What we all want to know about an organisation is its purpose. MSFC and JPL have a clear idea what their purpose is.

I fear the President is waiting for a health bill from congress to sign into law and a setting in concrete of his new strategy for Afghanistan before he sends a new Bill to congress after consideration of the Augustine report.

In the big picture, exploring the cosmos can wait a few months to sort out some more urgent earthly matters.

It is a major failing of western democracies that there are so few scientists and engineers in elected office. This is our achilles heel. China's achilles heel is too many engineers at the top of government.

Profit – noun – An advantageous gain or return; benefit.
Profit – verb – to derive benefit from.

Space Exploration has given us:
- Vast Knowledge
- Many technologies and technological improvements
- Inspiration to be better and understand more of our world.

Space Exploration on a grander scale can give us:
- More Knowledge
- Better Technologies/ New Technologies
- Greater Resources to bring to the market
- Increased Survivability of Humanity

Is space profitable? Yes. Will it continue to be so? Yes.

Is it profitable in a market sense? Yes.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/.....07markets/

Is there a potential for growth? I don’t know…the universe is pretty big I guess.

Is this a longterm play? Yes. So keep going everyone, we’ll get there.

Hmmm…Maybe if we use more cowbell we can get there quicker???

@gwrieger, I believe that while exploring space we can solve many of humanities biggest problems. In order to better serve the public, and gain their support for our primary mission (explore space) we will have to put humanity issues at the forefront of decision making. When we do, our minds will be open to solutions that most affect humanity and the solutions we generate will inspire and engage the public. If we work with industry, we have the potential of creating new spin-off industries that are not necessarily associated to space exploration.

My Vision

1. To make NASA the standard by which other organizations measure their success. (this includes industry).
2. To solve earth’s most challenging problems, by exploring space.
3. Innovate, through an Abundance Mentality where we leverage internal and external resources to create more pies, instead of working off of a zero-sum paradigm.
4. Make NASA the best organization to PARTNER with.

Problems I know that we can solve with our partners:

1)Energy Independence — space is tough, we need to be very effecient.
2)Transportation Technologies and Methodologies
3)Manufacturing Techniques – (assuming we manufacture items in space, to reduce payload size, same for “2)”)
4)Light Weight but Strong Materials
5)Smart Materials – change shape on demand. We can partner with the military organizations and corresponding industry. Same for “4)”.
6)Human Biology/Health

7)Sustainability/Green Tech – space is tough, we will need to be extremely effecient.

8)Education – space can inspire the young to learn engineering and science, and technology that allows us to train the workforce cheaply can be leveraged across the world to increase education. We can partner with government agencies dedicated to education, other countries, and open-source movement.

9)Innovation — In order to stretch the dollar and provide the most impact per dollar, we have to innovate. Maintaining the status quote will not be sufficient. Innovating how we do things, will save a lot of money. Innovating how we partner with other organizations large and small will bring in money for our needs.

10)Robotic technology

Douglas said what I was going to, but better.

Mission Statement? NASA will facilitate future space exploration technologies.

If it’s JSC-specific, then you should probably tie in some type of ‘human element’ to the vision/mission statement(s).

I don’t think NASA needs to be associated in such a big way with humanity as your post repeated a few times. It’s the Aeronautics and Space Administration – not the National Humanities Association. Humanity, literally, doesn’t include science at all does it?

Further, everyone knows green sustainability is a key to business moving forward – no need to harp on the obvious. Let’s not get carried away here. Sounds like NASA is going to save the human race! Save that tag line for our grandchildren’s children.

all with more cowbell of course…

Key note with this is not to underestimate the capabilities of the private sector, nor their drive and desire to make space profitable.