Alphonso V. Diaz, Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC

As part of NASA's organizational structure to better implement the President's Vision for Space Exploration, Al Diaz was named Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate. This new science organization will carry out the scientific exploration of Earth, the Moon, Mars, and beyond; chart the best route of discovery; and reap the benefits of Earth and space exploration for society.

Al Diaz began his career at NASA in 1964. He became NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's (GSFC) Deputy Director in 1996, and was appointed GSFC's Director in 1998.

NASA Tech Briefs: What led to the transformation of NASA's organizational structure?

Alphonso V. Diaz: The reasons have to do with reorganization to better deliver on the President's Vision for Space Exploration and also to deal with some issues that were identified in the Aldridge Commission report that needed to be dealt with. The report deals with the characteristics of the organization that need to be streamlined, and clarifying responsibilities and assuring proper inclusion of independent views from engineering as well as from safety and mission assurance.

In the case of the science organization, the intent was to consolidate the Earth and space science activities into a more coherent set of overall science activities that could bring better focus to achieving the vision that was articulated in the President's message.

NTB: How will this transformation better execute the President's vision?

Diaz: The President's vision is built on the notion that all of the discipline areas in science will learn from each other, and that science in general will enable exploration, and exploration will enable science. It's an interactive kind of process. The idea is that Earth science, for example, will inform our judgment about how to explore the planets, and that exploring the planets will tell us a lot about Earth science. Bringing it more intimately together, we believe, will serve the interest of making the programs more productive in achieving the President's vision of maintaining an ongoing program of exploration of Earth, the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The other element to it is that even at the NASA level, the enterprises, of which there were seven just before the transformation started, were also developing a sense of independence that we needed to mitigate, thereby reinforcing the notion of interdependence. As a consequence, we find ourselves in a situation now where science and exploration are more intimately involved in enabling each other's programs.

I also think there are less obvious pieces to the reorganization that are equally important, such as the establishment of the strategic planning council, which includes the mission directorates but is chaired by the Administrator, and involves all of us in the development of strategies that are specifically focused on achieving the President's vision and understanding how our individual programs inter-relate to each other.

NTB: What does your role as Associate Administrator entail?

Diaz: At the top level, it is to make sure that when participating in NASA leadership, our program does, in fact, serve the interests of the agency in achieving the President's vision, but also to the extent that the agency depends on us to make sure that the Science Mission Directorate and all its parts are effective and efficient in terms of the delivery of the required knowledge products and services. My job, principally, is to participate in the agency leadership, but also to integrate and manage the various elements of the Science Mission Directorale to ensure a good connection between what we do and what the agency requirements are.

NTB: Is this restructuring of NASA a result of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) findings?

Diaz: I think you can trace all of what NASA is doing relative to organization back to the CAIB report, which also served to reinforce the dialogue between the agency and the Office of the President. In parallel to that, they wanted to incorporate the activities associated with understanding how to transform the agency that came out of the CAIB initially, and also from two subordinate studies.

NTB: What are some of your goals as the new Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate?

Diaz: My personal vision goes back to my long participation with NASA. I have been with NASA for over 40 years and throughout that time, I have been a participant in the science program beginning with being a bench scientist at Langley Research Center, all the way to where I am now. The vision I have is to assure that the quality and pace of discovery that has been coming out of the science program continues, and in the future, this activity serves better to achieve the President's Vision for Space Exploration. Included in that is the motivation of the next generation of explorers. If I had to pick one area where we will most benefit the future of this country, if not the world, it is in that regard. I think NASA is a tremendous motivator of young people and if you couple our development of understanding of the Earth and the environment and human beings' role in affecting the motivation of the next generation of explorers, the legacy that I would hope to leave is the positioning of this organization to better serve those interests in the future.