These are wonkfests–they’re where a bunch of policy wonks get together to discuss wonk-like things. Everyone knows the score and one of the rules is that the speaker has to say one, moderately interesting thing during his speech, but never anything too interesting or fascinating.

Right now there is a lot of question about what is happening with the budget. See the front page of Wednesday’s Washington Post. In eight days something may have happened, or not (they all go on vacation next week, I think). So everyone will want to hear his perspective on what is going to happen with the budget.

You wrote: “Unfortunately futurists, economists, artists, philosophers, engineers, historians of technology, etc don’t pay the bills. They only elect the people that spend our money.”

Obviously. And these people can influence how the spenders spend money. In any event, I was selfishly talking about finding more interesting speakers. Politicians talk without saying anything, and my time is valuable.

The CAIB report was released in summer 2003.

The White House has been looking for a new revitalizing role for NASA for months, with Vice President Dick Cheney leading the interagency task force since summer[2003].

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/bush_mars_040108.html

Define “in parallel.”

I agree a vision must be adopted by the American People and Congress. The shuttle wasn’t a long term vision; the long term vision was it would be our space truck for all space cargo (ooops!). The shuttle is the reason we lost 90% of the commercial satellite launches.

I think a good vision is to build a space transportation infrastructure that can be used by both the government agencies (not just NASA) and the private sector. I think the systems in systems approach will give us the most diverse transportation capabilities for both human and cargo transportation.

We all want to go don’t we?

Actually, the CAIB report was issued in mid-August and the Bush Vision in mid-January. It seems doubtful that the administration was doing much to review civilian space policy before the CAIB report was released.

In addition, just because this Vision has been released does not automatically mean that Congress will, or should follow it. First, it is entirely possible for people to (gasp) disagree with the CAIB report. But more importantly, people can argue that this is not the right Vision for NASA to have. There are others.

Example shuttle cost per launch rising over time should have lead to a review of the cause and effect. A redirect would have been redisign efforts of the issues, New design operations for a new ship ect…

My economics professor at University said “Innovate or Die!”. That doesn’t just go for companies but countries too. No one has ever found a new water hole traveling down a well worn path. The world is dynamic and only those who endure change will survive.

That is from an engineer’s point of view (not with NASA).

Instead, perhaps STA should include futurists, economists, artists, philosphers, engineers, historians of technology, etc.