Clueless at NASA

Space Station Is Near Completion, Maybe the End, Washington Post
“After more than a decade of construction, it is nearing completion and finally has a full crew of six astronauts. The last components should be installed by the end of next year. And then? “In the first quarter of 2016, we’ll prep and de-orbit the spacecraft,” says NASA’s space station program manager, Michael T. Suffredini. That’s a polite way of saying that NASA will make the space station fall back into the atmosphere, where it will turn into a fireball and then crash into the Pacific Ocean. It’ll be a controlled reentry, to ensure that it doesn’t take out a major city. But it’ll be destroyed as surely as a Lego palace obliterated by the sweeping arm of a suddenly bored kid.”
Keith’s note: After several decades of telling Congress that the ISS is vitally important to America and that it should be funded to its completion, NASA is now going to throw it away after only using it in its completed capacity for 6 years? Why would Congress ever be expected to fall for that same argument again – now recycled as Project Constellation? You do not create an amazing resource like this and then just throw it away because you are bored with it or no longer have the will to fight to keep it alive. I certainly hope Suffredini’s political advisors were listening to the Bolden/Garver hearings last week. NASA as an institution has corporate ADD and it is well past time to put the agency into treatment for this affliction.
How can you expect to inspire people when you walk away from your most amazing accomplishments?