Space Shuttle Discovery and Our Future (originally posted March 9, 2011)
The Space Shuttle Discovery touched down at Florida's Kennedy Space Center today, March 9, 2011, at 11:57 AM. This landing marks the final mission for the nation's oldest shuttle vehicle, and with only two shuttle missions remaining, one each for Endeavour and Atlantis, NASA's shuttle program comes to an end. This era will be replaced by U.S. astronauts hitching rides with the Russian space program to get to the International Space Station, by launching satellites through already-existing NASA and commercial rockets, and by a push for Mars exploration. But, as the New York Times opines: "What sort of spaceship might ultimately replace the shuttle is an open question, and it is not yet clear how NASA will fare in the ongoing budget debate." http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2011%2F03%2F10%2Fscience%2Fspace%2F10shuttle.html%3F_r%3D1%26hp&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFrqEzcOkvqMaUoAF3omZ5aLPjyjHWyd_g
Indeed. The federal budget, most state budgets, and nearly all of our large city budgets are in trouble. The simplistic notion is simply to cut with an axe. And if we cannot agree politically with each other on the need for cuts and the sources of revenue, that might actually be a valid approach. Thankfully, a small group of lawmakers (the so-called "Gang of Six") is at least trying to keep the issue of strategic budget-making on the front burner. http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2011%2F03%2F07%2F134332981%2Fas-deficit-looms-gang-of-six-seeks-compromise&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFrqEzfPmkQMhq0gIyD2R-RgW3VoCJpgcw. This group recognizes that cuts to discretionary funding might get a lot of press, but these cuts are largely symbolic, and what is needed is a strategic approach that looks at the big three: Defense, Social Security, and Entitlements.
In their book, If We Can Put a Man on the Moon, William Eggers and John O'Leary successfully argue their thesis that big things can get done in government. In today's political climate, we're being bombarded with the opposite of that view -- that the word "government" itself is synomymous with cost overruns, inefficiencies, and ultimate failure to achieve desired outcomes. Yet using success and failure examples ranging from the U.S. space program to battling cholera in London to the response to Hurricane Katrina, Eggers and O'Leary demonstrate that governments can get big things done by avoiding what they call "the seven deadly traps." Some of these include complacency, overconfidence, and thinking with a functional (silo) mentality. Their study has applicability for any enterprise, because at the heart of it, this is a book about the triumph of strategic leadership. Effective leaders recognize that the road to success is strewn with rocks large and small just waiting to trip us up; strategic leadership calls for creating plans in advance to avoid, confront, or remove these hazards. http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FCan-Put-Man-Moon-Government%2Fdp%2F1422166368%2Fref%3Dcm_cr_pr_product_top&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFrqEze4ZanKpfDzQGT9vRVK8zwPf_MUNA#_
150 years ago, on July 1, 1862, President Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, signed into law the Pacific Railway Act, which allowed a couple of new railroads, California's Central Pacific, and the start-up Union Pacific, to sell government bonds to entice investors to fund the Transcontinental Railroad. This public-private partnership succeeded in opening up the American West from Omaha to Sacramento. NASA, using public-private-international partnerships, succeeded in opening up near space, creating practical spin-offs like "Velcro", and expanding basic research about our universe. But the Transcontinental Railroad and NASA both required expenditure of taxpayer dollars.
I have no prescription for how we should deal with our current and on-going budget crises at the federal, state, and local levels. I do believe, however, that if we simply use the line-item approach to discussing budgeting, we're in trouble. People of any political stripe can find line items in any budget which they would cut today, and line items that they would defend to their last breath. What is needed is continued rational debate, and a strategic approach that helps us at least start to define what we need today, five years from now, twenty years from now. I hope that all of our political leaders begin to think in these terms.
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