What policies NASA should be doing are a whole other kettle of fish, balancing political budget issues vs. goals extending over administrations. I do think the Aeronautics part of NASA has furthered general aviation better than space side has furthered General Space travel. I just think technically they should be focussed on “Spin-ups” rather than “Spin-offs” – those technologies we think we might need further on and have a lot of projects like those. Plasma Engines, actual X-Plane spacecraft, more missions like the technology demonstrating ion propulsion mission, etc.

You write, “…and (NASA) is not advancing my lifelong goals of getting human society and economy to become bigger than the Earth and Earth orbit.”

There are two things that seem to me to be key to these goals:

1) “Space elevators” can reduce costs to get into earth orbit by many orders of magnitude, and

2) I simply don’t see any way of maintaining appreciable human settlements (i.e., creating human economies) on the moon, Mars, and potentially even more exotic locales, such as Jupiter’s moons, without nuclear fusion. With nuclear fusion, it is possible to turn even very small amounts of water into absolutely massive amounts of energy.

I wonder what the total amount of annual NASA funding for these two technologies is? My guess is that even *combined,* it’s less than $1 million per year.

My understanding is that NASA briefly funding some focus fusion studies (for less than $1 million), but stopped a couple years ago:

http://focusfusion.org/log/index.php

MarkB (who read–repeatedly–”You Will Go to the Moon” as a second- and third-grader, but who now thinks that’s unlikely)

http://www.amazon.com/will-moon-Mae-Blacker-Freeman/dp/0394823400

NASA has never been mainly a scientific agency rather, an engineering and development oriented one. The small percentage of NASA budget allocated to space science has probably more oversight per dollar from Congress and outside science groups than any other part of NASA’s budget. Mr.Griffin is essentially saying that without consulting the outside and inside scientific oversight groups the administration is going to redirect this money. Of course it is going to cause an outcry. Whether the government wants to spend it is one thing, whether NASA is the right agency is another, it has been spending the money, it is part of NASA’s charter, and with all the criticism, the “better, faster, cheaper” policy has seen a widening of the types of missions flown, from the WMAP, to gravity probes. Bravo. Is essentially killing these types of programs to focus on what seem to be dead-end manned missions good? The oversight point is important because of the only bogus point made in the discussion – the Administration is manifestly ignoring its own scientific oversight and the NAS priorities. This is not just a re-arrangement, it is a fundamental refocusing of money, for non-scientific purposes.

NASA’s job has NEVER BEEN AND IS NOT NOW human colonization off planet or the extension of human society and economy off planet, as much as I would like it to be. Its charter as amended says “seek and encourage to the maximum extent possible the fullest commercial use of space” which is a very different thing. NASA’s charter also says this:

(d) The aeronautical and space activities of the United States shall be conducted so as to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:
(1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;
(4) The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes;
(5) The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere;

So while I can understand the policy being done by the administration and I actually like Mr. Griffin for saying it and taking the guff I think the purpose of NASA is being changed and the original goals of NASA are being ignored. That is the prerogative of the administration and congress, but I get to judge as a voter how they are doing against their expressed priorities.

Over the years NASA has probably on net set back the goal of human economy and presence in space by not supporting and even quashing private initiatives. It actions toward space technology are almost the opposite of how it acts toward Aeronautics, which I have always found odd. The fact that an Administrator supports the goal of (almost from the National Space Society Charter) of expanding the human economy off the Earth is a great thing, except I see no policy initiatives that are actually aimed at doing this. How exactly does the new manned space initiative contribute to this? So Mr Griffin has set up a false alternative. NASA isn’t reprioritizing the expansion of the human economy and presence off planet over science since they are not doing the first.

Perhaps the argument might be made that the engineering knowledge gained and institutional learning could be said to help the goals given, but since there is very little chance, in my opinion, that NASA will ever be the agency to implement the goal of seriously moving part of human society off the Earth, this knowledge would have to be disseminated. Although NASA is great at promoting spin offs and is astounding at distributing Aeronautical information, I don’t see the effort in the space engineering area, mostly because there are few places to give it. But if NASA is promoting getting off the planet why isn’t it, for example, funding approaches to launchers, with real build offs and alternative strategies? Working like NACA in the 50’s? The new Administration human space proposal does not materially advance the day when self supporting human societies live off the planet and could survive, say, the effects of a catastrophic impact on the earth.

In conclusion, in ignoring its internal and external scientific advisors, and implementing an expensive policy not materially advancing the administrators stated goals, Mr. Griffin is failing NASA’s charter, is disingenuously saying that his administrations oversight is so bad that actual scientists who have some involvement with the science must not be listened to since they would contaminate the process like contractors setting policy, and is not advancing my lifelong goals of getting human society and economy to become bigger than the Earth and Earth orbit.