EVENS@UTORPHYS.BITNET (02/11/90)
From:Chris Curtis <34LMLFQ@CMUVM.BITNET> >NASA was just starting to get a bit of >the visionary ideals it had during the 1960's when the explosion occurred If you want to get an idea of what NASA was like at the time of the Challenger explosion, I recommend you read R.P. Feynman's account of being on the commission that looked into the explosion. You can find it in his book "What Do YOU Care What Other People Think?" or in _Physics Today_ of the Jan. issue about 1 year after the explosion. (Ask your librarian if P.T. is not on your reading list. :-)) >JPL is independent of NASA, right? Well. Uhm. Sort of. It's tangled, and I don't have all the details. But how independent are two government funded organizations ever really? >But what NASA really needs is a new generation of management and leaders Please read Feynman's account before you decide about who you want as new bosses at NASA. >During the 60's, virtually all the top people >were kids who had grown up with the space race, and wacko science fiction about >space technology. Well. I know what you mean, I think. But during the 60's the "space race" was not old enough for people to have grown up with it. There surely was a big difference between the NASA bosses of the 60's and the 80's. And some of the flavour is in what you say. But, as far as missions and safety it can be summed up as, in the 60's the attitude was "prove to me that it is safe to go, or we don't go." In the 80's it became "prove to me that it is not safe to go, or we do." Another aspect was, the top bosses were "techies" in the 60's: engineers, scientists and such. In the 80's they were mostly management types: lawyers, political animals and such. There was also a lot of "ass covering" in the 80's, where as in the 60's, there was a lot of "make sure I don't need to cover my ass." >Today's workers have become woefully apathetic I don't think they are apathetic about space. I think they see all the "ka ka" that goes on and get discouraged. The really good ones won't put up with it and go to other jobs. The "other kind" do put up with it, and we have the results. >Maybe the renewal of the manned Mars >mission will be the necessary kick in the butt for the space program. The idea of a flashy new program to get sexy headlines and build up enthusiasm may work in the short run. But it saps strength over the long haul. We have to get people to see long term, real reasons to invests in space for reasons that THEY believe will be good for THEM. There are lots of reasons that fill this bill. And if I ever get to my promised essay on this stuff, I will tell you all about them. (Unless somebody beats me to the punch. Nudge nudge, wink wink.) Now, in case I sounded down-beat or anti-space in this, I want to stop and proselytize for real for a few lines. I believe that humankind's only real chance for long term survival (more than say the next few 100 years) in anything but a bucolic, pastoral, very low tech kind of life, is to go into space. And in a big way. I also believe that the only way we are going to keep our high tech lifestyle (which I love) and not turn the entire planet into a stinking, vermin infested pest hole of a garbage heap, is to go into space. And if there ever was a government program I was willing to fund, it was anything to do with space. (Course, the Libertarian in me still does not want to force others along for the trip.) Dan Evens