NASA: Engineers vs. Bureaucrats

NASA hasn’t been in good shape for years. After NASA’s initial years of stunning success, the agency became bogged down in the same bureaucratic nonsense that makes a trip to the DMV take three hours. When NASA’s major cultural problems killed the seven astronauts in the Challenger, people began to believe that change was possible. When the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed on re-entry, it became obvious that change was necessary.

Unfortunately, that change has not happened. NASA engineers and contractors who present data which is not aligned with bureaucratic priorities are ignored, demoted, transferred, or fired. Unfortunately, this ignored data has on many occasions included important safety warnings which could have saved the lives of the Challenger and Columbia astronauts.

Finally, NASA engineers are taking their story public. NASA is moving forward with the development of a complex architecture for returning to the moon known as “Ares.” Concurrently, a team of over fifty NASA engineers has developed a competing architecture called “Jupiter” which promises to get us back to the moon sooner, cheaper, and safer.

Jupiter is part of the Direct 2.0 project. For more information on the Direct 2.0 project, visit DirectLauncher. DirectLaunch is an incredible example of American ingenuity and the power of both volunteerism and free enterprise.

NASA is an unfortunate example of overgrown government bureaucracy. The communist Chinese have beaten us in terms of commercial space missions, because they have privatized their space program. America is years behind the communist Chinese in terms of bringing the power of privatization to our space program.

I urge you to call your senators and representatives today and ask them what is their position on the Direct 2.0 project. I am betting that they won’t have a clue. That oversight failure is costing you, the American taxpayer, tens of billions of dollars a year.