National Space Society on “Reinventing NASA”
“NASA is a `how’ agency with a `why’ problem.” -- Lori Garver, National Space Society
On March 10, members of the National Space Society (NSS) met in Washington to discuss the problems of NASA, which in recent years has received a lot of negative attention from Congress and the press, and repeated budget reductions. Last fall the NSS, an organization of space enthusiasts, surveyed its members on a number of issues facing the space agency. Society members ranked four issues highest in affecting NASA’s success: 1.) letting the agency do its job (by eliminating congressional micromanagment, fluctuating budgets, and administrative waffling on priorities; 2.) reforming the procurement system; 3.) setting realistic goals; and 4.) reforming NASA’s organizational structure.
Panel discussions examined these four issues, with input from NSS members, Administration and NASA officials, industry and congressional representatives. The major consensus was that in order to be perceived as successful, NASA needs goals clearly defined by the President to work toward, public agreement on those goals, and congressional support for sustained funding.
NASA Senior Policy Advisor Alan Ladwig stated that “it is not NASA’s job to set goals” for itself. He also questioned whether, in such a tight budget environment, it was the time for NASA to “think of `Goals’ with a capital `G.’” Richard Dalbello, the Office of Science and Technology Policy’s Associate Director for Aeronautics and Space, pointed out that because of the priority given to deficit reduction, “everyone has to give a little.” John Logsdon, Director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute, gave NASA mixed reviews for the realism of its goals, but noted marked improvement under the administration of Daniel Goldin. He also declared that “the space community spends a lot of time denying reality rather than seeking it.”
Many panel members argued that NASA would perform better with multi-year budgets. House space subcommittee staffer Bill Smith, although agreeing that multi-year funding would lead to greater project stability, said, “it is difficult to expect Congress to fund multi-year budgets when NASA is unable to propose multi-year budgets.” He cited the Comet Rendezvous/Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) project as an example of attempted multi-year funding where the project overran its cost cap and was cancelled. He called NASA “a very popular, low-priority program:" while it enjoys high public approval, it ranks low in public surveys of funding priorities.
On the procurement issue, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Procurement, Dierdre Lee, explained that as a government agency, NASA has to abide by numerous socio-economic provisions complicating the procurement process and slowing reform. Regarding organizational reform, it was the opinion of Mark Albrecht of Science Applications International Corporation that organizational structure does not matter if NASA has clear direction and public support. John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists had concerns, though, that NASA was not organized to cope with a new geo-political mission for the space station.
