Space & Astronomy/Space and Astronomy (October 1993).iso/pc/text/jplpaper/930326.uni

Text File | 1993-08-11 | 48KB | 882 lines

Jet Propulsion Laboratory UNIVERSE
Pasadena, California - Vol. 23, No. 6 - March 26, 1993
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JPL payload on former spy plane
yields astronomy at Mach 3 speed

By Mary Hardin
     The first two science flights of an ex-spy plane took place
recently at Edwards Air Force Base, carrying a payload operated
by JPL scientists.
     The scientific test flights of the SR-71 Blackbird, carrying
an ultraviolet camera that studies stars and comets, occurred
March 9 and 16.
     "This is really a case of turning swords into plough
shares," said Dr. Jacklyn R. Green, the JPL SR-71 project
scientist.  "We are taking what was once a spy plane and
transforming it into a useful, cost-effective science platform."
     During the 1 1/2-hour flight, the SR-71 climbed to an
altitude of 85,000 feet, with an upward-looking ultraviolet
camera system mounted in its nose bay. "We are doing astronomy at
Mach 3 (2,100 mph), and no one else has ever done that before,"
Green said.
     The faster the plane goes, the higher it soars, and it is
the high altitude that makes the Blackbird such an important
scientific asset. Flying above a significant portion of the
Earth's atmosphere, scientists can observe stars and planets at
ultraviolet wavelengths that are blocked to ground-based
astronomers. Using the high-altitude SR-71 as a scientific
platform enables scientists to do ultraviolet astronomy more cost
effectively, and it opens the door to a wide range of other
scientific applications, such as the study of comets, asteroids
and astrophysics.
     The maiden flight of the SR-71 as a scientific platform had
two key objectives:  to determine how the camera responds under
different lighting conditions, such as daylight, twilight and
nighttime, and to test the camera's resolution in relation to the
effects of vibration and turbulence.
     "We want to determine how faint an object we can observe,"
Green said. "The results of the first flight look good. We were
able to see Mars and the constellation Orion, among other stars.
The ride appeared to be totally smooth, and we couldn't detect
any vibration in the images."
     Subsequent flights will add other instruments, such as
ultraviolet spectrometers and infrared and ultraviolet sensors.
     Green is working with universities, industry and other
government agencies to ensure the SR-71 is accessible to multiple
scientific disciplines. "This is a cooperative effort. We want to
evaluate and develop this plane to make it a national resource.
We want to be a flying observatory," she added.
     The ultraviolet camera system that flew on the two test
flights was provided by the Southwest Research Institute of San
Antonio, Texas. The aircraft is operated by NASA's Dryden Flight
Research Facility, and the research is funded by the Aeronautics
Technology Division at NASA Headquarters. ###
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O'Toole discusses NASA's future

By Karre Marino
     In an address on NASA's history and its future in a changing
American economy March 16, Dr. Richard O'Toole, JPL's manager of
legislative affairs, began with some humor, telling the audience
that  "economists are people who are good with numbers, but don't
have the personality to be accountants." The light mood, however,
certainly belied the serious road ahead, as in the struggle for
federal dollars, NASA will have to undertake a variety of steps
to ensure it receives about $14 to $15 billion annually.
     O'Toole told a near-capacity crowd in von Karman Auditorium
that the economically unrestrained days of the '60s are gone.
"Those Apollo days are over. We have to get on with it." The late
1980s -- the era of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident -- he
said, signaled that NASA was in trouble. "NASA misperceived the
funding increases it received after Challenger. It took them to
be a long-term commitment that would continue indefinitely." The
space agency was wrong. "Congress never bought into an
Apollo-scale program," he explained. Indeed, he said, unless NASA
can demonstrate that its projects have substantial societal
value, they will be threatened in the future.
     Looking ahead, O'Toole indicated that the structural changes
in the economy --fewer high-paying manufacturing jobs, less
domestic gross product devoted to public investment, tax revenues
of 19 percent that attempt to pay for expenditures of 25 percent,
a lower-wage base, and a staggering federal deficit -- would call
for a restructuring of NASA's own approach and the way it
justifies its program. He explained that while the Clinton/Gore
plan would call for sacrifice from all sectors of society, it
encourages the very thing that NASA and labs like JPL do best --
create technologies that can stimulate growth in the decades
ahead.
     The trick, he said, is to redefine NASA's role, "to be
consistent with the President's plan. It is about strengthening
the link between NASA projects and competitiveness via
technology, as well as fostering technological developments that
lead to industrial competitiveness. The emphasis must be on a
transfer of technology from the lab setting to private industry.
NASA must push advances in space technology to help make U.S.
technology more competitive."
     O'Toole also delineated the challenge that faces NASA
Administrator Daniel Goldin. "He must redefine NASA's mission to
meet this new environment. There is no entitlement for NASA; the
space race is over. Projects now must stand on their own merit to
meet society's needs." That includes shifting resources to
support more important programs -- technology, human exploration,
Mission to Planet Earth and space science.
     But the bottom line, O'Toole indicated, is that Goldin
doesn't expect an influx of money for NASA, so he must ensure
that the agency can do more by conducting more frequent, less
costly missions. The NASA administrator is also attempting to
encourage risk taking via smaller projects. "Cheaper projects are
often more visible, the results more apparent," according to
O'Toole. That means Congress and the public place more value on
NASA's role.
     JPL is not lost in this new view. O'Toole said that "we must
bring our strategy in line with the new external reality."
Concepts like the Mars Rover/Sample Return that approached the
$10 billion mark are no longer viable, he explained. Innovative
ideas like the Mars Network -- with a $1 billion price tag -- are
those that should be developed, he said.
     JPL Director Dr. Edward Stone's moves to cut the Lab's work
force, for instance -- before it was mandated by others -- was an
excellent idea, he added. "We get credit for such action. Our
credibility goes up when people perceive that we're doing what is
necessary -- and inevitable -- before we're forced to."
     In the end, O'Toole said, NASA will have to prove its value
in contributing to solving real problems -- and its relation to
all of America -- as it seeks funding. "The space program must
show its relevance to all segments of society. We have to reach
out to women and the minority community, more than we have in the
past." ###
_________________________________________________________________

ACRIM, ATMOS set for shuttle flight

By Karre Marino
     As part of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth series, JPL's
Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy (ATMOS) and the Active
Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM) will be on board the
Space Shuttle Discovery, when it is launched sometime during the
early part of April. The two instruments will study the chemical
composition of the atmosphere and how it is changing, and will
measure solar variations and their impact on the earth's climate,
respectively.
     ATMOS, which is intended to fly aboard the shuttle about
once every year, uses a technique called infrared solar
occultation spectroscopy, which Mike Gunson, ATMOS' principal
investigator, described as "taking sunlight -- and particularly
sunlight at infrared wavelengths -- to create a spectrum.
     "As the sun's rays pass through the earth's atmosphere at
sunset or sunrise, the sunlight is absorbed by gases in the
atmosphere," Gunson said. "If you can produce a spectrum, you can
see how much of that infrared sunlight is absorbed at different
wavelengths and characterize which trace gases and how much of
these gases is present in the atmosphere."
     Gunson, from the Atmospheric and Oceanographic Sciences
Section 322, indicated that the window of opportunity is small.
"During each orbital sunrise or sunset, ATMOS must take a very
rapid series of observations. Since the sun's rays begin well
above the Earth, and take just a few minutes to go behind the
Earth," he explained, "we try to get about 100 measurements in
two to three minutes." Even in such a constrained time period,
Gunson said the team gathers "a huge volume of data."
     Each of these measurements is a high-resolution infrared
spectrum containing some million points of data. And through each
mission, Gunson said tens of gigabytes of data are accumulated.
     ATMOS will focus on the middle atmosphere ("from a few
kilometers above us up to 150 kilometers") to discern how its
composition is changing. "We want to measure as many different
gases as we can," he said. "The trace gases -- those over and
above nitrogen and oxygen -- include chlorofluorocarbons;
measuring these will enable us to learn what processes in the
stratosphere turn them into inorganic chlorine and how exactly
this happens."
     While ATMOS does not measure chlorine monoxide, the gas
directly involved in ozone destruction, it does measure the other
forms of chlorine-containing gases.
     "So what we have from an experiment like ATMOS is a snapshot
inventory of what's in the stratosphere. We can use these
vertical-distribution profiles for each of these gases to help
modelers to predict how the atmosphere will change."
     Gunson said that gathering the information creates a
reference point for future comparisons, "which tells us how the
atmosphere is changing."
     ATMOS first flew in 1985 aboard Spacelab 3 and flew in a
second mission in March 1992 aboard Atlas I. Important data were
gathered during both flights. "Looking at these measurements, we
have seen distinct changes in the atmosphere's composition."
     Those changes are not always a result of man. Gunson
described last year's eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines
as providing the perfect opportunity to study how such natural
occurrences affect the atmosphere. "Nine months after the volcano
blew -- the biggest eruption of the century -- it was still
spewing bits of material into the environment," he said. "The
volcanic residue created an aerosol layer of fine droplets of
sulfuric acid and water in the lower atmosphere. Of course, it
was purely serendipitous that the volcano erupted, and we're able
to measure its effects."
     Gunson said history has shown that large volcanic eruptions
have an effect on climate; why is only partially understood.
"Pinatubo caused changes in the mean temperature worldwide," he
explained, noting that a National Oceanographic and Atmosphere
Administration analysis indicated a slight cooling trend. The
aerosol layer will last a year to 18 months, then will
precipitate out. However, he expects some longer-term effects.
     In the future, Gunson and his team would like to launch
during the fall, which allows them to look at the Antarctic,
"where we know we'll find some very interesting chemistry going
on."
     He said the importance of ATMOS is seen in repeating these
measurements over a decade or longer. "We provide measurements
that the scientific community at large can pull together and make
sense of. Our overall goal is to gather data with all these
different settings -- solar output, the state of the atmosphere.
This is part of NASA's large-scale program to which we all make
our own small contribution."
     Making its own contribution is the ACRIM instrument, which
will monitor and verify total solar irradiance (TSI) variability,
providing reference comparisons with other solar monitors on
satellites that are required to understand the sun's long-term
behavior.
     According to Dr. Richard Willson, principal investigator of
the ACRIM experiments, the earth's climatological mean is
determined solely by how much of the sun's radiant energy -- our
only source of heat and light -- falls on the planet's surface,
oceans and atmosphere.
     The Atlas/ACRIM results, he said, will assist researchers in
understanding the role of TSI variability in climate change.
While JPL currently has the ACRIM II instrument on the Upper
Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), "instruments on other
satellites and/or the shuttle are required for comparisons with
the results of ACRIM II to provide backup observations," Willson
said.
     This comparative/backup role played by ACRIM's upcoming
shuttle mission is helpful in several ways, Willson said. Most
importantly, if the currently operating UARS/ACRIM II should
cease functioning before ACRIM III is launched (projected for
2002), the shuttle ACRIM results would be used to compare
UARS/ACRIM II and ACRIM III.
     "The ACRIM instrumentation," Willson said, "although state
of the art in the solar-measurement field, is not sufficiently
accurate to sustain the required long-term precision in the TSI
database should an interruption in the train of succeeding
satellite monitors occur."
     Willson said sustained changes in TSI of "as small as 0.5
percent per century" could cause all the climate variability
known to have occurred in the past, and to detect solar
variability at that small rate requires that the long-term TSI
variability database be constructed with a precision equal to the
in-orbit precision of the monitoring instrumentation. The only
way to obtain this precision, he said, is to compare succeeding
satellite solar monitors directly or compare both of them with an
experiment like ACRIM.
     Willson, who works in the Atmospheric and Oceanographic
Science Section 324, and his team are interested in the shuttle
ACRIM observations, which he termed as "third-party experiments
that can relate one satellite's of results to another's at the
level of precision defined by all three instruments."
     Willson said the ATLAS/ ACRIM instrument's results, although
just snapshots of TSI during week-long missions once per year,
will thereby contribute to an understanding of the long-term
database.
     "Solar monitoring by the first ACRIM experiment on the Solar
Maximum Mission from 1980-89 showed that there is a solar cycle
component of variability: TSI is directly proportional to solar
magnetic activity, demonstrating an 0.1 percent peak-to-peak
variation over solar cycles 21 and 22 (the last sun spot cycle).
That in itself may be too small to have an observable effect on
climate," he said, "but we're interested in whether this little
0.1 percent `wiggle' over a solar cycle is superposed on
longer-term, larger-amplitude variability. Periods of 80 to
several hundred years are suspected to exist with amplitudes of 1
percent or more. TSI variability is suspected to have caused
known past climate changes on these time scales."
     Willson noted, however, that such subtle changes in TSI will
be very difficult to detect since the results of many satellites'
instruments must be used over many decades or even centuries to
prove definitively that solar variability causes climate change.
     The only hope of providing a sufficiently precise TSI
database over these time scales, he said, is to relate the
results of solar-monitoring experiments at the level of
instrument precision, which is orders of magnitude smaller than
instrument accuracy. While this is ACRIM's third shuttle flight,
Willson said that they have yet to determine whether the shuttle
experimental environment will be adequate for the task of
providing "third-party" observations.
     "We have had our share of problems trying to make good
measurements aboard the shuttle," he said. "The first attempt was
as part of the Spacelab 1 Mission in 1983, and the large array of
experiments on board overwhelmed shuttle resources. Additionally,
some of the untested, new shuttle instrumentation experienced
mechanical and electrical problems.
     "Our ACRIM experiment functioned flawlessly, but it was
attached to an ESA-provided command/data interface that ceased
functioning when it was warmed by the sun. This resulted in our
getting only an hour's worth of data when we'd been expecting
about 25 hours," he added.
     Willson said that on ACRIM's second flight, aboard Atlas I,
the shuttle systems functioned well, as did ACRIM, and a full set
of results was acquired. "We made real-time comparisons with the
UARS/ACRIM II experiment, providing a potentially useful
reference point for the future."
     The upcoming Atlas II mission "should help us tie down the
quality of observations we can expect from ACRIM in the shuttle
environment." Willson said data will be received in real time, as
they "pull it straight off the downlink, crunch the numbers and
offer feedback to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Ala. We will have results within minutes of the actual
measurement," he said.
     "Both climatologists and solar physicists are keenly
interested in variations of TSI. Those monitoring the impact of
increasing `greenhouse gases' on the earth are especially
concerned." ###
_________________________________________________________________

News briefs

     Clint Simmons, a staff engineer in the Electronic Parts
Reliability Section 514, has been appointed to the Los Angeles
County Aviation Commission.
     Simmons' appointment was recently announced by County
Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and is effective until 1996.
     Simmons, a certified commercial pilot, said the commission
is responsible for all matters affecting or concerning airports,
heliports and aircraft under Los Angeles County control.

     Donations of new and used books in all subject areas are
being sought by the Friends of Caltech Libraries (FOCAL) for its
annual book sale in May.
     Starting April 1, books can be donated to either the JPL
Library lobby in Building 111 or to the first floor of Caltech's
Millikan Library Monday through Friday during normal business
hours.
     Thousands of books will be offered for sale at Caltech's
Dabney Lounge on May 21, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Proceeds
will be used to strengthen the Caltech libraries' book
collections in special subject areas.
     For more information, call Janet Jenks at [phone] or
the JPL reference desk at ext. 4-4200.

     "Living and Working in Space," a one-hour television special
featuring HRMS Sky Survey Manager Dr. Michael Klein and JPL
planetary scientist Dr. Arthur Lane, will be aired on Public
Broadcasting Service on March 31.
     The program will focus on "some of life's day-to-day
activities that might need some rethinking in outer space,"
according to Executive Producer Steven Heard.
     NASA provided funding for educational materials and
activities for the family-oriented special, which will be shown
on KCET at 8 p.m. (Check local listings for other areas.)

     In the process of changing a 15-ton air-conditioning unit in
Building 97, technicians in the Heating, Ventilating and Air
Conditioning Group have installed an environmentally safe
alternate refrigerant for the first time ever at JPL.
     According to Mark Gutheinz, a group supervisor in the
Facilities Maintenance and Operations Section 662, the effort
will eventually spread Labwide.
     The new refrigerant, called R134a, replaces R-12, one of
many ozone-depleting refrigerants being phased out of production.
Gutheinz said business and industry are switching to refrigerants
that contain extra hydrogen and have 1/100th the depleting impact
on the environment. ###
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Running Club events spring into action

     JPL's Running Club is sponsoring several events for runners
and joggers in April.
     The April 1 running of the 19th Arroyo Seco Freako -- a
five-kilometer race -- will serve as a warmup for the NASA
intercenter competition, said club president Roy Kakuda, and will
begin at noon at Oak Grove Park's lower parking lot.
     Kakuda said that any official 10K or two-mile event run in
April qualifies for the NASA intercenter competition. The
following three such runs have been scheduled by the club:
     On April 14, a two-mile run starts at noon on the upper East
Lot road; a 10K run will be held starting at the southeast side
of the Rose Bowl April 21 at 5:30 p.m.; and a two-mile track run
will be held at La Canada High School April 28 at 5 p.m.
     All races are free to JPL and Caltech employees and
contractors and their families.
     Running Club representative Ken Erickson said that in last
spring's NASA intercenter competition, JPL placed first in the
10K and third in the two-mile competition.
     He added that ribbons will be given to all runners and
walkers, and medals will be awarded to the top three finishers in
the competition in various groups.
     For information, call Erickson at ext. 4-0625 or Cathleen
Stevens at ext. 4-6396. ###
_________________________________________________________________

Printing services undergoing changes for the better

     Changes are in full swing in JPL's printing services
operations, but you may not have noticed, since the services
you've received all along are still available -- and are even
improved in some cases.
     In addition, the Printing, Forms and Administrative Manuals
Services Group ("Printing Services") of the Photographic,
Printing and Duplicating Services Section 642 has plans to
provide expanded, state-of-the-art services in the near future,
including the processing and printing of documents submitted
electronically or on diskette.
     According to Technical Writer Specialist Ray Hardesty, the
biggest change in the group's operations occurred last fall, when
the Congressional Joint Committee on Printing (JCP) downgraded
JPL's Printing Plant from a JCP field printing plant to a
duplicating facility. This meant that their services had to
change somewhat, as mandated by the "Government Printing and
Binding Regulations" of the JCP, whose rules regulate all
government facilities.
     The ruling's immediate effect was that the JPL facility
could no longer do offset printing. It also meant that the rules
governing "make or buy" decisions were modified to comply with
the new dictates of JCP.
     By the end of 1992, the facility's three large offset
presses were removed, and the staff began operating under the new
in-house copy limitations -- 5,000 impressions per original or
25,000 copies in aggregate per job. Above these limits the
regulations require duplicating facilities to vend jobs to
printing contractors currently under term contracts through the
Government Printing Office -- although the limits can be exceeded
in some cases with proper justification.
     For some printing requirements and some customers at JPL,
this could mean a change. A few jobs that previously were done
in-house will now have to be vended to printing contractors,
whose contracts allow for turnaround within 10 working days. Yet,
according to Printing Services Supervisor Dave Parry, some things
can still be done to expedite services.
     For instance, Parry said, Printing Services can produce a
partial job to satisfy a customer's immediate needs and then vend
the remainder. Or the duplicating facility can go over the copy
limitations if a customer can justify the need for quick
turnaround due to "mission-critical" requirements, he added.
     Although the large offset printing presses are now gone, the
duplicating facility still maintains an impressive array of
services and equipment to meet the Lab's duplicating
requirements, said Hardesty. For instance, three small offset
duplicating presses -- authorized under JCP regulations -- are
used for forms and similar documents. The facility is no longer
allowed to make metal offset printing plates, but with the latest
polyester-backed duplicating plates these presses can provide
good quality and registration over long runs, said Senior Forms
Analyst Bill Grover. "There has been no loss of quality on JPL
forms," he added.
     For duplicating jobs, the facility has two Xerox 5090
high-speed, high-volume duplicators and two color copiers. Color
separations and extremely fine halftones must now be vended out,
but the facility still produces 100-line-screen halftones that
can be either copied directly on one of the high-speed
duplicators or used to make duplicating plates.
     The most significant change in the Lab's printing services
operations, said Hardesty, may be the recent acquisition of a
Xerox DocuTech Production Publisher, a high-resolution publishing
system that scans documents electronically and pro- duces up to
135 copies per minute. "The DocuTech system looks very much like
the Xerox 5090, but the operational differences are stunning," he
said.
     On the 5090, document originals cycle through the feeder
once for every impression, but on the DocuTech they are digitized
and held in memory to run the job. "This obviously extends the
life of originals," Hardesty added.
     The 600-dot-per-inch resolution on the DocuTech also
produces a higher-quality image than the standard photo-optical
copying process, and the system's digital capability allows it to
accept documents on diskettes and over local area networks such
as ILAN. (These features are not yet available at JPL, but
Section 642 hopes to institute them in the near future.)
     The Xerox 5090 is not obsolete, however, and, in fact, does
some things better than the DocuTech, according to Jerry Beener,
group leader of in-house operations for Printing Services. For
example, while the DocuTech does a better job with
continuous-tone photographs, prescreened photos often turn out
better when copied on the 5090. DocuTech's greatest advantage,
Beener said, is its networking capabilities, which are possible
because of the system's computerized image handling.
     Parry said plans call for putting a second DocuTech
somewhere on Lab, possibly in Building 111's central reproduction
area. And at some point, Parry added, customers should also be
able to submit jobs for printing over ILAN using personal
computers or Macintosh equipment, he added.
     In the spirit of Total Quality Management, said Parry,
Section 642 is attempting to improve productivity in other ways.
One involves the group's Outside Printing Services operations,
where Printing Specialist Donna Pederson has developed a
Government Printing Office "Cost Estimator Model" in Lotus 1-2-3.
The program is a time-saver, said Pederson, particularly in doing
the computations necessary for complex cost estimating.
     She added that with the new program, Section 642 can now
prepare estimates (except for "special buys"), track jobs, add
and update printing specifications and generate management
reports from PC workstations.
     "With improved cost estimating and the advent of electronic
publishing," said Parry, "JPL's Printing Services operation is
leading the way into a future characterized by high-tech,
cost-efficient printing and duplicating, vending and estimating
services." ###
_________________________________________________________________

Public access computer site spurs
worldwide interest in Lab activities

     While Pasadena sleeps through the wee hours of the morning,
a college student in Australia brings up a Voyager picture of
Jupiter's Great Red Spot on her desktop computer.
     Across the world, a hobbyist in Germany calls up an artist's
rendering of the Cassini spacecraft on his computer screen.
     Meanwhile a few miles from JPL in the San Gabriel Valley, a
night owl amateur scientist scrolls through an update on the Mars
Observer mission.
     All of them are tapping into the wealth of text material and
imagery that flow from JPL's space missions, thanks to a new
public access computer site established by JPL's Public
Information Office.
     Called JPL Info, the public access site has had a total of
nearly 5,000 logons by electronic visitors from most U.S. states
and 28 countries during its first month of operation, according
to Frank O'Donnell, deputy manager of public information.
     The site includes a selection of public affairs materials on
JPL projects, including news releases, fact sheets, mission
status reports and technical information such as orbital elements
and spacecraft position tables.
     Also at the site are educator materials from JPL's Public
Education Office and back issues of the Universe in the form of
plain text files. Soon to be added are electronic copies of
spacecraft project newsletters.
     "By far, though, the most popular materials are the images,"
said O'Donnell, who spent the fall configuring the system before
opening it in January. "The pictures from JPL missions are
stunning, and they are always what the public has been most
enthusiastic about."
     The images at the computer site are stored as electronic
files in what is called GIF format (for Graphic Interchange
Format). These files can be seen with viewing software available
for most types of computers.
     The JPL Info site itself stocks a variety of "shareware"
graphics programs for PC, Windows, Macintosh, Unix, NeXT, Amiga
and Atari, which allow viewing the pictures.
     Many of the images, such as launch pictures and artists
renderings, are scanned in from photo prints in the Public
Information Office. A few are converted directly from original
digital data sent by spacecraft such as Voyager and Magellan.
     Currently the site has a total of about 50 images, "but we
hope to add to that quickly to bring it up to at least 200 to 300
before too long," said O'Donnell.
     "Ideally we would like to have, for every JPL mission, a
launch picture, spacecraft picture and a handful of the best
pictures returned by the spacecraft." The site also stocks
non-mission pictures, such as an aerial photo of the Lab's Oak
Grove site.
     JPLers and their families and friends are invited to log on
to the JPL Info site. Access is possible in several ways:
     -- Those with a computer and a modem may call 354-1333,
setting parameters to 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit (N-8-1).
Modem speeds of up to 9600 bits per second are accommodated on
two phone lines.
     -- JPLers and others who have access to the Internet network
can use file transfer protocol, or ftp, to the address
pubinfo.jpl.nasa.gov (128.149.6.2), then log on as user name
"anonymous." Internet is an international network that ties
together JPL and many government agencies, universities,
institutions and companies.
     -- JPL PC and Mac users who are on the institutional
Ethernet can log on to the Public Information Office's file
server as a guest. Mac users can go into Chooser, click on
AppleShare, go to zone 180-2-Enet and click on server JPL-PIO,
logging on as a guest. PC users must have Novell software loaded,
then execute the command "login jpl-pio/guest" to connect to the
site.
     Visitors logging on any of the three ways see the same set
of files. All users are encouraged to download and read a file
called README, which explains how the site operates and how to
use its materials.
     For more information or help with logging on, call O'Donnell
at ext. 4-7170. ###
_________________________________________________________________

First formal survey shows
SAS needs some changes

By Karre Marino
     With some $600 million flowing yearly through JPL's
Procurement Division, having a computerized database to keep
track of and match purchase orders, requisitions and payment
status seemed the only feasible way to ensure efficient and
smooth operation -- which is why the Lab's Management and
Administrative Support Systems (MASS) program was a welcome
addition.
     A portion of the program, the Supplies and Services
Acquisition System (SAS), went online in July 1989, and,
according to Bill Dunigan, SAS system manager, its reach is
Labwide. "Anyone who uses any kind of services or supplies at JPL
is affected to one degree or another."
     While the system has been running for almost four years,
Dunigan said that no formal survey had been conducted to measure
its effectiveness. He thought the time to do so had come. "Many
people have offered various opinions about how good or bad SAS
is, and in a situation where 6,000 people are affected, it makes
sense at some point to take the pulse of what the users think of
this software."
     He and Steve Monson, a data processing analyst in Section
624, devised a survey that asked for attitudes in eight
categories: SAS help desk, training, user manual, menus, screens,
and reports, as well as on-line queries and printed documents
(purchase orders, etc.). The survey also provided space for
additional comments. Dunigan used a report- card format, with
respondents circling numbers from 1 to 5, with 1 being
unsatisfactory, 5 being excellent. "We asked for section numbers
so we could have some idea where the results were coming from,
but names were optional. We sent the survey to about 800 JPL
users in November 1992."
     About 210 questionnaires -- 25 percent -- were returned by
the end of January. A month later, they were categorized and
grades were averaged. Of the eight categories, Dunigan and his
team found that three "definitely" need some attention: reports,
screens and purchase order documents. "So we developed a plan to
address changes we might make," he said.
     "We put together a Process Action Team called Data
Utilization, whereby team members from various organizations
across the Lab will have input into what kind of reports will
work best. Then we'll revise the reporting process."
     The team will begin the discussion and revision process in
April, and its goal is to finish by the end of the fiscal year.
     The second category that required attention, said Dunigan,
is the on-line, character-based screens. "Respondents described
them as ugly. They also didn't like the fact that they have to go
through more screens than they feel are necessary, until they
reach the appropriate screen in which they'll work. In many
cases, the screens include fields that they don't even use."
Those questioned wanted the screens to be cleaned up, with a more
streamlined design.
     To address this problem, Dunigan put together a team, with
Monson acting as leader, and a group of end-users who regularly
utilize the screens. "We will basically be designing new screens,
as well as designing clean-up processes for old screens."
     The third area to be modified is printed purchase orders,
which respondents again described as ugly. "They indicated that
they're difficult to read," Dunigan said. Monson added that these
documents go out to vendors and contain information that vendors
do not need.
     "We've contracted to redo the printing process," Dunigan
explained. "That's currently being done and is scheduled to be
finished at the end of July.
     "Once each of these revisions is made, we will communicate
with respondents and the rest of JPL. Another survey will be
conducted at the end of 1993. We want to see how we're doing once
we've implemented all improvements. We wanted to give everyone a
chance to use the enhancements for a few months before they
respond. Hopefully, we'll get better grades."
     The survey did reflect some positive attitudes. Dunigan said
the biggest pluses were the help-desk support and training.
"We're doing a good job there. Training quality is good, and
respondents want even more."
     Who uses SAS? Primary users are those in Procurement: buyers
and negotiators from Sections 621, 622 and 626. High-volume,
day-to-day users include receiving personnel. Others who tap into
the system are engineers, scientists and those in accounting.
"Some," Dunigan noted, "are daily users with great sophistication
and competence with the system; others log on only once in a
while and have to relearn it each time they access the system."
     While few respondents said so in the survey, some users have
reported that they find SAS cumbersome. "The general perception
at JPL is that SAS is analogous with procurement. That's not
accurate," Dunigan said. "SAS is a computer system; Procurement
is an organization and business function.
     "People tend to think that when they have problems with
Procurement, it is an SAS problem. When they want to buy
software, for example, they think, `well, it should take a day or
two to obtain, but it actually takes six weeks, because SAS
didn't work.' That's not the case," Dunigan maintained. "It's
really the procurement process. But they connect the two in their
minds. In fact, SAS is blamed for many things that are
procedural, but it's not the computer system's fault."
     He did admit that the system itself is cumbersome, including
screens and processes you have to go through to work with it.
"This type of software was developed in the early '70s, so it's
more than 20 years out of date, which makes it cumbersome by
today's standards."
     While there are scattered problems, SAS has yielded a
reduction in cost and time. "It is difficult to pinpoint, since
we've shifted resources around to do different things."
     But the process has helped in the business of procurement,
because the division can place more orders and manage them with
fewer people than they used to, Dunigan noted.
     "That is more often true in Section 621 -- which has
high-volume purchase orders -- than it is in 622 and 626, which
are contracts. There, the system slows them down. But from JPL's
overall perspective, SAS is better than what we had; because it
is so closely integrated with the financial system, we can put in
a purchase order, receive against it, pay bills on it and audit
that entire process, much of which is automated."
     In fact, the software has cut out many middle steps. "Steve
(Monson) is working on a matching committee. We can automatically
pay invoices without human intervention. So the purchase order,
receipt and invoice all match up in the system, which
automatically cuts a check without anyone getting involved. That
saves time, makes for greater accuracy, less chance for errors
and leaves a better audit trail on what was done.
     "The average guy in the trenches who has to use SAS may not
see the benefits, but from an institutional perspective, we see
the advantages," Dunigan noted. ###
_________________________________________________________________

Organizational Development can
help solve team-related problems

     The Professional Development Section (615) provides a wide
range of services to the Laboratory, including Organizational
Development. According to Dr. Phillip Walker, an organizational
psychologist who heads up Professional Development's OD
consulting team, OD is most often used to help solve
organizational or team-related problems.
     Walker explained that OD can also be used as preventive
medicine for organizations. The OD process uses behavioral
science technology, research and theory in addressing the
organization as an entity to improve organizational
effectiveness, functioning and processes.
     The OD team is available to assist with matters that include
staff morale, communication, employee empowerment, building
esprit de corps, organizational mergers, staff visioning and
strategic planning. Many organizations request the use of an OD
group facilitator who can focus on "the process" or group
dynamics, thus allowing the manager to concentrate on the
technical content of meetings.
     As issues of quality play a more significant part in the JPL
culture, it is anticipated that OD, which focuses primarily on
organizational change, will have a larger role. Basic assumptions
or deeply held beliefs about customers, the organization's
mission, motivations, and what level of quality is achievable,
must be challenged to provide the most effective working
environment possible.
     What can a manager expect when requesting the services of
the OD team? Typically, when a request is received by the team, a
diagnosis is conducted to determine the type of problem and
appropriateness of OD as an intervention. Interviews,
questionnaires and information-gathering sessions are used for
this purpose. Recommendations are provided, and an OD
intervention is carried out with the consent and collaboration of
the manager. Follow-up is extremely important. Mechanisms,
generally follow-up sessions, are used to monitor progress.
     Strict confidentiality is maintained in all OD services.
This allows for an appropriate level of intervention and a high
degree of openness and frankness. Said Walker: "The cognizant
manager, in collaboration with the OD consultant, makes all
determinations regarding the required type of intervention." This
may include,  but is not limited to: 1) how well is the total
organization or project performing? 2) how well is the section
performing? 3) how well is the group of or team performing? 4)
how well are you performing?
     The Professional Development OD consulting team includes
Lynn Baroff, who specializes in management development and is
currently conducting research with division and section managers
on management competencies and management decision processes at
the Lab. Alice Fairhurst specializes in career development and is
a nationally recognized authority on personality-type theory,
utilizing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which aids in learning
how to bridge personality differences and increasing
self-awareness. Nancy Ferguson uses storyboarding -- a creative
planning process that draws out individual ideas, shapes a
specific course of action and generates a schedule for
implementation.
     Ferguson also specializes in supervisory development and
often serves as a "coach" to both administrative and technical
group supervisors. In contrast, Walker focuses on large-scale
issues and programmatic concerns. He works with both project and
line organizations and acts as a "coach" or personal consultant
to several managers, assisting them with sensitive organizational
concerns.
     For more information regarding this Professional Development
service, contact Walker or  group supervisor Cheryl Hanson at
ext. 4-6410. ###
_________________________________________________________________

Supervisor program aids in
improving `people skills'

     The Advanced Group Supervisor Certificate Program, created
by JPL's Professional Development Center in conjunction with the
Office of Technical Divisions, is offered to supervisors to
improve their people skills and to increase supervisors'
self-awareness and comfort with the use of these new skills.
     Those interested in enrolling in the program must have been
a group supervisor for a minimum of six months and have already
attended the JPL Group Supervisor Workshop offered through
Professional Development. Students must complete five required
and three elective classes -- ranging from one to three full days
each from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. -- to obtain the certificate.
     Students are required to take classes in situational
leadership, motivation, employee development, presentation, goal
setting, praising and reprimanding and managing a culturally
diverse work force. They can take elective courses from subjects
such as dealing with difficult people, leadership, personal
productivity management, understanding people, affirmative
action, communication, interviewing and selec- tion, and
effective meetings and time management.
     "Although the program is not mandatory, it is encouraged by
senior management who do support and recognize the group
supervisor's commitment to skill development," said Nancy
Ferguson, the program coordinator.
     "Currently," added Ferguson, "54 group supervisors are
enrolled in the certificate program, and four have already
enhanced their people skills, and are applying what they have
learned." They are: Jim Bradley, Section 382; Anna Bruhn, Section
522; Trisha Jansma, Section 361 and; Ed Morassini, Section 662.
     "The Advanced Group Supervisor Certificate Program provides
an excellent opportunity for supervisors to add to their toolbox
of managerial skills," Jansma said.
     For more information or to enroll in the program, call
Ferguson at ext. 4-7924. ###
_________________________________________________________________

Mentoring program seeks perfect job-employee match

     It isn't always easy to start a new job; so much is
unfamiliar. It takes some time to adjust. But steps have been
taken at JPL to ensure a smooth, easy beginning.
     New employees who participate in the Professional
Development Section's Mentoring Program will find many
advantages, including the experiences of a senior employee -- who
acts as the mentor -- a full-day training workshop, a Mentor
Directory and "Lunchtime Talks" given by mentors. All are part of
the program designed for selected "A" and "E" level new
employees, including new graduates, according to Mentoring
Coordinator Monica Garcia.
     The program matches selected new employees with more senior
workers in an effort to effectively and efficiently initiate the
new employee into JPL. The pair participates in this formal
relationship for six months in what is described as a
protege-driven effort: The topics and issues discussed are
relative to the protege's needs and interests.
     The pair begins its six-month experience by participating in
an intensive, all-day training workshop, designed to "jump-start"
the pair's relationship through the use of self-assessment tools,
pair and group discussions and the development of goals and
objectives.
     "The training workshop is attended by both the mentor and
the protege," Garcia said. "It has become a significant element
in the success of the working relationship."
     One of the self-assessment tools used in the workshop is the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a personality theory based on
Jungian psychology. The MBTI helps the protege and mentor
understand each other's preferences and methods of communication.
In this personality-type theory, preference relates to how people
perceive, judge and make decisions about their work and life. The
indicator also serves to increase effective communication between
the pair.
     Another tool used in the workshop is a values-assessment
instrument, which allows the proteges to look at their
work-related value system and identify if those values are being
satisfied in their current job. This information is used by the
pair to develop the goals and objectives for their relationship.
These goals are a road map to be utilized throughout the
six-month program.
     Issues discussed during the mentoring experience include the
organizational structure, balancing family and work, the budget
process and norms of behavior. The mentor opens his/her network
to the protege by exposing him/her to other areas, activities and
people on Lab.
     The training workshop is held approximately every six to 12
weeks, with an average of 12 pairs attending. Some 270 proteges
have been trained since the program began with a pilot group in
October 1989, Garcia said.
     Proteges also benefit from the Mentoring Directory, which
lists all of the mentors and proteges who have participated in
the program. Proteges are encouraged to use the directory to
build their professional network on Lab. In addition, proteges
who are in the six-month process are invited to short "Lunchtime
Talks," where mentors discuss their career, section and division.
These discussions also allow proteges to network in an informal
setting.
     "The Mentoring Program has many elements that give
participants support to make their relationship successful, which
helps the new employee's initiation into JPL -- as well as
benefits JPL as an organization -- and demonstrates to the
proteges that the Lab is concerned about the careers of new
employees," Garcia said.
     Employees interested in the program can contact Garcia at
ext. 4-3750. ###

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