Also, silly and extremely expensive stunts like attempting to plant flags on an asteroid have to be

Astronomer Neil Tyson , a friend dating from the Aldridge Commission , recently appeared on Comedy Central's Daily Show to promote his new book.  During the program, Neil suggested that NASA's budget should be doubled .  He made the point that the current total budget for the civil space program is less than one-half of one percent, so doubling the budget would still result in less than one percent spending on space.  Neil believes that a strong, vigorous space program inspires the next generation to take up scientific and technical studies, fields of endeavor vital to our nation's future.  Initially taken aback, Jon Stewart, international discount travel the show's host, ending the segment by proclaiming Tyson his preferred choice for President in 2012.
The very thought of a doubled space budget is one to start the salivary glands of most space cadets watering overtime.  Think of all the missions we could do!  No more either Space Launch System (SLS) or commercial launch – we do both!  No longer either James Webb telescope or Mars missions – we do both!  All issues resolved, all problems solved, all constituencies satisfied.  Right?
A couple of years ago, I wrote an essay stating that more money for NASA was not the answer to their problems.  That post was written when NASA still had a strategic direction – the now-discarded Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). international discount travel After this administration terminated the VSE, they endorsed another program called Flexible Path .  No destination was named (though a human mission to one of the Earth-Moon international discount travel L-points international discount travel or to a near-Earth asteroid was posited), rather the agency was asked to design generic systems that, in theory, could take us anywhere.  Flexible Path was the course advocated by the Augustine committee , who had been tapped to evaluate NASA's implementation of the VSE.  Their report claimed that it was not possible to implement the VSE (specifically, the development of the lander needed to return to the Moon) without a one-third increase in the agency budget, so a refocusing of the strategic international discount travel direction of the agency (one more "flexible" than the VSE) was necessary.
The conclusions of Augustine (specifically, the non-return to the Moon part) were embraced by the administration and early 2010 the plug was pulled on the VSE.  However, the commercial ( COTS ) part of the terminated VSE was retained, becoming the primary avenue and focus of NASA funding and development for future cargo and eventual human access to and from low Earth orbit.  The decision to terminate VSE became increasingly controversial as the agency also decided to move forward with the planned shutdown of Shuttle.  In light of the unknowns international discount travel of commercial launch success or its timetable, it became evident that the delay caused by these decisions would affect our space workforce and the viability of the U.S. space program.  Congress reacted by insisting that the agency develop a new heavy lift vehicle (to ensure human missions beyond low Earth orbit), a program international discount travel now underway known as the Space Launch System (SLS). international discount travel Until one (if any) of these systems come on line (projected to be in 5-10 years) we must purchase human LEO access from the Russians.
More money might alleviate some near term issues with certain missions (such as ExoMars , the now-canceled joint NASA-ESA mission to Mars), but as Neil Tyson suggests, would that give us a fundamentally different and better space program?  More funding would enable more activity, but to do what?  As we no longer have a reasonable, near-term strategic goal (and I do not count empty promises of human Mars missions 30 years in the future as such), more money might accelerate progress on some programs, but money alone will never establish a healthy international discount travel and vigorous space program.
What has held us back from creating a strong space program?  I contend that it is the lack of any strategic direction, by which I mean not simply a goal, but a believable goal, one that combines clear and pressing societal international discount travel value with attainable, decadal timescales, at costs at or less than their projected budget line.  Under the existing operational template, most proposed space goals satisfy one or two, but not all conditions.
In space, international discount travel as in most federal programs, throwing money at a problem may be necessary, but is seldom sufficient.  A doubled space budget would likely produce more studies, additional staff meetings, endless Powerpoint charts and countless and interminable management training retreats.  NASA's productive engineering segment will continue to shrink as bureaucratic overhead continues to swell.  A program without a direction, no matter how well funded, creates nothing but waste.
We must not retreat from our role as a viable space faring nation. international discount travel If we become complacent and lose our place in history, there is no assurance that the values and liberty we cherish here will follow humanity into the new frontier of space, or even remain strong here at home.  Money alone does not measure the health of a program or a nation.  NASA and the United States urgently need a believable, strategic international discount travel space goal.
Today the U.S. space program is moving rapidly toward oblivion. Can it be saved?  I myself go back and forth debating this critical question.  Today I think it is possible.  If reason is the ability to draw conclusions international discount travel from what is evident, faith is the ability to believe in things unseen or not proven.  I must have faith – it sure as hell can't be reason.
NASA is supposed to be prioritizing manned beyond international discount travel LEO missions but the current administration didn t even want NASA to build vehicles to get astronauts beyond LEO. Thankfully, Congress thought different! But, unfortunately, most of the manned spaceflight budget is still going to LEO programs (ISS and commercial crew). I m strongly in favor of commercial crew development but not as a workfare program to continue the ISS.
We have NASA scientist international discount travel pushing for still more funds for Mars surface exploration and even for exploring the surface of the Moons of Jupiter. international discount travel Yet we still haven t placed rovers at the lunar poles to examine the potential ice and carbon and nitrogenous materials there: resources that could have huge economic consequences within cis-lunar space.
And we still know very little about the composition of the regolith on the moons of Mars, two nearby worlds that could also have huge economic value and worlds that could serve as gateways and gas stations for manned missions to the Martian surface.
Extremely expensive international discount travel $3 billion a year programs like the ISS, IMO, have to finally come to a conclusion in the near future international discount travel so that NASA can move foreword. Its time for private industry to start launching small specialized microgravity laboratories international discount travel through private commercial launch companies with their own funds if they truly think such space labs have economic value.
Also, silly and extremely expensive stunts like attempting to plant flags on an asteroid have to be totally abandoned! The the cheapest and most efficient way to study numerous NEO asteroids is through unmanned missions, not manned missions.
The priority of NASA s manned space program should be to establish a permanently manned outpost at one, or both, of the lunar poles in order to begin exploiting the Moon s water ice for water, air, and fuel.
NASA s second manned spaceflight priority should be to help private companies to develop their own private manned spaceflight capability. Both public and private international discount travel spaceflight programs are mutually beneficial to each other and for the US economy in general.
After the ISS program is ended, NASA should purchase international discount travel cheap Bigelow Olympus space stations and use the SLS to deploy them at LEO and possibly also at L1. These would be simple way stations used to house and to protect astronauts destined for beyond LEO missions and to dock Earth to LEO space craft and LEO to L1 or LEO to lunar orbit space craft.
Once these manned and unmanned priorities have been achieved, the public will once again view NASA as a pioneering organization and as a positive symbol of American technological progress. And then NASA can focus its efforts on putting people permanently on the surface of Mars and using the SLS to land probes on the Jovian moons and beyond.
The Obama Administration removed the Shuttle Albatross off of NASA s neck, and encouraged NASA to strongly embrace the private sector, but failed to provide a clear vision which is causing international discount travel NASA to (once again) perish.
Obama is unlikely to change course if reelected, and on the GOP front Romney and Santorum are unlikely to fix the vision issue (as they have each have made fixing the economy or social values their priorities, respectively).
If NASA had a long history of proven program management with projects coming in on time and budget, then giving them more money might make sense. However, NASA s formative years had the unofficial motto of Waste Anything But Time. Long after Apollo, their legacy of massive cost overruns and delays is so pervasive that it s hard to find a single significant NASA project of the last 40 years that didn t bust the budget and/or project timeframe. Doubling their budget would be rewarding failure.
The experience of what happened when the National Institutes of Health s budget was doubled should show a cautionary tale. Without a change in structure and as you rightly suggest international discount travel direction, doubling NASA s budget will not fix the problem.
The Apollo years represented an historical anomaly: the confluence of a perceived international discount travel need to beat the Soviets, honor the wishes international discount travel of a dead president, a new government agency (NASA), the positive technological society of the 60s, and some other circumstances allowed NASA to do wonderful things.
Now, however, there is no shared vision in the nation of a compelling need for BEO human activities. In that vacuum of shared vision, temporary gains like a coalition around VSE are fragile and easily lost. Into that vacuum come the rent-seekers, congresspeople from districts wherein lots of governme