Lori Garver at Space 2010

a Governement going through philosophical changes?

a government role to buy down risk?

open new markets, but then get out of the way?

Oh wait......
a young generation who is passionate, who wants to make a difference and contribute to the world???

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Is this lady for real??????

I think most of what Lori says is pretty accurate. I would add to her statement, though, that the younger generation would do well to learn some lessons from the older generations.

There is 1 historical inaccuracy in Ms Garver's address. The Pony Express rider did not hand over his mailpouch to a biplane pilot. Pony Express began in April 1860 and went out of business in Octobet 1861. The pony express rider handed over his mailpouch to a telegraph operator. This is a NIT but I enjoyed doing the research.

Is Ms. Garver suggesting that NASA is 'planning' 50 years out? Or is this simply a speculative glance at the next 50 years?

A good motherhood speech (no pun intended), by Lori. In order for these glorious things to happen NASA is going to have to go beyond the traditional passing of the contractor dollars to Bo-Lock-Nor (Boeing, Lockeed, and Northrup Grumman). It is often said that the reason that dollars are passed to them, without considering the crappy jobs that they have done in the past, is that these companies are known quantities. However, the truth is that while these are known, they are known to be non or under performing.

The business development types at these companies know this and so know that they only have to put a modicum of work into proposals and the work will come their way. We must break this dysfunctional system if we are to make progress. If NASA begins to enable smaller companies by giving them contracts at the worst they will get the same crappy performance of the majors but at best they can find the ones that can perform and who can bring the new technologies to bear at a reasonable price and with good performance.

I cannot tell you how many times my small company has set before either NASA or DoD and been told that though our ideas are good, that in order for them to come to fruition that we have to give them away to the majors. I have noticed that for at least the ones that we have given away, nothing ever happens.

Success breeds success and smaller companies are woefully undercapitalized, no matter how good our technologies are. I watch the contracts all the time and shake my head at the tens of millions of dollars given to the majors for risk reduction activities that seem to never pay off when the massive overruns come later in the programs.

Help us help NASA (and DoD) to change this and we will make the progress that is so hopeful in her speech.

"In the next 50 years we truly hope to witness the first boots on Mars, fulfilling the dreams of generations who have come before."

What it actually means is that they are adroitly pushing back prospects for manned missions to Mars and beyond for at least the next 50 years. Even a dull witted NASA leadership should be able to do it in 15 to 20 years. Instead, the way things are going, it will take 15 to 20 years just to recover from Lori Garver's stewardship of NASA.

PS: Notice how you don't hear much about the NASA Administrator anymore?

Yep, here we go again. Typical NASA bureaucrat speech. Typical rah rah rah go team go BS. In reality, Obama will not keep his promises and NASA will have programs that are not fully funded coupled with yearly Continuous Resolutions.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/20/innovation-grows-among-older-workers.html

As also with Bolden, I have a real problem believing anything that comes from the mouth of Garver. NASA is really being hurt with these two running the ship. I look forward to the day when NASA gets some competent upper management.

Excellent ideas Lori!!!

Let's motivate our young people!

Lay off the experienced shuttle workers who actually accomplished something! Who needs them anyway, the Shuttle is so 20th century!

Fund more paper studies! Nothing excites us more than reinventing the HLLV for the 20th time!

Very cool...SpaceX will launch something to LEO! And onwards to the ISS! Don't worry, we will wait (umm how long, exactly?) because we are passionate and want a future more exciting than the past!

Just one thing...when you need us we may not be around...sorry! (You can always outsource to the Russians though, good luck!!!)

While the big companies have performance issues, they are usually able to complete their contracts. And the issues are not always the big company's fault. NASA does favor certain companies over others, but it would be better to fix the problem than throw the baby out with the bathwater.

"If NASA begins to enable smaller companies by giving them contracts at the worst they will get the same crappy performance of the majors"

No, at worse we would spend a lot of money and have nothing to show for it. Then we'd have to find another company to start over costing not only money but time.

I'm not against giving small companies a chance to compete, but I am against the "big companies are bad" mentality. I'm also against canceling a plan before you have a replacement agreed to and in place.

Agree. I also spent 8+ years in engineering school.

Sorry ChuckM, Obama has kept his campaign promise to "redirect NASA" as well as his promise to turn the focus toward Earth and education.

I respect your opinion Mike, but I've heard the same speeches from past Presidents. Mr. Obama has no intention of making NASA the daring Agency it used to be. NASA will be stuck in LEO for decades. Now if NASA employees became UAW members, the USA could have it's first human spaceflight mission beyond LEO by the end of the decade.

You people that consistently bitch about Bolden, Garver and Obama piss me off. Has any one of you spent all your time following any of these three around, day after day, to observe what they've actually been doing and saying? Of course not, so you don't know what you're talking about; you're just making this stuff up!

You're attacking people who are fighting a steep uphill battle against two adversaries -- Congress and fools like you. For everything that they try to do to make NASA better (and presumably make us happier) there are forces waiting to overrule and ridicule them -- yet they keep on trying.

Obama did what he could, within the system, to instigate intelligent changes at NASA, and was overruled by Congress, and ridiculed by blog commenters who probably didn't make any real effort to try and understand what he was proposing.

Bolden and Garver are still working away at trying to improve NASA, despite their relatively powerless position, and despite attacks by the media and air-head bloggers. Against the odds, they are at least trying to do good, not just sitting in front of their computers and making off-hand, unsupported critical comments.

Would you be happier if Garver got up in front of an audience and said, "there's nothing Charlie and I, or any one else, can do to fix NASA when we're opposed by the Congress, so screw it, we're going home now; have a nice day."

It's easy to criticize, and it's often absolutely necessary to criticize. But snarky criticism doesn't contribute anything to the cause and is uncalled for; in fact, I consider it childish. Adding sarcasm to the mix just makes it worse.

If you have a criticism to present, by all means to so, but do it professionally, not childishly. Thank you.

Steve

Thanks Chuck but if you would read some of my other posts you will find that I pretty much think that every administration and Congress since 1968 has kept us on this sorry road. I did not like what Obama said during the campaign because it was clear to me that he was going to cut HSF in order to fund education and earth centered endeavors. For good or evil, Congress (his own party at that) is standing in his way.

Fast forward to today. Me? I now think that NASA should be defunded as well as many other agencies. With no leadership and until the government can live within its means, we have no business in space and Obama's plan still had tax money (that we don't have) funding a bureaucracy that can't or won't get anything done. LEO doesn't count in my book. At any rate, it all has to stop, our government is bankrupt. And yes, all the money that we've spent in the last 40 years has been down a rathole and we have the politicians to thank for that.

So the young generation wants a future as exciting, more exciting than the Twentieth Century. I hope so. That doesn't describe the young people I know. The last century was pretty exciting and I don't know if many of them could handle it. They are presently under the sway of the most risk averse, conformist parenting trends ever. This doesn't doom them. But I would expect a daring generation to mount a coherent resistance against tepid values.