Who Do You Want To Advise NASA?
Annual invitation for public nominations by U.S. citizens for service on NASA Federal advisory committees.
“NASA announces its annual invitation for public nominations for service on NASA Federal advisory committees. U.S. citizens may nominate individuals and also submit self-nominations for consideration as potential members of NASA’s Federal advisory committees. NASA’s Federal advisory committees have member vacancies from time to time throughout the year, and NASA will consider nominations and self-nominations to fill such intermittent vacancies. NASA is committed to selecting members to serve on its Federal advisory committees based on their individual expertise, knowledge, experience, and current/past contributions to the relevant subject area.”
Someone who understands that the National Academy of Sciences isn’t the only authoritative body to prioritize NASA spaceflight objectives. NASA must be as much about exploration and discovery as it is about opening up a frontier for Americans to access, develop and settle. Seek advisers who can embrace a broad perspective about the value of spaceflight for the United States.
NASA isn’t about opening up the frontier for Americans to access and it never has. IF it has been, it is the most miserable historic failure of an expansion plan in America’s 200 plus year history.
They wanted the flights and the Astronaut heros and always keep the flight rate low so every flight is special, oops … I mean “mission”.
When an 18 wheeler drives 3000 miles across country is it described as a mission? A transport plane? But when NASA makes it’s rare flight traveling at 17000 miles an hour 200 miles .. well .. thats a mission.
Gosh.. what would happen to the heros if there was 1000 flights a year to LEO ? still “missions”?
No I am not trying to do a hit on astronauts. But you can not maintain that unless you keep the flight rate so low they remain special. IF there are thousands of flights .. no more heros just americans traveling to work to do a job. NASA doesn’t want that.
How is NASA and congress, fighting for 50 years to KEEP OUT Americans not in the club going to open anything up.
When Reagan had NASA’s mandate changed to say NASA should seek and encourage to the maximum extent possible commercial companies. That has been virtually ignored for over 20 years until President Bush’s laid out commercial cargo to the ISS and commercial crew to start when the Space Shuttle retires.
It is a good thing President Obama picked up the baton and ran with it or we would be mired in even worse pork then we are now.
We are NEVER going anywhere with the table scraps NASA gets and those funds have to be porkofied by congress first.
We need IPO offerings raising couple billion a pop at a time and push REAL capital into the space sector. We have to go around NASA not through it, they do not want to take americans along, they just want americans to watch.
The NASA administrator should not appoint the members of the advisory panels. This appointment policy defeats the objective of providing independent unbiased advice for the Administrator and Congress. Public input to the some councils is not permitted and that must be corrected. Council members have been removed for issuing opinions unfavorable to the Administrator. This policy has been detrimental to the agency.
The NASA Advisory Council must be appointed by the executive branch and report to the President and Congress and not be subservient to the NASA administrator. The Council must also serve as forum where NASA employees and contractor can voice concern on NASA programs and policies without fear of management reprisal.
See: http://www.nasaproblems.com…
FWIW, the NASA Advisory Committee charter doesn’t have any words about “independent advice” or “public input”. That’s not what it’s about. So the objective you say this policy defeats doesn’t really exist.
The NASA Advisory Committee is a group of people that the NASA Administrator trusts and respects, and whose advice he values. It isn’t about establishing agency goals (which are set by the Administration), but is rather about advising the Administrator about how best to achieve these goals. To the extent NAC members argue with the Administrator about these basic goals, kick ’em out. They can take those arguments to OSTP or OMB, or even to Congress.
That the NAC must serve as a forum for NASA employees and contractors is just nuts. Taking very part-time people whose insight into the agency is somewhat fragmentary, and asking them to perform omnbudsman duties just wouldn’t make any sense, and wouldn’t serve anyone well.
In fact, the NASA Advisory Committee does listen to outside groups. That’s just daft that public input to some councils isn’t permitted. It’s true that public input usually isn’t welcome at their very brief meetings, but there is no reason the public can’t reach out to individual members, or to subcommittee members, and those members can convey, as appropriate, those concerns to the committee.
So we have a group of people who tell the Adminstrator what he wants to hear or their history…and they only hear what NASA tells them. The system is broken!
That’s a pretty superficial interpretation. You should learn about the federal advisory process.
This is a group of people that is asked by the administrator to tell him what he can do to fulfill his mission. Not how to change his mission. The members are people that the Administrator can trust to do that, and whose insight he values. That’s what he wants to hear. Think Bob Zubrin is going to play that game?
They only hear what NASA tells them? Totally bogus. These committees are free to call on outsiders to present their ideas, and often do. Don’t make stuff up.
If the system is broken it’s because there are evidently people around who never learned how it works.
So what’s the solution? Pretend there is no problem and continue to watch NASA self destuct.
The solution is to make OSTP, OMB, and Congress come up with a different set of expectations for the agency. Pretending that the NASA Advisory Committee is going to keep NASA from self destructing (which is a bit hard to picture, in itself) is kind of laughable.
In the face of fiscal crises, do you go to your PTA to keep your local school from self destructing?
1: Robert Zubrin
2: Neil deGrasse Tyson
fieldtrip,
I can see why you’d recommend these two men, but they would never be selected because each clearly has well-known personal agendas, and therefore would not be considered as impartial advisers. Also, both are very verbal, very outspoken, which is not really what a NASA Administrator would want in any of these advisory groups.
Steve
I absolutely believe that NASA’s actions and policies must be totally ethical and above board. Having said that, it would be of great benefit to NASA, and particularly to the Administrator, to have one or more persons on the NAC who were very familiar with the currently powerful (relatively speaking) people in Congress who are either strongly for or strongly against NASA and NASA spending, and of course, the relevant committee members. Someone who knew where the skeletons were buried and/or knew what the special interests and pet peeves of key Congress people are could advise the Administrator on how and when to best present (or hold off on) issues, such that they are as favorable as possible for their intended target audiences right from the start.
Often times, a single reference or idea can kill a proposal thoroughly. Likewise, a single advantage — in the eyes of the beholder — can sell a deal and win a key supporter. This kind of advice would both allow the Administrator to work out prepared answers ahead of time for the questions likely to be asked by Congress and minimize the chances of getting himself into a position from which he has to backpedal, which is almost always fatal in front of Congress.
If NASA’s adversaries in Congress see this type of adviser for what he is, they can hardly complain, since they use similar tactics themselves on a regular basis. In fact, they might just see it as NASA growing up (again) and getting its professional act together.
This is just a possibility to consider, but I think it would make the NAC much more effective on NASA’s behalf. Also, I suspect that it wouldn’t be that difficult to find a couple of people who fit the bill and are quite willing to do it.
As for the other four advisory groups, in my opinion they require subject matter experts, as opposed to policy formulators, and I think there should be no trouble finding ample qualified people. The trick will be getting them to agree to serve, since right now NASA is not generally viewed as the land of opportunity by either the general public or either political party.
Steve
Who Do You Want To Advise NASA?
Mr. C
A new Mission for NASA needs to be established.One that envisions exploration , discovery and research with goals that are achievable, inspiring to the nation.We need as administrator that is open-minded and goal oriented to take us beyond LEO and establish a real mission for the nation. Scientist,Engineers need to be advisors,consultants to “drive” NASA in the right direction.Whoever is in charge has their work cut out for them due to the petty antics of the previous administration. It’ll be damage control at its highest level.