COMMENTARY: NASA Has a Vision, It's Our Nation That Needs Glasses

space.com ^ | 4 Sep 03 | Jim Banke

[RightWhale]

Fire O'Keefe anyway.

[Prof Engineer]

This nation has to decide if it has the stomach for this kind of activity -- and a large enough pocketbook too

Compared to all the BS entitlement programs, the costs are peanuts.

[inPhase]

"COMMENTARY: NASA Has a Vision, It's Our Nation That Needs Glasses:"

I think that NASA needs spectacles just like Hubble did.

[RightWhale]

NASA needs spectacles

If NASA has become a banana republic, then it needs to be invaded just like Iraq. But the vision for NASA comes from above, that is to say, from Congress. I don't favor a manned expedition to the surface of Mars, but I think a permanent manned science base on one of the moons of Mars would do us a lot of good besides just science itself.

[Kakaze]

This nation does need to find the ..intestinal fortitude to prgess and accept loss of life.

Not squandering life and this is where nasa is at fault many things could have been done both before and after the complications to Columbia developed.

That said, this country is and never was greater than when confronted with a challenge.......Mars is the new wild west and as soon as we get the p.c. crowd out of nasa and our schools we can persue it.....not going forward will be our demise, loosing a shuttle is a tragedy but wallowing in it is more of one and a mistake.

Our P.C. society with its social program focus squandered a great opportunity , and that was to progress to the moon and meet mars at its closest approach.

[RightWhale]

many things could have been done both before and after the complications to Columbia developed.

It is tragic, the loss of the Columbia. But the real tragedy is that the loss happened on such a minor mission, a mission that was not critical to either building a base on the moon, nor a base on Mars. Yet, it was the highest level mission that NASA runs these days. They are doing maybe 1% of what they should be doing and that is not NASA's fault at all, but the fault of Congress. Listen to Brownback, he is right on target.

[Kakaze]

" that is not NASA's fault at all, but the fault of Congress. Listen to Brownback, he is right on target. "

I agree, congress has fallen off the true goal and very few people even know it is to get off this rock for good!

With out expansion we will wither on the vine.

[inPhase]

RightWhale. I agree with you here. NASA is big gov. with all the drawbacks.

It is little known that the Mars mission which disappeared while trying to land on Mars, which had the grapefruit sized transmitter which alas never sent a signal,

was designed by what was described by the fleeting press as a woman (led?) engineering team. Boy was that hushed up.

Science has a lot of free market principles involved. Can't PC it and expect success or the best to come out.

The recent base closure list has implications for NASA.

[RightWhale]

A lot of people have tried to design probes to land on Mars. The success rate is 38%, so: many have shared in the misery.

[MalcolmS]

"To make it so ..."

Closet Trekkie altert. (Don't ask me how I know this.)

[upcountryhorseman]

As far as pure science is concerned, the unmanned
space flights have brought the greatest rewards.
Manned space flight is mostly PR.

[Mr. Jeeves]

The public doesn't want space flight, they want a prescription drug program. ;)

[RightWhale]

The space program has done next to nothing for pure science either. Surveying and mapping, very good. Engineering and rocketry, very good.

The idea with the space program is to eventually get off this mudball, head toward the bright city lights. Otherwise, why bother with surveying and mapping. The immediate justification for all of it is military applications. The military is always out there first, surveying and mapping the territory.

[RightWhale]

It's always something needing attention. Schools, potholes, power plants.

There are no schools, potholes, or power plants in outer space. To paraphrase RFK, who stole the quote from somebody: Many might ask why. I ask why not?

[hopespringseternal]

This is just ignorant.

Any government program must have a solid foundation that consists of more than just tax money. For example, it would be silly to build roads without automobiles.

The problem with NASA's vision is that they have an superiority complex that prevents anyone else from getting in the game. If we are to go beyond LEO, getting the LEO must be cheap and routine. The only way that can happen is if NASA is no longer running that business.

But NASA is blind to the needs of private launch business. Look at every proposal they have: it assumes gargantuan amounts of government cash with no ROI.

And that is hardly surprising, businessmen worry about ROI. It is the farthest thing from a bureaucrats mind.

NASA will go nowhere until lifted onto the shoulders of a vibrant space industry, and NASA is incapable of promoting a private space industry.

[RightWhale]

The problem with NASA's vision is that they have an superiority complex

The only advantage NASA has is their headlock on space spending. They each know they are no more talented than anyone else. After all, we went to school with these people, sat in the same classrooms. Were they superior then? Of course not, and the really talented people are now professors with tenure someplace, not at NASA. NASA can't compete for real talent, and they don't have any use for dreamers, because dreaming is associated with vision and all that former NASA vision is boxed up and sitting under a tarp in a warehouse.

Don't bother NASA with that vision thing, and forget the White House, too. Bother Congress.

[KevinDavis]

I think we as a nation has lost the will to explore. People care more about reality tv shows or what is happening with JLo and Ben Affleck.

Space Ping! This is the space ping list! Let me know if you want on or off this list!

[LibKill]

Spaceflight is dangerous. And you could get about 100,000 people to sign up for the next shuttle flight in one hour.

That said, NASA could use a new vehicle. The technology has improved over the years. Ideally, the new vehicle would take off like a plane, fly up to the edge of the atmosphere, go into space, do what was needed, re-enter the atmosphere, and land like a plane (under power, not gliding).

I'm not an engineer but I'll bet if you took a lot of good young engineers with a can-do attitude we would get results.

I, for one, would consider a new vehicle a good use of my tax dollars.

[RightWhale]

People care more about reality tv shows or what is happening with JLo and Ben Affleck.

It's a shift in ethics from the ethics of duty to the ethics of caring.

[anymouse]

Mr. Banke has a major conflict of interest here. His job depends on NASA continuing doing big space projects (i.e. keep getting increased funding.) Without those spectacular NASA launches happening at the Cape, what kind of readership whould he have?

Of course he is as short sighted as all of the vested interest crowd, from Congress, NASA and its contractors of course, NASA center dependent business associations, to space groupies that want the big shuttle show. It painfully evident that this "cult of space" is missing the big picture in their selfish lust for our tax dollars.

The obvious answer that none of these space players want to acknowledge is that we need a space economy not a space program. We need the government to really enable commercial space businesses, not merely talk about it or worse play favorites to gain political points.

We have a wealth of technology and capable space professionals, not to mention an even greater sea of entrepreneurs and non-traditional space professionals and laborers. It is an insult to them to claim that we do not have thriving commerce in space because of them. Like all other sectors of commerce, they are the engines of our vast American economy. But like so many of those other parts of our economy they are being strangled by government bureaucracy causing over-regulation, over-taxation, tort abuse and encouraging monopolistic practices by government contractors.

Despite what Mr. Banke and you say, Mr. O'Keefe (and more importantly his boss, the President) understands this, but they are pragmatists and know that Congress needs to be on-board such changes and that won't happen easily or quickly.

Myself I hope that the feeding frenzy continues and they implode NASA, so that it leaves a clear playing field for the marketplace to decide who goes into space.