fly me to the moon / and let me play among the stars

The Cheesecake Factory last night was fun, but I have to say it was not my best CF experience. My cajun jambalaya pasta was sticky and not well-tossed. I went out on a limb and tried a new cheesecake and while it was good, it’s not going to make my favorites list. And I swear our waiter was on drugs or something. He disappeared for long stretches and always seemed confused, but then sang “Happy Birthday” to Cari with more enthusiasm than any waiter I’ve ever seen. Head bopping back and forth and everything. It was bizarre, and funny.

Becca wrote a bit this morning about the current aeronautics budget cuts that are circulating at NASA, saying “I do care when research funding is withdrawn prematurely and grad students can’t finish their PhDs. And I care when expensive, useful facilities are shut down with no thought to the future. And I hate to see people lose their jobs… But, I just personally think the space agency doesn’t need to be as involved in aeronautics as it used to be.”

I have to say that I agree with her. When NASA first began, there were still so many unknown areas in atmospheric flight. I’m not implying that we have “figured out” everything there is to know about aeronautics, but I feel like the industry is big enough now to take care of itself. As Becca says, if the airlines want improvements to their fuel efficiency, they can fund the research. If the military wants to improve performance on an F-15, they can use some of the hundreds of billions of dollars they receive annually. If the air traffic control system needs updating, ask the FAA or NTSB.

I’m not saying that NASA shouldn’t work together with other entities, but I do believe that NASA should avoid doing work that is more appropriate for other government agencies, or that private industry is capable of doing. Aeronautics is a widely researched field these days, and well-funded with or without NASA. Space exploration, on the other hand, is still in its infancy. There are private companies that are starting to break into the market — Scaled Composites, Blue Origin, etc — but for the most part, if NASA wasn’t doing space stuff, and specifically manned spaceflight, no one in the U.S. would be.

I think it should be NASA’s duty to investigate areas and concepts that no one else is thinking about. NASA should be in the business of doing things that other groups can’t. We’re not in this to make a profit, so we should be developing technologies instead of maintaining them. NASA should be out there pushing that proverbial envelope.