Can the Pixar Acquisition teach NASA a new way of doing things for BOM24

Personal musing not official NASA position.

Prepping for Friday's Book Club (Bob Iger's Masterclass on Strategy and Leadership) and the Pixar Acquisition Case Study struck me as some parallels to NASA's recent human spaceflight issues. When Bob was evaluating the Pixar deal and how to sell it to the Disney Board he realized just how far Disney Animation had fallen over the past decade or so. From 1995 to 2005 Disney put out ~25 animated movies with a bunch of flops pulling in a mere $4.02B worldwide. The young upstart Pixar by contrast had put out a mere 6 movies in the same timeframe generating $3.37B worldwide and eclipsing the Disney Brand for parents who felt Pixar was putting out better stories, and innovating with digital animation. The acquisition was deemed necessary by Iger as the only way to save Disney Animation was to revitalize it from the outside.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine: "The NASA brand is the most valuable brand America has"

Since the retirement of space shuttle NASA has struggled with relevancy, brand and fundamentally it's lack of capability to put humans into space. NASA's managed SLS/Orion programs have been blasted by critics for having spent tens of Billions while they are still years away from putting a crew on board while upstarts in commercial space have built several variations of new rockets, landed and reflown them, built cargo vehicles and soon crew capsules some using NASA seed money (like how Disney helped Pixar in the early years via their distribution deal). Has the government designed systems become the lackluster disney animation of old while commercial space is the Pixar equivalent? It isn't a competition between inline NASA and commercial space but more a difference in culture, rapid iteration and innovation.

To help revitalize Disney Animation post acquisition John Lasseter was put in charge of both Pixar and Disney Animation and both have prospered in the past 14 years telling stories that resonate with the public without Pixar having to sacrifice their culture and innovation nor Disney Animation just doing things the Pixar Way. Each studio has put out ~15 movies post acquisition with the Disney movies earning ~$7.3B and Pixar movies earning $11B.

As we hurdle towards Boots on the Moon NASA has tried to do things differently with Broad Area Announcements and streamlined procurements for Gateway, Commercial Lunar Payload Services and soon Human Lander Systems, and maybe that is the Agency's equivalent of a Pixar acquisition but the outstanding question is who is our John Lasseter? Who is going to bridge the culture gaps and be able to help both the commercial work with NASA to succeed with the mission of putting the first woman and next man on the South Pole of the Moon by the end of 2024?

Illustration by: Andrew Rae

Much like how Bob made it clear that Pixar culture and operations was going to remain free from corporate oppression how do we avoid forcing our “This is how it’s always been done” on the new players and not ignore or stifle their innovation and creativity they are bringing to the table? How do break down the “Not invented here Mental block” so it doesn’t blind us to new ways of safely approaching Human Spaceflight? Is Doug Loverro as head of Human Exploration the John Lasseter for NASA the outsider who understands the fundamentals of government as well as commercial to help navigate a successful path forward to the Moon The next roughly 1648 days will be interesting to see how the cultures clash and if this Boots on the Moon strategy was a successful acquisition for NASA.