Richard Shelby (R-NASA), the senator from Huntsville, says that NASA is a "poor stepchild" that doesn't get enough money.

Sorry, Senator, but government space programs are like any other government program. It does little good to simply shovel money at them, absent useful reform. What NASA needs is some coherent policy from the top, and a complete rethinking of its purpose. After that, we can talk about how much money it needs--it's quite possible that it could in fact do quite a bit more with less. Of course, that might mean that not as much money flows into northern Alabama...

Gotta wean these Senators from that pork.

If he wants to spend another 4-5 billion per year on research and exploration, congress could simply terminate all shuttle operations immediately. That would free up just the amount he's looking for. :)

No, they'd have to terminate both Shuttle and ISS.

Flip your IRS book over and see how much NASA gets per year. You won?t find it in the pie chart, you won?t find it in a table; because they get so little it doesn?t scale. Regardless of any rant, their fiscal budget isn?t enough to do what is needed to be done for exploration.

When someone complains we lost hundreds of millions on a lost Mars satellite people seem to think they lost the money themselves. Well, yes, if you lost hundreds of millions then you?d be pretty upset. But if you made trillions per year, then that compares to you losing a big-wheel in the back yard? about ten bucks. The cost to you per American: about a nickel. I?m willing to spend a nickel to go to Mars; its all proportional. Of all the government agencies (DARPA takes home about half of that pie by the way) NASA is by far the most productive with what they are given. And sure, they could and should do better.

I agree, NASA needs to be fixed, focused, and more importantly, they need someone to lead them. There are brilliant people at NASA who could do brilliant things if given the chance. And yes, theirs pork in all their projects.

Finally, I certainly hope those heroes who died in the Columbia tragedy (including the two helicopter pilots who died searching for the debris), didn?t give their lives, leave their families behind, to cancel the thing they loved and believed in.

NASA should not maintain and operate a space fleet. NASA does not have the same accountability or discipline that the military shows, regardless of the infamous $500 toilet seat that will inevitably be brought up.

Hundreds of millions of dollars to send a little box to Mars? Why? The US Air Force had a working prototype SSTO back in the mid-90's, that they developed for 80 million. It was a testbed, to be sure, but it proved a couple of ideas about SSTO viability for getting into orbit. If it hadn't been turned over to NASA after 8 test flights (and NASA's subsequent "accident" that destroyed it), we might very well have had a viable launch platform by now that could have done the same thing that the Shuttle does, for about 1/10th the launch cost (probably less).

Transistor,

I agree with you, and I have an analogy for folks to consider. Imagine a person who starts home repairs and improvements mandated by his fellow neighbors. In fact, he has to submit a master plan of what he wants to do to satisfy this demand. His neighbors even promise to pony up a fixed annual amount of money, as long as they maintain oversight. Sounds pretty fair.

He submits the plan, receives approval, and then begins working. He gets halfway into painting the house another color, and the neighbors say: "Stop! We don't think this is going to work out, we'll help you by taking some money from another item in the plan to pay for the cleanup."

Of course, now your house is two different shades of paint, but you move on. Next, you take down the back fence to put in the pool. Unfortunately, your progress is slowed down considerably by a large obstruction in the ground, so it takes more time and effort to excavate. Just as you finish digging everything up, they do it to you again! "Hey!", they say, "Put the fence back up quick. We've got to hide that big hole, our friends are coming over to visit, and we don't want them to see it." They take more money from another budget item, and force you to completely remove some projects.

This goes on for a number of years, and the neighbors begin to grumble. "Why is this taking you so long? Are you incompetent? I think we'll take some of our money elsewhere, since you can't seem to use it wisely. Oh, but you still need to spruce up your place, quickly. We're losing our patience..."

By now, your house looks horrible. It's ugly, unfinished, and mismatched all to blazes. And certainly, you now look like the hillbilly on the block.

Of course, I understand that this analaogy is simplistic, and doesn't take into account the horrible political nature of the lord/serf environment of some parts of NASA. But I am trying to point out that a significant part of of the problem is due to underfunding, or truncated funding of projects that should be completed.

Politics brought Apollo to life, and politics killed it when the funding was pushed elsewhere. Many people don't understand this, and in the fog of it all blame NASA soley for it's demise. The loss of two Shuttles has been treated as some sinister high crime by some, and probably more due to the showboating by a number of people with axes to grind. Does this mean I think the Shuttle program is "just fine"? Certainly not! Given the political and physical reality that ISS exists, however, we have to have access to it, and Shuttle is currently our only valid means. Soyuz fights carry only personneland scant cargo, and are not controlled assets of the ISS program. These leaves us two domestic options: Either we keep sending the Shuttle (mindful of lessons learned) or build a truly new access craft. I wholeheartedly want the latter, but it will take money, time, and effort to achieve. The money needs to flow freely to make it happen, time will march along whether we do anything or not, and the effort can only be fruitfully exerted when the first two conditions exist.

As for unmanned space, it is important too, and you are right to point out the tiny flyspec of money that all the taxpayers lose when one of the probes are lost. All hysterics and political posturing notwithstanding.

Of course, the MOST gratifying result would be to allow private interests to be good capitalists and do the grunt work of building that toehold in space that humanity yearns for. Beyond that, if NASA is to meaningfully exist, why not give it the resources and time it needs to complete SOMETHING? A lot of politicians and doomsayer pundits would rather cut projects off at the knees and then complain about the agency's lack of progress.

Say how is X-38 these days, anyway?

Before anyone else jumps on the flaw in the "pool" part of my analogy, let me make it clear that putting in the pool is an example of wants over needs. All government agencies, including NASA, pursue such pork.

However, after a while all of NASA's projects have been denounced as pork at one time or another, regardless of reality.

Beasley and Transistor both fall for the same old claims that those who dominate NASA continually make. It's always somebody else's fault. Beasley at least acknowledges there are some problems internal to NASA.

The truth is that NASA doesn't really connect with the American people. Oh, it amuses them every so often. But really connect? Don't make me laugh.

I got interested in space first as a child. Back then it seemed "neat and cool." It did lead me into getting a degree in physics. But, like most mature adults, my interest, beyond entertainment, faded.

My interest was reawakened by O'Neill's vision. NASA had precious little to do with that. Indeed, the space establishment seems uncomfortable with all that visionary stuff -- unless they can figure a way to keep their little empire going awhile longer by using it.

So NASA gets jerked around in the budget process. What do you expect? They're actually getting quite a bit of money for an agency that does so little for the general public.

I'm not trying to foist blame too far onto others, but I do truly think that the idea that budgetary shuffles and political whims are a good way to conduct engineering projects. That counts for NASA or any other govenrment agency.

In my opinion, NASA has been a favorite target for politicians (and administrators) who want to make a mark. And perhaps look intelligent. I'm more than a little bitter about the whole thing, our nation's space program that keeps trying to circle the drain.

I'm just trying to relate that when the organization your work for is jerked around and defunded periodically, it tends to create the fiefdoms that are so often lamented. The heads of those fiefdoms desperately want to survive, their enthusiasm spent long ago.

Is it right? No! Is it reality? Yes! Can it be overcome? I don't know. I think it can, if NASA can connect just a little bit. You are spot on with that, no doubt about it.

Please don't misunderstand: I'm not a NASA cheerleader. I participate in private space efforts right now, and it is industry that will make "it" happen. But NASA used to be rather good at spending freely-flowing money to develop and launch spacecraft, and I think it could again if funding levels could be counted on. And if the deadwood floated out of the way.

Ahem,

I must learn to proffread a little better: The first paragraph says "...are a good way to conduct engineering projects."

It should read "...are NOT..."

I'm one of the people who think NASA should be out of the manned space program. The problem isn't that NASA is subject to the occasional fickle directive from above rather it is that NASA is a manifestation of fickle politics. Ie, from the very begining (eg, prior to the Soviets successfully launching the first satellite), it's been subject to these forces because they are an inherent part of it. What that means is that even if the Bush administration gets NASA working, it'll only be for a few years. Ie, some congressional budget, new president or NASA head, whatever will break the machine. That's the normal state. The history of ISS isn't a few setbacks in overall progress. It is a continuing bureaucratic and legal morass.

First, I have to disagree with Vago, the military vacillates orders of magnitudes worse than NASA. DARPA cancels and starts projects every time someone is promoted, because: "It?s their baby now". So I?m not sure where the accountability is for DARPA, I do see the discipline however. As they say, "No one ever gets fired at NASA"; it?s like becoming a judge on the Supreme Court.

I do think Beasley?s analogy is perfect. Right up, and including, the X-38 debacle. Also, it sounds like Divine has lost hold of his childhood dreams and fell into adulthood (catcher-in-the-rye syndrome; keep reading we'll get you back there).

Hallowell ties most people's fed-up with politics-and-bureaucracies opinions together with the cancellation of manned space program.

I think the answer is a combination of all of these (except for cancellation of manned space). NASA needs to work a little bit like DARPA (but not really) with a clear vision. They need to be able to work in the same atmosphere the Stealth Bomber was created. In the middle of an airport, hidden and in the dark, so that they could do their job. I swear to all that many people at NASA are brilliant, if you would just let them be. We need to change the legislation so that NASA can decide to do a project, get the money, and hide away for a while. Five years later show up with the vehicle. Otherwise, I agree with Hallowell, Vago, and Beasley; it?s not worth it.

It's broken, let's not abandon it, we need to figure out how to fix it... then maybe we can all get our childhood dreams back too.

I wasn't thinking of DARPA when I wrote that, but I do see your point on it. I was thinking of military accident investigations. Accountability also enters into this, as well as the discipline you agreed with. Accountability also enters into the development of a production weapons system, in that while the specs for the system will change from initial concept to initial deployment, they generally won't change so much as to make the original concept unrecognizable from the final design, due to some whimsical notion to add yet another complex feature into the product while it's being designed. Any such proposal during the design phase would have to be justifiable.

The problem I see with your "skunk-works" approach is that it's not directly defense- or national-security related. There currently is no military need to send men into space. Therefore, it's not going to be possible to hide something as huge as developing a manned spacecraft, particularly if you allocate billions of dollars to it.

You?re correct about a ?skunk-works? approach. I was leaning more towards some legislative reform that keeps congress out of it until completion. Give the NASA center a fixed amount of money for the project; and that?s it. For example, 5 billion for an escape vehicle. The deal is that they don?t get any less money or any more money. This would fix the prime problem from the start. They inherently wouldn?t put up with overruns and false projections. Capitalism will take over? get someone else to do it if the prime can't. No more contracts to a prime that doesn?t produce. If the vehicle isn?t built in time or at cost, then the congress can step in. It?s when congress steps in, or a new director takes over, for no justifiable reason, is when all hell breaks loose. There needs to be something put in place to keep a vision going, and not strangling it along the way.

You have some great opinions on this matter Vago. Now I must challenge you to verse some solutions. The only chance we have with fixing this mess is nurturing ideas from the bottom up. They?ve run out of them in Washington regarding all matters.