on Rules, House of Representatives, Higher Education - Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Programs and Related Trends

Hart-Rudman Commission, (February 2001) Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change, The Phase III Report of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century

NASA, (2004), Human Capital Strategic Implementation Plan http://nasapeople.nasa.gov/HCM/

Voinovich, George V., (December 2000) Report to the President: The Crisis in Human Capital - Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia Committee on Governmental Affairs

Walker, Robert S., (November 2002) Final Report of the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry, www.aerospacecommission.gov

About the Author

Extracted from the book Beyond Earth - The Future of Humans in Space edited by Bob Krone ©2006 Apogee Books ISBN 978-1-894959-41-4

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