Office Aero-Space Technology
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Washington, D.C.
December 2000

TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Purpose
II. Award Categories
III. Eligibility
IV. Nomination Process
V. Evaluation and Selection Processes
VI. Process Participants
VII. 2001 Schedule
VIII. Awards
Appendix A--Nomination Form
Appendix B--Evaluation and Scoring
OAT TGIR Award Scoring Sheet
Appendix C--Award Process and Participants

I. Purpose
The Turning Goals into Reality (TGIR) Award acknowledges outstanding contributions toward any of the 4 Program Goals and exceptional progress toward achieving any of the 10 Program Objectives of the Office of Aerospace Technology (OAT) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The presentation of the TGIR Award signifies OAT's recognition that each award recipient has demonstrated excellence in making outstanding progress toward achieving the Program Goals and/or Objectives.

The four OAT Enterprise Program Goals and their respective Objectives are as follows:

Goal One--Revolutionize Aviation
Enable a safe environmentally-friendly expansion of aviation.

• Objective 1: Aviation Safety
  Reduce the aircraft accident rate by a factor of 5 within 10 years and by a factor of 10 within 20 years
• Objective 2: Emissions Reduction
  Reduce NOX emissions of future aircraft by 70% within 10 years, and by 80% within 25 years (Baseline: 1996 ICAO Standards) and CO2 emissions by 25% and by 50% in the same timeframes.
• Objective 3: Noise Reduction
  Reduce the perceived noise of future aircraft by a factor of 2 within 10 years, and by a factor of 4 within 25 years.
• Objective 4: Increase Capacity
  Double the capacity of the aviation system within 10 years and triple it within 25 years.
• Objective 5: Mobility
  Reduce intercity door-to-door transportation time by half in 10 years and by two-thirds in 25 years and reduce long-haul transcontinental travel time by half within 25 years.

Goal Two--Advance Space Transportation
Create a safe, affordable highway through the air and into space.

• Objective 6: Mission Safety
  Reduce the incidence of crew loss by a factor of 40 within 10 years, and an additional factor of 100 within 25 years.
• Objective 7: Mission Affordability
  Reduce the cost of delivering payload to LEO by a factor of 10 within 10 years, the cost of inter-orbital transfer by a factor of 10 within 15 years. Reduce costs for both by an additional factor of 10 within 25 years.
• Objective 8: Mission Reach
  Reduce the time for planetary missions by a factor of 2 within 15 years, and by a factor of 10 within 25 years.

Goal Three--Pioneering Technology Innovation
Enabling a Revolution in Aerospace Systems

• Objective 9: Engineering Innovation
  Develop the advanced engineering tools, processes and culture to enable rapid, high-confidence, and cost efficient design of revolutionary systems.
• Objective 10: Technology Innovation
  Develop the revolutionary technologies and technology solutions that enable fundamentally new aerospace system capabilities or new aerospace missions.

Goal Four--Commercialize Technology
Commercialize the technology developed in all the Agency's Enterprises.

Each nomination document will be submitted electronically (Microsoft Word), a total of no more than one page (in addition to the nomination cover sheet shown in Appendix A) and adhere to the following criteria: minimum of 12-point, Times font, and minimum 1-inch margins, except at the bottom of each page where the margin may be 1/2 inch. Graphics in the nomination application are not encouraged unless critical for clarity. Nominations not conforming to these guidelines will not be considered.

Specific NASA Center points of contact for nomination submittals will be posted in December 2001 on the OAT web site at http://www.aerospace.nasa.gov/curevent/tgir.

• Technical Accomplishments
• Leadership and Organizational Accomplishments.

Scoring
Review and Validation Board members review and develop a numerical ranking for each nomination using their personal expertise and judgment and based on the Evaluation Factors and Guidelines shown in Appendix B. The maximum number of points a candidate can receive is 1000.

This document will be the primary reference for evaluating Award nominations. Board members may, independently, solicit information from the appropriate NASA officials such as those identified below, for feedback on a candidate's performance and customer satisfaction:

• Contracting officers and/or representatives (NASA, other agencies and/or prime contractors).
• NASA Headquarters and Center Contracting Officers and Contracting Officer's Technical Representatives.
• NASA Headquarters and Center program officers with knowledge of the nominee's performance.

However, though outside advice may be sought and obtained, neither Award-competitive nor business-competitive information will be revealed outside the NASA teams evaluating the nominations.

Review and Validation of Finalists
Each nominating Center, including Headquarters (for its own nominees), will review and screen nominations against the Evaluation Factors. Those nominations judged to be worthy will be forwarded to the Review and Validation Board and evaluated by the Board according to the Evaluation Factors. As many as 15 recommended Award recipients (along with any appropriate "backup" recommendations) will be forwarded by the Board to the Panel of Judges. However, some or all TGIR awards may be withheld at the discretion of the Board and/or the Judges if there are deemed to be insufficient accomplishments to justify an award. If, on the other hand, a particular nomination is determined by the Board and accepted by the Panel of Judges as truly exceptional, that nomination will be recommended to the NASA Administrator for the Administrator's Award.

Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure
Names of nominees, nomination reports, commentary, and scoring and ranking information will be kept confidential, and such information will be available only to those NASA employees directly involved in the assessment process. All Review and Validation Board and Panel of Judges' deliberations, papers, findings, and recommendations will be treated in this confidential manner. Further, all contractor-related information and material will be handled as proprietary to protect contractor interests.

Notification of Award Upon final selection of Award winners by the Panel of Judges, the Award winners will be notified by written letter from the OAT Associate Administrator to the nominator. Award winners will then be requested to submit graphics in support of the TGIR Awards Program Banquet.

TGIR Award Review and Validation Board
The TGIR Award Coordinator will convene a Board of at least six voting members and will administer the selection of a chairman. This Board will consist of a senior-level, technically-qualified representative from the OAT Headquarters office and one from each of the five NASA Field Centers involved in OAT programs (Ames, Dryden, Glenn, Langley and Marshall). The voting members will be the Headquarters and NASA Field Center TGIR Award representatives. Alternate members may also be selected and included. The Board will review the candidates submitted for the TGIR Awards to verify eligibility and to assess the candidates relative to the TGIR Award nomination factors (Appendix B). The Board will examine and score nomination documents and select the finalists and up to 15 recommended award recipients.

Consultants
Although they will not be members of the TGIR Award Panel of Judges or the Review and Validation Board, other NASA offices involved in OAT programs may be consulted throughout the evaluation process for relevant input. These NASA Offices may include, but not necessarily limited to, the General Counsel, the Office of the Inspector General, the Office of Procurement, the Office of Equal Opportunity Programs, and the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization.

November 2001

• The Associate Administrator for Aerospace Technology identifies the OAT TGIR Award Coordinator.
• A Call Memo from the OAT Enterprise Associate Administrator (AA) to the Center Directors opens the 2002 TGIR Award cycle.
• Each OAT Field Center Director (as well as the OAT AA) identifies one technically-qualified, senior-level representative for the TGIR Award Review and Validation Board to review and evaluate all nominations.

January 2002

• Nominators prepare one-page (maximum) nomination documents for submission and preliminary screening through the Enterprise Centers.

February 2002

• The TGIR Award Coordinator receives the Centers' nominations, screened by each respective Center for qualifications and award-worthiness.

March 2002

• The Review and Validation Board convenes. The Board selects and forwards the list of up to 15 Award recommendations to the TGIR Award Panel of Judges.
• The Panel of Judges meets to select the final Award recipients.

April 2002

Award winners are notified. Award winners will be requested to submit graphics in support of the TGIR Awards Program Banquet.

May 2002

• The OAT Associate Administrator presents the TGIR Award(s) at the Turning Goals into Reality Conference.

• larger trophies for particularly outstanding achievements toward Program Goals, and/or
• moderately sized trophies for exceptional accomplishments toward individual Program Enabling Technology Objectives.

If appropriate, duplicate awards will be made as follows:

• If an awardee is a team or group made up of organizations (e.g., Federal agency, company, university, etc.), each organization will receive a duplicate award and the participating individuals will receive certificates.
• If an awardee is a team within an organization, that organization will receive the award trophy or plaque and the participating individuals will receive certificates.
• If the awardee is an individual, that individual will receive the TGIR Award.

The Associate Administrator for Aerospace Technology will present the TGIR Awards at a major public gathering.

Evaluation Factors
During the nomination, review, evaluation and validation process, the following factors and their content will be used for reference and as tools in the rating and ranking activity:

1. Technical Accomplishments
   • Significant, demonstrated technical achievements on relevant OAT program(s) resulting in or contributing to major progress toward Goal(s) and/or Objective(s)
   • Originality and innovation of technical contributions
   • Level of accomplishment and technical performance
   • Advances to the state of the art
   • Development of enabling technologies
   • Effectiveness in strategic and tactical planning for technical activities
   • Approaches to solving complex problems
2. Leadership and Organizational Accomplishments
   • Development of partnerships that made significant progress toward Goal(s) and/or Objective(s)
   • Level of cooperation and contributions to the OAT Team
   • Effectiveness in schedule and cost performance
   • Innovation in and/or effective use of modern management and business practices to improve leadership and/or organizational performance
   • Technology transfer and commercialization efforts

Scoring Guidelines
These guidelines are provided as suggestions for reference and assistance in assessment and relative ranking of the nominees.

Adjective Description	Performance
Exceptional	World-class work or performance
Excellent	Major advancements; excellent performance
Very good	Important advancements; above average performance
Good/Fair	Average or minimal advancements; expected performance

20002001 Schedule

Process Step		Participant(s)
Date	Event	AA	Center Dir.	Board Reps.	Board Chair	Award Coord.	Others
11/8	Issue nomination call memo	X				O
11/8	Appoint Award Coordinator	X
11/13	Initiate nomination process	X	X
11/20	Appoint Review & Validation Board Reps.	X	X
1/29	Submit nominations to Center POCs.		O	O			X
2/15	Forward best nominations to Award Coord.		X	O			O
2/22	Distribute nomination copies to Board Reps.					X
2/22-3/6	Perform independent preliminary screening			X
3/6	Convene Board and select Board Chair			O		X
3/6-3/7	Select Award candidates			O	X	O
3/13	Forward recommendations to Judges				X	O
3/21	Convene Panel of Judges	X	O			O
3/21	Brief Panel on Board recommendations	O	O	O	X	O
3/21	Deliberate and select awardees	X	O
3/27	Order awards					X	O
3/27-5/10	Create/manufacture Awards						X
3/27	Congratulate Award nominees	X	X			O
3/27	Invite awardees to TGIR conference	X				O
4/9	Audio/Visual presentation material due		O	O		O	X
4/9	Exhibit poster materials due		O	O		O	X
5/22	Present Awards at conference	X
6/1	Review lessons learned			O		X	O
6/15	Issue updated draft 2001 Award guidelines					X

Note: X = Activity Leader, O = Activity Contributor