Tugger wrote:What boundaries, what specific goals are you wanting NASA to achieve? With a clearly defined goal no development will ever be completed, it will drift from one pork barrel project, to another crony company funding tool.
Tugg
That is what seems to be happening today.
It isn't for me to set goals. I don't have any interest in this game beyond being a spectator on a cold rock in the North Atlantic.
What I am, is a fan from the day I could read or watch a TV. I've seen NASA go from focus to drift, with no clear program that stretches them beyond their comfort zone. Apollo and Shuttle both did that. Visit the moon? Done. DC-9 size freighter to fly in space and land like a DC-9? Done. Now where is the progress towards Roddenberry's dream of a galaxy-spanning civilisation? Going faster and further all the time?
Yes you might point to SLS and Orion as going faster and further but it's not fast and furious enough. NASA needs projects where imagination is the driver; almost impossible projects that stretch science and technology as far as they can go and then a bit further. All the rest is just FedExing to orbit and it's dull.
And that is the danger. Dull isn't sexy. If it's not sexy, then politicians won't be sold on it.