Interesting Griffin Speech about NASA's Legacy/Future
Excerpt:
I think this is very interesting, and I like Mike Griffin's style of administration. It will be interesting to see where Orion takes us.
And no, this isn't turning into a space blog, and the next post won't be about NASA. Still working on a quality 2008 field post. Let me know of anyone I might be leaving out, and thoughts.
We have a very interesting conundrum at NASA, and we have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about it. In national polling, NASA as an American institution enjoys a hugely positive approval rating, broadly in the range of 65-75%, an amazing result for a government agency. But when you ask people why, they are not really sure, or at least cannot express it clearly. When you ask people what we do, beyond the broad category of "space", again they aren't quite sure. And if you ask them what we're planning to do, they're even less sure. But they know that they love NASA. So NASA has what in the marketing discipline would be called very strong brand loyalty, even though people are not familiar in detail with what we do or why they like it.
I have been trying to understand why this is so, because it is important to our agency's future. If we don't have public support that is both strong and specific, the things we want to do, and believe to be important, will not survive. There are many competing priorities for public funding, and always will be. So it really is important for us to communicate to the public how we're spending the fifteen cents per day that the average American contributes to NASA, because there are other places where that money can go.
I've reached the point where I am completely convinced that if NASA were to disappear tomorrow, if the American space program were to disappear tomorrow, if we never put up another Hubble, never put another human being in space, people would be profoundly distraught. Americans would feel less than themselves. They would feel that our best days are behind us. They would feel that we have lost something, something that matters. And yet they would not know why.
I think this is very interesting, and I like Mike Griffin's style of administration. It will be interesting to see where Orion takes us.
And no, this isn't turning into a space blog, and the next post won't be about NASA. Still working on a quality 2008 field post. Let me know of anyone I might be leaving out, and thoughts.
Labels: Space
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