The five values are 0, 1, 2, 3, and null. A null is used where a given CS&T discipline is not expected to contribute significantly to the satisfaction of a given class of NASA technical requirements. A numerical value indicates that the CS&T discipline is expected to be a significant element in satisfying the NASA requirements in a particular area. Further resolution is given, addressing the level of NASA commitment required to apply the CS&T disciplines successfully to the NASA requirements. Zero implies that the discipline is receiving adequate and NASA-relevant support from other sources, and the agency need only monitor the status of the technology and apply it to NASA requirements. A value of 1 means that some agency support is required to adopt a technology to applications within NASA, but R&D activities are strictly applied and can be performed through well-defined contract activities. A value of 2 implies that a substantial commitment is required to develop a discipline and apply it to NASA requirements. This commitment will involve both basic and applied research, and will establish the agency as a peer in the community of state-of-the-art researchers in the given discipline. This is a substantial commitment by NASA to a particular discipline, and will require the development of a "critical mass" nf capable personnel and a stable funding environment over a period of several years. The final matrix value notation is 3, which is used in those special instances where NASA should become the recognized technology leader in a given CS&T discipline. The correlation between NASA technology requirements of section 6.6.1 and the CS&T disciplines of section 6.6.2 are shown in matrix form in table 6.7. In general, the table shows that the agency has a wide multidisciplinary dependence on CS&T. This suggests a position of leadership for NASA in the areas of natural sciences and artificial intelligence as applied to mission operations and remote sensing, and real-time systems for robotics and mission operations. It further argues for a substantial commitment to engineering applications such as CAD/CAM technology, natural language processing, artificial intelligence and real-time systems in general, information retrieval, supervisory software, computer systems technology, simulations and modeling. A cursory and admittedly incomplete review of existing capability within NASA suggests that state-of-the-art technology already is a part of Agency programs in the natural sciences, engineering, and simulation and modeling. Further, some good work is being done in an attempt to bring NASA's capability up to the state-of-the-art in natural language processing, although primarily through contracted research activities. But in order to fully realize the potential of CS&T within the space Agency, it appears that a substantial commitment to research in machine intelligence, real time systems, information retrieval, supervisory systems, and computer systems is required. In many cases it was concluded that NASA has much of the requisite in-house expertise in isolated individuals and organizations, but that the agency as a whole has been reluctant or disinterested in applying this expertise. An apparent lack of expertise does exist in the field of "mathematics of computation" (with a possible exception in the engineering area). This discipline can easily be overlooked as seemingly irrelevant, but in fact is a fundamental theoretical component of a broad-based and effective machine-intelligence institutional capability.
6.6. 4 Facilities To develop an institutional state-of-the-art capability in CS&T as described above will require good people and good facilities. Neither can do the job alone. Unfortunately, competent CS&T research-oriented professionals currently are in very short supply, and those few that exist are being attracted to industry and the universities through incentives of high salaries, outstanding working conditions, and intellectual freedom. None of these are offered by NASA at present, so the agency would probably be frustrated even if it were to attempt to hire the right talent. There is little NASA can do regarding salaries, so its focus in providing competitive incentives must be elsewhere. In this section, several specific reconnnendations are made with respect to facilities which the CS&T team considers prerequisite to any serious attempt by NASA to develop significant in-house capabilities in CS&T. Interactive, on-line prograrnm&g environment. Most programming is currently done within NASA on 10-year-old batch-oriented computer systems, where progrannners still manipulate card decks and experience turnaround times measured in hours or even days. In order to attract competent researchers and to provide an environment in which they can labor productively, an absolute prerequisite is a fully interactive, on-line programming enviromnent. For instance, Teitehnan (1979) describes a typical state-of-theart interactive system of the type required. NASA will find that this type of system, when made generally available to its personnel, will yield a very significant increase in programmer productivity. It is expected that this increase will be sizable enough to more than offset the additional cost of the on-line capability. NASA has historically met its computing requirements through the purchase of computing equipment (e.g., instead of leasing). Due to the intricacies of tile government ADP procurenlent process, 5 years typically will lapse between the conception of a new system and its actual operation and then that system will remain in operation for 10-15 years, so that a system will be 15-20 years behind the state-of-the-art at its retirement (and 10-15 years behind during the "prime" of its life). NASA may wish to consider as an alternative for its nonmission (and, specifically, R&D) computing requirements the purchase of timesharing services from a quality commercial vendor, so that it always has access to the best of the commercial offerings at any given time. Computer
