NASA Lacks Direction, Needs Repairs, Panel on National Academy of Sciences Says

NASA, the United States' iconic space agency for the last several decades, is lacking government support and focus that are threatening its long-term goals, says a new report by an independent panel from a respected scientific institution.

In an 80-page report released Wednesday by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, the panel says that NASA is lacking a national consensus on strategic goals and objectives, as well as receiving limited budgetary from the White House and legislative restriction that are preventing BASA from managing both their infrastructure and personnel.

"A current stated interim goal of NASA's human spaceflight program is to visit an asteroid by 2025," said Albert Carnesale, chancellor emeritus and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the committee that wrote the report.

"However, we've seen limited evidence that this has been widely accepted as a compelling destination by NASA's own work force, by the nation as a whole, or by the international community," Carnesale continues. "The lack of national consensus on NASA's most publicly visible human spaceflight goal along with budget uncertainty has undermined the agency's ability to guide program planning and allocate funding."

As the Cambridge Chronicle notes via the Associated Press, one passage of the report describes the mission and vision statements of the space agency as "generic" that they "could apply to almost any government research and development agency, omitting even the words 'aeronautics' or 'space.'"

NASA, created in 1958, has been experiencing its share of problems lately. As the Press notes, its space shuttles were retired in 2011, the public focus on its International Space Station has decreased, and rocket-building is being outsourced to private companies.

Academy panel member Bob Crippen, a retired NASA manager and astronaut who piloted the first space shuttle mission, told the Press that he couldn't recall a time when NASA looked in as bad a shape as it does today.
"I think people (at NASA) want to be focused a little more and know where they are going," Crippen told The Associated Press.

Scientist Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society and one-time host of his own science-based show "Bill Nye: The Science Guy", believes that NASA should be focusing on two major mysteries -where humans came from, and if there is other intelligent life in the universe.

"Those two questions drive all of us as humans. Everyone has asked those questions. Since you were a little kid you've asked those questions," he told the Los Angeles Times.

However, NASA spokesman David Weaver defended the agency in a statement to the Associated Press. The space agency, he said, had clear and challenging goals, including continuing use of the International Space Station and the development of a heavy-duty rocket and crew capsule capable of taking astronauts into deep space.

To remedy the situation, the panel recommends that the White House take the lead after consulting with technical and potential international partners.

As for closing the gap between the size of NASA's budget and its current portfolio of missions, facilities and personnel, the panel calls for NASA, the Obama administration and Congress to pursue any or all of four options, including:

• Instituting an aggressive restructuring program to reduce infrastructure and personnel costs and improve efficiency;
• Engaging in and commit for the long term to more cost-sharing partnerships with other U.S. government agencies, private sector industries, and international partners;
• Increasing the size of the NASA budget;
• Reducing considerably the size and scope of elements of NASA's current program portfolio to better fit the current and anticipated budget profile.