The Best Is Yet to Come

It started out on a high note. Recently I expressed my concern (see "Reaching for Orbit") that the Orbital Space Place, a meritorious if modest project, was going to become another dead end in a now well-established tradition of unfulfilled vehicle development programs. The decision by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe to bump up the deadline from 2010 to 2008 improved my mood considerably. Especially considering the pressing need of the International Space Station for a reliable crew rescue system that is larger than the Soyuz, and now the evident political necessity of a system other than the venerable space shuttle for taking astronauts into space, this decision seemed to indicate that this program was being taken seriously by the powers that be. When I heard Sean O'Keefe say with frustration, "We design things to death"--well, I just felt a lot better. As I recall, I said the OSP should be a 5-year project. As it is, the 2008 timeframe will have made it a 6-year one--but that's a sure sight better than the 8 we were looking at and the 10 that was being kicked around in various circles.

But now the seesaw bobs the other direction.

According to USA Today, people just aren't buying into the OSP. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003... In some respects, I have at least to sympathize with their skepticism. Citing the project for a lack of ambition, for posing the danger of locking us into mindlessly circling the Earth for still another thirty years when there are countless interesting places to explore, and for being poorly thought out in the financial aspect, critics in Congress and elsewhere are registering their concern. With these I can share a knowing nod. But, as I said, in my mind O'Keefe's insistence on a more aggressive schedule bodes well. It promises to get the OSP in service and off the table, so that we can embark on more ambitious ventures. Yet this promise is countered by criticism with which I cannot sympathize.

For one thing, some folks are upset that NASA isn't designing the thing. They defined requirements, but after that opted to let various companies come up with proposals. I fail to see why this is a bad thing. A camel is a horse designed by a committee, people. I say better to enjoy the privilege of choosing from the work of several kitchens with a few cooks each, than to be committed to eating the output of one giant kitchen where the cooks, as good as they are, suffer from having entirely too many people cluttering up their workspace with stacks of paper that they're pushing around for no good reason at all.

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