You are not making sense.

The Chairman of the Science Committee said “Congress should allow agencies to decide how to organize themselves as long as the reorganization plan does not disadvantage any area of science, particularly Earth Science. O’Keefe and I met for more than an hour on Tuesday (June 22) to discuss NASA’s transformation plans and I am optimistic that we will be pleased when we review all the details”

I don’t think you can compare the NASA of today to even the one 5 yrs ago. Each Administrator brings a lot to the table; Richard Truly was very different than Goldin. Goldin was a great visionary but not very practical. I think O’Keefe has both of these qualities. The commission’s main point was that centers need to change for two reasons; better include private sector including X type prizes and international contribution to the overall long range goal and increase flexibility to meet the changing needs of the future. NASA has many restrictions by federal law; this makes NASA slow to react to changing needs. NASA must go to congress for any major changes which takes time and money. Another solution is to make NASA a department but than Congress would have less control over it’s budget. How about calling them the Department of National Aeronautics, Space and Astronautics.

We really have not touched on the expense of robotic mission operations personel in any of the discussions thus far.

In this article Analysis: End not in sight for Mars rovers ( http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040707-031016-2765r )it mentions only suficient funding though to September, or the end of the government’s fiscal year. JPL officials are in touch with NASA headquarters in Washington about providing additional funds in hopes of a mission extension, probably into 2005.

I think it is entirely possible that one or both vehicles will make it through the Martian winter. Opportunity has been using deep sleep for several weeks now to save energy. This mode leaves the rover completely unpowered during the frigid Martian night. The main risk of this is to the mini thermal emission spectrometer, which could be damaged by the cold if its heater is turned off. So far it has not been damaged as of yet on the Opportunity rover.

This does present a problem when funding projects of any kind for Nasa in general not just robotic missions but probes or satelites of any veriety. How long should the item be used for?

That is just one of the possible reasons for ditching Hubble into the ocean also is they have run out of funds with repair and upgrades? Not to mention the safety issue since it does not have a deorbit booster.

It’s probably a waste of time to simply do an Aldridge hearing alone. What they should do, and could do now that they have more time, is a hearing on NASA reorganization. This could include the NASA administrator discussing the transformation plan, Aldridge on his report, and maybe one or two other witnesses.

My opinion is that what is desperately needed is somebody to discuss FFRDCs, unless that recommendation is already politically dead on arrival. The Aldridge commission really punted on that one–they recommended that NASA adopt the FFRDC model but did not really explain what that model is or why they think it will work. As I understand it, there are many different ways to run an FFRDC. Sandia is not run the same way as JPL, or The Aerospace Corporation. And it is worth noting that Aldridge himself tried to turn Aerospace into a private contractor by merging it with SAIC and the Air Force vetoed this idea. So there are limits to how much you can run an FFRDC as a “commercial” entity. Somebody should discuss those limits.

There has to be an expert on FFRDCs somewhere in the government or academia. And by “expert” I don’t mean someone who was CEO of one, but who can discuss the big picture, as well as the policy issues. (For instance, I do not think it is currently legally possible to simply tell 1000 civil servants at a federal facility that they are all fired and will have to compete for their jobs with an industrial or university contractor. So how exactly can you convert a NASA field center to an FFRDC?)

I don’t know if it’s good from a public policy perspective, but I’m glad that they don’t seem to have a single witness who opposes prizes. It’s a well-stacked deck, to my mind. It indicates that the purpose of the hearing is to focus on not whether, but how.

Interview with Frederick D. Gregory, NASA’s deputy administrator, serves as the agency’s chief operating officer and reports directly to NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe. He is responsible for directing and managing many of the programs, as well as the day-to-day operations and activities at NASA. He was in Denver recently and spoke with Thom Beal, deputy editorial page editor.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_3019263,00.html

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-40644sy0jul08,0,6756913.story?coll=dp-news-local-final