Rethinking NASA
Review of the Space Leadership Preservation Act (Video and statements), SpaceRef Business
“On February 27, 2013, the House Subcommittee on Space held a hearing to review a bill proposed by six Republican members of the House that would take away governance of NASA from the President and give it to a board appointed by the President and members of Congress.”
Subcommittee Discusses Need for Stability of Vision for NASA Human Spaceflight
“Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas): “Today, a question exists about NASA’s vision, namely, whether there is one. But we must also recognize that even a vision, without a means to achieve it, can be fruitless and frustrating. NASA too often is hampered by short term decisions that have a long term negative impact. We must step back, look at the Agency as a whole, and work to put it on the long term path to achieve worthy and inspirational goals on behalf of our nation.”
Subcommittee Democrats Discuss Ways to Restore Stability and Direction to NASA
“Ranking Member Donna F. Edwards (D-MD) said of the proposals, “While today we consider legislation that seeks to stabilize NASA’s direction, the sad truth is, we in the Congress have and are continuing to contribute to the agency’s funding instability and a mismatch of resources with expectations. Year after year, NASA has had to redirect scarce resources and time to replan programs and projects, not because of instability at the top of the agency, but because of the uncertainties caused by flat or decreased funding for the agency, continuing resolutions, and, now the threat of sequestration.”
“Ranking Member Donna F. Edwards (D-MD) said of the proposals, “While today we consider legislation that seeks to stabilize NASA’s direction, the sad truth is, we in the Congress have and are continuing to contribute to the agency’s funding instability and a mismatch of resources with expectations. Year after year, NASA has had to redirect scarce resources and time to replan programs and projects, not because of instability at the top of the agency, but because of the uncertainties caused by flat or decreased funding for the agency, continuing resolutions, and, now the threat of sequestration.”“
Yes, yes, yes, and in addition, yes!
Of course, Ms. Edwards’ statement addresses only half of the problem. Right now, NASA direction under the President is not working the way it should, but the principle reason that it’s not is because of selected Congress people insisting on running the NASA show for their own purposes. Assigning NASA to yet another, newly created group would only make it easier for those Congress people to keep on doing this, thereby perpetuating the source of the problems.
Congress needs to act with respect to NASA in accordance with the Space Act legislation that Congress itself enacted when NASA was created. That system worked well for many years, with budget battles being the only points of contention between Congress, NASA and the White House, and their various adjuncts. It was only when people in Congress started micro-managing NASA, and deciding NASA policy and programs — getting their way by whatever means they could use to force the issues — that things started falling apart. There were certainly some less than perfect decisions made by NASA in earlier times, decisions regarding the Shuttle design and operations being an obvious case, but they were most often decisions that Congress either concurred with or actually enforced on NASA.
One thing, I think, is for certain; there are far too many people effectively in the chain of command now. Adding yet another layer with this proposed new “board appointed by the President and members of Congress” can only make the situation worse instead of better. At a minimum, every year, and with every “event,” we’ll end up waiting while this multilateral board tries to reach some sort of consensus. Bad idea.
Testimony
from A. Thomas Young–Its not the administration.
“De-policizing NASA” must be addressed.
NASA has been politicized to the extent that
the capabilities of NASA and the success of the civil space program are being
adversely impacted.
Having more program than budgets is wasteful,
leads to program cancellations and encourages taking excessive risk. Leadership has failed to establish a credible
human exploration strategy.
A strategy that is not funded is not
a strategy.
There are a small number of profound
questions for which the civil space program in on the cusp of greatly
increasing knowledge. These include:
Are we alone?
What is dark energy and dark matter?
What is the future of our climate?
If the Act could be implemented and
all involved participants agreed to abide by its principles, it could have significant
positive impact.
I worry that approval
will be difficult and implementation is subject to too many unintended
consequences.
Hey Steve, when I first glanced at the caption above, I thought it read:
“Space Leadership Prevention Act”
ah yes Republican Lamar Smith. The chairman of the House Committe on Science, Space and Technology questioning NASA’s lack of vision only a few weeks after questioning the reality of meteors.
http://www.newyorker.com/on…
If we have representative government who does Lamar Smith represent?
While it is not far from the truth, please be aware that the New Yorker article on Smith was _intended_ as satire.
Lamar Smith (R-Texas):
…forced because of actions by Congress