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