NASA’s problem with farmers, the committee, and Tinkerbells

On Monday, Mark Albrecht, the executive secretary of the National Space Council over two decades ago, gave a speech at a Space Policy and History Forum forum in Washington. Much of his talk covered familiar ground he’s previously discussed, such as in a speech last November, including his experience on the Space Council during the George H.W. Bush Administration that he recounted in last year’s memoir Falling Back to Earth. That included his current assessment of NASA, in which he suggested the space agency should be “razed and raised”, and, more specifically, criticism of the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket, which he said was “too expensive, too slow, and too old.”
Albrecht did offer some new (at least compared to his November talk) thoughts about the state of the space agency. “I think at least three large constituencies have taken hold and own a significant part of NASA and the civil space program,” he said, “and they’re going to have to be dealt with. As time goes on, as the years go on, they get bigger and stronger and more entrenched.”
The first of those constituencies is what Albrecht calls “farmers.” These are people “who own a piece of ...