Consecutive posts on NASA Watch: House Appropriators Pull Out The Knives, then Just When You Thought No One At NASA Was Thinking Ahead.
Yeah.
There's really no shortage of smart people and great ideas at NASA. Some ideas are small in scope; they may result in better efficiency, higher reliability, or more convenience (many have much larger potential in the realm of technology spinoffs). These get lost in the depths of the shortsighted and risk-averse management structure of any given center. Bigger ideas die because big ideas require funding from congress, which is clearly not going to happen.
It would be nice to live in a world where public policy was actually set with the public's interests in mind. Maybe someday Kepler will find one.