I’m a Discovery Nerd. Any given night the discovery channel helps me drift off to sleep. One of the things I’ve been thinking in the back of my head for a long time is that NASA is just to timid and politics have really ended the space race. O.K. it hasn’t been a space race for a long time – but damm it’s just killing this frontier that we can tackle. Our astronauts aren’t pencil pushing pansies that need 19 layers of redundancy. These men and women if given the chance would take some risks – because that’s what they do. Before they were astronauts they were pilots in the navy, airforce, etc… I can’t help but think that they resent the hand holding just a tad.
What would happen if they were given the chance to do some real exploring – some real adventure. The Apollo mission was a total disaster and if you have ever watched any of the documentaries on it, they succeeded because they used a pencil to “fix” the ship.
What would happen if NASA accepted that Space Flight was risky? That won’t happen because of some Politically Correct idjuts who think that the exploration of space should never result in the Loss of Life.
When the Challenger Shuttle exploded so many of us watched it happen live in school or elsewhere. We cried, and deep down we mourned these HERO’S who were so brave that they knew the risks and took them anyway. How many of you would still have gone up on the next shuttle? I know damm well I would have.
The human spirit needs to experience risks, we want to explore – to understand. What we don’t need is to be told that it’s too risky, we can’t do it, etc…
So is there any good news for Nasa?
The man who brought you the first mission to Pluto (set to arrive in 2015) has a new role at NASA: head of the Science Mission Directorate. Since Alan Stern took the helm in April he has been busy setting up shop and laying out a bold direction for science at NASA. Now in an update released through the Planetary Newsletter Stern shares his vision, goals and progress so far.
In the plan, Stern includes more money for astrobiology, more science spaceflight missions, and a push for a Mars sample return mission. But the item that most caught by eye was his plan to increase suborbital flight opportunities “to help train PIs, to provide opportunities to raise TRL (technology readiness levels) on instruments, and to do unique science where possible.”
I’m 100 percent positive that Stern’s new bold plans aren’t bold enough. The culture at Nasa doesn’t encourage innovation, risk, etc… It’s what’s going to eventually kill the space program. The good news is that capitalism will save our race into space. The reality of a Hotel on the moon, or in orbit is getting closer every day. Soon after that it will be trips into deep space…. Nasa won’t be playing a huge part in any of this…. and eventually every aspect of space flight will be commercialized.
It’s probably a good thing – Nasa has just gotten to politically correct.
So, what does this have to do with you? If you worry about every little thing, if you don’t dare to be innovative and take risks to improve your future – you will probably end up a dinosaur yourself.
If NASA is too boring for you, it’s for two reasons:
The first is that Congress decides what they do – approving thier budget line item by line item.
Until the Bush’s new “Vision for Space Exploration”, Congress would automatically kill any proposal NASA submitted to even *hinted* at being *related* to manned flight to the moon or Mars. So, they learned not to submit such ideas.
The riskier the plan, the less likely it is to get funding.
It also means that – just as the Shuttle’s primary mission was to keep the standing army of Apollo technicians employed – the primary mission of Ares is to keep the standing army of Shuttle technicians employed. Cut jobs, and Congress kills the plan. Which is why the budget is being blown designing and building the Ares launchers in the first place, rather than useing existing Atlas and Delta launchers.
The second reason that NASA is boring is… they’re professionals.
Buy a police scanner and listen to a police take-down of an armed drug dealer. (I’ve done this.) Yeah, tension builds as they approach the moment of the take-down. But the take-down itself is always anti-climactic. The police are prepared, trained, they’ve planned ahead, and they have enough manpower, so there’s no Hollywood-style shoot-out o explosions.
Professionals are boring. They’re dedicated to making sure that nothing exciting happens. It’s NASA’s curse.
Our greatest discoveries have involved huge risks. I agree that our greatest profits generally come from taking calculated, creative and innovative risks. I am in it to profit and move forward with my business and I am taking risks daily, that is how I learn, fine tune and make it better.
A great post ED!