I read with sad amusement of NASA’s interest in sending Sen. John Glenn back into space for 10 days, allegedly to test the effects of space on the aging process. This is great PR but very weak science. This mission underscores how NASA has become just another government bureaucracy focusing on tactics rather than strategies.
Supporters claim that the reason for the space program is to build expertise that will lead to the human exploration of other planets. If you drop the word human in that mission statement, the costs would drop dramatically and the results would increase exponentially. Just look to Voyager and the Mars missions for examples.
To continue to send a box of humans up into space every six weeks or so at a cost of a half billion dollars a ride is not defensible. Even if they sent every member of Congress into space, it still would not justify the costs involved (although, on second thought, that might be a good start).
NASA needs to refocus on science using unmanned probes and make headlines through results rather than publicity stunts.
