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This is because space programs are a great tool of presidential politics, which operates on 4-year cycles that are completely useless for long-term space policy
by qq66 14y ago
This is because space programs are a great tool of presidential politics, which operates on 4-year cycles that are completely useless for long-term space policy.
Perhaps a solution is to have NASA administered by a board that's appointed for life similar to the Supreme Court -- its total budget will still be subject to the vagaries of political squabbling but at least its ability to allocate budget to programs will be unencumbered.
- rohern 14y agoThis is a very interesting proposal. There are a number of large-scale and long-term problems that require consistency of vision beyond election cycles. You should write up this idea in a formal way and see if you can get published as an op-ed somewhere.
- rsynnott 14y agoTo an extent, this is an oddity of the US system, where a lot of the civil service is run by appointees. In most modern parliamentary democracies, the civil service is largely static and non-appointed, and while the government can in principle get rid of, say, a permanent secretary, it's highly visible and would rarely be done. This tends to give long-term projects more inertia; if the government wants to kill one without considerable controversy, it really has to make a case for doing so.