NASA’s New Mission and the Cult of Management

During a recent interview on Al Jazeera television, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden outlined NASA’s new priorities. His remarks became headlines as the previously ignored story about the redirection of the space agency toward international diplomatic outreach and global climate change research finally reached the many who still hold NASA in high regard. Beyond the inane [...]

O Fortuna! Irony intentional?
During a recent interview on Al Jazeera television, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden outlined NASA’s new priorities. His remarks became headlines as the previously ignored story about the redirection of the space agency toward international diplomatic outreach and global climate change research finally reached the many who still hold NASA in high regard. Beyond the inane and vacuous policy comments, one statement by Administrator Bolden went virtually unnoticed: “We’re not going to go anywhere beyond low Earth orbit as a single entity,” he revealed, “The United States can’t do it.” If it’s possible to shock Americans into paying attention to NASA and our national space program, those words might do it.
It’s one thing to assert that the Unites States desires more international collaboration as a matter of policy for reasons of fostering alliances, developing new cultural ties, or even to ...