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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!hao!ames!eugene
From: eugene@ames.UUCP (Eugene Miya)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Info on shuttle mission results and other NASA news
Message-ID: <1256@ames.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 15-Nov-85 13:51:51 EST
Article-I.D.: ames.1256
Posted: Fri Nov 15 13:51:51 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Nov-85 06:27:28 EST
References: <8511142053.AA01916@s1-b.arpa>
Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 68

> Would it be possible to feed the SPACE Digest with any NASA press releases or
> reports, if they are available at some stage in their preparation in an
> electronic form, related to current activities?
> 
> Any NASA types out there -- please pass this on to your PR people.
> (Send it in as a suggestion and make a few bucks! That's fine with me!)
> 
> Regards, Will Martin
> US Army Materiel Command

I have high respect for your suggestions Will.  This has been proposed
to me, and I will try to answer your questions about the problems we
have.

1) Foremost.  The money which goes into the space agency goes (obviously)
to project oriented research.  PR is an after fact.  I have been working
with the Ames people recently to get some TRs published.  Our
publication people are all heavily overworked and using obsolete tools.
At Ames, we just hard an NBI system installed, but insite training was poor,
networking between them does not exist, and the money is not there.
Functions such as this come third to projects preceded by research and so
forth. I think most large bureacracies are like this.  Also, none of the
PR branches have laser printers.  Use of the word LASER in the government
implies numerous safety rules which these departments don't deal with
[another story].  This illustrates some of our problems.

2) There is quite a bulk of NASA data out there: Voyager status notes,
Tech Briefs, Pioneer reports, NASA Activities, etc.  Who decides what,
how much, and so forth?   There is a lot of "junk."  I receieved
a couple of complaints when I posted NASA Activities. Following
the USENET is a major time kill (yeah, tell me something new...).

3) Networks and computers are foreign to large portions of NASA.
I am on here by the graces of my management and the graces of
a different Division who runs this machine (our Central Computer
Facility does not have Unix machines [we actually have an SGI IRIS]).
I have been called in my Division chief's office on more than one
USENET posting when it came from the net somewhere else back to my
management.  Information including simple correspondence typically
must go thru a clearance cycle [e.g., your voice represents the Agency
whether you disclaim things or not.].  Dispersal of information to
"foreign" ....  worries a lot of people.  I cannot accept invitations
to speak or present papers based on electronic mail (must have
hardcopy with letterhead and 'signature.')

I recently visited one research Center (larger than Ames but back East)
which had never seen a Mac before.  This Center has 2 (two) IBM PCs
with all other work done on IBM and other mainframes.  Univac would
love to sell Ames one of their machines, but they were luck to get two
people show up for their presentation.

4) There are, as posted by others, small BBSs at various NASA Centers
like Johnson and Goddard.  The numbers are available.

5) Roger Noe has written suggesting involvement on internal discussion
groups.  Al Globius (ames!al) started a local news group on discussing
space station design topics, but few local researchers got involved.
This brings up problems of propritary information from contractors
and vendors, and the possibly of "premature announcement" of ideas
which are not policy.

It would be nice to spend more time, but back to work.

From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:
--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  {hplabs,ihnp4,dual,hao,decwrl,allegra}!ames!aurora!eugene
  emiya@ames-vmsb