NASA's $1 billion boondogle

On 14 Jan 2004 16:59:26 -0800, (Bill Clark) wrote:

I may be kind of skeptical, but I think it will take the extra $1
billion President Bush has pledged for NASA just to keep it going at
current levels. Here's why:

Everything is classified now. Even technical journal articles have to
be vetted before they are published. Especially anything having to do
with orbital mechanics, or any other aspect of "rocket science" that
applies to missiles or that is somehow related to SDI so that it's
classified.

The problem with high security operations is that progress is
inversely proportional to security level. The higher the security,
the less the competition, and the less incentive scientists have to
produce high quality work. Anybody who does a very good job is
harassed by his or her peers for making them look bad so, if anything,
there is negative incentive. Moreover, the whole system is ratcheted
so that high performing scientists will be booted out of the system
leaving only the low horsepower people left.

Consequently, with all the new security operations in place since 9/11
the $1 billion Bush thinks will get us to the moon and Mars will only
pay for more security, lazier scientists, and an underperforming space
program.

Bill Clark
http://home.austin.rr.com/whcii/

Who told you these things were classified? That's assinine. Nothing
in NASA works that way.

Bob

"Bill Clark" wrote in message

I may be kind of skeptical, but I think it will take the extra $1
billion President Bush has pledged for NASA just to keep it going at
current levels. Here's why:

Consequently, with all the new security operations in place since 9/11
the $1 billion Bush thinks will get us to the moon and Mars will only
pay for more security, lazier scientists, and an underperforming space
program.

Bill Clark
http://home.austin.rr.com/whcii/

You haven't been reading very carefully, have you? Nobody's claiming $1
billion will get us anywhere.

Jon

"Bill Clark" wrote in message
m...
I may be kind of skeptical, but I think it will take the extra $1
billion President Bush has pledged for NASA just to keep it going at
current levels. Here's why:

Everything is classified now. Even technical journal articles have to
be vetted before they are published.

That's hardly unique to NASA, and it has nothing to do with national
security. Just garden-variety bureaucratic ass-covering.

At teh CDC any kind of external publication (even a peer-reviewed abstract)
has to go through Clearance, which typically takes at least a month and
often generates extensive rework. That's for non-sensitive stuff like
studying resistance to antibiotics, we're not talking about anthrax or SARS
or anything hot-potatoey. Just to publish a chart showing what percentage of
E.Coli isolates wer resistant to cipro and penicillin last year means you
have to go through Clearance.

That started as a kind of in-house peer review, but in the way of all
buraucracies it mutated into the head of the Clearance department wanting
more staff and a bigger budget, so things take longer and more work needs to
be done. Plus the career staffers don't want to have to sit in a CNN studio
while Miles O'Brien asks them why did they say there was no danger of
increased cipro resistance when everybody is taking it and not getting
better?, so they tend to overanalyze everything.

I think everybody should be required, as part of being a citizen, to work
for a government agency for at least one year. I think people's
understanding of what their tax dollars are used for would be greatly
enhanced, although what would probably happen is that all the "short-timers"
would get shunted off into the "happy branch" of each agency, and would walk
away from their year's tour of duty thinking happy little thoughts about how
their government operates and congratulating themselves on Making A
Difference, they'd never see the real stuff g

--
Terrell Miller


"It's one thing to burn down the **** house and another thing entirely to
install plumbing"
-PJ O'Rourke