Well, I'm not holding my breath for privitazation of space exporation. Aside
from thrill rides to the moon and possibly "patenting" genomes of europan slime,
there's not a lot of hope for profit making ventures until launch costs come WAY
down. The purist in me would also hate having to purchase pictures of Pluto, or
missions decided purely on profit motives alone. I like the idea that
information about our universe is public domain. I'm not saying I'm an
anti-capitalist, but pure science is best researched without tainting it further
with profits (or political agendas).
I happen to think Goldin's statement is fairly honest; they could do better, but
they do well on what they set out for. For example, NASA does contract out the
building of space craft to private industry and coordinates with universities to
process and store the mission data. They ask private industry to propose
missions to meet their objectives. So in a sense, they are acting as mission
managers and delegating where possible. It's not immediately clear to me how
this can be improved upon. Any suggestions?
Sure NASA is not perfect, but maybe if our goal is to trim government waste, we
should compare NASA with other forms of government spending and its associated
return. My current favorites are the Kenneth Starr style of "investigation" and
the new missile defense initiative.
An alternative would be to compare NASA's effectiveness to other national space
programs: NASDA, ESA, and Russia.
I honestly have no idea of the facts, but my hunch is NASA is not a mismanaged
institution by a long shot, considering they rank very high up there on the list
of major accomplishments.
Cheers,
Tom
Bruce Moomaw wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gail & Roberta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Monday, June 18, 2001 10:04 AM
> Subject: Re: Mr. Modesty strikes again
>
> >
> >No, I won't "start up" because you're exactly right, Bruce. I've seen
> >several articles lately that recall the early days of the "space race" when
> >money (government money, that is) was no object and some are still in that
> >mode of thinking. That said, I wonder what we on the Europa discussion site
> >can do to change that kind of thinking. I believe I have expressed my
> >opinion that private industry is the only way to go from here, and that we
> >should encourage space tourism as one element--just one element, mind you,
> >not the whole enchilada. Maybe NASA
> >should be the coordinator of projects for space exploration instead of the
> >prime executor. They could at least encourage private experimenters instead
> >of considering them as unwanted competition. Or maybe competition is what
> is
> >needed. I don't have the answers; maybe together we could come up with some
> >practical, workable, and influential plans.
> >In the meantime,
> >Watch the skies!
>
> Okey-doke; this is exactly in mesh with my own line of thinking (except that
> I have very serious doubts about space tourism with present technology).
> Sorry about the earlier rather snide comment on my part; but I will repeat
> that uncritical enthusiasm about something as expensive as space exploration
> is precisely the sort of thing that has always gotten it in trouble. To
> make it work at all, we have to be critical as hell about the means in order
> to have any hope of achieving the ends. (The Bush Administration, I gather,
> is still beating the bushes trying to find ANYONE new who's willing to try
> to grapple with the mess that the civilian space program has become at this
> point.)
==
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