6 thoughts on “Neil de Grasse Tyson”

1. I guess the only way to get NASA defenders to realize that “exploration of space” is a dead end and is 20th Century thinking is to actually get some companies out there “exploiting” it.

2. Perfection is said to be the enemy of the good. Even a slight increase in NASA funding would preserve some space programs- would you rather these programs be canceled in the quest for ideological purity? While doubling the NASA budget is not necessary, a little flexibility wouldn’t be a bad thing. NASA isn’t the cause of the budget problems.

   1. It’s not a matter of “ideological purity” as much as it is a matter of how useful the extra money would actually be. NASA can only be as flexible as its political masters (in Congress and the White House) allow it to be. While more money might let them do more exploration, it is just as likely to be used for “Earth Sciences” (aka using the space budget to prove AGW). Government funded research is always hostage to the political winds that happen to be blowing at the time.

   2. Wouldn’t simply giving NASA’s budget be rewarding failure? NASA has a dismal institutional track record for project management, perhaps worse than even the DoD. It’s hard to think of a single significant (say >$500 million) NASA project of the past 40 years that wasn’t significantly over budget and/or late. All giving them more money will accomplish is allowing them to waste more money.

      Budget cuts (usually just a reduction in the rate of increase from the previos year) should be a reality check for an organization. Some organizations use a cut as an excuse to cut muscle and bone while protecting the fat. Others more wisely look at it as an opportunity to force the organization to become more efficient.

      NASA should do an end-to-end analysis of why their project management is so poor.

      – Are they constantly changing requirements (scope creep) which drives up the costs considerably? Contractors working on cost-plus contracts just love that.

      – Are they requiring an excessive amount of briefings, meetings and other activities that do little for project accomplishment but add significantly to costs and time? Think of Kelly Johnson’s approach at the Skunk Works. They’d get the high level requirements from the government and retreat away from all distractions. There was little in the way of meetings or anything else. This allowed them to do thinks like design and build the prototype for the XP-80 jet fighter in less than 150 days, the U-2 in 10 months and the Blackbird in 3 years.

      – Are they subjecting themselves to paralysis by analysis? The perfect is the enemy of the good. Trying to squeeze out that last couple percent in performance can greatly drive up the costs.

      – Are they trying to make too big a leap technologically from one generation to the next?

      NASA needs to clean up its own house and prove that it’s a good steward of the taxpayers’ money. They’re far from that today.

3. I’ve tried watching some of Neil’s shows on PBS. I just can’t muster much beyond 5-10 minutes before I suddenly remember, “Oh yea. PBS friggin’ sucks” and I turn it off. It’s just something about the way that the information and the dialog is presented on all of their programs. It’s like they are just trying to be too cute, dumbed down, and lighthearted about all the information they present or something. I mean I’ve tried watching something about quantum mechanics and it just feels like an adult version of sesame street. Or another show I tried to watch was titled, ‘The History of the Chicken’. But it had absolutely nothing to do with the history of the chicken. The whole show did nothing but follow people around who had chickens as pets. I seriously got duped into watching it for about 20 minutes before I realized, “they aren’t going to talk about the history of the chicken are they?” I should sue for false advertising and try to get reimbursed for the 20 minutes of my life that were wasted. I mean you could sit me down blindly in front of one of their the shows, start playing it at some random point in the middle of the episode, and after about 5 minutes I’ll realize, “Hey wait, something isn’t right here. I think this was produced by PBS. Turn it off! Turn it off! I can feel it sucking my soul out of my eyeballs”

   1. It seems to me that NOVA has declined in a similar fashion over the years (the regular program as well as the one Neil has hosted). I think they’re aiming for the LCD to compete with some other cable science programming. Though not all of the latter is fluff, to be fair.

      This isn’t to suggest that there isn’t room for more in-depth science programming or that we need PBS to deliver it.

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