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How are you measuring effectiveness? It seems like you might have a pretty shallow perspective on what NASA does and what their goals are. For example, do you k

• rockemsockem 1y ago
  Not the person you're responding to, but JWT, SLS, and several other projects have suffered extreme bloat in both cost and timeline. Mega projects like that are some of the most public -facing things NASA does, so they unfortunately tend to drive public perception. I will never argue that NASA doesn't accomplish amazing things, but large parts of the organization are ineffective. IDK if I'd go so far as to say the entire organization is ineffective, but large parts are. I also don't think we should cut NASA's budget at all. We should cut the bloat and redirect it to more projects.
  • bumby 1y ago
    It does read to me that many people view this with the same lens we apply to private companies. As an example, some of the bloat is intentional because it buys down political risk. It would be more efficient to have a program like SLS done within a single NASA center. But that also makes it easier to cut funding because there are a limited number of constituents affected by those cuts. This is exacerbated by long timeline projects that don’t align with shorter political timelines. By spreading the project to many centers, it adds inefficiency but also ensures the survivability of the project. To an extent, there has a a good chance there never would be audacious projects if they were run with maximum financial efficiency. So you’re stuck with the choice of an efficient project that never gets completed or inefficient one that does. As a taxpayer, I’m not thrilled with that dynamic but I understand why it exists