Public Policy and Government Affairs


Chiao: Has NASA Become Byzantine?

Written by: developer

Inspired by the Space Foundation’s PIONEERING: Sustaining U.S. Leadership in Space report, Space Foundation Special Advisor – Human Spaceflight (and former NASA astronaut) Dr. Leroy Chiao penned an editorial that appeared on Discovery.com Jan. 24.

Talking about the current state of manned space travel, Chiao says “What happened? Did America somehow lose, or see a diminished pioneering spirit? The Byzantine Empire once ruled the world. As the empire grew in size, so did its bureaucracy and structural complexity. This resulted in diminishing efficiency, until the empire reached the point where it collapsed under its own weight. Thus was created the pejorative adjective ‘Byzantine.’ … There are those who would argue that NASA has already reached that point.”

He ends by issuing a challenge to embrace pioneering to drive our space program, saying, “It is up to us, whether or not we choose to continue to do things in space.”

To read the full article, click here.

To find out about the Space Foundation’s PIONEERING report, click here.

This article is part of Space Watch: February 2013 (Volume: 12, Issue: 2).


Posted in Public Policy and Government Affairs