.

The hyphen is here but Keith Cowing is not.

You  really CAN learn something here...

Isn't it about time for a real .com watchdog regarding NASA?

  Disclaimer: The NASA-Watch.com watchdog website is obviously not affiliated in any way with NASA,
or with the sponsorship-accepting,  NASA favor-seeking, usually pro "big government" (predictably),
& understandably nontrademarked  Nasawatch.com(munists).  

   Incidentally, NASA-Watch.com is a completely free service which has never accepted
any sponsorship (sort of like Consumer Reports).  Why might this matter?   Here's our answer. 

 Below, you can find some truly commercial space frontier-enabling articles & press releases.    Predictably enough, their essence is usually ignored by our rival  Nasawatch.com(munists) (the pride and joy of the tax-leeching bureaucrats' & government contractor  media sponsors), and by much of the traditional space media.   After some of these articles, we include our commentary, and after some others we include what we believe that Nasawatch.com(munists) would say if injected with a healthy dose of some truthfulness serum and subsequently prompted to comment.  
        If you know of an article from a reasonably credible source that addresses an unfairly and opportunistically suppressed reform-related idea, or that reveals a little-known scandal involving humanity's often thwarted struggle to finally open up the space frontier for our entire species, then please feel free to send us a confidential e-mail at scandals@NASAWatch.INFO here in Washington D.C.   We can happily discuss our linking to it, for free of course, from this increasingly popular noncommercial website.   We focus on calling attention to what one canNOT easily find in the traditional space media, which (unlike us) DOES accept biasing sponsorship or depend upon the cabal of corruption in some other way.   Our main goal is to make it impossible for thieves to continue hiding in the alarmingly stagnating & seemingly underperforming aerospace industry.  One can perhaps better ascertain what we consider to be sufficiently scandalous or progressive enough to warrant a link & commentary from us, by reading what's below.
          If you want to grab the precise URL of an external article,  please simply right click on it with your mouse.

You  really CAN learn something here...

Remember,  if you want to understand what's REALLY causing the space industry to underperform even as some folks opportunistically pretend to praise its "progress," just follow the money!

To see who contributes to whom, or receives what from whom in terms of campaign financing,
please feel free to consult the following free source:   http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/fecimg/query.html

Here are some of the latest space & related scandals...
(and what we believe that Nasawatch.com(munists) would say if injected with a healthy dose of truth serum).

Wall Street Journal Online article:  " 'Prize philanthropy' is useful for breaking a bottleneck where government bureaucracy and markets are stuck..." [Competitive] prizes work in ways that conventional R&D doesn't, and finding ways to spur innovation is crucial to improving how well we -- and our children and grandchildren -- live."

 NASA-Watch.com: Shouldn't we be trimming other parts of NASA's $16 billion dollar annual budget instead of its pro-entrepreneurial Centennial Challenges program?

(Nasawatch.com(munists): "Don't touch NASA's space station! I used to work on it while a tax leech at NASA. If it's de-emphasized then what will I have to show for my time as a tax leech?  As for the Shuttle, I have allie$ who do not want it abolished either so just shush! What we should abolish, instead, is the $20 million dollar per year NASA competitive prizes initiative.  I'll not advocate its survival unless the Shuttle, CEV and the Station get fully funded like my cronies and partners in crime desire."

Previously...

Space Frontier Foundation press release: Please rescue NASA's competitive prizes program!
 
NASA's prizes program now has its share of problems, as one can see here but also here (where it says as follows):

     "The Committee does not provide any funding in fiscal year 2007 for the Centennial Challenges program. Funding provided in previous fiscal years for this program is sufficient for NASA to run a prize based competition, as well as to verify that NASA will see tangential benefits from running such a program. Providing additional funds to a program based on prizes only creates a pot of unused funds while other aspects of NASA's mission are being cut or delayed due to a lack of funds."

DARPA's Urban Challenge has a financial challenge of its own now, too, astonishingly enough...

Darpa.mil press release:  "DARPA announces Urban Challenge. Teams will compete to build an autonomous vehicle able to complete a 60-mile urban course safely in less than 6 hours... New discussion forum is now on-line."

(Nasawatch.com(munists): Of course I'm paying so little attention to this scandalous news!  If NASA embraced this paradigm shift significantly more, there'd be far less need for my "soap opera digest of space" "news service".   Meanwhile my bureaucrat moles and financers would lose more of their monopoly, thereby hindering my business plan.  Gee, I wonder how many points I could score with corrupt bureaucrats if only I could somehow defame the whole prizes movement by publicly smearing its proponents?  How can  I arm-wave most profitably?  After all, as a pseudo-journalist I'm sure as heck not making much money on selling banner ads now that the Discovery Channel's sponsorship account of my "news" services is toast, while my New Moon Rising book sales flopped beyond what I can stand to admit in public (even as ISBN sales-tracking services can readily confirm the painful truth).   Why isn't there interest in buying a banner ad from me, though? http://www.spaceref.com/company/advertising.html "  Other than the traditional banner networks that pay pennies a week, practically nobody is interested.  Rats! I guess I'll just try and peddle NASA ringtones now, since I'm already one of the NASA bureaucracy's biggest media sycophants.  Won't ya please chip in?

 NASA-Watch.com:  Sigh, Keith...   We noticed how you completely ignored this article, as well: 

New York Times.com article: synopsis: resentfulness & jealousy towards NASA's competitive prizes program lingers among those whom it could displace...

     Anyhow, the WhiteHouse.gov budget proposal for NASA for 2007 allocated merely $10 million for its Centennial Challenges  competitive prizes program (as this NASA budget breakdown for 2007 confirms).  Additional funds would apparently have to come from other NASA programs.  Might you have any in mind that you'd like to democratically recommend?

Previously...

San Francisco Chronicle article:  "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- the gee-whiz Pentagon outfit that brought us the Internet, stealth bombers, "smart bombs" and a short-lived terrorism futures market -- has for 40 years dreamed of the day when robotic vehicles would wage war. It has thrown vast sums at defense contractors who, so far, haven't accomplished much...Disappointed by the slow pace and facing a congressional mandate that one- third of all Army ground combat vehicles be unmanned by 2015, DARPA decided to kick-start the research by inviting any scientist, engineer or gearhead with an idea to give it a try [with a million dollar competitive prize as their incentive]...The competition has attracted teams ranging from robotics powerhouse Carnegie Mellon University, which has budgeted $5 million for the task, to former NASA engineers to a pair of guys cobbling together a vehicle in their garage in St. Louis.  The real money, contestants said, comes with marketing the technology."

 NASA-Watch.com: Did you notice how the government's offering competitive prizes provides former NASA employees with opportunities to make far more money than they could have at NASA, and without its tedious bureaucracy?   Will current NASA bureaucrats be able to overcome their jealousy and tolerate an increase in the size of such prizes?

Previously...

FoxNews.com article:  NASA finally offers competitive prizes, resembling DARPA's multi-million dollar Grand Challenge. "DARPA was convinced that good ideas existed for overcoming some of the problems plaguing vehicles that drive themselves. But officials also suspect that they aren't hearing all those ideas because some people are unable or unwilling to run the bureaucratic paperwork gauntlet necessary to secure a DARPA contract. "Who's out there in their garages, their bedrooms, in their labs, working on this?" Negron said. "We want to know." The race might appeal to some people who simply want to show what they can do, without all the red tape."

Previously:

Google News Alerts feature.  http://www.google.com/newsalerts now offers a free ability to create a search for news items from thousands of  different news sources, and have links to related stories e-mailed to one for free either once daily or as often as Google encounters a new relevant story. According to the Washington Post: "The service allows a great deal of customization, especially if you use Google News's advanced-search function to fine-tune a query."

(Nasawatch.com(munists):: "Huh? But what will folks need SpaceRef and NASAWatch.COM for now?")

 NASA-Watch.com: That's an interesting question, Keith.  And Google doesn't even have a reputation for being sold out to special interests, either.   Indeed, isn't it easier to filter what a searchbot sends out in hopes of finding useful content than it is to screen "coverage" from self-serving statist journalists?  

Previously... 

WashingtonTimes.com article: A former Boeing executive who also held important procurement positions in the Air Force and at NASA has pled guilty to conspiring to get Boeing a government contract at grossly inflated rates in exchange for a lucrative job with Boeing.

 NASA-Watch.com: Considering all the "revolving door" corruption that plagues the U.S. aerospace industry without even getting probed, isn't this kind of like putting a band-aid on a hemorrhaging wound, or locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen?  Regardless, don't incidents like these suggest that space mission pricetags would become much more credible if NASA finally got out of the central planning business and into that of offering more and better competitive prizes, and possibly doing research that contestants can't do but need to have done?

(Nasawatch.com(munists): Of course I didn't pull strings to try and protect her. She didn't leak enough national secrets to me while she still could have.  She also didn't persuade Boeing to pour new money into sponsoring my websites.

   Previously... 

Space.com article: "Both the House and Senate versions of the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 that is scheduled for conference in mid-December include provisions that would allow NASA to offer prizes worth millions of dollars or more."      

Space.com article: NASA issues its latest Centennial Challenges (even as funding issues remain)

((Nasawatch.com(munists):: "I'm not comfortable with NASA's offering competitive prizes.  Keep trying to fund them privately and leave my bureaucrat & contractor allies' $16 billion annual budget alone. ")

 NASA-Watch.com: Well then:   Forbes.com article: "Abolish the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) or drastically scale back its mission. Since the moon landings over three decades ago, NASA has become an obstacle to advancing space exploration and travel. If NASA had been in charge of developing the automobile, we'd still be riding horses."

 

 NASA-Watch.com: What do these sales figures signify? Click here to discuss...

Previously:

The book entitled Space: The Free-Market Frontier (from the Cato Institute) is ranked #681,114 out of over a million books for sale at Amazon.  [We have absolutely no relationship with that book, and we were never asked to mention it here. We simply admire its pro-entrepreneurial positions, and are pleased that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is now aggressively embracing the space industry.]

Cato Institute book forum: Space: The Free-Market Frontier: Wednesday, April 16, 2003 12:00 p.m. (video & audio are available there for free).

 NASA-Watch.com: Predictably ignoring invitations, NASA ultimately sent nobody to speak in a related Cato event 2 years ago.  There are elections in November of '04 though, so this time someone [Courtney Stadd] showed up to speak for NASA (while peculiarly NOT accepting any publicly asked questions).  Nice things were said about NASA by him (and he has since resigned to cash in out in the private sector) but, ahem!,  where are the pro-entrepreneurial reforms?  The Columbia disaster is a justification for them, not an excuse to ignore them, right?

Previously...

   Last summer, recent NASA Administrator Dan Goldin became one of the only university presidents possessing merely a bachelor's degree. More recently he became apparently the first, ever, university president in the U.S.A. to get fired before even reporting for work.  He nevertheless received nearly $2 million dollars from Boston University for his "sacrifices".

Who is to blame for Daniel Goldin's hiring in the first place?  What did he get for in exchange? Meanwhile, does [Massachusetts] Attorney General Tom Reilly (who challenged Microsoft even as other states eventually backed down) actually give a hoot about Dan Goldin's latest example of corrupt enrichment?  Does he care that this has sent a message to our nation's capital that corruption pay$?

Previously...

 NewYorkTimes.com article: "Though trustees serve without pay, one [Boston University board] member appointed this year is Gerald Cassidy, a Washington lobbyist who has won millions of research dollars for the university and whose firm was paid $806,218 by B.U. in the 2001 tax year. "Lobbyists for universities in Washington are almost never trustees," Richard T. Ingram, president of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, said of Mr. Cassidy, who is considered close to Dr. Silber. Mr. Cassidy also happens to be a friend of Mr. Goldin, and escorted him to his first interview with the search committee, last May."

(Nasawatch.com(munists): "My exposing this aspect of the scandal would hit a little too close to home for me.  Would you erase it please?   This sort of conflict-of-interest probing sets an unpleasant tone.")

Previously...

BostonGlobe.com article: "A group of [Boston U.] professors have launched a website called "BUWatch" to pressure the administration for reform. Bernard founded an alternative alumni association. And one informal group of alumni is even mulling a class-action suit against the trustees for devaluing their degrees. "If this is not the time to stand up, when is?" asked Neidle, a professor of French and linguistics....Now, [Professor James Iffland's] group is calling on [Massachusetts] Attorney General Tom Reilly's office to investigate the board of trustees and the financial transactions between BU and companies or charities with which trustees are involved.  Their criticisms are also being echoed in the student press. Karlo Silbiger, a fourth-year student, wrote an opinion piece in the student newspaper, the Daily Free Press, calling on the entire board of trustees to resign, and for officials to detail  [Dan] Goldin's settlement."

Previously...

BostonGlobe.com article: "[In 1978] the [Boston University] board came under investigation by former Massachusetts attorney general Scott Harshbarger, whose office looked into whether Silber and a few trustees were hoarding power and using it to their own financial advantage. The investigation led to a written agreement under which BU promised to reform its conflict-of-interest procedures...Harshbarger, who now focuses on corporate governance in his private law practice, questioned how much the board had reformed its practices...Trustees at BU are unpaid and do not receive reimbursement for travel to board meetings, which are scheduled three times a year."

New York Times article: "$1.8 Million Check for a Job Not Done Jolts Boston University..." 

 NASA-Watch.com:  B.U. trustees were unpaid?  Does anyone doubt that aerospace lobbyist Gerald Cassidy did not come out financially ahead after helping Dan Goldin land the lucrative B.U. presidency job offer and secure the subsequent lucrative settlement?  For more on that scandal, please click here.  Meanwhile, what will current [Massachusetts] Attorney General Tom Reilly do about this scandal?

Previously...

BostonGlobe.com article: "Silber came to embrace Goldin at the behest of a BU trustee, Gerald S.J. Cassidy, whose role in the search process suggested a conflict of interest to several committee members. Cassidy is head of a Washington consulting firm that has earned millions of dollars in lobbying fees from BU over the years; he is a close friend of Silber and Goldin; and, by helping negotiate a multimillion-dollar contract for Goldin to succeed Silber, Cassidy probably stood to gain continued business and support from BU in future years, the BU sources say. In hindsight, Silber's presence on the search committee was a major error, several committee members and BU sources said yesterday. He established Goldin as the front-runner, seeing him as a strong leader who could help land big donations and lucrative federal grants."  "Some trustees considered Goldin too arrogant from his first appearance before the committee, which one source said went so badly that Cassidy suddenly announced that Goldin had to make a flight, and whisked him away."

 NASA-Watch.com: WHY else would Cassidy want to repay Goldin with this "Goldin parachute"?  Perhaps to keep him quiet about Shuttle-related improprieties?  Or to show others in power how loyal he is after they've lost favor with big corporations and their political sycophants, and can no longer enrich them like Goldin  monopolistically did during his decade of tyranny?  According to this Cassidy.com page:

"Cassidy & Associates professionals have a long history and depth of experience in aerospace issues, affording our clients significant advantages in this very competitive industry. The firm represents some of the largest aerospace companies in the world. We offer these clients insight into the decision-making process of the country's technical and defense agencies at the highest levels and access to the key decision-makers on Capitol Hill. For example, Cassidy & Associates has been involved in a nationwide campaign to begin the process of upgrading the US space shuttle. This large and complex effort pulls in professionals from all parts of the firm and is led by the former head of Legislative Affairs at NASA, now a Cassidy Senior Vice President. We also work on issues ranging from research dollars within NASA to the development of new remote sensing programs. Our ability to successfully work both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue and within the federal agencies has proven to be of material benefit to our clients."

Previously...

 BostonHerald.com article: "The account of the ugly saga, as confirmed by the source, begins in July with Silber's helping usher Goldin through the nomination process, leapfrogging him over other candidates culled by an outside search firm... Another trustee who openly advocated for Goldin, powerhouse D.C. lobbyist Gerald S.J. Cassidy, declined comment this week."

 NewYorkTimes.com article: "Several people close to the university said the search panel's members were aware of an interview, posted on the Internet, that Mr. Goldin gave in 1998 with the Academy of Achievement. Asked about dealing with adversity and criticism, Mr. Goldin said:  "Basically, I'm a volatile person. Every minute, I've got to manage my emotional control. Some people are born to be level. I fight every day of my life to be level, and I'm not allowed the luxury of blowing up. But occasionally I do." "

 BostonHerald.com OpEd: "It seems about time for that guardian of the public trust,
[Massachusetts] Attorney General Tom Reilly, to take a look at BU's governance and make sure the public interest is not being abused by trustees, some of whom have clearly benefited from their university ties."

Boston Globe article: "Goldin came to BU's attention not through the official search but by a personal friend and new BU trustee, Gerald S.J. Cassidy, a Washington lobbyist and close ally of Silber."

DailyFreePress.com (B.U.'s campus newspaper) article: "More than 100 Boston University faculty members assembled Wednesday afternoon at a two-hour faculty forum to discuss the controversy surrounding the Board of Trustees and President-elect Daniel S. Goldin...  faculty members at the forum spoke out both for and against Goldin. “Some of those who spoke said they questioned Goldin’s authoritative leadership reputation at NASA,” he said. “Others said he has already had an influence on Boston University in our [billion dollar] contract for the new bio [laboratory].”  

Previously...

Boston Globe article: "A committee of influential Boston University trustees voted yesterday to recommend that the university's governing board reconsider its decision to name former NASA chief Daniel S. Goldin as president...If Goldin were removed, it would be a turnaround virtually unheard of in higher education...[Former B.U. President] Silber was impressed with Goldin's credentials as the longest-serving administrator at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and he was influenced by Goldin's chief patron among the  [board's] trustees, Washington lobbyist Gerald Cassidy, who is close to Silber."

 Previously...

 NASA-Watch.com:  In 1999, NASA "awarded" over $4 million to Boston University while Dan was still running the show and feathering his nest at taxpayers' expense...

Source: http://ec.msfc.nasa.gov/hq/library/procreport/Annual99_A.html

How much did Cassidy's clients make, though? Why isn't that documented transparently?  And why is there so much silence at Cassidy's firm about this Goldin self-enrichment?

(Nasawatch.com(munists):: "What in the heck is wrong with feathering one's nest at taxpayers' expense?")

 BostonHerald.com OpEd: "It seems about time for that guardian of the public trust,
 [Massachusetts] Attorney General Tom Reilly, to take a look at BU's governance and make sure the public interest is not being abused by trustees, some of whom have clearly benefited from their university ties."

 NASA-Watch.com: Does [Massachusetts] Attorney General Tom Reilly (who challenged Microsoft even as other states eventually backed down) actually give a hoot about Dan Goldin's latest example of corrupt self-enrichment and enrichment of cronies, all at voters', taxpayers' and the space community's expense?  Does Mr. Reilly care that this has sent a message to our nation's capital that corruption pay$?