Top Down Won't Work for VSE

NSS Chief: Can NASA and Bush Get It Done?, WIred

WN: Does space exploration depend on an injection of energy from citizens and entrepreneurs? I'd guess more Americans have heard of Burt Rutan than have heard of Bush's New Visions for Space Exploration.

George Whitesides: (laughs) I think you are right. Absolutely the future of space is participatory. One of the things that NASA needs to break out of is rigid control over product. It really needs to throw opens its processes, its produces and the results of its exploration to the broad population, and not just the elite of science. Make it feel like it not just "the space program," which is over there, but an effort that we are all part of. I don't actually think New Visions will work if NASA pursues a rigid, top-down approach to development.