His recommended solution to NASA's problem—“ give bureaucrats more discretionary authority to do their jobs, fund them adequately, and eliminate the many political barriers that have been erected over the years that prevent them from doing so”—is fanciful, if not absurd and dangerous.
Every bureaucracy is part of our government and is under the exclusive control of the President. And every bureaucracy relies solely on Congress for funding. Further, all members of Congress and the President are political animals. Always have been and always will be. And patronage fuels their political careers. You can't change human nature.
Finally, you must always remember and never forget what we were taught by Emily St. John Mandel in her book, “Sea of Tranquility”:
"What you have to understand is that bureaucracy is an organism, and the prime goal of every organism is self-protection. Bureaucracy exists to protect itself."
Government should limit itself to doing those few things it does well, e.g., defense, building roads, public safety, etc., and enlist the assistance of the private sector for complex enterprises which require specialized expertise and need to be done quickly and efficiently. You want to go to the moon? Then give SpaceX, Blue Origin, or Virgin Galactic a call. They'll get you there—and for a helluva lot less money.
No doubt. But unless there's some substantial public benefit to be gained from another manned moon landing that would justify the expense, a better alternative is to scrub the project now and release any unspent funds that have been appropriated for it to the Treasury to reduce the current year's budget deficit.
For an explanation, look at the graph of grade inflation and SAT score declines. We have replaced useful business and STEM rigor with social justice indoctrination hogwash. The small population of students that power through all that crap to get a good education don't end up in government jobs. It is the grade-inflated victim studied graduates that end up in the public sector.
Is it any wonder that nothing in government gets done when the politicians and government bosses are focused on DEI programs as their first priority?
“business” degrees are more nonsense than the woke bs. Just spreadsheet diddling. Instead of engineers running things, like in China, we have financial wizards and lawyers. Our best and brightest biznidsss school graduates invent ever new ways of packaging debt. So, as usual, you blame the wrong things and the wrong people.
Hey dope. What in my post above is wrong? Just because it hurts your sensitive feminized liberal feelings does not make it wrong. Make your case. You know you cannot, so you slime to weakass invective because you are a weak ass she-male.
Pshaw! you think that because you’re an Islamic Communist who doesn’t understand the Grand Strategy of The Deal by our glorious Dementia-Patient-in-Chief!!!🤣😵💫
I would suggest that we need no alternate history to understand the nature of the program that eventually put a number of Americans on the moon. Just watch the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon.
The US is doing great on advanced space exploration (JWST, many awesome space probes)
The trouble with putting humans in space is that it is pointless, the advantage is that it makes a great adventure story and that has political ramifications.
Apart from this, the state failure r.e. building infrastructure is bad. As Frank notices all parties involved (apart from the engineers) have no interest in completing any project, merely in fabricating extensive grifts to keep themselves in power and wealth.
The power center has moved from engineers to Lawyers and Financial fiddlers.
How bureaucrats could comply with a paradoxical imperative to perform their duties in accordance with divergent public preferences is unclear. It seems safe to say, however, that those in elective political office with authority to enact and amend the laws that bureaucrats administer have a career interest in preserving and expanding subsidies provided at government expense both to broad segments of the public and to special-interest fatcats with deep pockets.
It seemed to me that the Apollo Program was essentially a publicity stunt, devised to restore American prestige after the USSR beat us to the mark by launching the first artificial earth-orbiting satellite (Sputnik) and then sending Yuri Gagarin on the first manned orbital mission in 1961. What practical advantage could be gained from sending men to the Moon again that would justify the project's enormous cost, when the Federal government is already drowning in debt?
His recommended solution to NASA's problem—“ give bureaucrats more discretionary authority to do their jobs, fund them adequately, and eliminate the many political barriers that have been erected over the years that prevent them from doing so”—is fanciful, if not absurd and dangerous.
Every bureaucracy is part of our government and is under the exclusive control of the President. And every bureaucracy relies solely on Congress for funding. Further, all members of Congress and the President are political animals. Always have been and always will be. And patronage fuels their political careers. You can't change human nature.
Finally, you must always remember and never forget what we were taught by Emily St. John Mandel in her book, “Sea of Tranquility”:
"What you have to understand is that bureaucracy is an organism, and the prime goal of every organism is self-protection. Bureaucracy exists to protect itself."
Government should limit itself to doing those few things it does well, e.g., defense, building roads, public safety, etc., and enlist the assistance of the private sector for complex enterprises which require specialized expertise and need to be done quickly and efficiently. You want to go to the moon? Then give SpaceX, Blue Origin, or Virgin Galactic a call. They'll get you there—and for a helluva lot less money.
No doubt. But unless there's some substantial public benefit to be gained from another manned moon landing that would justify the expense, a better alternative is to scrub the project now and release any unspent funds that have been appropriated for it to the Treasury to reduce the current year's budget deficit.
For an explanation, look at the graph of grade inflation and SAT score declines. We have replaced useful business and STEM rigor with social justice indoctrination hogwash. The small population of students that power through all that crap to get a good education don't end up in government jobs. It is the grade-inflated victim studied graduates that end up in the public sector.
Is it any wonder that nothing in government gets done when the politicians and government bosses are focused on DEI programs as their first priority?
“business” degrees are more nonsense than the woke bs. Just spreadsheet diddling. Instead of engineers running things, like in China, we have financial wizards and lawyers. Our best and brightest biznidsss school graduates invent ever new ways of packaging debt. So, as usual, you blame the wrong things and the wrong people.
As far as I can tell, Frank is wrong 100% of the time.
Hey dope. What in my post above is wrong? Just because it hurts your sensitive feminized liberal feelings does not make it wrong. Make your case. You know you cannot, so you slime to weakass invective because you are a weak ass she-male.
Pshaw! you think that because you’re an Islamic Communist who doesn’t understand the Grand Strategy of The Deal by our glorious Dementia-Patient-in-Chief!!!🤣😵💫
Says a person with business knowledge nor experience and a degree in Victim Studies.
oh you are so right! You forgot my minor in Cultural Marxism!😝😝😝😝😝
I would suggest that we need no alternate history to understand the nature of the program that eventually put a number of Americans on the moon. Just watch the HBO series From the Earth to the Moon.
Oh God, more power to bureaucrats. That went so well during covid.
The US is doing great on advanced space exploration (JWST, many awesome space probes)
The trouble with putting humans in space is that it is pointless, the advantage is that it makes a great adventure story and that has political ramifications.
Apart from this, the state failure r.e. building infrastructure is bad. As Frank notices all parties involved (apart from the engineers) have no interest in completing any project, merely in fabricating extensive grifts to keep themselves in power and wealth.
The power center has moved from engineers to Lawyers and Financial fiddlers.
The prerequisite for giving bureaucrats more discretion is bureaucrats who better reflect the diverse political views of the American citizenry....
How bureaucrats could comply with a paradoxical imperative to perform their duties in accordance with divergent public preferences is unclear. It seems safe to say, however, that those in elective political office with authority to enact and amend the laws that bureaucrats administer have a career interest in preserving and expanding subsidies provided at government expense both to broad segments of the public and to special-interest fatcats with deep pockets.
It seemed to me that the Apollo Program was essentially a publicity stunt, devised to restore American prestige after the USSR beat us to the mark by launching the first artificial earth-orbiting satellite (Sputnik) and then sending Yuri Gagarin on the first manned orbital mission in 1961. What practical advantage could be gained from sending men to the Moon again that would justify the project's enormous cost, when the Federal government is already drowning in debt?
A further question for cheerleaders for more manned deep-space exploits: what does Feynman get wrong here? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTTQmhvDqJI