rationality on the political playing field...

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=12876

Wait. . . what's going on? A UNIFIED vision for NASA, Congress and the
Administration? Don't they know that's IMPOSSIBLE!

Now that's realpolitik. No matter if you support or reject OSP, you
gotta respect the impulse to air out the ideas first.
That is the reality of the situation: If NASA tries to get too far
ahead without getting everybody on board, it'll be another cancelled
program with nothing to show.

Of course, I'm all in favor of the 'interagency review' being
accomplished at all speed. I mean, really, how many different reviews
do we need to come to the same conclusion over and over? Every
independant review since Sally Ride's has come to the same conclusion.
NASA needs actual goals for human exploration. How hard is that to
figure out, really?

Tom Merkle

In article ,
Tom Merkle wrote:
...I mean, really, how many different reviews
do we need to come to the same conclusion over and over? Every
independant review since Sally Ride's has come to the same conclusion.
NASA needs actual goals for human exploration. How hard is that to
figure out, really?

It's not hard to figure out. The problem is getting it *accepted*. The
reason it gets said over and over again is that its implications are not
very palatable to the intended audience, so they keep implicitly replying
"we don't like that answer, how about another one?".

The snag is that acceptance of a goal implies acceptance that it deserves
funding and support, and that real progress should be made toward it.
This is particularly difficult to swallow when the agency that would be
receiving the money and support seems to have great difficulty executing
any sizable project in a competent and timely way (and that's putting it
politely).

Today's NASA is primarily a jobs program for the aerospace industry. The
reason why its goals remain vague is that ill-defined, far-future goals
*suit almost everyone involved*. NASA can't be criticized for failing to
achieve such goals promptly, Congress can't be criticized for failing to
fund them adequately, and the Administration can't be criticized for
choosing them poorly. The key problem of trying to get everyone on board
for clearly-defined goals is that none of them *want* clearly-defined goals.
--
MOST launched 30 June; first light, 29 July; 5arcsec | Henry Spencer
pointing, 10 Sept; first science, early Oct; all well. |