Saturday, February 6, 2010

Obama to NASA: Mediocrity is an Option






The Obama administrations decision this week to scrap NASA’s plans and programs to return to the moon by 2020 is visionless, wastes money and squanders US leadership in space. In place of a program that has both a destination and a timeline, the government will redirect funds to private companies to develop cutting-edge space technologies. Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, calls this a "bold new initiative." 

Apparently, giving billions of dollars to private companies who've never put a single human in space is what passes for boldness today. 


Orszag is, for some reason, all the rage in Washington, DC. He's 41 years old, and entered the world eight days before Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit in 1968. He knows numbers and has two doctoral degrees, but his knowledge of space is limited. Yet, reporters are agog at Orszag's ability to respond to a question with an actual fact. 


"If you look actually at the bottom of Table S-4, at the very bottom, on page 152, it says 'memorandum of funding for appropriated programs, non-security,' and you see the $447 billion in 2010, and we actually are below that in 2011 at $441 billion."
Peter Orszag, quoted by Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, February 2, 2010

Wow. He did all that under the crushing pressure of a press conference? Let me sit down next to an aroma therapy candle. 

If these reporters want to get all misty at nerds in command of data, go to a Space Shuttle launch and watch the flight controllers work. They're just as nerdy and have way cooler jobs. 

If you want bold, look at the challenge given to NASA in the early 60s: Get a man to the moon and get him home safely. Do it by the end of the decade. It was inspiring. It's what leaders do. 

Apollo 8 is particularly instructive when it comes to judging boldness. The mission had a desitination (lunar orbit) and a timeline (December 1968).  The 400,000 people of the Apollo program had about five months to invent the software, simulations, training protocols, mission rules and contingency plans for that mission. That's how you stimulate the private sector.


I understand the argument the administration is trying to make with its space budget. They're banking on sparking innovation by funding an entreprenurial space industry. But, they are funding these entreprenuers to perform to current requirements like flying astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station. We're already doing that. That's not bold, that's outsourcing.


The weird part about all of this is that NASA's budget is actually increasing. It's a bizarre "do less with more" plan that gives NASA no timeline nor destination. Although, if you have no place to go, who really cares how long it takes you to get there? 


Bill Salvin

2 comments:

  1. "If these reporters want to get all misty at nerds in command of data, go to a Space Shuttle launch and watch the flight controllers work. They're just as nerdy and have way cooler jobs."

    In my book, this line ranks right up there with "It's not that you're screwed that surprises me; it's the depth to which you are screwed."

    Great post.

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  2. Thanks, Kari-
    Watching the launch team early this morning was inspiring. We do human spaceflight better than any nation ever. Yet, we seem to be fine with ceding first place to other nations. We will be a poorer nation for it.
    Thanks for reading. And for taking time to comment.

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