The main problem with NASA is the incredible amount of administrative waste and abuse, coupled with an institutional mindset that is highly risk-adversive…not the right attitude when shooting your ass into space. NASA has been a relic of the Cold War and Jet Age for some time, and has needed to be trimmed and focused on the future of space travel. that means not building yet another space truck like the Space Shuttle.
There needs to be closer ties with commercial space exploration, and more support for the private sector to jump in on the space race. This means less regulation of the space industry by the FAA. This means a concentration on the real explorers of the next half century: robots.
It’s time to stop pussy-footing around in low orbit and shoot for Mars with robotic explorers that are capable of setting up the habitats necessary for an eventual manned mission.
Most of the complaints about cutting NASA’s budget come from people who still view space as a means to national pride. The benefits in glory do not outweigh the cost with government in charge. There is the argument about the Chinese and Russians holding the “high ground”, but most of the military space applications are handled by the US Air Force; I don’t see their budget getting chopped badly.
It’s time to start working toward a viable exploitation of space. That can only happen when the bureaucrats are out of the way and there’s a profit to be made.
The Black Campbell 
11 February, 2010 at 21:22
There are two words that will always distinguish governments and corporations. Nobility and sacrifice. In America, nobility is not inherited as much as it is achieved. What a flag can offer but a logo cannot is a sense of inspiration that reaches across all classes, all races, from all walks of life. It was not profit that put a man on the moon, it was the spirit of a noble quest to achieve the unimaginable. Like the Ares mission today, if the Apollo mission were motivated by profit it would never have left the ground.
I see many striking parallels between the founding of America and the space program. This country was founded by men who risked, and often lost, everything they owned to achieve the (sorry Obama, taking the word back) unprecedented goal of establishing a country in which they could be their own masters. Profit was definitely not a motive as what they saved in taxes they lost in funding a war. The space program is an expression of the same desire to again achieve what others have only dreamed of, because we can. No other reason is required.
When profit is the motive instead of a noble inspiration, resources are limited to what is available. This is where economics and scarcity and practicality comes in……..which is often the death of the paradigm shifting idea. When realizing the impossible is the goal, resources are as limitless as the human imagination. The beauty of capitalism is that wealth can be created, it is not a scarcity to be redistributed. Capitalism is a tool, no more or less, and though corporations can use this tool to maximize efficiency, they can never inspire the participants so that the necessary sacrifice of their creativity, resources, and ideas can be forged into a force that can turn the world upside down. This is why we must keep the space program under our flag so it can continue to inspire the best in us so we can remind ourselves that the combination of the human imagination and opportunity is an unstoppable force.
11 February, 2010 at 21:40
Or I could just make the economic argument that where government rightly intervenes is to sustain a project that is not profitable, but in the interest of the nation.
Corporations are just as bureaucratic as the U.S. government, and far more unstable. Not to mention that most corporations are not purely domestic owned, and there are very valid reasons why most of the science that goes into space exploration is classified…….and later transferred to commercial projects that DO make money. The cell phone, etc. A good link describing all of that is here http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html
We owe much of our conveniences that we enjoy to the space program that,compared to what a corporation would charge, didn’t make a dime off of it. No corporation on this earth would do that. It is far too simplistic, and gives far too much power to already sociopathic corporations (technically they are individuals that hold no responsibility to their communities or society, that makes them sociopathic), to put us even further at their behest.
The lie here is that corporations = efficiency and government = bloated waste. Not always. In this case, there are valid reasons for keeping space exploration under the government umbrella that have nothing to with nationalism. National defense and the license and transfer of technology inexpensively to the private sector are some of the best, profit-driven reasons to keep corporations out of the majority of this for now. What is needed is a shifting of priorities to match up resources and missions in a far more effective fashion……within the public sector.
That said, what corporations CAN do is lend their quality control and project management expertise to the government so the work is being performed in the most effective manner available. The government provides the resources (the equipment, brains, labs, facilities, etc), and let the corporations manage the projects so that you have a better chance of achieving the highest quality product.
Corporations do not always equal efficiency, and governments do not always equal waste. Because of the sensitive nature of the technology surrounding space exploration, I believe a mixture of the expertise of both is required.
So that’s the practical reason why I think simply outsourcing the space program to the private sector is too simplistic a solution. It has some elements correct, but it will not affect a viable resolution of the issues.