House Representatives Working On NASA Reform Bill

MarkWhittington writes with good and bad news about NASA's future budgets. From the article: "Rep. John Culberson, along with Rep. Frank Wolf, are developing a bill that will attempt to rationalize NASA's budget process and provide some long term continuity in its administration. First, a NASA administrator would be named to a ten year term. The intent is to provide some continuity in the way the space agency is run and to remove it, as much as possible, from the vagaries of politics. Second, NASA funding would be placed on a multi-year rather than annual cycle. This is of particular importance to the space agency because the majority of its high level projects take several years to run their course. If funding were fixed for a number of years, the theory goes, money could be spent more efficiently. NASA planners would know how much they have to spend four or so years going forward and would not have to worry about being cut off at the knees by Congressional appropriators year after year." But is it more than political grandstanding in an election year? There might be a few problems: NASA could get stuck with a bad administrator, multi-year budgets might be a bit unconstitutional, etc.

Comments

NASA Reform

[smittyoneeach]

NASA Reform
Imagination reborn
Bureaucratic stubble
From features shorn
Burma Shave

Unconstitutional?

[radiumsoup]

If we can go 3 years with no Federal budget whatsoever and count it as "constitutional", I'm pretty sure we can finagle a multi-year budget or two.

Re:Unconstitutional?

[crazyjj]

No, there are good physical reasons why NASA facilities are located as close as we can get them within the U.S. to the equator. If I were to reform NASA, I wouldn't move the facilities--I would move them AWAY from Congress (who have so hopelessly politicized NASA that the agency has for 40 years been WAY more of a contractor funnel for Congressional pork than a research agency). Make them an independent agency with hardcore ethics laws to prevent either the President or Congress from influencing their duties, and maybe they could get some actual work done without worrying about which Congressman wants some graft this week.

Re:Unconstitutional?

[Bigby]

Look, let's not mince words here. We all know that it's the fault of Democrats & Republicans. The People are trying their best but their opposition refuses to compromise.

Expanded the variables for ya...

Re:Unconstitutional?

[Teancum]

The constitutional aspect is derived from how NASA started. Keep in mind that some significant parts of NASA came from the U.S. Army Field Artillery Branch, which was how Werner Von Braun ended up coming to NASA. There were also several U.S. Navy programs that were folded into NASA as well, but the Army is something significant to explicitly mention.

When the U.S. Constitution was written, there was a significant concern about a standing army running around North America with the potential to stage a coup d'état and thus overthrow any civilian government that had goals and aims which were different from the Army's goals. There are many historical examples which show this concern was well founded, and one of the steps taken to control the Army is to force annual accounting to Congress on their needs and to require annual reauthorization of expenditures.

The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, was acknowledged to be quite a bit different and even when the U.S. Constitution was written it was acknowledged that some ship building programs may take several years for completion. Even acts of the Washington Administration (yes, that George Washington) through the Naval Act of 1794 had a several year term placed upon its completion to build a fleet of six frigates that ultimately formed the core of the U.S. Navy that exists today. In fact, the U.S.S. Constitution (created in that act) is still a commissioned U.S. Navy warship even today.

I'll also point out that one of the reasons for creating the U.S. Air Force was explicitly to set up multi-year appropriations for that branch of military service that otherwise wouldn't be possible if they remained a part of the U.S. Army. It was an acknowledgement that the annual arrangements for the Army aren't sufficient for advanced airplanes that may need a multi-year contract for completion.

In this sense, what is being proposed is acknowledging it takes more than a year to build a reliable rocket, especially for things which will be taking people to other planets. The model that congress should be following for building things in space should be more along the lines of the U.S. Navy where ship will be traveling to distant locations and will be expensive to build. Certainly the notion that a rocket going into space is nothing more than a glorified artillery shell needs to be left behind. I certainly think the notion of a NASA administrator staging a coup upon the federal government with his agency backing up such a coup is laughable by any measure of the imagination.

Re:Unconstitutional?

[smittyoneeach]

there was a significant concern about a standing army running around North America with the potential to stage a coup d'état

Your attention is drawn to Six Frigates. Back in the day when the government served the people, (i.e. prior to our Progressive reversal) there was genuine disdain about standing forces because:

• they cost so flipping much,
• bureaucracy breeds bureaucracy, and
• the Team America: World Police concept just wasn't there.

NASA's so called Budget

[gatkinso]

Is a drop in the bucket.

The top 5 defense contractors all have larger revenues than NASA's entire budget. The US Army spent more on air conditioning tents and trailers in Iraq than NASA's entire annual budget.

Want to fix NASA's budget? Actually give them one.

Re:NASA's so called Budget

[smittyoneeach]

Hey, you know: shag all that. Let's make NASA into a national http://www.kickstarter.com/. Pour loot into NASA, instead of these godforsaken SuperPAC ads, and we'll be all over the solar system, lickety-split.

Re:NASA's so called Budget

[gatkinso]

Somehow the cost of the war(s) are not considered part of the military budget.

Interesting dodge, that.

Re:NASA's so called Budget

[BVis]

See my above comment. Why bring a bill to the floor that has zero chance of passing? The GOP does that all the time.

He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he brings the budget to the floor, and it fails, the GOP will get to scream about how their budget would cure cancer, fix global warming, and create a job for every unemployed person in America, but the mean nasty lbrls won't give it a chance. Come to think of it, they can do that if he doesn't bring that to the floor, too.

So all things being equal, maybe he doesn't want to waste the Senate's limited time in session. Or, maybe, the GOP could give them a bill that could be debated meaningfully on the Senate floor. That's how it is supposed to work. One house proposes and passes a bill, and if the other house won't pass it, then negotiations can start on the issues addressed in the plan. But, the current House's ability to compromise or negotiate can't be seen with the naked eye, so we have the situation we have.

Re:NASA's so called Budget

[dywolf]

I'd donate 20$ a month to NASA easily, without a second thought.
And that's probably 1000x bigger than their portion of my taxes too.

In fact, we should do that. Set up contribution funds seperate from taxes for certain programs that people would be able to contribute to at will. I'd contribute to NASA in a heartbeat. And give people a tax credit for doing so. You dont contribute, you pay taxes like normal, You do contribute, your final tax bill is reduced by say 5%, since your donation to a specific thing you feel strongly about will likely more than offset the credit.

Would have the effect of your contribution to the whole spectrum of programs via taxes is slightly smaller, but to that specific program (or two or three) is signicantly larger.

Plus would serve as semirealtime (well, not realtime, but you get what I mean) feedback to what people actually care about. No manipulated poll data, no sample size/location cherry picking...real data on the entire nation.

Re:NASA's so called Budget

[MyLongNickName]

I'd donate 20$ a month to NASA easily, without a second thought.
And that's probably 1000x bigger than their portion of my taxes too.

Wonderful, but your numbers are a bit off. NASA's 2011 budget was a bit North of $18.4 Billion per year, or roughly $5/mo per person. This also can be translated to $6.50 or so per month per adult or to $11 per month per working American.

Radical Idea

[roman_mir]

Stop the wars and spend 1% of what is spent on wars on NASA instead.

Re:Radical Idea

[roman_mir]

Maybe it's because I am tired of beating my wife?

In a bold counterproposal...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

NASA has proposed reorganizing themselves as the "United Earth Directorate" and absorbing all legacy governments.

Re:It also means...

[Aglassis]

No kidding. How many space platforms have been researched, started, and then killed (NERVA, Apollo Applications, Space Station Freedom, Constellation, Prometheus, etc.)? NASA could probably do more with less if they were allowed to plan things to a reasonable extent. And if all of that wasted money was used productively, we would have had an astronaut on Mars by now.

The abuse of NASA by Congress and the President is disgraceful. Every President wants to look like Kennedy and every successive Administration or Congress wants to shit of his legacy. NASA simply gets caught in the crossfire.

Either good or bad, depending

[overshoot]

I wouldn't count on much of anything more substantive than renaming post offices to get through Congress for the foreseeable future.

Re:Make NASA run like a business...

[dbIII]

If you do that they'll get out of space completely and do something else that turns a profit.
"Run X like a business" is simplistic bullshit unless the goal is to make money supplying something someone needs.

Re:Make NASA run like a business...

[MickyTheIdiot]

Oh great.

Sorry... when you think there is ONE system that works in all cases, you're the member of a cult.

Government agencies are not businesses. I have no problem with them getting other streams of income, but "the market" is not God. Not everything worth doing is going to make a profit, and when you start letting "the market" determine what is good for space exploration, you are at best going to have areas not explored and at worst dead astronauts.

Summary

[dywolf]

-First, a NASA administrator would be named to a ten year term. The intent is to provide some continuity in the way the space agency is run and to remove it, as
much as possible, from the vagaries of politics.
GOOD.

-Second, NASA funding would be placed on a multi-year rather than annual cycle. This is of particular importance to the space agency because the majority of its high level projects take several years to run their course. If funding were fixed for a number of years, the theory goes, money could be spent more efficiently. NASA planners would know how much they have to spend four or so years going forward and would not have to worry about being cut off at the knees by Congressional appropriators year after year."
EXTREMELY GOOD.

-But is it more than political grandstanding in an election year?
POSSIBLE. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't happen

-NASA could get stuck with a bad administrator
As a part of the executive branch, the president himself has oversight. Also, very unlikely; you dont get picked to run nasa if you're a bad manager

-multi-year budgets might be a bit unconstitutional
On what grounds?