Comment Re:How Does SpaceX Do it? (Score 0) 78
they're handicapped by a management structure that's too fat and doesn't have an aggressive vision for the future. NASA depends too much on contractors that can't produce anything on budget and there's no penalty for not performing.
NASA is not supposed to have vision - they're a branch of the Executive Department and carry out the policies of the Executive as funded by Congress. Ditto for contractors, NASA has always relied on contractors.
If we're going to explore space then we have to face the fact that it's unlikely we're going to get there with NASA as it exists today.
NASA is an engineering and scientific agency (with an overlay of flags-and-footprints) and always has been, not an exploratory agency. They do not exist to feed the wet dreams and masturbation fantasies of the space fanboys.
And we have to find a way to fund that exploration so it's more insulated from politics. Otherwise we're stuck on this rock until a giant comet, asteroid or neutron star wanders by or we get fried by our own sun or a gamma ray burst.
Exploration has always been about money, not as in funding, but as in making it by the bucketload. Space exploration pretty much no chance of doing so, and thus is unlikely to ever be funded. (See the above about wet dreams.) As far as using space to avoid some planetary disaster... you're hallucinating. We know so little about what will be required we can barely describe the known unknowns. Even with significant investment, that's unlikely to change for decades, maybe centuries.
Seriously, the problem isn't NASA. The problem is clueless space fanboys who have somehow decided the world should provide them with and endless supply of willing supermodels and free supercars - and who blame reality for failing to live up to their fantasies.
