Struggling to Respond

There is no NASA. It has been replaced by a loose affiliation of programs offices pretending to be "high tech". When all the power belongs to the programs the big dogs feed first and leave only scraps for the rest. You want NASA back, then it's time to learn from history. It's time to do what works instead of repeating failure day after day, each time hoping for a different result.

The fact that NASA is 'struggling to figure out how to respond' to Mr. Stern's allegations is possibly an indication that these allegations do, in fact, reflect the true state of affairs. If this is the case, then President-Elect Obama's chosen replacement for Dr. Griffin will have to be an organiser and a troubleshooter in order to turn a sick, dysfunctional organisation into one that reflects America's technological development and national mission requirements for the next 4-8 years.

They are struggling to respond for reasons not unique to NASA. From an article titled, "The Other Meltdown":

Despite decades of acquisition reform from Washington's best minds in Congress, the Pentagon and the think tanks, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) tells us that cost overruns in weapon systems are higher today than any time since they have been measured. Not a single current major weapon has been delivered on time, on cost and as promised for performance. - Defense News (http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3800047&c=FEA&s=COM)

It's ironic how for at least 20 of the last 30 years we've been white hot to "reinvent aerospace" and now that it's completely reinvented (i.e. totally screwed up) there's absolutely nothing that can be done about it. Clearly if it wasn't this screwed up when you started, you can always go back to what you had. But no, oh dear no, that would be absolute and certain catastrophe. Seems to me like the real catastrophe is what we've got.