Report: NASA is broken and it's up to us to fix it

NASA's first Vanguard rocket explodes on the pad, December 6, 1957.

NASA

In 2011, NASA commissioned the National Research Council to put together a report to serve as a "comprehensive independent assessment of NASA's strategic direction and agency management." That report, released yesterday, reads as a damning litany of what's wrong with one of the United States government's crown jewels. NASA, for all its accomplishments over the past fifty years, is a sinking ship.

Altogether, the report lists four primary areas that should be NASA's focus: manned spaceflight, Earth and space science, aeronautics, and technology development. The lack of focus in the manned space program is obvious to even casual observers, but the report also highlights serious issues in both funding and direction across the board at NASA, affecting the other focus areas as well.

The report brings up the recent Mars Science Laboratory program as a benchmark achievement, while at the same time pointing out that many other Earth and space science missions previously targeted as priorities are being set aside due to funding problems. The withdrawal from the ExoMars partnership with the European Space Agency clouds the agency's robotic future, even as Curiosity rolls triumphantly around on the surface of Mars, happily zapping things and making discoveries.