According to Space.com, NASA is looking for public input on what it should do next. This story to me epitomizes much that is wrong with space policy and space reporting. The report is written by a “Senior Science Writer.” The survey is being sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences. The request for them to do so came in a letter from a NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science. The article, and all people involved, assume that the sole purpose of NASA is to do solar system exploration–the only issue is just which bit of the solar system to explore.

Sorry, folks, but we don’t spend fifteen gigabucks a year on NASA so that it can do science. NASA was actually formed in 1958 in response to a perceived national security threat–a grapefruit-sized Soviet object beeping over our heads. That threat having been vanquished, it continues to exist partly out of inertia, partly out of pork, and partly as a foreign policy tool. Science is just the fig leaf for all those other things.

While I’m all in favor of public input as to what we want to accomplish in space, the question shouldn’t be “what should NASA do?” The real question to the American people is “What do you want to do in space?” After they answer that question, we can then formulate some kind of national policy to respond to it (part of which might even be an overhaul, or even abolition, of NASA in its current form).

Every public opinion poll done on the matter indicates that a majority of the people would like to visit. But they’ve been intellectually bullied into believing that space is not for them, it’s only for “scientists,” and those with the “right stuff.” Let’s get voyeurism out of space, and back into the bedroom where it belongs.

According to Space.com, NASA is looking for public input on what it should do next. This story to me epitomizes much that is wrong with space policy and space reporting. The report is written by a “Senior Science Writer.” The survey is being sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences. The request for them to do so came in a letter from a NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science. The article, and all people involved, assume that the sole purpose of NASA is to do solar system exploration–the only issue is just which bit of the solar system to explore.

Sorry, folks, but we don’t spend fifteen gigabucks a year on NASA so that it can do science. NASA was actually formed in 1958 in response to a perceived national security threat–a grapefruit-sized Soviet object beeping over our heads. That threat having been vanquished, it continues to exist partly out of inertia, partly out of pork, and partly as a foreign policy tool. Science is just the fig leaf for all those other things.

While I’m all in favor of public input as to what we want to accomplish in space, the question shouldn’t be “what should NASA do?” The real question to the American people is “What do you want to do in space?” After they answer that question, we can then formulate some kind of national policy to respond to it (part of which might even be an overhaul, or even abolition, of NASA in its current form).

Every public opinion poll done on the matter indicates that a majority of the people would like to visit. But they’ve been intellectually bullied into believing that space is not for them, it’s only for “scientists,” and those with the “right stuff.” Let’s get voyeurism out of space, and back into the bedroom where it belongs.

According to Space.com, NASA is looking for public input on what it should do next. This story to me epitomizes much that is wrong with space policy and space reporting. The report is written by a “Senior Science Writer.” The survey is being sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences. The request for them to do so came in a letter from a NASA Associate Administrator for Space Science. The article, and all people involved, assume that the sole purpose of NASA is to do solar system exploration–the only issue is just which bit of the solar system to explore.

Sorry, folks, but we don’t spend fifteen gigabucks a year on NASA so that it can do science. NASA was actually formed in 1958 in response to a perceived national security threat–a grapefruit-sized Soviet object beeping over our heads. That threat having been vanquished, it continues to exist partly out of inertia, partly out of pork, and partly as a foreign policy tool. Science is just the fig leaf for all those other things.

While I’m all in favor of public input as to what we want to accomplish in space, the question shouldn’t be “what should NASA do?” The real question to the American people is “What do you want to do in space?” After they answer that question, we can then formulate some kind of national policy to respond to it (part of which might even be an overhaul, or even abolition, of NASA in its current form).

Every public opinion poll done on the matter indicates that a majority of the people would like to visit. But they’ve been intellectually bullied into believing that space is not for them, it’s only for “scientists,” and those with the “right stuff.” Let’s get voyeurism out of space, and back into the bedroom where it belongs.

For anyone who, for whatever inexplicable reason, feels any sympathy for Kathleen Solia aka Sara Jane Olsen, Jamie Glazov sets them straight.

I almost split a gut on Tim Blair’s heart-rending montage of oppressed sports mascots. Mr. Moyes is never going to live down his stupid article.

Andrew Sullivan has the best assessment of Tina Brown that I’ve seen yet in tomorrow’s Opinion Journal. She is devastatingly and accurately compared with Bill Clinton, which to me is the ultimate insult.

In retrospect, however, Sept. 11 was the watershed for Tinaism–not because of what it did to the economy, but because of what it did for the culture. That day reminded us that there are more important things than winning the news cycle, that the old virtues still matter, that substance counts, and that the opposite of “hot” is sometimes true. This culture is here to stay for the foreseeable future and it is one in which Tina Brown, as epitomized by Talk, has simply nothing to say.

Lileks has an insight that is unique in its ability to be simultaneously banal, powerful, and idiotic:

The other day I thought: why did it never occur to me that the Alphabet Song employs the same melody as ?Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?? Did I always know it and just forget it, or have I just realized this now? I mentioned it to my wife, and she had the same reaction.

I’m approaching a half century of age, and I’d never realized it either. What did we ever do before James Lileks?

Lileks has an insight that is unique in its ability to be simultaneously banal, powerful, and idiotic:

The other day I thought: why did it never occur to me that the Alphabet Song employs the same melody as ?Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?? Did I always know it and just forget it, or have I just realized this now? I mentioned it to my wife, and she had the same reaction.

I’m approaching a half century of age, and I’d never realized it either. What did we ever do before James Lileks?

Lileks has an insight that is unique in its ability to be simultaneously banal, powerful, and idiotic:

The other day I thought: why did it never occur to me that the Alphabet Song employs the same melody as ?Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?? Did I always know it and just forget it, or have I just realized this now? I mentioned it to my wife, and she had the same reaction.

I’m approaching a half century of age, and I’d never realized it either. What did we ever do before James Lileks?

I’ve said relatively little about the Krugman payola controversy, but I caught a couple of minutes of Hannity and Colmes tonight (during commercials of the much more viewworthy “King of the Hill,” even in reruns) in which they were talking to Bernie Goldberg. He made an excellent point. To paraphrase, “Why was Krugman talking up what a brilliant business Enron was running, at the same time that he admitted that they paid him fifty grand for doing essentially nothing?”

Great question.