You’re right that a lot of drive needs to come from NASA and NASA has to be an active participant. NASA has to come up with credible hooks that the Administration can decide to hang it’s hat on. But the ultimate rationale is the responsibility of our leaders. NASA can do concept studies that will say “Hey, we CAN do this that or the other. Ain’t that cool?” But it’s up to our leaders to tell us why it’s worth doing, and we should note well that it’s not worth doing because it’s cool.

VSE was special circumstance…following Columbia and CAIB report. The VSE still left a helluva lot of flexibility and room for what sort of programs to implement. The milestone deadlines in VSE were not really binding. Congress didnt quite endorse VSE as most people think. In the NASA authorization of 2005, Congress really only made it a goal to go to the Moon by 2020, and even then had caveats and other contravening messages about maintaining balance among science, aero and human space. VSE/Steidle vs VSE/Griffin just show how big a contrast is possible. The Bush Administration basically got tired of NASA’s doubletalking, misdirection, and caginess and left them to “make their own bed”. Cant say as I blame them.

Obama’s new plan for technology (after proposing killing Constellation) was probably the right thing to do (Constellation was unexecutable and investing in technology is desperately needed). But who was left to make the case for the new Obama plan? NASA was. Bolden specifically. And he repeadtedly failed to articulate a compelling rationale despite being given several chances to come back to Congress to clarify the story. In short, NASA failed to make the case, lt a vacuum as to what to do, and good ol Bill Nelson stepped up with a few other sidekicks from “Constellation states” and wrote SLS and Orion into law, complete with performance requirements. The House meanwhile was more concerned with making sure the outgoing/retiring Chairman of the Science Committee had a NASA bill on his resume of accomplishments, and with little time remaning on the calendar in his lastdays in Congress, decided to pick up the Senate bill and pass it without amendment. Even the subcommittee chair, Gabby Giffords, recognized that it was a bad bill. But turns out the majority wanted to give the chairman a going away present (they didnt really care about the substance).

Moral: Congress and WH do play an important and necessary role, but NASA needs be an active participant with a seat at the table.

VSE was special circumstance…following Columbia and CAIB report. The VSE still left a helluva lot of flexibility and room for what sort of programs to implement. The milestone deadlines in VSE were not really binding. Congress didnt quite endorse VSE as most people think. In the NASA authorization of 2005, Congress really only made it a goal to go to the Moon by 2020, and even then had caveats and other contravening messages about maintaining balance among science, aero and human space. VSE/Steidle vs VSE/Griffin just show how big a contrast is possible. The Bush Administration basically got tired of NASA’s doubletalking, misdirection, and caginess and left them to “make their own bed”. Cant say as I blame them.

Obama’s new plan for technology (after proposing killing Constellation) was probably the right thing to do (Constellation was unexecutable and investing in technology is desperately needed). But who was left to make the case for the new Obama plan? NASA was. Bolden specifically. And he repeadtedly failed to articulate a compelling rationale despite being given several chances to come back to Congress to clarify the story. In short, NASA failed to make the case, lt a vacuum as to what to do, and good ol Bill Nelson stepped up with a few other sidekicks from “Constellation states” and wrote SLS and Orion into law, complete with performance requirements. The House meanwhile was more concerned with making sure the outgoing/retiring Chairman of the Science Committee had a NASA bill on his resume of accomplishments, and with little time remaning on the calendar in his lastdays in Congress, decided to pick up the Senate bill and pass it without amendment. Even the subcommittee chair, Gabby Giffords, recognized that it was a bad bill. But turns out the majority wanted to give the chairman a going away present (they didnt really care about the substance).

Moral: Congress and WH do play an important and necessary role, but NASA needs be an active participant with a seat at the table.

The Administration needs to say, for example — OK, we need to expand the species. It is in our national interest to do that for this, that, and the other reason. That means making it possible for humanity to travel through the solar system. NASA, tell us how we can do that.

Or, they can say, for example — OK, we desperately need to develop resources on the Moon. We absolutely need that unobtainium there, or our nation will collapse. NASA, tell us how to do that.

That’s what was special about VSE. The Administration (and Congress) believed there was a mission to be served by expanding human space flight into the solar system, and they told NASA to figure out how to do it. NASA, of course, screwed the implementation up. VSE was exactly right. Constellation buggered it up.

No, NASA doesn’t have to be capable of articulating a compelling rationale. They have to be capable of articulating a compelling implementation. You need to get straight the difference between those two words. Many people don’t understand their difference. We’re just saying that because, so far, aside from VSE, the Administration and Congress haven’t been able to articulate a compelling rationale. NASA doesn’t know how to argue economics, politics, defense, and cultural drivers. NASA is engineers and scientists. THEY DON’T DO THAT. It would be nice if they could, but we can’t expect that of them. It’s just unfair.

But yes, I’ll agree wholeheartedly with SethG that NASA has been held hostage by the human spaceflight cult. Exploration, of course, has been rejiggered to mean human spaceflight. I think human spaceflight is exciting, but it’s not clear what it’s for, and I look to our leaders to tell me what it’s for.

Maybe a bit harsh, but NASA has been held hostage for too long by the human spaceflight cult. It’s just not that interesting or compelling. It’s a big yawn and a huge drain. We deserve a better space program than what’s being served up by the human space dominated community.

As Coastal Ron points out, Shuttle was a NASA idea.
So was station, and James Beggs had to fight the OMB to get Reagan to adopt it. And as Coastal says “you could say NASA decided Skylab” (Apollo Applications). Actually NASA developed a list of options and the rationale for deciding on an Apollo manned moon landing rather than on a manned circum-lunar flight, or a space station…Kennedy made the choice after being presented with the options, the costs and the rationale. He did not develop the options on his own. He had a lot of help. And Gilruth, Faget and others were working the design of Mercury as a way to get a human into space (called MISS-Man in Space Soonest) and they won the argument over the USAF X-20. So every US manned space program started with a NASA initiative.

“Preeminent as in only” – it is the NASA mission. It is why other organizations are not doing this. But as I said IF the NASA management fails to perform, there may soon be no NASA. So far I have not seen them propose a workable option. All I’ve heard is an AA say to break dance and get excited over the Asteroid Retrieval Mission. What’s the rationale?

“NASA is the preeminent civil space organization in the US.”

Preeminent as in ONLY you mean. They would be “preeminent” no matter how good or bad they were because there are no alternatives.

“In every case, including Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle, and ISS, NASA decided what needed to be done, what made sense, and how they could most effectively do the job…”

I disagree. NASA was assigned the task by the President of getting a man to the Moon and returning him safely, and that resulted in the Gemini and Apollo programs. You could say that NASA decided about Skylab, but that was more a matter of figuring out what could be done with leftover assets, not creating something new.

The NASA Administrator works for the President, and NASA can’t do anything without the President approving it.

I guess it could be argued that the Shuttle was a NASA idea, but it was also a political way to keep the Apollo workforce going, and it had non-NASA goals that were a goal of the nation. Heck, even the ISS was only able to be done because it supported national goals, not NASA goals.

Bottom line is that NASA does not control it’s own destiny, and it can’t go out and do lobbying for what it wants to do unless the President says they can.

NASA comes up with exciting possibilities that it thinks it can pull off. That’s important. But it’s up to elected officials above them to say *this is what is good for the country*, or *this is how those plans are consistent with our greater goals*. NASA doesn’t get to say that. They could suggest it, but no one is going to believe that they speak for the country. The ops mentality is justified for agency officials. That’s what they get paid to do.

von Braun is a great example. von Braun said, gee, we could go to the Moon. I know how to make it happen. He was dreaming; he was designing; he had a plan and he wanted to move out with his plans. But it was JFK who said that we would go to the Moon, and this was why. This was why going to the Moon made a difference to the nation. This was why it was worth it. The idea is decidedly NOT crap that NASA doesn’t make the decisions on whether what they are doing makes sense. They can decide whether it makes sense technologically, but no way can they decide if it makes sense politically, economically, socially, and culturally. In no way can they decide whether it improves our quality of life. Nope, I’m not going to entrust a bunch of engineers, scientists, and technology managers to make those judgements, and neither should you.

If you aren’t an elected official, you don’t get to decide what’s good for the nation. You don’t call the shots. No way.

So the Army ought to be able to start wars, eh? Hey, they know more about wars than anyone else. They know exactly what they could do to make us do well in one. So let’s fill up their tank, give ‘em the keys, and let them decide who to kill and blow up.

Let’s get specific. NASA wants to send people to Mars. Someday. Somehow. It has good ideas about how to make that happen. But WHY? What will actually be accomplished by that that is meaningful to the nation? NASA has never come up with any compelling answers to that. That’s not to say that it shouldn’t be important to send humans to Mars, but I want to hear someone with more purview than propulsion technology, life support, and exobiology expertise telling me that.

I disagree.
NASA is the preeminent civil space organization in the US. In every case, including Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle, and ISS, NASA decided what needed to be done, what made sense, and how they could most effectively do the job (actually in the case of ISS I don’t think effectiveness entered into it)and NASA laid out the plan, sold it to the people’s representatives and the President. People like von Braun, Gilruth, Faget, Beggs, did not sit on their duffs waiting for someone else to come up with an idea. They were dreaming; they were designing; they had a plan and they wanted to move out with their plans. NASA did not always get everything it wanted but NASA led the effort to define and sell the program.

You make the same mistake that I hear from many of the very top level NASA managers-and I think it comes from this ops mentality we have been in for a quarter century: “we just fly the missions-we don’t make the decisions on whether what we are doing makes sense” – we need to wait until someone (POTUS, Congress, OMB…) decides. I think that is wrong. This idea is crap. NASA knows that its budget has been approximately .5% for 40 years. If NASA offers up some really good rationale, the budget might hold steady or even go up incrementally-I don’t think it will double or triple as the last Administrator was counting on or as others now propose, but if the NASA management offers nothing, which is what they have been doing, then NASA could easily wind up getting no budget in the future. That is where NASA leadership has failed.