work in progress.

CSOC was an attempt to commercial NASA space operations.

$3 billion plus contract to lockheed martin to provide end-to-end space operations Mission and Data Services to both NASA and non-NASA customers

Apparent Issues/Problems

broad contract that lacked flexibility

     changing missions was hard to deal with

operations were not bought at cost in open market

     contract created entity to do work only for NASA - similar things in the future need to be at cost working with a company that has other customers besides nasa

Initial Thoughts

problem - sudden change resulted in experiance leaving

future - transitions this large must be done gradually

     current experts should train contractors (at cost to company?)

     These trained individuals will then slowly take over positions as promotion, attrition, and retirement result in loss of civil servants

     these trained individuals working for companies will also apply (be rotated or train others) to transfer knowledge into private sector for operations of commercial sattelites and operations (Bigelow, SpaceX, GLXP, etc)

          This transfer will result in expertise transfering to private industry AND efficiencies developed in private industry transfering to NASA

listed below is information/sources:

background - http://www.gcn.com/print/17_27/32871-1.html

results - http://www.gcn.com/print/21_30/20189-1.html?topic=executive-management&page=2

Review of program by National Academies http://www7.nationalacademies.org/aseb/Space_Comm_PrePub.pdf

overview of consolidation and commercialization http://www.govexec.com/features/99top/08a99s12.htm

"storefront" idea of using college students to lower costs - http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=5628