NASA Systems Engineering / Saylor Academy SSE 101

Apologies for tardiness in posting recently. A couple of months ago, one of the online free-content university consortiums that I frequent, Saylor Academy, offered a six-week course on Space Systems Engineering. The curriculum was developed by both Saylor Engineering faculty and NASA systems engineers and managers. I had to jump at the opportunity and thus enrolled in the demanding six-week course.

Unfortunately, there was more reading, multimedia material review, and writing and content analysis involved in their undergraduate course than in any course I have ever taken at the undergraduate or graduate level. I pushed hard, relishing the challenge. However, due to my acquired disabilities (alluded to in previous postings) I was unable to continue past Week 4 coursework. In addition, the effort thwarted my usual consumption of educational material and other independent study. I spent time recuperating, reviewing course material and lectures that I have previously completed—particularly Prof. Rick Roderick’s The Self Under Siege and Michael Schermer’s Skeptic 101: How to Think Like a Scientist, both courses offered by The Great Courses catalog of The Teaching Company.

I also continued reading Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy which requires a thorough and cautiously slow examination. I left the SE course with an “A” average and did find the experience very enlightening. I gained a new perspective on the complexity and exhaustiveness of NASA mission planning. Thus, despite my failure, not everything was lost in my failure. I may be able to (hopefully) complete the remaining two units at a later date.

Prior to enrolling in Saylor Academy’s SSE course, I did have some background in the broader approach to systems generally, elaborated primarily by Prof. C. West Churchman as systems thinking, at the urging of my doctoral advisor. In fact, one of the iterations of my dissertation proposal was titled, Decision-making for Social Change in Complex Systems.

Churchman authored one of the seminal texts on the subject accessible to academics and laypersons alike. His work is titled simply The Systems Approach. Churchman was both ground-breaking and a good teacher. Noted linguist, polarizing public scholar and activist Noam Chomsky said of Churchman that he was the only person at Penn who taught him anything as an undergraduate—according to his Wikipedia page anyway.

However, my approach to systems thinking was primarily informed by my background in social and behavioral sciences at the undergraduate level and my MBA, Ph.D. in Management & Decision Science (both of which focused on organizational behavior) and philosophy M.A. study at the graduate level. This course provided me the opportunity to explore many of the same concepts from the engineering perspective in a very high-stakes environment housed in NASA’s complex bureaucracy.

My postings for this blog inevitably run many more paragraphs than I prefer or intend. Someday, I will develop the skill of writing more information with fewer words and narrower focus… hopefully…

So, I will simply conclude with some broad strokes about the content and presentation of the course. The primary text was NASA’s massive volume, NASA Systems Engineering Handbook. Lectures were delivered primarily through Saylor Academy’s YouTube channel by Project Manager Jeff Volosin, NASA Missions Engineer Mike Menzel, and nobel prize winning Cal Tech physics professor, Dr. John C. Mather. Students were involved but not required to work in a small application group to develop plans for a NASA Mars mission orbiter vehicle.

The first unit of study was dedicated to defining and exploring the precise meaning of systems engineering and the primary activities of a NASA systems engineer. According to NASA Systems Engineering Handbook, “System engineering is the art and science of developing an operable system that meets requirements with imposed constraints.” This straightforward activities that can be undertaken to meet a series of objectives and meet an overarching goal, contributing to NASA’s broader mission of exploration. If only that were true! SE is basically the board game Othello on super-charged steroids: It takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.

There were warning signs of the complexity to come. Constraints is always a nice way to say tight deadlines and underfunding of a project. Then, later in the section they began to talk about stakeholders. Stakeholder interests drive many aspects of NASA mission planning. So, who are the stakeholders? Well, a couple of obvious ones are scientists of many fields, as well as, science educators. It would be nice if it stopped there but actually the NASA SE’s and PM’s must take into account the stakeholder interests of the US Federal Government, American taxpayers (who fund the agency), foreign partners, corporate interests, probably even your dog. In other words, a simple robotic exploration of the lunar or Martian surface requires not only the skills to bring together an enormous number of technical, engineering, and scientific savants, create an environment in which they can all be productive and execute the core functions of the mission in such a way as to please every man woman, child, aardvark, and all the animals on Noah’s ark—maybe even protozoa!

One of the most interesting lectures was given by Gentry Lee, a sort of irreverent genius with a presentation style all his own. If you have internet access and an interest in this kind o of thing, check out his lecture “Personal Characteristics of good Systems Engineers.

Well, I’ve rambled on long enough That doesn’t even put a dent in the near 100 pages of my handwritten notes, numerous weekly videos, and writing/analysis/writing assignments from the first four weeks of coursework. But what do I know? Maybe some of my rambling might just pique your interest enough to lead you to check out the course materials for yourself. Saylor.org Course SSE 101 is on the website Of course the academy offers many diverse courses and majors.

As always, happy learning!

***UPDATE 2/15/2015:  Well, it has taken much time, much effort, but I have finally completed the course. I received a certificate of completion from Saylor Academy and NASA. I didn't finish with the best grade but given how long it took me to complete it, I was just happy to pass both the 2 hour final and the course.