NASA

The natives are getting restless

NASA is used to being criticized in editorials from major national newspapers (New York Times, Washington Post) or papers in areas where the agency has a major presence (Florida Today, Houston Chronicle). When smaller newspapers in areas with no significant NASA presence start taking aim at the agency, though, that’s a sign that things are not well.

Today’s Worcester (Mass.) Telegram uses the recent release of the pilot survey as a springboard for questioning the usefulness of NASA in general, calling the study “another doleful example of the right-stuff agency’s devolution into a hidebound bureaucracy.” While much of the editorial is about the study itself, the editorial closes by raising questions about the effectiveness of NASA itself. “Why is NASA dabbling in air safety studies rather than focusing on expanding the boundaries of human knowledge? Does the agency that put mankind on the moon have the right stuff to plan and execute the next phase of manned space exploration?”

Meanwhile, the Fort Dodge (Iowa) Messenger criticizes NASA’s decision to delay the 2011 Mars Scout mission selection with little in the way of explanation of the conflict of interest that triggered the delay. “A conflict that costs taxpayers $40 million and delays a Mars probe by two years needs to be explained in detail,” the editorial argues. “Frankly, we don’t think NASA officials should be the people to judge whether the conflict could have been avoided. It’s our money, after all.”

20 comments to The natives are getting restless

  • Mark Daymont

    Somebody should take the Telegram to task for their ignorance. Part of NASA’s mandate is to improve air travel safety and quality through their research.

  • D. Messier

    That’s a excellent question about the Mars Scout mission. NASA lack of an explanation is unacceptable. At least someone in Iowa is willing to demand answers. As opposed to say just attacking Lou Friedman and then ignoring the matter.

  • Mark Daymont – while I agree with you that this does fall under the purview of what Nasa’s job is, I do think its time for a larger discussion about what should and shouldn’t be in Nasa. Agencies exists for the purpose of organization and efficiency. Does it really make sense to put air travel studies in the same agency as missions to pluto? Does it really make sense to put the study of global warming in the same agency that has been charged with space colonization?

    I have a lot of love for the history of NASA, but me thinks, with the advent of commerical spaceflight, it is due time to have a real discussion about what the future of Nasa will be, or whether it has a future (at least in its current form – I do think there is a role for governmental spaceflight, but we need to re-think Nasa)

  • Mark Daymont

    Ferris – Maybe it is time to re-think NASA’s role. However, as technology advances in the next few years, with the advent of sub-orbital planes for world travel, perhaps the technology is bringing aerotechnology right back to space and NASA again.

  • reader

    ::same agency that has been charged with space colonization?

    Thats never been in NASA’s charter, and never can be. About the only way you can make government colonize a new place is like british did with Australia. Im not sure that would work too well in solar system.

  • Al Fansome

    FERRIS: ::same agency that has been charged with space colonization?

    READER: Thats never been in NASA’s charter, and never can be. About the only way you can make government colonize a new place is like british did with Australia. Im not sure that would work too well in solar system.

    Dear Reader,

    You are incorrect. NASA’s charter can easily be changed by law.

    Ferris is probably referring to the “Space Settlement Act” which became law in in 1988 and explicitly required NASA to submit a report to Congress every two years on the work it was doing that would lead to the permanent settlement of space.

    As far as I know, NASA never completed even one of these bi-annual reports, as required by Congress. Whether or not this is “in NASA’s charter” is pretty irrelevant … but it is a fact that NASA ignores this law.

    For more information:
    http://www.arc-space.org/Space%20New%207-03.htm

    – Al

  • reader

    ::You are incorrect.

    I consider myself corrected, thank you. However, what good is a law that practically everybody ignores, few know about and is never enforced ?

  • David Kovalchik

    “As far as I know, NASA never completed even one of these bi-annual reports, as required by Congress. Whether or not this is “in NASA’s charter” is pretty irrelevant … but it is a fact that NASA ignores this law.”

    I’ve seen this complaint repeatedly and the people who make it don’t understand how Washington works. If Congress really wanted these bi-annual reports, then NASA would produce them, or Congress would take away money from NASA until the report got done. The way this happens is that somebody at NASA calls up the staff director of the relevant committees on the Hill and asks “Do you really want these reports?” When they are told no, they don’t do them. After the first or second time they don’t even bother to call.

    And NASA is not unique in this. Congress calls for a lot of reports by government agencies, particularly by DoD, but only a minority ever get produced. Congress and the agencies work out which ones they _really_ want and which ones are fluff.

  • Al Fansome

    David,

    I was not arguing that anybody should waste their time “complaining” that NASA does not follow the law in regards to the “Space Settlement Act”.

    I agree that if even one influential Member of Congress wanted this law to be adhered to — that NASA would complete the report. And if the space advocacy community was truly serious about the “Space Settlement Act”, they could almost certainly persuade a Member of Congress to act on their behalf.

    I think reports are not worth the paper they are written on — so passing a law to right a report, without any other context of the strategy was not well thought out.

    What was I doing? I was just correcting the record on the subject of space settlement & NASA’s mandate.

    In a similar manner, “commercial space” has been in NASA’s charter from the very beginning — but it is only in recent years that NASA has started taking concrete action to do something to support commercial space. This is not because NASA (the agency) cares about commercial space. Instead, commercial space advocates (and advocacy organizations) have chosen to aggressively lobby and market on commercial space issues for many years. They have been successful at making arguments — and have been influencing both policy and law over the last 2 decades. Important Members of Congress (on both sides of the aisle) will ask questions of senior NASa leaders on commercial space issues.

    The Result? We get things like “commercial launch service acquisition programs” (following the Launch Service Purchase Act of 1990), and “prize” programs (following the XPrize), and “COTS programs” and “ISS crew/cargo service” programs, and now (most recently) a commercial parabolic flight service contract.

    – Al

  • David Kovalchik

    “A conflict that costs taxpayers $40 million and delays a Mars probe by two years needs to be explained in detail,” the editorial argues.

    I suspect that NASA has concluded that its hands are tied. Their lawyers (and probably OMB’s lawyers) have told them that if they discuss the details of what happened it will open up the selection decision to challenge (i.e. the loser will file a protest). It used to be rare for companies that lose a contract competition to protest, but it has become much more common, particularly at DoD. There are two recent examples that immediately come to mind. In one case the USAF selected a new combat search and rescue helicopter based upon the CH-47 Chinook. One of the losing companies has protested and as a result the program is delayed and the USAF does not have the helicopter it says it needs. The other example is the helicopter that will be used to transport the President. Sikorsky lost that competition and filed a protest.

    I do not know what happened for the Scout selection, but my suspicion is that after the first part of the review was complete, one of the reviewers joined one of the competing teams. It is possible that when this person did this, they did not tell the team that they were a reviewer, so the team itself could be blameless. However, this action would taint the whole process–if that team won, the other team would protest, and if that team lost even after they had eliminated this person, they could also protest. NASA probably determined that the risk of a protest would cause more delay and more cost, and they did not want to have that happen.

    I think that the agency is blameless in this case; somebody who was not an agency employee did something wrong and the agency now has to face the consequences. It’s not pretty, but it happened. And I think that their hands are tied.

  • David Kovalchik

    “I was not arguing that anybody should waste their time “complaining” that NASA does not follow the law in regards to the “Space Settlement Act””

    I did not mean to imply that you were. But clearly other people keep complaining about this. The fact that a 1988 law was not followed once is a pretty strong indication that Congress doesn’t care, and in fact has forgotten about it entirely.

    “I think reports are not worth the paper they are written on — so passing a law to right a report, without any other context of the strategy was not well thought out.”

    It depends upon the report. NASA is retiring the shuttle in 2010 because of a report. It is servicing the Hubble because of a report.

    “In a similar manner, “commercial space” has been in NASA’s charter from the very beginning — but it is only in recent years that NASA has started taking concrete action to do something to support commercial space. This is not because NASA (the agency) cares about commercial space. Instead, commercial space advocates (and advocacy organizations) have chosen to aggressively lobby and market on commercial space issues for many years.”

    I think that there is another issue, which is that the definition of commercial space has changed as the environment evolved. NASA could claim that they were supporting “commercial space” in the past because they had a different conception of it. So in their definition, SpaceHab was commercial space.

  • Al Fansome

    KOVALCHIK: It depends upon the report. NASA is retiring the shuttle in 2010 because of a report. It is servicing the Hubble because of a report.

    You help me make my point. I think you would agree that there was a LOT more going on than just those reports, in both cases.

    The White House decided that it needed to retire the Shuttle. The CAIB report recommending as much was a convenience — something for the WH to point to.

    In the case of HST servicing mission, I would suggest that O’Keefe’s retirement (and Mikulski’s tenaciousnous) and the passionate cries of lots of people had more to do than the existence of a report.

    – Al

  • Alfredo Smythe

    Perhaps something good may come from NASA’s awful handling of the aviation safety survey data: the firing of Lisa Porter. Sadly, however, the damage she has done to NASA’s aviation safety program may be too severe to overcome.

  • “Perhaps something good may come from NASA’s awful handling of the aviation safety survey data: the firing of Lisa Porter. Sadly, however, the damage she has done to NASA’s aviation safety program may be too severe to overcome.”

    It’s a bit off-topic for this forum, but I’d be interested in hearing a more specific assessment of Porter’s tenure. Aside from the aeronautics cuts that were passed on to her by Griffin to pay for Ares I/Orion, I have not followed Porter’s redirection/restructuring of aeronautics closely. Please share any specific observations that you have.

  • Porter Assessment

    I have had some minor interaction with Porter.

    Lisa Porter’s bias is towards funding basic research at TRL 1-3 level. She prefers sending money to the universities, and she is generally against any partnership deals (even no exchange of funds deals) between the aeronautics centers and private industry. She has become pretty well known at the centers she has control of, or influence over, as an enemy of deals with industry.

    Basically, her views are out of sync with NASA’s official policy, which is to develop innovative partnerships with industry.

    Whether or not her decisions on basic aeronautics research are producing any results is an open question, which probably will not become known for some time. I do expect that university researchers will say they love her — as she is sending most of the ARMD money their way.

    – Anon

  • D. Messier

    There’s always a risk in government developing too close ties with industry. You end up doing industry’s bidding instead of being concerned about taxpayer’s interests. NASA denied the FOIA request on the basis that releasing data would hurt confidence in the aviation industry. Then NASA puts out the info on New Year’s Eve with Griffin’s adamant claims they weren’t trying to dump the information and that there’s nothing to for the public to be concerned about anyway. It’s all utter crap. And the saddest part: Griffin doesn’t seem to even care enough to come up with a convincing lie. That’s how much he doesn’t care.

    As an aside, I guess it’s one of the things that concerns me about the whole contractor business in Iraq. In an effort to save money, you end up creating private mercenary armies with enormous arsenals whose loyalties are to whomever pays them money (shades of late Western Roman Empire with its mercenary barbarian armies). The U.S. government becomes so reliant upon them that government officials seem more interested in protecting them than holding them accountable.

    Ike warned us about this in his farewell address. It’s a warning I don’t think we’re heeding. A little known fact is that he was specifically referring to Edward Teller (father of the H bomb) and Wernher von Braun. This is in Michael Neufeld’s new book, BTW.

  • Al Fansome

    MESSIER: There’s always a risk in government developing too close ties with industry.

    Doug,

    The problems you mention are DOD related, not NASA related. NASA’s biggest bureaucratic problem is that it has become a self-licking ice cream cone. (Meaning that NASA develops technology, not to support & build entire new industries (or other outside “customers”), but to support its own internal interests and priorities.)

    The predecessor to NASA, the N.A.C.A., produced its greatest accomplishments via partnerships with industry, by working hand-in-hand with private industry to (broadly) support its growth and development.

    Is the N.A.C.A. approach a bad thing?

    It sounds like Lisa Porter prefers an NSF approach over an NACA approach. The NSF approach is not bad, but neither is the NACA approach.

    FWIW,

    – Al

  • D. Messier

    I didn’t say I was opposed to government-industry partnerships per se, just that when taken too far the public interest can suffer. The current government has tilted too far toward industry in general. You can see that in the aviation study release, which just demonstrates contempt for the public. In the administration’s attempt to control government scientists about global warming (with a college journalism student and oil industry lobbyist as point men). There are many examples of that over the last seven years.

  • Al Fansome

    MESSIER: The current government has tilted too far toward industry in general. You can see that in the aviation study release, which just demonstrates contempt for the public.

    Doug,

    I am not going to argue with you about the influence of BIG ESTABLISHED BUSINESSES that have huge lobbying budgets. Big aerospace is part of the problem in creating change in civil space policy and our national space agenda. Big Aerospace’s influence has nothing to do with which party is in charge either.

    I also note that Lisa Porter — who demonstrably does not care much for industry — leads the part of NASA that demonstrated contempt for the public in the how it released the aviation study.

    Bureaucracies show contempt for the public — all the time — without giving a darn about industry.

    – Al

  • D Messier: I fully agree with most of your comments, above.

    — Donald

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