Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on April 23, 2010, 11:45:59 am
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So the US Air Force has tested (http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTY3MzEzMTU2.html) a new spaceplane orbiter, the x-37. While it is just a testbed, I do find it quite annoying. Why? First of all while it's all well and good that they develop their own spaceplanes, the problem is they haven't really been doing that. Instead what the USAF has done was meddle with NASA's projects to develop reusable launch vehicles, namely the shuttle and the national aerospace plane, causing greatly added complexity and design headaches. On the shuttle, even though it was built to the military's specifications, was not actually used by the military, leading to great waste. Because of its overall bad design and overengineeredness the shuttle never lived up to its promise and is finally about to be retired. The national aerospace plane, while the project was never intended to actually carry people it would have been useful to further develop the technologies used in it to be employed in the next generation of spacecraft (which likely would have been developed by now). That didn't happen as the project was cancelled.
So now the shuttle is going to be retired and we have nothing to replace it. Instead of developing a new one for peaceful purposes, it seems the USAF is once again trying to horde the technology for its own purposes. At least that's how it looks from the outside.
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NASA, despite it's wondrous achievements in the past, has become an ossified, unimaginative agency. The USAF is simply trying to reclaim the mantle that Eisenhower took from them back in the 50's when he created NASA. I don't think there's some kind of "agenda" here. I think some general somewhere got sick and tired of NASA acting like an arthritic, lung cancer patient about developing new replacement craft for the rusty space truck(which never left prototype stage in any case).
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Any evidence to back up the claim that NASA has become ossified or arthritic?
Or are you just going to ignore the fact that its budget is a fraction of what it was during the Apollo era?
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My impression was that NASA was doing pretty good work for such a small budget.
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To me, it seems to be a useless duplication and divergance of work and funds, to quote William Hurt in Contact, "Why build one, when you can build two at twice the price?"
Edit: It just saddens me that two organisations, in the same country, in the middle of a recession, should have the same goal and yet work seperately to achieve it, that's not good fiscal policy even during a boom, during a time where funding is being cut in every quarter, it's little more than a waste.
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apparantly ppl in my region cant see the web site
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Flip, it's the Federal Government. The right hand not only doesn't know or care about what the left hand is doing, it rarely even acknowledges it's existence and wants to spend the budget(which BTW, what good is a budget if you don't pay strict attention to it?) from both.
I'm working for the Census right now, and I can tell you from first hand experience, the right hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing.
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A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
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Re: Liberator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions)
Oh boy, yeah, NASA sure hasn't accomplished anything exciting or imaginative since Apollo, am I right?
:rolleyes:
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Flip, it's the Federal Government. The right hand not only doesn't know or care about what the left hand is doing, it rarely even acknowledges it's existence and wants to spend the budget(which BTW, what good is a budget if you don't pay strict attention to it?) from both.
I'm working for the Census right now, and I can tell you from first hand experience, the right hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing.
Are you going to respond to my question about NASA?
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The USAF is simply trying to reclaim the mantle that Eisenhower took from them back in the 50's when he created NASA.
The USAF has more issues right now then to try to retake whatever space ventures they had going on back in the 50s. The US government needs NASA to focus on space, and the Air Force to focus on fighting wars. They can cooperate on the space mission as much as they want--the Air Force obviously has plenty of aeronautical expertise--but space exploration needs to remain the responsibility of NASA.
The only use the USAF would have for advancing space travel technology is to find a better way to fight wars. And last I checked, we were against militarizing space as much as possible.
Also, what Battuta said...the Air Force budget for 2011 is $116 billion. NASA's budget over the next five years is $100 billion.
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And that's after a fairly recent massive increase.
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I'm working for the Census right now, and I can tell you from first hand experience, the right hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing.
Rarely? Speaking as a CL, try 'never.'
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Any evidence to back up the claim that NASA has become ossified or arthritic?
Or are you just going to ignore the fact that its budget is a fraction of what it was during the Apollo era?
How about that we can't come up with a coherent plan to go to the moon, despite having the know how to do so for 40 years?
It isn't totally NASA's fault, their directives are determined by the president and their budget is held hostage to congress and the president. Effictively, they are chained to an electorate that just doesn't care.
To me, it seems to be a useless duplication and divergance of work and funds, to quote William Hurt in Contact, "Why build one, when you can build two at twice the price?"
Edit: It just saddens me that two organisations, in the same country, in the middle of a recession, should have the same goal and yet work seperately to achieve it, that's not good fiscal policy even during a boom, during a time where funding is being cut in every quarter, it's little more than a waste.
The problem is they often have significantly different objectives and building just one craft to do everything is a little out of our reach, the shuttle certainly proved that. See here (http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shuttle.htm) for the history of the space shuttle, including how the USAF requirements weighed it down. What they should be sharing is technology.
The only use the USAF would have for advancing space travel technology is to find a better way to fight wars. And last I checked, we were against militarizing space as much as possible.
So why the interference with the shuttle and the national aerospace plane? Why are they developing a space plane?
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Any evidence to back up the claim that NASA has become ossified or arthritic?
Or are you just going to ignore the fact that its budget is a fraction of what it was during the Apollo era?
How about that we can't come up with a coherent plan to go to the moon, despite having the know how to do so for 40 years?
There was a very coherent plan that was cancelled just recently due to lack of funding. It was called Constellation.
They may have the know-how but they never reached the budget they had during the Apollo era.
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There was a very coherent plan that was cancelled just recently due to lack of funding. It was called Constellation.
Isn't providing adequate funding part of a plan to go anywhere? Constellation was hardly anything to get inspired or excited about, it was just a remade apollo with all the inherent disadvantages.
They may have the know-how but they never reached the budget they had during the Apollo era.
One thing NASA failed to do after Apollo was develop an inexpensive launch platform (the shuttle was a botched attempt), which would have made that much funding unnecessary.
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There was a very coherent plan that was cancelled just recently due to lack of funding. It was called Constellation.
Isn't providing adequate funding part of a plan to go anywhere?
NASA does not control its own funding.
Constellation was hardly anything to get inspired or excited about, it was just a remade apollo with all the inherent disadvantages.
No.
One thing NASA failed to do after Apollo was develop an inexpensive launch platform (the shuttle was a botched attempt), which would have made that much funding unnecessary.
What you said here contradicts what you said in the last quote.
Also, wrong.
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The entire point of Constellation was to provide a cheap vehicle that could do all the heavy lifting the Shuttle could, and more.
Under Constellation, Nasa would basically begin stockpiling a large amount of parts that could be assembled into whatever configuration they needed, without having to purpose-build every single part.
Was it as "inspired" as the Shuttle? No. It was a basic application of all the engineering work done in the 60s, with added flourishes due to new materials and better design software.
As such, it promised to be very, very solid.
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No.
Yes.
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No.
Yes.
See The_E's post.
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I'm not blind, I see the post where he says the constellation was just a more modular Apollo using modern techniques.
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I'm not blind, I see the post where he says the constellation was just a more modular Apollo using modern techniques.
Which is exactly why it was an excellent design.
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for a 40 year old design yeah, I suppose that makes it pretty good, but in the last 4 decades I would have hoped that they would have come up with something a little better.
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They did. They designed something better than the Apollo, a more modular design using modern techniques.
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but it's basically the same thing, a bazzillion ton rocket to put a thimble sized capsule into space. it might not be quite as extravagantly wasteful as the original, but it's still the same basic concept.
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that's pretty much the only way to do it. unless you prefer they employ the staged nuclear detonation method.
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the mantle that Eisenhower took from them back in the 50's when he created NASA
Yeah, things were so much better when they ran the show! None of that Moon landing and Voyager probe crap!
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but it's basically the same thing, a bazzillion ton rocket to put a thimble sized capsule into space. it might not be quite as extravagantly wasteful as the original, but it's still the same basic concept.
Manned spacecraft design is inherently pretty conservative.
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for a 40 year old design yeah, I suppose that makes it pretty good, but in the last 4 decades I would have hoped that they would have come up with something a little better.
The car you're driving right now is essentially a 100-year-old design that's more technologically refined, but I don't see many people complaining about that. :p
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****ing hovercars, how do they work?
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for a 40 year old design yeah, I suppose that makes it pretty good, but in the last 4 decades I would have hoped that they would have come up with something a little better.
The car you're driving right now is essentially a 100-year-old design that's more technologically refined, but I don't see many people complaining about that. :p
Man, I'll complain about it! We're ten years into the 21st century. I should by all rights have a flying car and a robot to do my dishes. :p
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...and a robot to do my dishes. :p
There are these things called dishwashers, you might consider getting one. :P
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for a 40 year old design yeah, I suppose that makes it pretty good, but in the last 4 decades I would have hoped that they would have come up with something a little better.
The car you're driving right now is essentially a 100-year-old design that's more technologically refined, but I don't see many people complaining about that. :p
Man, I'll complain about it! We're ten years into the 21st century. I should by all rights have a flying car and a robot to do my dishes. :p
we've still got 5 years according to Back to the Future
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I'm not blind, I see the post where he says the constellation was just a more modular Apollo using modern techniques.
Which is exactly why it was an excellent design.
Not really, it's a dinosaur that has some serious fundemental limitations that, in the future, ultimately make it a poor choice for getting people into orbit (going to the moon was not the only thing it was intended for). This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_Engines_SABRE) is worth getting excited over, not only because it's a revolutionary design but it also because it makes space planes practical.
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What you said here contradicts what you said in the last quote.
Also, wrong.
Care to elaborate on that?
Was it as "inspired" as the Shuttle? No. It was a basic application of all the engineering work done in the 60s, with added flourishes due to new materials and better design software.
As such, it promised to be very, very solid.
It's hit and miss (http://depletedcranium.com/whats-the-point-of-the-ares-1/).
NASA does not control its own funding.
Yeah but they can make better use of what they have, as in no more cost overruns (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/opinion/24stern.html)
No.
Yes. It isn't completely reusable so you have to rebuild parts of it and the parts that are reusable you need to go fish out of the ocean, it needs completely different, specialized facilities to launch from that are completely incompatible with existing airport infrastructure, most of the rockets mass is just fuel, and those are the ones I can think of right away.
EDIT: And as for going to the moon/mars/asteroid belt/whatever other planet or planetoid we're going to go, a much better system is to have launch vehicles specifically to put things and or people into orbit, and a different vehicle design specifically to operate in space (this would allow for such things as nuclear engines that get you to where you want to go faster but would never be allowed to be used in the earth's atmosphere). The original plan didn't do that.
EDIT2: The car you're driving right now is essentially a 100-year-old design that's more technologically refined, but I don't see many people complaining about that.
Actually yeah, plenty of people are complaning about it now that gas prices have gone so high and oil, you know, starts declining. You'll see more *****ing about it in the near future. :p
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but it's basically the same thing, a bazzillion ton rocket to put a thimble sized capsule into space. it might not be quite as extravagantly wasteful as the original, but it's still the same basic concept.
As long as rockets are used, getting off this rock will probably never be something to be considered elegant -- no way around that bazzillion ton rocket, whatever decorations you'll have with it. So why not just bite the bullet and do it as simple as possible?
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I'll define what I meant by ossified and arthritic now.
Ossified means they are unwilling or unable to change their way of thinking to fit into new situations or new paradigms.
Arthritic means they act like a bunch of old women about every little detail.
The level of "cowboy" is for all intents and purposes zero. Space is an inherently hazardous environment for humans to be in. The goal should be to minimize and mitigate the risk where possible, but you can't accomplish anything if you are unwilling to take chances. I'm not saying be stupid or reckless, but it should NOT take 7 hours to insert and tighten 26 pre-fit bolts to hold an ammonia tank to the space station, then have to go back out and do it again because it's not right somehow. Unless of course you are wearing a spacesuit glove that has fingers the size of an average sausage link instead of something that actually lets the wearer use they're fingers for more than gross grasping.
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I will agree with Liberator on one main aspect, we need to stop re-hashing the same old techniques over and over, and start thinking at right-angles with regards to how we approach the exploration of Space itself, rockets were fine in the 1950's and the following decades, but we need to stop looking at brute-forcing our way into Space and start looking more seriously at the other options available, magnetic accelerators, space-elevators, the theories are there, but so much is being spent on rockets that realising these theories, or even testing them in real life applications is being held back through lack of funding.
To my mind, stepping back for 5 years, and re-evaluation our approach could save untold billions of dollars, and be far less harmful to the environment in the long run. And we really need to start thinking in the long run.
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Space elevator!
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Teleporter! :p
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Progress in space is slow, because it is such a hazardous environment. If you're building a multi-billion-$ spacecraft, possibly with people in it, you're gonna make sure that you know that everything works. You're not just gonna toss on a piece of which it's not known whether it will work properly or jeopardise the mission. You're gonna use parts that have been tried and tested, preferably in space, for quite a while. Yes, that makes for slow progress. But IMHO, it's justifiable.
A space elevator would probably be a huge international project to which the ISS, the LHC and the ITER will be real cheap and relatively simple. Who will organise such a massive international collaboration, and - more importantly - are people willing to pay for it, now that the Big Economic CrushTM has scared them all? A space elevator would be superb, and our technology has about reached the point where it can effectively be done, but we'll need some brave politicians (yeah, try and find some) to get it started.
Man. "2001: A Space Odyssey". People were so optimistic back then... Sometimes, I wish the USSR hadn't collapsed, and the space race was still on.
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Yeah, but then we would have two mutually hostile superpowers with nuclear weapons and the world could end almost at any moment. I prefer how things are now TBH.
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Thing is, back in the days of Sputnik and Gemini et al, that situation didn't exist, it was all new and untested. If anything, we have far, far more knowledge of what to expect when we go up now than we did then, that gives an advantage.
As for the Space Elevator, that's what I mean about long-term thinking, yes, it'll cost far more than launching rockets in the short term, the whole design and construction of that or the more (currently) viable magnetic accelerator systems would take several years and be a drain on resources, but once it is constructed, you have a ratcheted yourself up a level, now the job of getting something from ground to orbit is incredibly cheap on a per-trip basis, and means we can focus more on getting stuff into the Solar System than getting it out of the atmosphere in the first place.
I do seem to recall that some research has taken place into the prospect of creating nanotubes in orbit, which is the first stage of any space elevator, so steps are being taken, but we need to commit ourselves in a direction, rather than trying to be jack-of-all-trades.
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Space elevator!
Space elevators are really, really awesome for totally ****ing up the terrain below it when the inevitable 747 plows into the thing.
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A 747 flying into a carbon nanotube support would end up as two halves of a 747, with minimal to no damage to the support. Wouldn't be good for the passengers, but wouldn't harm the elevator to any great degree. The bigger risk is engineering based.
It should be noted that, as long as the elevator is built in about 100-150km square of clear land, even if the satellite fell out of orbit, there wouldn't be much risk, the atmosphere isn't all that thick. There are certainly areas of the US that are barren enough to allow such a structure to be built without putting people at risk.
Edit: The main query as far as Space-Elevators are concerned is, as I mentioned above, Engineering based, at the moment, we don't have all the technology we would need, though all of it is within theoretical reach, the better option is magnetic accelerators like a Lofstrom Loop, which is closer, as far as technology is concerned.
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I'll define what I meant by ossified and arthritic now.
Ossified means they are unwilling or unable to change their way of thinking to fit into new situations or new paradigms.
Arthritic means they act like a bunch of old women about every little detail.
The level of "cowboy" is for all intents and purposes zero. Space is an inherently hazardous environment for humans to be in. The goal should be to minimize and mitigate the risk where possible, but you can't accomplish anything if you are unwilling to take chances. I'm not saying be stupid or reckless, but it should NOT take 7 hours to insert and tighten 26 pre-fit bolts to hold an ammonia tank to the space station, then have to go back out and do it again because it's not right somehow. Unless of course you are wearing a spacesuit glove that has fingers the size of an average sausage link instead of something that actually lets the wearer use they're fingers for more than gross grasping.
If you advocate free market economics then you need to understand a cost-benefit analysis.
The cost of being careful is incredibly low. The benefits are incredibly high.
Every time NASA has let its standards slip, the result has been catastrophe. Both shuttle disasters were the result of decisions to ignore those piddling details.
If you were in charge of the space program it'd be flaming wreckage right now.
The problems with NASA have everything to do with the massive budget cuts that occurred post-Apollo and the resulting brain drain. Yet, nonetheless, NASA has pulled off a series of incredibly brilliant and successful missions since then. And the shuttle orbiters, marvels of engineering that they are, are all apparently still in near-factory condition.
They need to keep doing exactly what they're doing, but with more money. None of that 'better faster cheaper' crap.
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Budget.
Budget budget budget budget budget budget.
The reason NASA hasn't made significant progress into manned space exploration is because they don't want to take chances with people's lives anymore. And that's a good thing. People are tired of watching shuttles disintegrate and modules burn up on the launch pad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1#Fire) and panicing when oxygen tanks explode. It becomes a sick cycle--people get furious when NASA makes no progress, and then NASA gets no funding, and then NASA has to make due with a reduced budget to make progress mostly through cutting corners and recycling old systems, which in turn leads to disaster.
Just give them the money they need. At least get us back to the Moon.
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The sad thing is, every single one of those astronauts knew the risk, and were willing to accept it, it would sadden them to no end to know that their deaths damaged the Space program.
Think about how many people have died in planes, or in cars, there is no such thing as a totally proven technology, and yet we are still quite comfortable with the idea of driving and flying. Exploration of the unknown, or even the known, will always carry risk, and whilst I agree that every effort should be made to ensure that safety, it will never, can never be gauranteed.
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No. But people forget that the US has never lost a single person in space. Which suggests we're at least doing an okay job so far.
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That is, in a way, the point, the single most dangerous aspect of Space Exploration, is that our method of getting there involves balancing a group of people on top of thousands of tonnes of high explosive. Newer methods would probably reduce the odds of a fatality even further, but they'll take time and money to perfect.
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Just give them the money they need. At least get us back to the Moon.
At least as far as I'm concerned, if we can't get up to the Moon and stay there for an extended period of time, then there's little practical reason to conduct a program dedicated to nothing more than another one-shot trip. (Well, other than the huge inner voice yelling, "I wanna see a live Moon landing!" :D) I mean, we "won" forty years ago. We got up there a few times, collected some Moon rocks, drove a few buggies around, and left some flags. It was an amazing, outstanding accomplishment...but it's one we've already accomplished, and proving we could accomplish it again wouldn't be much more than a self-confidence booster. Now, if someone comes up with a feasible long-term habitat setup, something that astronauts could live in for weeks, or even months, then we'd be talking.
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And the shuttle orbiters, marvels of engineering that they are, are all apparently still in near-factory condition.
Every time NASA has let its standards slip, the result has been catastrophe. Both shuttle disasters were the result of decisions to ignore those piddling details.
Marvels of engineering? Are you kidding? It was badly designed and overengineered, a fundementally unsafe machine. NASA culture didn't help, but the biggest culprit was the unsafe nature of the shuttle itself.
The cost of being careful is incredibly low. The benefits are incredibly high.
It costs $10,000 per kilo to launch anything on the shuttle.
The problems with NASA have everything to do with the massive budget cuts that occurred post-Apollo and the resulting brain drain.
The problems at NASA go far beyond that.
Now, if someone comes up with a feasible long-term habitat setup, something that astronauts could live in for weeks, or even months, then we'd be talking.
Most of that technology already exists on the ISS.
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And the shuttle orbiters, marvels of engineering that they are, are all apparently still in near-factory condition.
Every time NASA has let its standards slip, the result has been catastrophe. Both shuttle disasters were the result of decisions to ignore those piddling details.
Marvels of engineering? Are you kidding? It was badly designed and overengineered, a fundementally unsafe machine. NASA culture didn't help, but the biggest culprit was the unsafe nature of the shuttle itself.
Really? Then why has no shuttle orbiter ever suffered a failure of any kind?
O-ring failure was not on the orbiter. Foam ramp failure was not on the orbiter.
For a fundamentally unsafe machine it's apparently remarkably safe, because - get this - it's suffered fewer failures than Apollo. Fewer than Gemini, and certainly fewer than Mercury.
And all that on many more flights.
The cost of being careful is incredibly low. The benefits are incredibly high.
It costs $10,000 per kilo to launch anything on the shuttle.
Expensive, but meaningless without comparison. Also, totally unrelated to the cost/benefit analysis of risk versus caution, so this is a non sequiter that suggests you didn't grasp the argument. It's as if you just saw the word 'cost' and decided to throw out a totally disconnected dollar figure.
Every time NASA stops taking precautions, things explode, and the space program falls back ten years.
The problems with NASA have everything to do with the massive budget cuts that occurred post-Apollo and the resulting brain drain.
The problems at NASA go far beyond that.
Cite.
If there are systematic problems at NASA, why has it been so successful in recent years? Why has it pulled off so many missions that exceeded expectations?
Why does everyone at the agency, right down to the tour bus drivers, appear excited, focused and driven about a coherent plan of action? (at least up until the moment it was cancelled, but now they at least got a huge budget boost)
Most of that technology already exists on the ISS.
The ISS has suffered a series of failures that highlight the challenges of sustained presence in space. It would be dead now if not for continuous ground support.
In short your argument that NASA has some kind of internal 'problem' aside from budget cuts and brain drain is unsubstantiated. Improve it.
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Now, if someone comes up with a feasible long-term habitat setup, something that astronauts could live in for weeks, or even months, then we'd be talking.
Most of that technology already exists on the ISS.
As Battuta alluded to...no. Not even close. Even putting the self-sufficiency issue aside (which you'd certainly want, and almost need, any lunar outpost to be), the lunar surface presents a number of challenges that simply don't exist in open space. Chief among them is probably management of lunar dust, which is essentially made up of microscopic razor blades that would abrade the hell out of critical moving parts and seals. There have been some theories proposed on how to mitigate it, but no long-term full-scale testing as far as I'm aware.
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Just give them the money they need. At least get us back to the Moon.
At least as far as I'm concerned, if we can't get up to the Moon and stay there for an extended period of time, then there's little practical reason to conduct a program dedicated to nothing more than another one-shot trip. (Well, other than the huge inner voice yelling, "I wanna see a live Moon landing!" :D) I mean, we "won" forty years ago. We got up there a few times, collected some Moon rocks, drove a few buggies around, and left some flags. It was an amazing, outstanding accomplishment...but it's one we've already accomplished, and proving we could accomplish it again wouldn't be much more than a self-confidence booster. Now, if someone comes up with a feasible long-term habitat setup, something that astronauts could live in for weeks, or even months, then we'd be talking.
well, a group of undergrads at NC State designed a 120 kW nuclear reactor for the moon a couple years ago. so we've got some basis :)
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Now, if someone comes up with a feasible long-term habitat setup, something that astronauts could live in for weeks, or even months, then we'd be talking.
Most of that technology already exists on the ISS.
As Battuta alluded to...no. Not even close. Even putting the self-sufficiency issue aside (which you'd certainly want, and almost need, any lunar outpost to be), the lunar surface presents a number of challenges that simply don't exist in open space. Chief among them is probably management of lunar dust, which is essentially made up of microscopic razor blades that would abrade the hell out of critical moving parts and seals. There have been some theories proposed on how to mitigate it, but no long-term full-scale testing as far as I'm aware.
There's a material being developed by NASA that centres around the surface of the Lotus leaf that is almost entirely dust-resistant for exactly this purpose, though, as you say, it is still at the development stage. The research is certainly being done, but without an efficient way of getting into orbit in the first place, it's all conjecture.
Edit: Found a link
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2009/lotus_coating.html
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Really? Then why has no shuttle orbiter ever suffered a failure of any kind?
O-ring failure was not on the orbiter. Foam ramp failure was not on the orbiter.
Yes, but I wasn't just referring to the oribter, I was referring to the whole launch system, without which the orbiter is just a glider. Therefore it seems sensible to evaluate the whole thing. And frankly if it was a well designed system neither of those accidents would have happened.
Even so, for what it was intended to do, it was overall a massive failure. It was intended to provide inexpensive and reliable access to space and it did neither, largely because of its design problems.
Cite.
If there are systematic problems at NASA, why has it been so successful in recent years? Why has it pulled off so many missions that exceeded expectations?
I cited one in one of my previous posts, I'll also add the commissions final reports from the challenger and columbia disasters which pointed out many systematic problems with NASA that were never resolved and pretty damning in their own right. But if that isn't enough there are others.
http://government.zdnet.com/?p=4328
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-256825.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4980141/
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=5361
It has done missions well in recent years, certainly. For example the mars rovers were well designed. But let's be honest, the initial mars rovers were an amazing technological feat for back in the days when 56k dialup was king and your computer was running windows 98, but electronics technology has come a long way since then and building radio controlled robots, as important as it is, doesn't have the same mystique as before.
Why does everyone at the agency, right down to the tour bus drivers, appear excited, focused and driven about a coherent plan of action? (at least up until the moment it was cancelled, but now they at least got a huge budget boost)
Supposition. Assuming you're referring to the constellation program, given the major internal disputes over whether or not the Ares I should have even existed (http://www.parabolicarc.com/2009/05/18/direct-team-disputes-nasa-analysis-ares-alternative/) it doesn't look like the focused and driven organization you're trying to paint.
The ISS has suffered a series of failures that highlight the challenges of sustained presence in space. It would be dead now if not for continuous ground support.
It was never designed to be self sufficient in the first place, it was supposed to be a testbed for the life support and waste recycling technologies that would be used either in future stations or in settlements offworld. Even though the kinks are being ironed out, most of the technology still does exist. I'm not going to deny that there is still plenty of work that needs to be done.
In short your argument that NASA has some kind of internal 'problem' aside from budget cuts and brain drain is unsubstantiated. Improve it.
It is quite substaniated, both in one of my previous posts and has been further elaborated in this case. After both the shuttle disasters, both of the commissions looked at NASA and fingered the way it was being run as a major culprit, but you completely ignore it. The "NASA can do no wrong" attitude is exatly what got us into this mess.