The thing is...

On Feb 3, 11:30*am, "John Crane" wrote:
While I think commercialization is a good (and inevitable) idea, I see NASA
as more of the exploration arm - doing things that private enterprise can't
or won't do because you can't make a dime on it yet. *Paving the way, so to
speak. Sure, LEO is doable (even by the model rocketry guys if they try
really hard), so businesses can easily find customers who want a joyride or
a contract to take supplies to the ISS. *But they're not going to fund a
moonbase, or a manned trip to Mars. *So the manned exploration aspect is
dead. *Very dead since NASA is now focusing on jump-starting commervcial
ventures. *That's like your boss telling you to train your replacement.

....because you're moving up. Why does it have to be glum?


Game over, guys. *Time to send your resumes overseas. *Maybe some other
nation will value your talents. *I wish you well.

Who exactly?


I just hope they keep the NASA facilities as museums. *One day I'd like to
take my grandkids to visit them.

In case you haven't noticed manned spaceflight is not the same thing
as NASA. Unmanned spaceflight is doing fine.

The problem with Bush's vision was that his dad had one just like it
that didn't happen. Texans that are JSC-focused are porkbarrel
spenders focused on throwing projects to contractors and lobbyists
that got them elected, not driven by anything beyond $$$. JFK's moon
dream was different. Sure the beating the Russians was big but it
wasn't a local payoff.