Integrated Future World Generation System

摘要

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) has been providing lead support for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) portfolio and systems analysis to the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) since its inception. The NextGen portfolio analysis responsibility rests in the JPDO's Interagency Portfolio and Systems Analysis (IPSA) division. In 2009, our portfolio analysis of NextGen generated results that included very high benefits but also significant development risks, and at the aggregate level, negative environmental impacts.4 Those results drove the team to reconsider our basic assumptions and first principles to see if areas exist where we could open up the trade space and find more robust investment options. As a result of this evaluation, the IPSA team used macroeconomic modeling to explore varying future world scenarios, in an effort to improve the portfolio analysis process. Macroeconomic models have long been used by policy and decision makers to understand the impacts their policies, laws, or regulations will have on private industry.5 These models can provide insights into unexpected, yet important, relationships that exist below the surface of a typical analysis. Ultimately, our analysis has shown using macroeconomic modeling strengthens the portfolio management process 1) by helping to inform return on investment (ROI) and other financial metrics and 2) estimating demand sensitivity to future economic conditions resulting from technological and structural economic change.