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NASA Task Force Recommends Radical Changes
darrellsilver writes: "As reported at the nytimes (free reg, etc) here and msnbc here, an independant task force initiated in July by the now resigning Dan Goldin concluded this week that "radical changes" need to be put into place if the space station is to continue functioning. The full report in PDF format is available from NASA here." We've reported on this before but we didn't have a link to the report itself. Budgetary woes have already taken their toll on the station and this report is recommending even more cuts.
I couldn't agree more. I view NASA's budget overruns not as mere incompetency, but as willful theft. They're stealing from the future, both directly by "pre-spending" and indirectly by sending the message that space is a money pit.
The solution? Give NASA 5 years worth of funding and all their current assets ($10,000 hammers and all), and wish them good luck as a private company.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's sickening to me that we spend as much on NASA as we do. Around the world, people starve and die of diseases that would be cured by a quick trip to an American doctor. Yet we continue to pour billions of dollars into fruitless, pointless, space exploration, dollars that could be used for very real good here on Earth.
NASA long ago finished serving its purpose as a national cheerleading institution. We haven't done anything of significance in space since the moon landings, and we won't in the near future, either. The only way to "save" NASA is to let it die a much-needed death. Commercial interests will eventually take over and put money into doing meaningful space exploration: exploration with a goal beyond "because it's there".