From: Phillip Huggan (cdnprodigy@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue May 02 2006 - 20:35:08 MDT
I agree there is some administrative mismanagement going on there right now. But it doesn't help when The Decider announces sweeping now funding priorities without actually directing any more money your way. In terms of modern inventions, alot of what we see around us was invented as a result of NASA. In the overall scheme of things,there aren't too many public dollars spent better. Maybe only education dollars return more value added capital. To make this SL3, if technology advancements precede exponential manufacturing industrial systems, there will be far less societal shock when an exponential manufacturing system arrives. Eventually, ubiquitous nanotech sensors will be developed to search for super-WMD. I don't really care too much whether it is an AGI, a MNT economy or plodding NASA that develops the super-WMD sensor network. Miniaturized sensors is exactly what NASA is about.
Dani Eder <danielravennest@yahoo.com> wrote:
> NASA is a political animal. It's currently
> operating as a designed
> loser. I don't know why, but this has seemed
> obvious for decades.
I agree it is a political animal, but one designed
to maintain jobs in certain congressional districts.
After Apollo, NASA's budget declined by 2/3 in
real dollars, and not one NASA center closed.
The Air Force Space Command manages a similar
budget to NASA's with about 1/4 the people.
When the mission control center in Houston was
upgraded from 1970's technology to control the
Shuttle to 1990's technology to control the
Shuttle + Space Station, the number of people
working there remained _exactly_ the same (604
before, 604 after). That doesn't happen by
chance.
The space station project itself was originally
set up as 3 prime contractors working under 3
NASA centers. It was a hellishly poor way to
organize a project, but it distributed the project
funds in more congessional districts that way.
Eventually Boeing became the sole prime contractor
by buying Rocketdyne and McDonnell-Douglas, but
there are still 3 NASA centers involved.
They feel they have to do things this way because
it's required to get funding, but it's a poor
way to spend the taxpayer's dollars.
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