The challenging thing here is that NASA does have deep, systemic problems and is in need of some overhaul. SLS is a breathtakingly expensive boondoggle, lunar gateway has no reason to exist, Orion is underpowered and overweight, Mars Sample Return’s entire mission is in question, JWST was a decade behind schedule and an order of magnitude over budget, and the list goes on. Extreme risk-aversion and congressional meddling have resulted in a bureaucratic quagmire of an organization. It’s hard to find nasa projects that are going well.
Of course I don’t think a gorilla with a sledgehammer as we’re sadly going to see from Trump will make things any better, we need a surgeon with a scalpel.
Most of the things you listed are directly related to Congressionally mandated specifics for funding those programs. The money is only there if NASA does it the way Congress dictates, not necessarily the way it should be done.
The entire SLS program is essentially a Congressional jobs and legacy aerospace grifting program post-Shuttle.
If Congress would. Keep their hands off, and just allocate budget, most of the issues would likely disappear since the people that actually know what’s going on could make the decisions instead of a Congress critter that is an imbecile.
It’s the whole reason SLS is the train wreck it is. Congress wouldn’t let them not keep shoveling money to the same people who made Space Shuttle parts. So instead of the best design possible, we got the best design using old parts.
The way I’ve heard it described is a lot of the NASA funding is intentionally spread out across many states, funding many jobs in those states, to get the support of many representatives to vote for the funding. This also means that trying to optimize costs would get a lot of push back, since it will cause jobs to be lost in many states. And these are states which voted for Trump: Alabama, Texas, Florida, etc.
There are huge systemic problems which the “establishment” will demonstratably not address and Trump appears to be the answer to many voters… but him effectively addressing them is a wild fantasy.
We are about a decade plus into the current political theme of “throw the baby out with the bathwater”. It’s scary. These people have no plan. It’s the levellers and the diggers all over again.
The challenging thing here is that NASA does have deep, systemic problems and is in need of some overhaul. SLS is a breathtakingly expensive boondoggle, lunar gateway has no reason to exist, Orion is underpowered and overweight, Mars Sample Return’s entire mission is in question, JWST was a decade behind schedule and an order of magnitude over budget, and the list goes on. Extreme risk-aversion and congressional meddling have resulted in a bureaucratic quagmire of an organization. It’s hard to find nasa projects that are going well.
Of course I don’t think a gorilla with a sledgehammer as we’re sadly going to see from Trump will make things any better, we need a surgeon with a scalpel.
Most of the things you listed are directly related to Congressionally mandated specifics for funding those programs. The money is only there if NASA does it the way Congress dictates, not necessarily the way it should be done.
The entire SLS program is essentially a Congressional jobs and legacy aerospace grifting program post-Shuttle.
If Congress would. Keep their hands off, and just allocate budget, most of the issues would likely disappear since the people that actually know what’s going on could make the decisions instead of a Congress critter that is an imbecile.
It’s the whole reason SLS is the train wreck it is. Congress wouldn’t let them not keep shoveling money to the same people who made Space Shuttle parts. So instead of the best design possible, we got the best design using old parts.
The way I’ve heard it described is a lot of the NASA funding is intentionally spread out across many states, funding many jobs in those states, to get the support of many representatives to vote for the funding. This also means that trying to optimize costs would get a lot of push back, since it will cause jobs to be lost in many states. And these are states which voted for Trump: Alabama, Texas, Florida, etc.
You’re absolutely right, though the extreme risk aversion is harder to blame on congress.
You kill a half dozen people in a space ship explosion that could have been avoided and you will reasonably get a cautious culture.
This is such a common theme.
There are huge systemic problems which the “establishment” will demonstratably not address and Trump appears to be the answer to many voters… but him effectively addressing them is a wild fantasy.
We are about a decade plus into the current political theme of “throw the baby out with the bathwater”. It’s scary. These people have no plan. It’s the levellers and the diggers all over again.
You’re absolutely right, which is why I don’t want the left get tricked into defending a status quo that doesn’t deserve it.
They did not get tricked, they chose to defend the status quo.
That being said much of the messaging about change did not get through because, well, they campaigned conventionally… keeping the status quo.