NASA Needs Ideas

When I clicked on the link, 'here', I immediately received a "this site is untrusted" message."

Full message text follows. Note: I very, very seldom get these types of messages.

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The site's security certificate is not trusted!You attempted to reach prod.nais.nasa.gov, but the server presented a certificate issued by an entity that is not trusted by your computer's operating system. This may mean that the server has generated its own security credentials, which Chrome cannot rely on for identity information, or an attacker may be trying to intercept your communications.You should not proceed, especially if you have never seen this warning before for this site.

Worked just fine for me:

What NASA needs is a bold vision for America's future role in space and the funding from Congress to achieve it.

However, that would be a significant paradigm shift from the helmsmanship of the last 40 years, and at this rate we are unlikely to see that for another 40 years.

If I owned a private company that was interested in doing research in space, I wouldn't be talking to NASA. I'd be talking to some of the start-up space ventures for a way to get my research done in LEO.

NASA has painted itself into a corner with the ISS. They don't own the thing; it's shared with other countries. Nor do they have any way of getting astronauts to it, and back. And NASA has become as exciting as an accountants' convention.

NASA filled me with pride when I was a kid - even into early adulthood. Now it's an embarrassment.

Nor do they have any way of getting astronauts to it, and back.

Sure they do, they just ask Russia.

They have suggested a large trampoline.

But let's not rule out private enterprise.

My biggest gripe by far with the ISS is that it siphons a great deal of funds that would have been far better spent on unmanned space probes whilst returning comparatively little ROI, science-wise. No telling how many worthy projects have been cancelled for lack of funding when in fact those funds went to the ISS instead, and for what?

My personal opinion (with which I am sure others will disagree) is that the ISS is more a NASA PR job than anything else, and a costly one at that. Yeah, they're doing science, but they would have gotten FAR more science-bang-for-the-buck if they had spent that money on unmanned space probes instead.

Compare the cost of our part in the ISS program to, say, that of the Voyager program, and the ROI of each. The Voyagers win hands-down, easy. Launched in the late 70s, they are STILL operational and returning invaluable data. One has left the Solar System completely and the other is damn close. The ISS meanwhile? NASA has to borrow somebody else's rocket to get back and forth, and this from an outfit that once landed men on the Moon!

And what have we now? NASA coming, like a beggar, hat-in-hand, soliciting ideas on what they can do to justify throwing more money down the ISS hole. That is what this latest sounds like to me. No thanks, NASA. You've thrown far too many pearls at this swine already.

As a kid and through young adulthood I thought NASA hung the Moon and Stars. That illusion suffered a long and agonising death and finally kicked the bucket entirely the day I read the Challenger Investigation report - especially Richard Feynman's minority report, relegated to an appendix in the back.

Today? Today NASA still can't find their arse with both hands and searchlights, and that's a fact

AH nailed it on the head: what NASA needs is a VISION.

Period.

What NASA needs, is to be run/administered/funded by scientists instead of politicians.

Visions are the work of marketeers. We need realistic goals.

I helped build stuff that NASA launched into space, when it meant something. It was done with slide rules and T-squares, mechanical pencils and Vellum. The saying among some of the draftsmen I worked with was, "never draw more in the morning than you can erase in the afternoon". Need a copy, the copy room is upstairs and smells like ammonia.

Why do we need to put people into space at all, aside from the publicity? Unmanned missions are cheaper to fly and the weight saved can be turned into another piece of productive gear.

Maybe we should worry a little more about the terrestrial problems and a little less about the astronomical problems we have.