NASA is Useless
When I was in an elevator today, the little screen said a survey found that people think that the top NASA achievement is the Global Positioning System or GPS. I find that interesting since it was the Navy that developed GPS and not NASA, although I suppose it was NASA that probably shot the satellites into space. Anyway, this got me thinking about the uselessness of NASA. It seems that every 10 years or so NASA declares that will be be on Mars in another 30 years. Yet where are we? The problem with NASA of course is that it is run by the government, and is therefore run like any government agency, inefficient. It spends too much time whining to congress about how is doesn’t have enough money, instead of developing space technologies that people would actually want to pay for.
It’s endeavors are generally incredibly expensive, have a drastic safety record, and really show no discernible value. I must agree wit Mr. L Niel Smith, that it seems NASAs sole purpose is to prevent the private space industry from ever developing. All NASA probably wants is a monopoly on space travel. As with all monopolies, they fail to innovate and we are stuck here on earth with no moon colonies or anything.
I don’t know why everybody is so afraid of a non-government agency traveling into space. Are people afraid there will be KFC on the moon or something? What’s wrong with that? Maybe they think it will be too expensive. That is utterly ridiculous. There are vast resources in space that any number of people would want to tap into. Whether it is mining an asteroid or space tours, this is how people innovate. They develop a product or service that people want, and the money flows in. Then development doesn’t stagnate like it does over at NASA. How old are those shuttles anyway? They seem to be help together with duct tape and super glue. How about we get rid of NASA and finally travel to mars.
