Re: Is NASA the problem?
From: jonathan (Write_at_Instead.com)
Date: 12/02/04
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Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 20:14:39 -0500
Sounds to me that the repubs aren't content with
giving the treasury away to big-business and friends, but
Nasa as well.
Every time the EPA announces a 'reform', business
applauds. Of course they do, big-business wrote it.
So it is with energy or pharma reforms and on and
on.
Jonathan
s
"Steve Dufour" <stevejdufour@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:744cc401.0411301724.5a0de86b@posting.google.com...
> Experts Say Path Beyond Earth Orbit Has Its Challenges
>
> By Leonard David
> Senior Space Writer, SPACE.com
>
>
>
> CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Scientists, technologists, and policy experts who
> gathered recently at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
> are enthusiastic about the prospect of lunar and Mars missions.
> However, they cautioned that the path to exploration beyond Earth
> orbit will not be easy and will probably require significant changes
> at NASA and in the aerospace industry.
>
>
> "We can in fact do this mission inside the resources that are
> available," but there are several thorny issues, said Robert Walker, a
> former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania who chaired the House
> Science Committee and also served this year on the Presidential
> Commission on the Implementation of the United States Space
> Exploration Policy.
>
>
> One of the things that worries him most, Walker said, is people inside
> NASA who are more focused on protecting existing programs than on
> moving ahead with the agency's new vision.
>
>
> "There are lots of people inside of NASA who believe that their
> individual little programs are vastly more important than the totality
> of the program," Walker said during the event, SpaceVision 2004, held
> here at the MIT Nov. 11-14 and hosted by the Students for the
> Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) and the MIT Mars Society.
>
>
> "So one of the things that NASA has to do is fight its way through its
> own culture," he explained.
>
> For example, there are those inside NASA, Walker said, who see getting
> the space shuttle back to flying and completing the International
> Space Station as the "be all and end all" of the President's vision.
> Those people, he said, believe that "if we can do those two things
> over the next few years ... we can keep the shuttle flying out to
> about the year 2015 ... and everything will be hunky dory."
>
> Flying the shuttle that long, he said, will absorb money into those
> two programs at the expense of the exploration mission, Walker said.
>
> If managed properly, however, there will be enough money for a good
> exploration program that fulfills the new vision, Walker said.
>
> The vision calls for the 2004 equivalent of a $16 billion a year
> budget over the next 30 years, a total investment of $400 billion to
> $500 billion, said Walker, who also chaired the Commission on the
> Future of the United States Aerospace Industry in 2003.
>
>
> Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Simon "Pete" Worden was even more harsh
> in his assessment of the shuttle program.
>
> "I'm absolutely convinced that we don't ever need to fly the shuttle
> again. We've got three of them. Put them in the Smithsonian ... school
> parking lots. Kids can climb on them," said Worden, whose 30-year
> career spans a range of space duties, including stints at the White
> House National Space Council, the White House Office of Science and
> Technology and recently as a legislative fellow for U.S. Sen. Sam
> Brownback (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Commerce science,
> technology and space subcommittee.
>
> "I'm a veteran NASA basher," said Worden, who was on detail from his
> job as a research professor at the University of Arizona while he
> worked for Brownback. Worden said his Capitol Hill experience
> demonstrated to him that NASA actually stood for "Never A Straight
> Answer."
>
>
> Worden also criticized the state of the aerospace industry calling
> large aerospace contractors "the three stooges" -- companies in which
> the average age of engineers is far too old. He complained that the
> companies are not likely to reinvent themselves, and that those firms
> should not be expected to help shape an affordable program in response
> to President Bush's space vision. "We have a problem with the
> companies. It's not necessarily their fault. They really are
> Department of Defense design bureaus," Worden said.
>
> Playing the private wild card
>
>
>
> The "wild card" in putting into action a sweeping space exploration
> program, Worden said, is relying on the private sector, including
> non-traditional start-up commercial space firms. As a first step,
> commercial services should provide all of NASA's launch needs,
> starting with the international space station, he said.
>
>
> Worden said one bright spot is the revolution in microsatellites --
> highly capable and inexpensive spacecraft that weigh roughly 220
> pounds (100 kilograms) This technology -- coupled with low cost access
> to space -- should be enlisted in fulfilling several key space
> exploration needs, such as communications, navigation, situational
> awareness, and eventually power, he said.
>
>
> "I would suggest a proper future is that the U.S. government should
> perform only those functions that the private sector can't or won't do
> in space," Worden said.
>
>
> Paul Spudis, a senior staff scientist at the Johns Hopkins University
> Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., who, like Walker, was a
> member of the Presidential Commission on the Implementation of the
> United States Space Exploration Policy, said NASA has a choice: "It
> can go forward or it can die," he said. "That literally is the choice.
> NASA cannot continue in the current mode because there's no support
> for it."
>
>
> As envisioned by President George W. Bush, the nation has in front of
> it "a journey of exploration without end," Spudis said. "Mars is on
> the agenda, but so are a lot of other destinations."
>
>
> The goals are so ambitious that it's not just the next NASA program,
> Spudis said. "There's something much bigger at work here," he said,
> calling the vision a national program that involves more than just
> government, and must include the private sector as well.
>
>
> Spudis said there are those in NASA who embrace the idea of just going
> to the moon to land, step out, spray paint the rocks red, pretend
> astronauts are on Mars, take a few pictures, then go to Mars because
> that's where the action is.
>
>
> "That is not the intent of the vision ... it's not the mission,"
> Spudis said. "It is to answer the question: Can we live off-planet?"
>
>
> Spudis said what he would like to see is an emphasis on placing enough
> infrastructure on the moon so that when the first human crew arrives,
> they move into largely a turn-key operation -- an operational lunar
> base.
>
>
> One early advantage of returning humans to the Moon, Spudis said, is
> to identify what the optimum mix is of people and machines. Learning
> how to live and work there -- particularly utilizing local resources
> -- will also create the capabilities needed to go to other
> destinations, he added.
>
>
> "The Moon is indeed a key to making this vision work correctly,"
> Spudis said.
>
>
> Walker said an important way to improve NASA can be found in one of
> the recommendations of this year's Presidential Commission: the
> conversion of NASA centers into Federally Funded Research and
> Development Centers.
>
>
> Turning NASA's network of field centers into economic development
> units would make them commercially oriented rather than "NASAcentric,"
> Walker said, adding that it also would help the centers tap into the
> wellspring of innovation that exists in the private community.
>
>
> "Most of the private sector regards NASA as hostile to their
> interests," Walker said. "They regard NASA as being a place that will
> tell them all the reasons why they can't do what it is they are
> looking to do."
>
>
> By using an economic development model, it's possible no reconfigured
> center would face closure, Walker said. And if a center did shut its
> doors, it would close because it couldn't compete, not because it was
> axed. "That's a far better way to have them die," he said.
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