3 ms·

Now I like the idea of a moon base and space research as much as the next engineer (and we here at HN seem pretty friendly to it) but I have the general impress

Now I like the idea of a moon base and space research as much as the next engineer (and we here at HN seem pretty friendly to it) but I have the general impression that without commensurate investment, this is on par with saying "NASA is directed to clone unicorns"

hugh3 15y ago
Pretty much, though not exactly. NASA is, after all, made up of a vast number of people competing to get their own favourite projects funded. If a directive comes down from on high that NASA's primary goal is to build a moonbase then it means that projects relevant to this goal start getting funded (and that projects irrelevant to this goal get a hasty rewrite to make 'em sound like they're relevant to this goal).