Paper Session II-B - Management of Long-Term Technology Efforts in a Changing Environment

The Space Station Training Facility (SSTF) is a high-fidelity, ground-based replication of the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) that has been under development for over five years. Within the next two years, we will become operational with the facility, however, we will also continue development that mirrors the continuing assembly of ISS through the year 2002. Since our development began, significant programmatic change has occurred: Space Station design, need dates for SSTF training, available funding, and the funding profile. The industry is experiencing a high rate of technology change and the eleven years we will have spent in development represents a significant amount of time for technology advance. The point at which a new technology becomes viable is not always clear and, likewise, building an architecture that is flexible enough to accept whatever the future may require is not easy. To accommodate programmatic and technology changes, we are changing management paradigms and with schedule and cost more significant than ever before, we and our contractor, Hughes Training Incorporated (HTI), must be able to turn on a dime. We plan for change because, today, change is normal and it is felt that, through flexibility, we have significantly improved our ability to manage long-term technology development in a very fluid environment