Opinion: How to Fix NASA
Department:
The Future in Space
Teaser:
"If radically reshaping and even breaking apart NASA is out of the question, what else can be done to reinvigorate the space agency? Bob Clarebrough examines the critical requirements for any successful effort to reform the agency. By bobclarebrough@aol.com (Bob Clarebrough)."
Link:
Source:
The Space Review Download time: Jul 27 2010 7:46 AM ET
In a previous article ("A new debate", The Space Review, July 6, 2010), I outlined a plan to create a new future for NASA. The purpose was not to discuss improving the performance of the organization as it exists but to extract the key capabilities from it and convert them into free-standing wealth-creating entities outside of central government control. What follows is the prequel to that proposal. But first, an illustrative detour to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is needed.
Private enterprise vs. government agency
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Fortune magazine published an article in October 2005, titled: "The Only Lifeline Was the Wal-Mart". This piece opened with a photograph of a National Guardsman in uniform, rifle slung down his back, pushing a shopping cart through a Wal-Mart store in Harahan, Louisiana. This is an iconic image depicting how the best of private enterprise shamed the government agencies who should have been the first and most effective responders to this catastrophe. The Guardsman found it quicker to stock up on supplies for his unit than wait for stuff to trickle through the official channels. In fact some of the soldiers were so poorly equipped that Wal-Mart handed out bullets and holsters to them. The article described how the company had, thanks to its own meteorologists, tracked the storm and predicted its landfall at least 12 hours before the National Weather Service warning. The knowledge enabled huge quantities of supplies to be positioned around the area to help in the relief effort, often several days before anything from FEMA arrived.
That article provided a dramatic example of how private enterprise can outperform government agencies.…
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