A few days ago, John Mankins left a comment at NASAWatch on the need for R&T up front to reduce program costs and risks. He extends that comment in a brief essay at today’s issue of The Space Review.

There is always a balance between how little new technology to incorporate into a program to minimize development schedule budget and risk, and how much to incorporate to see significant cost reductions or performance improvement in operations. Because governments tend to be short sighted in budget allocations (this year’s budget is always the most important, and future ones are discounted almost to zero beyond a few years, when few current politicians, particularly in the White House, expect to be around to suffer the political consequences), the natural tendency of NASA is to skimp on things in development (including technology development) that can save costs in the long haul. The most notable example of this is the Shuttle, in which the original estimated development budget was halved, at the cost of outrageous operational costs (and reduced safety), which is why the program is finally, after almost three decades of operation, being ended. But other examples are the lack of significant improvement in EVA equipment (an expense always deferred during ISS, despite its potential for improved station designs and decreased ops costs), and of course, orbital propellant storage and transfer.

Of course, the real key to making good decisions (even assuming that the politics can be prevented from intruding) is to have a grand overall goal toward which the entire space policy apparatus should be aiming. This has been lacking since…well…forever.