Posted on 06/10/2005 10:39:55 PM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
New NASA Administrator Michael D. Griffin has decided to replace about 20 senior space agency officials by mid-August in the first stage of a broad agency shake-up. The departures include the two leaders of the human spaceflight program, which is making final preparations to fly the space shuttle for the first time in more than two years.
Senior NASA officials and congressional and aerospace industry sources said yesterday that Griffin wants to clear away entrenched bureaucracy, and build a less political and more scientifically oriented team to implement President Bush's plan to return humans to the moon by 2020 and eventually send them to Mars.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yes! Kill the massive beaurocracy and return it to 60s era streamlining.
Bingo! Sounds like good news to me.
How many other government agencies could benefit from a similar approach?
I'll say: All of them.
we are a nation of explorers. We would not even be here if it were not so. Boondoogle NOT. We have always looked to the horizon. We owe it to those before us who took those risks and payed the price. We are obligated to those yet unborn to do our share. America MUST lead. Never follow. Always stretching out and taking those risks. Its what we are. So dont give me that boodoggle garbage. We are Americans. Those are OUR flags on the Moon. And we are going back before anyone else.
Nah, the "in" thing for both conservatives and liberals is to sit on our fat butts on earth until we self-destruct. Or until China does it first and screws us over.
Either way, the "dismantle NASA and stay on earth" people have it so completely wrong, it boggles the mind.
Read Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" and then come back here and tell me with a straight face that we can afford NOT to dominate the moon.
We got a bunch of rocks and a movie where Forest Gump pilots a space projectile a cool dance move for MJ. If the Russkies go to Mars, so be it.
Exploration drives technology.
For too long we've turned inward in re to space. Empires die from within(Roman, Spanish, British, USSR, etc)and if you're not expanding, you're contracting...and fading into the history books. The universe is a very big place, room enough for ANYTHING, why such timidity in space exploration since the salad days of the 60's? Thus the new boss of NASA sees what needs to be done, and is DOING it! And if you're trapped in liberal seattle, your comments on gregoire's being allowed to remain gov? W=P
The monitoring systems seen in every ICU today are a direct result of the telemetry used to monitor astronauts' physical condition during flight. You are probably too young to remember hospitals prior to the introduction of such equipment.
Besides the numerous technical advances from the space program, we gained something of far more importance: a sense of national pride and a "can-do" spirit based on a peaceful national goal. No other country could have put a man on the moon, and watching the news while living in Berlin as an Air Force wife, I was so proud to be an American that day. I still am, but that was a special day.
....you forgot Teflon.
The Moon Program was worth many times its cost for the inspiration it provided, especially to young people. Why NASA supporters don't tout that rather than dubious spinoff claims is beyond me. Probably because the opportunity to provide that inspiration was a one shot deal, never to return, just like people yawn at the prospect of crossing oceans in airliners.
Investment in research and new markets drives technology. A long time ago exploration played a big part in that, but not anymore.
Well, it's only taken NASA 20 years to identify the problem.
They should take a cue from the markets by gutting the old organization and replacing it with a new one or many new ones, heavily involving the private sector.
One reason NASA was so great in the 1960's was that it was a new organization composed of the best and brightest from the military and the private sector.
Two words sum up what will cure all of the ills at NASA:
Private Enterprize.
It's high time that the Gubmint got out of the space business, and turned it over to someone like Burt Rutan to make it really do what it was intended to do.
Thanks for that link K...
Progress, or rearranging the deck chairs on the Columbia?
Rearranging the deck chairs IMHO.
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