Space Station and Shuttle: Money Pit or Space Investment?

William Atkins
Friday, 15 June 2007 21:10

Opinion and Analysis

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I did not agree with the beginning of the article, but at the end of the article, I didn't  really want to argue with it. The Space Station and the Space Shuttle do seem to be money pits when you look at the situation from this writer’s perspective.

However, are we throwing our money away or are we making a good investment in our future?

Don’t take me wrong. I like this person’s perspective with respect to NASA. Perspectives from all sides of any story are good. They make us think! Critics are good because they tell what some of us are thinking under our breathe but are afraid to say out loud.

Should we do something differently? Are we doing it wrong? Can we improve? Why are we doing it?

Look at the company you work for. Do you agree with everything they do? Do you complain about your boss? Do you go home and ask ‘Why do they continue to do this job that same crazy way’?”

The space station and space shuttle, if nothing else, are learning tools for our future in space. Things are not going to go right 100% of the time.

However, in my opinion, we are learning from those mistakes and becoming better at doing “space operations” for a future time when we have multi-year-long missions to Mars, permanent outposts on the Moon, and various other long-duration missions. We are also learning to improve life here on the Earth with communication satellites, weather satellites, orbiting telescopic observatories, and much more.

The problem I see is if we don’t learn from our mistakes. If we continue to make the same mistakes, then we aren’t improving and making things better. If we let the bureaucracy and red-tape overrule the engineering and science, then we allow a good system to become bogged down.

Any good system can become a bad system with carelessness, illogic, arrogance, dishonesty, and a flippant sense of duty.

Any bad system can become a good system with dedication, common sense, logic, honesty, and good management and engineering principles and practices.

Just because your bank makes a mistake doesn’t mean it should be closed. However, if it continues to make the same mistakes over and over again with your checking account, then it might be prudent to change banks.

NASA is no different from your bank. It is an organization of people doing a job. Is it doing a good job? Is it doing a bad job? These are the questions to be answered.

You can make that decision fairly easy with your bank. They make the same mistake repeatedly, you switch your money to another bank.

All of our companies, organizations, and groups are here to make life better for each and every individual. They are not here just to make the owner wealthy. The owner gets his/her wealth from the work and dedication of each and every employee.

Is NASA making decisions based on the politically-correct opinion of the day, or are they making short- and long-term decisions based on consistent and well-thought-out information. How is your own company making such decisions?

Is NASA running a Money Pit? Is NASA helping to invest in our futures? These are all questions that need to be answered using logic, common sense, and rationality. They should be decided for the right reasons, not because some bureaucrat wants thousands of space workers in his/her state.

Any national program needs a consistent and long-range goal. Any local business needs a consistent and long-range goal.

Unfortunately, in the United States and other countries (no doubt!), we often only see a few months down the road. If we would consistently strive to improve our health system, social security system, educational system, defense system, and other basic national systems for the long run we would be much better off.

Let’s look at all sides of the story, whether it be NASA or the bank down the street. One article does not define a story. Read, investigate, think, compare, discuss, and reason. Use logic and common sense. Use your brain to figure out what to keep and what to eliminate.

We don't have perfect systems. They all have flaws. The question to answer, in my opinion, is: Do the pluses outweight the minuses? And, just as important: Can we maximize the pluses and minimize the minuses?