Radical shake-up of NASA proposed

[PfcHammer]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2631711

Radical shake-up of NASA proposed
JSC would become university research facility under plan
By MARK CARREAU
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's fledgling space plan will require NASA's most radical overhaul since Apollo-era innovations if it wants to send explorers to the moon and Mars, a White House advisory panel said Wednesday.

The major bureaucratic shift would include transforming Johnson Space Center and other NASA facilities outside Washington into university-supervised research hubs to inspire technology.

Recommendations in the 60-page report from the President's Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond also target concerns about the venture's cost. In short, it outlines attempts to limit space agency budget increases to inflation while sustaining political and public support for decades.

Not since their creation in 1958 to wage a successful Cold War-era space race with the former Soviet Union have NASA and the nation's aerospace policy-making apparatus faced such a radical shake-up.

[johncoby2]

1. What a *ucking idiot

As someone who works for the Space Agancy, that is all I can say.

This is one real; stupid idea. Whoever thought of this should have to work at NASA for a month to understand just what we do.

It is clear, the moon/mars mission was nothing more than a way to kill NASA.

[Massacure]

2. I think killing NASA is going too far. I think PR stunt is a better term.

[bobthedrummer]

3. I understand the history and culture of NASA fairly well. Nazis and cults

On the US side we find the "black" magician Jack Parsons (JPL founder)
combined with the Nazi Peenemunde war criminal crew of Operation PAPERCLIP origins.

The first spacecraft to leave the solar system just happened to have a Nazi speaking for our planet in the event of ETI.

It's pretty basic to understand those facts about the historical culture of our US space program-but I'm prejudiced against Nazis and their "influence" here in America.

[PepSky]

5. Uh huh

NASA should learn within its abilities. So they shouldn't have gone to mars and earths moon first eh? Where should they have gone instead? Alpha centuri?

Where I work we produce DVD recording drives. When we first came out with consumer 1X drives people complained about not having faster drives. What they didn't seem to get was that we had to go from 1X to 2X to 4X to 8X rather than simply start at an 8X speed at the consumer level.

I see nothing wrong with NASA exploring within its current ability. Perhaps if they got more funding they could do a little more.

[struggle4progress]

4. Mars plan mired in ho-hum

<snip>
President Bush tried in January to remedy this malaise by rekindling the spirit of the spacefaring 1960s. He urged a mission to Mars via a new moon base. But he blew it. Unlike John Kennedy in his breathtaking 1961 vow to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade, Bush put forth a vague 20-plus-year plan and no money to pay for it. Small wonder the public yawned.

Wednesday, a presidential commission charged with invigorating Bush's vision did little to wake the somnambulant. It recycled some old proposals for privatizing part of NASA and mixed in some potentially useful ideas for making the agency more efficient.

But inspiration? There was none. Nor money. Nor any reason to think the idea has any chance of lasting "through 10 administrations," as the commission's chairman said it must.
<snip>

For now, unmanned programs are filling the void nicely....
<snip>

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&ncid=742&e=2&u=/usatoday/20040617/cm_usatoday/marsplanmiredinhohum

As indicated, unmanned missions are inspiring and effective.

They're a much better use of scarce dollars than a pointless manned mission to Mars.