NASA moon capsule running late, full of problems

IMO, the problem is that NASA continues to believe it can and should be able to do these things without gaining public support. Continuing on this path will likely mean disappointment. Blaming "the political situation" is the wrong approach. Calling the way that funding is allocated "dysfunctional" is the wrong approach. Our "political system" funds many massive projects. In order for NASA to successfully drink from that trough it will need to engage the public(shocking idea!) and garner public support.

The first time 'round, the public was convinced that the fate of the Cold War depended on us beating the Russians to the Moon. Of course, from this distance, we can see that being first was just a glorified PR event(I almost typed "stunt." Whew!). But be that as it may, the PR angle worked like gang-busters.

Today, life is not much different at the big-project-funding level. NASA now needs to stop whinning, get a backbone, hire some serious PR talent and engage America with an emotionally fulfilling reason for doing what it wants to do!

Short of that, it should start to prepare for the worst.

I am a huge supporter of the cause. I think space travel/exploration should be at or near the top of humanity's collective agenda. But go outside and talk to the man/woman on the street...

NASA, it is time to engage the masses with a reason to support you.

(hint #1: it will need to be a non-geeky reason or you'll just be shooting yourself in the foot.)

NASA basically suffers from a civil service mentality. They have no notion of budget control and no sense of urgency to get things done on time. Congress is even worse. They constantly raise expectations for what NASA is supposed to be doing while cutting their budget.

Any Congress with the average IQ of stunned ducklings would have realised that this "shuffle the shuttle parts" gambit that NASA handed them when they were told to get back into space and stop screwing around with the shuttle wouldn't work.

Congress is really into not rocking civil service boats, though. I think that manned space exploration is going to go over to China and Russia simply because the US federal gov't is incapable of doing anything meaningful in just about any department, not just NASA. It's not a matter of Democrats or Republicans. The only difference between that lot is who they want to hand tax money. Ah, but what can you expect from a bunch of lawyers and wannabe lobbyists?

The problem with NASA is that it is a government agency.

Moon has to be made a major strategic position in war on terror...

I think some of you are missing the point. NASA was told that they were going to go back to the moon by a nitwit president. Congress, which doesn't like the nitwit president (for obvious reasons) informed NASA that they were going to have NO EXTRA MONEY to do this than what they have now.

NASA went "WTF", and talked to the companies that they contract stuff out to. They came up with a few proposals, some of which were really cool, but all of which required extra money. So, instead of going with something neat and functional, they are being FORCED to recycle old shuttle and Apollo tech instead of creating a new design.

I seriously doubt anyone at NASA thinks this is a good thing. I strongly suspect that whichever camp they are in, "Orion" or "Jupiter" (both recycle shuttle and Apollo tech), they don't think either one is the optimal solution.

But when you are given a tiny budget and asked to do inconceivably difficult things with that small amount of money, well, you have to make compromises.

Oh dear. Moving goal posts and cost overuns...again!

NASA is a very messed up organization. If you are a lawyer, or you know a layer who has sued NASA or similar government organizations contact me at
protn7@att.net We have a job for you.

Just what I've become to expect from NASA, now not only to we have a huge paper weight on mars which is incapable of telling us anything about life in the ice there because of the CONSISTANCY OF THE SOIL...now we can't even do something we did 40 odd years ago...

Can we PLEASE fire everyone and start over now?