I really don’t see it that way. What other agency, if any would do it? Government agencies are very myopic and if it is space, then it is assumed that it is NASA (or DoD). I do look forward to the day when commercial entities can take up payloads inexpensively or free for university students. My point is that students who do these projects are much more likely to be useful to their employers afteward, whether that employer is NASA or Masten.

Dennis

I’m just suggesting that NASA isn’t the agency to be doing that kind of thing. Its kind of like expecting the Department of Transportation to buy and in some cases build all of the cars and trucks that the government uses. Just because DOT has the word “transportation” doesn’t mean they actually provide it. Just because NASA has the word ‘space’ in its title doesn’t mean they should be the ones providing rides for free to everyone.

I showed this to Pete and his response was, “It is much better that he made this $3000 mistake now and learned from it. This way he won’t make a $3 million dollar mistake when he comes to work for me.”

The small sat program, and especially stuff like the cubsats are incredible multidisciplinary learning tools for student engineers. A cubesat is small enough to where just a few students, working together, learn about thermal, structural, power, communications, and computer systems and how they interact with each other. It makes them better students and better engineers when they leave the university.

An almost universal lament about fresh out engineering grads at most universities is that they don’t really know anything practical when they graduate. These cubesat programs and other small sat efforts are hugely important in providing real world training for students and this makes them much more valuable to NASA, DoD, and the contractor world when they graduate.

I daresay that NASA would be much better off in the VSE right now if there was more practicality in the CEV, CLV, and Ares flight development program.

We graduated five masters degree level students and provided several hundred hours of undergraduate engineering credits for these student efforts at UAH and we LAUNCHED our bird because NASA paid for the secondary payload opportunity back in a more enlightened time.

Dennis

Mike –

Attitude’s such as yours have existed throughout American history. In my own native Ohio, for example, creation of a public school system was delayed for decades by kindred spirits who wondered why anyone else was needed to inspire and educate their children; worst of all, the dad ‘burn gov’mint. The most famous opponent, at his direction, was buried with a tombstone that read (still reads!): “Here lies an opponent of public schools”.

I personally consider it NASA”s job to do this much more than it is NASA’s job to keep ’10 healthy centers’ in place – without reforms, no less – exactly as they are, burning through a hell of a lot more money than they need to.

Are you running for the position of Head of Evolution Theology in this Administration, or something?

dave

Now, the question becomes Will we as a people and a Nation have the chutzpah to do something about it, or just go back to watching “Reality TV” shows?

Seeing student projects waste money does nothing for me. I think NASA will continue to recruit the top engineers so long as they spend their money on the projects that only NASA can carry out.

Those are just my two cents, and I am a student. I am not trying to defend Griffin. Honestly he sounds kind of rude.

NASA’s job should be to explore the other planets and beyond. Leave the inspiration/educational aspects to people like NADC, AIAA, etc. You want inspiration? Help get a space company to IPO and offer really good stock options. Nothing inspires a kid to go into a profession more than seeing someone in that profession driving a hot sports car.

What happened to us that we now look to a government program for our inspiration?

Sorry, just one of my personal pet peeves…

Even leaving aside the mission statement Ken mentions, it’s still Nasa’s job to inspire, and for a practical reason: if not enough young people are inspired to enter the field, Nasa won’t have enough people later to accomplish their mission. Why does the military have JROTC, Blue Angels, and parades (ect)? To inspire people in order to recruit them later. It’s no differant for NASA. Yeah, so what the administrator said is true, so what? Such a speech in front of such an audience calls for tact.

Besides, my teachers and parents sucked at inspiration, so somebody’s got to do it.

Griffin is exactly right in that these types of packages need to be placed in the arms of the smaller launch vehicle providers. The problem is that NASA can effectively give such things as a smallsat hitchhikes away for “free”, while a small, up and coming launch provider like Masten Space Systems really has no margin to be “giving away” free rides for university smallsats. Since NASA has effectively monopolized this role in the past it can’t really just walk away from the problem.

The solution is for Griffin, or someone more telegenic like Tom Hanks, to do a public service announcement wherein he lays out the fact that NASA’s new marching orders (as he’s implementing them) are restricting, if not eliminating NASA’s ability to provide the same level of support for university small sats.

He should then call upon the alumni of USA’s universities to mount a fundraising campaign to ensure that these important projects, which strengthen the US’s competitive capabilities, continue and are funded to fly on the many smaller launchers being created in this nation.

Invest in your alma mater, invest in your nation’s future (…your retirement may depend on it ;-).

At least that’s what I’d do if I were Administrator, but you couldn’t pay me enough to do that job.