Is NASA dying?? If so, whose fault is it?

"Explorer8939" a écrit dans le message de
om...
[snip]
NASA *must* produce results in the near term to survive.
[snip]

The end is near.

In the same moment that you are writing those words,
two NASA spaceships are exploring the planet mars.
We are receiving daily photographs of
unprecedented clarity showing us that alien landscape.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

The Cassini mission is arriving at Saturn, what will give humanity a
detailed view of those planets for the first time, since this is not just
a flyby like the Voyager spaceships.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

And there are of course many others: the Hubble space telescope, the
Spitzer space telescope, the gravity probes, etc etc.

Scrap all that. What is *really* important now, is to provide
space transportation for billionaires.

In spite of budget cuts, in spite of all odds the NASA people
have succeeded to do what never was done before.

But those results do not count, obviously. What counts is that
some rich people sent a small craft 64 Km high.
They didn't even leave the atmosphere.

THAT is an incredible feat, of course.

Rand Simberg wrote:
(George William Herbert) glowed:
Assuming Kerry wins...

1) O'Keefe likes NASA, and probably isn't going to abandon it unless
he thinks he's become ineffective.

Yes, but he's unlikely to think that he will be effective in a Kerry
administration, any more than Goldin was in a Clinton administration.

Goldin wasn't ineffective because it was a Clinton administration.

2) Kerry is not actively anti-NASA. He's not actively pro
manned space exploration, and might be interested in raiding
the budget some, but probably will otherwise benignly neglect
it and let it do its thing.

Possibly. It depend on what his advisors tell him to do with/about it.

True. But his advisors have higher priorities than ****ing around
with NASA; the war, and domestic issues. "It's not broke" is
(cough gak) the likely conclusion.

Given that his war strategy seems to consist of going back to the
UN, and groveling to France, at a minimum it's likely that the
international nature of the program would be expanded, which would be
a disaster.

There are ways to do international programs that still work.

O'Keefe, as Defense Department Comptroller back in Bush(I),
has been involved in managing some of those.

3) Finding potential NASA administrators who are both qualified
and willing to take the job has been... challenging, in the recent
past (last decade or so). Kerry might not be able to come up with
a replacement candidate. Goldin's tenure was extended several
times by this problem under Clinton.

And Bush, but again, despite that, I think it unlikely that Kerry will
be willing to keep anyone from a Bush administration, and even if he
is, those who got him into office won't be.

There is precedent. Clinton wasn't hurt at all by leaving
Goldin in place. Kerry has much higher priorities. And Kerry
probably doesn't want to tank NASA due to neglect or malign
action from above; that sort of negative publicity sticks with
someone for a long time.

If they're smart, they will do nothing unless they have a
better idea of what to do, which requires a vision and a
new administrator candidate.

4) Kerry might well *want* to keep O'Keefe... because O'Keefe is
one of the better political / technical appointee level independent
managers in the Republican's deck of cards, and keeping him on at NASA
keeps him at least temporarily busy and unavailable for scheming and
positioning him (say) as the 2008 Republican nominee Secretary of Defense.

5) Kerry is already showing an interesting hint at bipartisanship
in potential running mates.

If you're referring to the McCain buzz, I don't think that's coming
from the Kerry itself. I think it's wishful thinking on the part of
some people desperate for a winning ticket. It's a fantasy, anyway,
because McCain wouldn't accept the nomination, and it won't be
offered, because he's pro-life.

The tea leaves are muddled on who is thinking what in that camp.
But Kerry isn't shooting down very many of the theories.

You could be right. But Kerry is not a distinct separate set
from "some people desperate for a winning ticket".

I would hazard a guess that his current job is more in jeopardy if
Bush wins than if Kerry does: Bush may well kick him upstairs to SecDef,
a job he is unlikely to turn down.

That may be, but I think that he's a short timer either way.

We'll see. It's not that far away.

Dissapointingly, any of the three major scenarios here
(Kerry wins and dumps him, Kerry wins and keeps him but
doesn't back him much, Bush wins and kicks him up to SecDef)
is likely a major negative to NASA's efforts to improve
its spacefaring capabilities.


-george william herbert

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
Golding survived because he was a Democrat...

Goldin survived much more because of the difficulty of finding vaguely
qualified candidates who actually wanted the job. It wasn't that Clinton
wasn't *interested* in replacing him...
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

On 16 May 2004 10:57:37 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(George William Herbert) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Rand Simberg wrote:
(George William Herbert) glowed:
Assuming Kerry wins...

1) O'Keefe likes NASA, and probably isn't going to abandon it unless
he thinks he's become ineffective.

Yes, but he's unlikely to think that he will be effective in a Kerry
administration, any more than Goldin was in a Clinton administration.

Goldin wasn't ineffective because it was a Clinton administration.

Not exclusively, but it was one of the problems. He couldn't keep the
ISS under control because Gore was more interested in funneling money
to the Russians than in seeing hardware delivered.

2) Kerry is not actively anti-NASA. He's not actively pro
manned space exploration, and might be interested in raiding
the budget some, but probably will otherwise benignly neglect
it and let it do its thing.

Possibly. It depend on what his advisors tell him to do with/about it.

True. But his advisors have higher priorities than ****ing around
with NASA; the war, and domestic issues. "It's not broke" is
(cough gak) the likely conclusion.

There have been a lot of unfavorable noises coming out of the Kerry
camp about how the new exploration initiative costs too much. If they
don't support it, I doubt if O'Keefe would bother to hang around.

Given that his war strategy seems to consist of going back to the
UN, and groveling to France, at a minimum it's likely that the
international nature of the program would be expanded, which would be
a disaster.

There are ways to do international programs that still work.

Yes, when there's some reason to do them internationally other than
for internationally's sake, but I see no reason that a Kerry
administration would do that. Everything I hear from them sounds to
me like a return to the Clinton years on that score.

3) Finding potential NASA administrators who are both qualified
and willing to take the job has been... challenging, in the recent
past (last decade or so). Kerry might not be able to come up with
a replacement candidate. Goldin's tenure was extended several
times by this problem under Clinton.

And Bush, but again, despite that, I think it unlikely that Kerry will
be willing to keep anyone from a Bush administration, and even if he
is, those who got him into office won't be.

There is precedent. Clinton wasn't hurt at all by leaving
Goldin in place.

Clinton was a New Democrat. Kerry is not. Also, GHWB wasn't hated
with the virulence that GWB is by the Dems.

Kerry has much higher priorities. And Kerry
probably doesn't want to tank NASA due to neglect or malign
action from above; that sort of negative publicity sticks with
someone for a long time.

I'm not concerned about him "tanking" NASA (whatever that means). I'm
concerned about a return to the status quo, and I suspect that O'Keefe
would share such a concern, and not want to bother, when he could
probably find more interesting and financially rewarding things to do
while awaiting the return of a Republican administration.

If they're smart, they will do nothing unless they have a
better idea of what to do, which requires a vision and a
new administrator candidate.

That's a heck of a caveat--when it comes to space policy, few
politicians or staffers are smart, at least in terms of making it
effective for the development of space.

4) Kerry might well *want* to keep O'Keefe... because O'Keefe is
one of the better political / technical appointee level independent
managers in the Republican's deck of cards, and keeping him on at NASA
keeps him at least temporarily busy and unavailable for scheming and
positioning him (say) as the 2008 Republican nominee Secretary of Defense.

5) Kerry is already showing an interesting hint at bipartisanship
in potential running mates.

If you're referring to the McCain buzz, I don't think that's coming
from the Kerry itself. I think it's wishful thinking on the part of
some people desperate for a winning ticket. It's a fantasy, anyway,
because McCain wouldn't accept the nomination, and it won't be
offered, because he's pro-life.

The tea leaves are muddled on who is thinking what in that camp.
But Kerry isn't shooting down very many of the theories.

That's because he's, as you say, trying to appear bi-partisan during
this period when he's still being defined in the public mind. It
provides no indication of who he'll eventually choose (my money's on
either Gephardt or Clark--I'm hoping for the latter, because he's a
worse campaigner and foot-in-mouther than Kerry himself, though the
thought of having the guy a heartbeat away is a little scary).

Actually, now that I think about it, a Kerry-Richardson ticket might
not be a disaster for space--the governor seems to get it, at least
based on the press release when New Mexico won the competition for the
X-Prize Cup recently.

Dissapointingly, any of the three major scenarios here
(Kerry wins and dumps him, Kerry wins and keeps him but
doesn't back him much, Bush wins and kicks him up to SecDef)
is likely a major negative to NASA's efforts to improve
its spacefaring capabilities.

Yes, but at least in the case of the latter, the president's vision
remains intact, and he'll have a much easier time finding a
replacement who can continue to execute it.

On Sun, 16 May 2004 18:02:50 GMT, in a place far, far away,
(Henry Spencer) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

Goldin survived because he was a Democrat...

Goldin survived much more because of the difficulty of finding vaguely
qualified candidates who actually wanted the job. It wasn't that Clinton
wasn't *interested* in replacing him...

But the only reason that Clinton wanted to replace him was because he
wanted more "diversity" in his administration. Once he found he
couldn't get a woman (which seemed to be one of the qualifications, as
it was for Attorney General) for the job, he gave up and left him in
place. The fact that he was a Democrat no doubt helped.

(Henry Spencer) writes:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
Golding survived because he was a Democrat...

Goldin survived much more because of the difficulty of finding vaguely
qualified candidates who actually wanted the job. It wasn't that Clinton
wasn't *interested* in replacing him...

Out of curiosity... did they ask you at the time?



--
pgf

In article ,
says...
The obvious choice is Mr. O'Keefe, arguably the worst NASA
Administrator ever.

He hasn't been great, but I wouldn't say he's the worst. I'm quite
disappointed that he allowed the Pluto-Kuiper mission to fall through
the cracks.

If you have any doubts, check out his performance
in regards to the 3 of NASA's major programs: Shuttle, ISS and Hubble.

Hubble has produced more science than the other two programs and cost
less than either one of them. ISS and the Shuttle have not been great,
but they are not complete failures either. NASA has many more programs
than just these three programs in any event and continues to enjoy
success with planetary and cometary exploration.



Since O'Keefe will likely exit NASA after the election, the bigger
question is the future of NASA. The most likely long term scenario
for NASA is that Shuttle retires itself,

Probably and good riddance.


ISS continues to depend on
the Russians (in minimal mode),

Limping along is still better than nothing.


and the Moon Mars thing quietly fades
away

Idiotic manned missions will fade because modern robotics make such
missions unnecessary and economically unjustifiable in the near term.

as the other crises overwhelm the NASA bureaucracy. All the
while, private astronauts fly ever higher suborbital missions.

BFD. It's an outmoded idea and the technology for such joyrides is not
breakthrough.


NASA *must* produce results in the near term to survive.

It's produced stunning results with MER and will continue producing
glorious achievements on a shoestring budget via robotic probes, rovers,
space telescopes and other non-manned space technologies.


Without the
Shuttle, no amount of feel good propaganda will help.

An affordable CEV will be fine. It can even employ a lifting body for
return if one likes, though it should probably not be "reusable".



The end is near.

The end is near for some of NASA's boondoggles, largely foisted upon it
by Reagan era politics.

--
Quibbler (quibbler247atyahoo.com)
"It is fashionable to wax apocalyptic about the
threat to humanity posed by the AIDS virus, 'mad cow'
disease, and many others, but I think a case can be
made that faith is one of the world's great evils,
comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to
eradicate." -- Richard Dawkins

In article ,
Phil Fraering pgf@AUTO wrote:
(Henry Spencer) writes:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
Golding survived because he was a Democrat...

Goldin survived much more because of the difficulty of finding vaguely
qualified candidates who actually wanted the job. It wasn't that Clinton
wasn't *interested* in replacing him...

Out of curiosity... did they ask you at the time?

Actual, non-flamebaity question inspired by the fact that
I have always assumed from his location but never verified that
Henry is Canadian: what are the legal barriers to putting a Canuck
in charge of NASA or indeed any other significant US governmental
organization? Are there any, excepting citizenship restrictions on
POTUS and other elected positions?


--
"The keywords for tonight are Caution and Flammability."
JFK, _Bubba Ho Tep_

What is really important is the reliable, low cost access to space
(meaning, initially, low earth orbit) that that implies. (Not merely for
billionaires, but for high-thousandaires.)

That would be nice but it requires a qualitative jump of technology.

Trips to America were risky and extremely expensive
in 1492. The technology of that epoch required that
the Queen Isabel of Spain sold most of her jewel treasury
to finance it. It was a good investment of course, but trips
remained expensive until the steam machine allowed
for mass transport.

Current technology doesn't allow for cheap space
access. A quantum jump is required to drastically
lower the costs and allow for mass transportation.

On 15 May 2004 22:23:30 -0700, (Explorer8939)
wrote:
Is NASA dying?? If so, whose fault is it?

IF that is what you think than it is
YOURS!

Are you a member of NSS?
Planetary Society?
There are others still.
Do you donate money to pro-space organizations?
Do you give to Challenger Center?
IF your an American, DO you write your representatives?
Donate space books to schools?
Let folks know through the course of normal conversation
your passion for space?

Nobody said it would be easy did they?