The Laughing Wolf

A Time For Everything

The report of the Columbia investigation board is coming out, and it will not be pretty. There will be failures noted, problems discovered, and solutions recommended. Many of these recommendations will be sweeping and profound, but the fact is that they may not go far enough.

Like many space enthusiasts in this country, I was raised on a double standard. On the one hand, we had the works of the man who literally sold the moon, Robert Heinlein, with his free-enterprise business-oriented model that paralleled the development of aviation. Results came quickly, innovation was the rule, and while accidents happened, they were not the end of the world. On the other, we had the square-jawed can-do of the government run NASA. Progress was both rapid, when looked at objectively, and slow in terms of true innovation and all the other wonderful things that competition brings.

That I was biased towards NASA was a given, in that a cousin who I much admired worked for them. In fact, he had been recruited out of college by von Braun and worked as a part of his team. He slipped me things along the way, from NASA books and photos, to information that helped with a school project or two. I felt that there was nothing that the team could not do, that NASA would not find a way around.

Yet NASA does not live in isolation. While there is indeed a bureaucratic and moribund culture at NASA, it exists because of the neglect and misuse of the agency by Congress, the White House, and us: the public. It is our agency, and we have largely ignored it. Congress regularly uses the NASA budget for pork, for a political football, and much needed publicity. The White House has in many years ignored it, or used it for its own purposes, such as the Clinton administration’s using the agency to send money to the Russians that could not be sent any other way. Both the executive and legislative branches have also used any problem or failure of any size as an excuse to castigate, pontificate, and otherwise gain media time decrying the current inexcusable failure. The public has hardly been better, often being incited by politicians, the media, or special interest groups to call for torches, tar, and feathers over the most ridiculous of things.

This use and abuse by all sides has contributed to a cautious, timid, and don’t-rock-the-boat culture in the agency. In an agency that is supposed to push the boundaries, develop new technologies, take us to the stars. This is a process where failure is often more important that success, for it is from failures of things that we learn what doesn’t work or doesn’t work as planned. It means doing and saying things that might upset some people, for controversy over ideas is nothing new. Yet, because of the culture that is Washington, it is an agency that is scared to try almost anything new and innovative, from getting out news about science to simply getting into space.

The fact is, however, that NASA truly has gone from a fairly lean can-do agency into a bureaucracy where career maintenance and growing the budget is far more important than doing the job. Personal and program power are driving factors, as is the push to grow Centers and Center budgets no matter what it may do to the official goals of the agency or other parts of same. It is an agency that is very protective of what it regards as its turf, from launch services to science.

The best and the brightest are still drawn to NASA, and I have been privileged to work with a number of people who fall in this category. I have seen them struggle to do the right thing, to make the system work despite itself. And, I have seen the face of the enemy, those who are wedded to a system, the book, or their own personal agendas rather than to the dream and the stated goals of the agency.

The former are, in my opinion, the minority at NASA. NASA has become a moribund culture where any advancement takes not just years, but decades. Technology development is slowed to a crawl, and now almost always features the same people, the same companies, and the same basic ideas. Tremendous amounts of paper are generated, but little else. If you don’t think this is true, take a look at NASA’s efforts to develop a new launch system, and advance the technology to get us into orbit. Look at how many names the program has had, how much paper has been generated, and how little metal has actually been cut. Look very hard at how when failure was hit on some of the technology advances, work stopped and paper took over.

At the same time, NASA has not exactly been a friend to commercial space enterprises. This is particularly true for efforts to develop alternative manned space access. NASA has a great deal invested in being the only way to get people into space, from hardware and infrastructure to an internal culture that claims that only career NASA civil servants can be called astronauts. All those others who fly, or meet the international guidelines for being called such, can not be called such in any NASA publication.

NASA has for years tried to block the development of manned commercial access. Just take a look at the regulatory environment for such and NASA’s role in it. NASA has bitterly resisted any suggestion that any other launch service be used, unless it was completely under their control. There are many other examples, for those who care to go do the homework and look them up.

It’s official support of commercial activities has been limited. Despite various actions by Congress and its own charter, the agency has not been supportive of commercial research and development. Just go take a look at the history of the Space Product Development Program, which has managed to do some very important and good things with industry, for a good example. Take a good look at the so-called commercialization efforts of Dan Tam, or the idea that Headquarters had that companies would pay for large portions of the ISS without being able to display logos or use their sponsorship in advertising. Those ideas were patently ridiculous, obvious to anyone who had any real-world experience, and beloved by top NASA management who should have known better.

The fact is, the current administration has known that NASA has severe problems for some time. The rumor and speculation was that the current Administrator, Sean O’Keefe, was being sent in with a mission. That he was going to give NASA a specific period of time in which to voluntarily fix a number of problems. If that was not done, and I think most observers will agree that it has not taken place, then he was to take more draconian action. Columbia happened just before many suspected that the draconian was to take place. No agency is going to undertake major reorganization and reform under such circumstances, especially when there might be an outside vehicle that could be “blamed” for such changes.

Over the last several years, I have talked with people inside and outside of NASA. These are people who have looked at the programs, the “culture” of NASA and Washington, and where America needs to go, which is into space in a big way. The economic and technical benefits of doing so are more than obvious, they are very well documented in many outside studies. When one looks at the advancements that came out of the early days of NASA, the impact is positively staggering. The modern computer revolution can be easily traced back to Mercury and the earliest programs. There are many more examples that are left as exercises for the student.

We need that driver again. We need to seed the technologies that will drive not just our future, but those of our children. We need the resources of space, from vacuum to raw materials, from energy to the security that can be obtained there. Not just secure locations for critical research or intelligence, but the security that comes from not having all of humanities eggs in one basket.

The problem with truly trying to change a culture from within are the various civil service acts. Even in the face of gross incompetence or just plain laziness, it is effectively impossible to fire a civil servant. Add in unions for lower-ranking workers, and it gets even more interesting. While a directive to reorganize can come down from above, every effort will be made to find people a job elsewhere, meaning that the actual number of people does not significantly change. This is a reason that NASA years ago cut its own throat via brain drain by “encouraging” early retirements and did engage in some reductions in force. The fact is, however, that many of those people came right back as contractor employees.

NASA, and various administrations, have tried the usual tactics for change. These have not been effective. What is needed is something far more profound.

I have come to the conclusion that NASA needs to be abolished. It is the only way to make the substantive changes needed. In talking with others about this, I think that many of the services done by NASA can be given to more appropriate agencies, while a completely new organization can be started to take on the true core functions of NASA.

Space tracking, data and relay, and other functions currently performed by Goddard can easily be integrated into Space Command. Essential launch operations should go to the Air Force. Commercial promotion and development should go to the Department of Commerce, and be directed to make the fullest possible use of commercial launch and development services. All non-essential launch services should be contracted out to truly private launch operations as soon as possible.

Core functions of essential research into aviation and space development can be given to a new, small, agency. This agency will do some research on its own, but should fund as much of that research as possible to be done by private companies. There is some need for government funded, directed, and performed research, but the fact is that much of what is being done could be better done by private industry. Government needs, at best, to nudge and encourage, not to do and control.

As a part of this, cultures other than NASA need to change. Recent testimony to Congress by Elon Musk, Dennis Tito, and others have pointed out the travesty that is the current regulatory environment for commercial space activities. This matter must be addressed and a clear and business friendly environment created. We need to encourage these people, not hamstring them. This means not only removing the roadblocks created by NASA, but by reforming some other agencies as well so that a clear and sensible policy can be created.

None of this will be an easy process. Every special interest group around will clamor and wail, and want their pound of flesh. It will be a way to determine who is a politician and who is a statesman, for the former will want to give away pounds of flesh while the latter will instead look at and try to do what is right. Doing it right in Washington is never easy.

If, as rumor has long indicated, the position of the current administration to do this very thing, then I say let it be done. Let it be done right, and let it be done now. In all the ways that matter, our economic and technological futures depend on it.