The shuttle was never flown the thousands of times it needed to have all the bugs worked out, NASA is an agency lost in middle-management hell, and you can't trust exploration to the politicians.
That being said, Armstrong has a point: none of what I've just said is new or is satisfactory as an excuse. The failure to manage these facts and manage our access to space -- perhaps by a privatization push a decade earlier -- is an embarrassment.
I've seen that " you cant trust X to polititians" waaay too often. What's left around that one can supposedly trust them with ?
Or even better, is there something we don't trust politicians with that is faring particularily better? the corporate world doesnt seem to show any kind of outstanding performance, and is in fact just as pervaded with politics, with the execs playing the politicians' roles.
Any organization big enough to pull off the kind of stunt needed to push our exploration even further is inevitably big enough to be paralyzed by political strife. Small startups are pretty much out of the game because no one found a way of making space exploration profitable.
I can see how the situation is broken, but how can it be fixed?
I tried to be brief, but your point is taken, if a bit over the top.
Of course you can trust politicians for stuff, just like you can trust your corner grocer not to put poison in your potatoes. The problem, whether the private sector or the government sector, is where there are mixed incentives and no feedback loop. So, for instance, it's a big deal to come out with some vast new NASA goal every time a president gets elected -- but these goals always take decades to make happen, which is long after the current guy is gone. Presidents get mileage out of making the speech and formulating the policy, not making it happen. Likewise, unless you are a congressman from a district with lots of space spending, it's very easy to make speeches with phrases like "why should we go to the moon when we can't even fix our problems down here?" without anybody digging any deeper. So politicians do that. They act rationally.
There are no voters in space. There are no orphans to appear on TV with, and there are no space aliens to defend ourselves against. There's just not a lot up there to emotionally move the electorate, sadly.
In these cases, where the incentives are mixed and there's no reward, you can't trust them because of the role they play in the system as it is currently implemented. And no, I don't mean "can't trust them" as in somehow they are purposefully deceiving anybody or crooked or any of that. Most of them are really smart, dedicated people who want the best for their country. I'm very proud of the politicians and the people who work at NASA. But by acting the most logical way possible, exploration can't prosper. There are no bad guys and no hatred of government here. Space exploration just doesn't work the way it was set up. Sure, as a last great dream of an assassinated president, with a completely new agency, we could hold it together for a decade or so, but those days are long gone. What has been needed for the last 20 years or more is a bit more brave and pointed honesty at NASA. That's maybe too much to ask, but I think guys like Armstrong deserve it.
I strongly disagree with the notion that NASA is lost in middle management hell. Do you know how many successful missions they have running right now, that are to the benefit of all? Dawn, Chanda, Hubble, Messenger, Cassini, GRAIL, 2 current mars missions, one halfway to pluto, another on its way to jupiter. Not to mention all of the valuable earth research. Manned missions are important for inspiring and our long term survival. But we can afford to take a break. The private sector in the US is doing really well. Nasa is getting ready to send people on a long term mission. Cut them some slack.
I don't want this to turn into a huge thread listing all current NASA missions, but I just want to put in a word for Kepler, which to me could be easily the most important NASA mission going on at the moment.
In 1994 we knew of zero planets outside the solar system. Ten years ago we had a handful. Now, thanks to the Kepler mission, we're on the verge of really understanding how common planetary systems are, how they form, the typical distribution of planet sizes and orbits, and how common Earth-like planets are likely to be throughout the universe. That's a big freaking deal.
Yep, there are a lot of strong opinions on this thread that identify NASA solely with human exploration. This is a mistake, and it's frustrating to see it made by so many bright people.
It's a historical fact that the human side of space exploration has always been subject to great political influence. Consequently, it goes through these unseemly convulsions from time to time.
The political involvement in engineering processes drives rationalists nuts. Even to the extreme of believing that the way to rationalize human space exploration is to put it in the private sector.
Putting people into space is very expensive compared to putting unmanned instruments into Low and Medium Earth Orbit.
Our nation isn't doing well financially right now, and I see NASA's priorities as logical. They're getting a lot more knowledge per dollar spent right now.
All bad things happen when you trust politics to politicians.
Seriously - everyone (and that's not a US problem) should pay much more attention to what the people who is paid to represent them are doing in their name.
That being said, Armstrong has a point: none of what I've just said is new or is satisfactory as an excuse. The failure to manage these facts and manage our access to space -- perhaps by a privatization push a decade earlier -- is an embarrassment.