Forbes has an article on NASA’s current problems.

NASA officials have taken days to decide whether the hole threatens the safety of the crew or if the astronauts need to get out to repair the damage.

I infer from the way this is written that the author thinks there’s something wrong with “taking days to decide” something affecting the potential loss of vehicle and crew. Did they expect, or want them to rush the decision? The decision doesn’t have to be made until it’s time to go home (or at least, until they are about to run out of time to do a repair, if necessary). It seems proper to me to gather as much information as possible, and not to do so in haste.

The U.S. space agency is already weathering a veritable meteor shower of problems, including allegations of corruption, underfunding, drunken and disturbed astronauts, and even murder.

Can anything be done to turn things around?

NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs says the solution is to emphasize the agency’s strong suit–science.

That’s the agency’s strong suit? I think that’s a dangerous position to take. It might make people question why NASA is spending so much money on things that aren’t science, and so little on their “strong suit.” I expect the public to think that space=science, but it’s disappointing to see a NASA spokesman promulgating the myth.

For a brief moment in 2004–less than a year after the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on its return to Earth–NASA enjoyed a swelling of support. President Bush announced his new program for space exploration. He vowed to complete the International Space Station by 2010, develop a new vehicle to replace the aging shuttle fleet and return to the moon by 2020. The ultimate goal, Bush said, would be a new frontier in space adventure–a human journey to Mars.

And beyond. “Mars and beyond.” The president said that humans are going out into the cosmos. Mars is just one more stepping stone along the way, not the “ultimate goal.” Why can’t they ever get it right?

The administration’s priorities have changed, for obvious reasons.

Really? In what way? And what for what “reasons,” that are supposed to be “obvious”? There has been no change in policy of which I’m aware. VSE was never a high priority, but it was, and remains, the national civil space policy.

But NASA’s recent bad luck has been largely self-inflicted.

For example, there’s the strange case of Lisa Nowak. In February she was arrested after driving more than 900 miles to attack and potentially kidnap a romantic rival in a love triangle involving another astronaut. Last month a NASA study on astronaut behavior and health revealed that some astronauts have been drunk prior to liftoff.

No, it revealed nothing of the kind. We still have no reason to believe that anyone ever took off in a Shuttle while inebriated. Another media myth that will not die.

Just about everyone agrees that the agency is overstretched. In his fiscal-year 2008 budget, President Bush requested $17.3 billion for NASA. A Senate appropriations subcommittee has allotted $150 million more than the president’s request, and the House committee also believes the agency is underfunded.

Vincent Sabathier, director of the Human Space Exploration Initiatives program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says NASA needs another $3 billion per year to do its exploration and scientific work effectively.

“NASA is an amazing tool for the U.S.,” he says. The agency is “in trouble” because “we ask a lot from them, and we don’t give them enough money.” According to Sabathier, the agency needs another $3 billion per year to do its exploration and scientific work effectively.

“For one year of the cost of the war in Iraq,” he says, “we could have a permanent lunar base.”

This is always irritating.

Yes, or for a few months of the cost of social security. Or the amount we spend on vacations. Or interest on the federal debt. There are many potential sources of funding for a lunar base, if having a lunar base is important.

What’s the point? Obviously, this is a person who would object to spending money on Iraq regardless of what alternate use it could be put to, and thinks that others agree with him, so he uses that as an example of where to get the money for a lunar base, as though the problem is simply not enough money, rather than the national priority we assign to having a lunar base. If we chose to, if it were important, we could afford a war in Iraq and a lunar base. As it is, even if there were no war in Iraq, we’d be unlikely to take the funds from it and instead put them into NASA. More likely, it would be used to reduce the deficit. This is a flawed argument.

Speaking of flawed arguments in favor of (and against) space spending, Alan Boyle has a(n inadvertent) gallery of them in his comments section here. You’ll find almost every single one of them.