[Mars-discuss] RE: The end of NASA?

[Thomas Coffee]

If you created an independent human spaceflight 
agency, it would still have contractors/labs in 
lots of states, so I don't see a problem there.

And you wouldn't have 4 HQs: only a smaller one 
for human spaceflight. Everything else is 
consolidated into existing institutions (DoD, NOAA, FAA, USGS, CalTech, etc.).

The bulk of NASA's political livelihood rests 
upon maintaining a human presence in space: this 
proposal would keep that winning card.

Meanwhile, major research branches would be 
placed under the existing institutions already 
dedicated to those purposes, improving efficiency 
and transparency of research dollars, another Congressional win.

At the outset, most of the same researchers would 
remain employed, substantially reducing the yell factor for jobs.

Finally, the federal agencies standing to absorb 
parts of NASA would incrementally increase their 
budgets, bolstering support from their leaders.

This administration has not been shy about 
reorganizing the government. With a case as 
compelling as this, I wouldn't be surprised if it 
happened now that Washington is actually talking about it.

- Thomas


>I hate to imagine the kind of political wrangling that would have to occur
>to make this happen. NASA is a bird in the hand, and doing what this article
>proposes would create massive indigestion for many of the agencies that it
>purports to create. Can you imagine, on top of that, funding human
>spaceflight entirely out of Texas? What about Marshall in Alabama or Kennedy
>in Florida? Those Congressional delegations wouldn't stand for it...
>
>Also, imagine the worst of the horrors: Having 4 NASA HQ's in DC, one for
>each sub-agency ;-P
>
>****************************************************
>David André Broniatowski
>Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>Technology and Policy Program
>Aerospace Engineering
>****************************************************
>
>"The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very
>nature of these things cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for
>universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all."
>-- Sir Charles Chaplin (1940)
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Thomas Coffee [mailto:tcoffee at MIT.EDU]
>Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 8:59 PM
>To: mars-discuss at mit.edu; mitseds-discuss at mit.edu
>Subject: The end of NASA?
>
>Proposals recently surfacing in Washington mirror a set of
>recommendations assembled by some MIT Mars Society folks two years
>ago: in short, dissolve NASA by consolidating current federal
>research enterprises and creating an independent center for deep
>space human exploration.
>
>- Thomas
>
>
> >Mission unthinkable: Disbanding NASA
> >
> >* 03 November 2005
> >* NewScientist.com news service
> >* Greg Klerkx
> >
> >
> >LESS than two years after it was announced with great fanfare, President
> >Bush's plan to return people to the moon is in trouble. The signs are
> >everywhere.
> >
> >Take Operation Offset, a proposal devised by a group of Republican
> >legislators to cut government programmes and free up funds to pay for
>damage
> >done by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Conspicuous on the chopping block is
> >NASA's moon and Mars initiative. Another austerity proposal, suggested by
> >economist Maya MacGuineas, recommended much the same thing:
> >cancel NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle, the spacecraft that would carry
> >humans back to the moon.
> >
> >It must be worrying to NASA administrator Michael Griffin that the
>political
> >right and left can be so unanimous in casually proposing such a fatal blow
> >to the agency's human space-flight programme. But the calls for cuts
> >highlight something more fundamental: a growing perception that NASA is no
> >longer up to the task of leading big, visionary enterprises.
> >
> >NASA has done itself no favours here. Charges of fiscal bungling continue
>to
> >make headlines: for instance, the recent revelations that it wasted $20
> >million by flying its personnel on private jets rather than on regular
> >flights. Last year, an independent auditor hired by NASA quit in
> >exasperation, claiming the agency's books were in such disarray that it
> >might never have a clean audit. During the post-Apollo era, dozens of
> >reports have emerged of bad management and overpayment for
>underperformance.
> >Billions are spent on the shuttle, yet it is still grounded; billions have
> >been spent on the Space Station and it is still incomplete.
> >
> >With the agency in such disarray, cutting the budget is simply not enough.
> >America's space-faring ambitions are suffering a serious loss of
> >credibility, and to get it back there may only be one solution: disband
>NASA
> >altogether.
> >
> >Even voicing this idea will smack of heresy to many. After all, NASA landed
> >men on the moon, and it has led the exploration of the solar system and
> >beyond. But that is in the past, and for some time now much of its work has
> >been done by outside entities: corporate contractors, universities and
> >non-profit organisations. More than two-thirds of its budget has been spent
> >on outside contractors over the past few decades.
> >NASA has more or less become one huge administrator, and not a very good
> >one.
> >
> >So why not push this trend to its logical conclusion and hand over all its
> >responsibilities to the organisations that already do the work? For
>example,
> >Earth observation could go to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
> >Administration, and unmanned exploration to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
> >which already handles most of it. Aeronautics - what NASA insiders
> >derisively call the little "A" in the agency's name - could move to the
> >Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Aeronautics research at NASA has
> >suffered badly in recent decades, and its Dryden, Glenn and Langley
>research
> >centres might fare better under an aviation-focused organisation.
> >"There is a growing perception that NASA is no longer up to the task of
> >leading big enterprises"
> >
> >Responsibility for human space flight could be divided up. The task of
> >putting people into Earth orbit could logically go to the FAA, which
>already
> >regulates all the US's commercial unmanned space launches through its
>Office
> >of Commercial Space Transportation. Launching to orbit is becoming a
> >free-market enterprise, with several companies offering launchers and
> >spacecraft. There is no reason it shouldn't carry on evolving that way.
> >Likewise, there is no reason why astronaut training shouldn't be a
> >commercial, publicly regulated activity, much like the training of aircraft
> >pilots.
> >
> >As for human space flight beyond Earth orbit, this could be handled by the
> >Johnson Space Center, which already does most of the big thinking in this
> >area and could be spun off as a Federally Funded Research and Development
> >Center (FFRDC). It could then be run by a university, just as Los Alamos
> >National Laboratory and many other existing FFRDCs are now, or as a
> >non-profit entity or private organisation. Turning NASA centres into FFRDCs
> >was a main recommendation of the Aldridge Commission, charged by President
> >Bush with exploring how his lunar plan could best be achieved. Its report,
> >released last year, said that NASA centres would be more efficient and
> >entrepreneurial as FFRDCs.
> >
> >Dismantling NASA would not be easy. But in the long run, it may be the only
> >way to progress. Over the past decade or so, the agency has striven to
> >improve from the inside: the administrator before last, Dan Goldin, tried
> >with his "faster better cheaper" blueprint, his successor Sean O'Keefe
> >introduced back-to-basics fiscal management, and Griffin is going for
> >hard-nosed personnel juggling and programme slashing. Yet through it all,
> >the American public have slowly lost confidence, not to say interest, in
> >much of what NASA is purporting to sell.
> >
> >The Bush lunar programme has often been lambasted as an expensive attempt
>to
> >recreate past glory. This may be unduly cynical. But if we want to move
> >forward in space exploration, it may be time to put away the past. And that
> >may mean putting away NASA.
> >  From issue 2524 of New Scientist magazine, 03 November 2005, page 18