Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

NASA’s Strategic Direction

19 Comments

Check out the group of people determining it at the National Academies.

There are two problems, and they’re old ones. First is the lack of commercial industry participation. They’ve added former astronaut Bob Crippen who’s now at ATK, but that hardly counts. But the more fundamental issue (and reason for the first problem) is the assumption that NASA’s strategic direction should be established by the National Academies, with its own inherent assumption that it is about science and technology development, and not opening a frontier. This in turn may be another remnant of the agency’s beginning in the depth of the Cold War and the Space Act. But somehow, we can never have a serious national discussion about why we spend billions of dollars on human spaceflight, which will be necessary to get a new direction. And part of that discussion should be NASA’s role in the twenty-first century, and what other entities may be required as well.

19 thoughts on “NASA’s Strategic Direction”

  1. Dr. Albert Carnesale: He has previously served as chair of the NRC Committee on America’s Climate Choices

    Dr. Ronald M. Sega: At Ohio State University (OSU) he is the enterprise executive for energy and the environment and serves as chair of the President’s and Provost’s Council on Sustainability

    Dr. Mark R. Abbott: dean of the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University

    Dr. Jacques E. Blamont: He is the author of the first measurements of atmospheric temperature from an altitude of 100 to 500 km

    Dr. Warren M. Washington: former head of the Climate Change Research Section and director of the Climate and Global Dynamics Division at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

    I guess “climate” is better than “muslim outreach”. Maybe.

    2. The chairman is a mechanical engineer with a PhD in nuclear engineering. I suspect his involvement in the NRC Committee probably only goes as far as discussing the impact of nuclear power in a “carbon free” (blech) future. Or at least I hope so. Some of the others look positively dreadful.

  2. “and there old ones” sic.

    Well, I was going to suggest “Department of the Exterior”, but we don’t have one. Then “Department of the Interior”, but the webpage is too depressing to hand them anything.

    I’m sort of thinking rearranging NASA would help clarify things.

    1) Earth-focused stuff -> NOAA.
    2) Basic science -> NSF.

  3. Crippen did some time at ATK and the Brock guy is a Northrop-Grumman alum. They are also the newest members of the panel. Until they were named to it, this body had zero private sector representation except for a couple of beltway bandit types which IMHO doesn’t really count. Even among the academic types, I see only two with real space-related backgrounds. The climate mafia, though, is extremely well represented and includes the Chairman. Rand is right. I foresee no good coming from this bunch.

  4. Crippen was also on the very first launch of the Space Shuttle (along with John Young); at least he should understand the true importance of a single astronaut’s life – if anyone is in a position of authority over the space program that understands Rand’s point about risk aversion, it should be Crippen.

  6. Isn’t this the review that Congress directed the Office of Inspector General to do? If I recall, OIG then commissioned the National Academies to do it. Not quite sure why the Administration is getting blamed here for something it didn’t want.

    1. No one here, as far as I can tell, is blaming the administration for the review. And in fact, I agree that a review is needed. I just think that the body and composition of the people doing the review is unlikely to yield useful results.

    2. Mr. Messier,

      What do you mean by “the Administration”?
      And do you think it’s appropriate that Dr. Warren M. Washington is sitting at the table on the same continent of a group that is debating NASA’s Strategic Direction?

  7. How surprising, NASA sees its mission as science, not space settlement or economic development.

    1. I imagine that will change once there is economic development since the mantra of any government agency is “be relevant enough to increase funding.”

  8. I maintain that a “national conversation” is exactly the wrong thing to be calling for. You need to have private conversations with wealthy people who want to do space exploration without government involvement. The conversation should be of the form: I can make it happen, you wanna do it? With emphasis on the making it happen. The only thing propping up government space exploration is the lack of private activity. Making the case for NASA astronauts will be pretty difficult when private individuals are exploring the Moon and beyond.

    2. Trent,

      Yes, and the sooner NASA is shut down, along with the Great White Elephant in the sky, the sooner that will happen. As G. Harry Stine titled one of his great essays in the early 1980’s – “Kill NASA Now!”.

  10. It would be nice if they had more people from the business sector. Maybe someone from companies like Caterpillar or iRobot and TM could probably rattle off a list of mining businesses.

    1. Wodun,

      One of the good pieces of news I heard at Earth and Space 2012 was that Newmont Mining is not only a major sponsor of the annual Lunarbotic Mining competition in Florida, they also hired last year’s (2011) winning team on the spot. So they are interested 🙂

      http://www.nasa.gov/offices/education/centers/kennedy/technology/lunabotics.html#Sponsors

      And note that Caterpillar is also a major sponsor. So the American mining industry is ready, all they need is a ride to get started 🙂

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