I have read in the late 50s/early 60s there was some talk of establishing a U.S. Space Force which would have complete control over all US spaceflight operations from sounding rockets, tactical missiles, IRBMs, SLBMs (a duty taken over from the Navy), ICBMs and all space-related activities including manned and scientific spaceflight.
This essentially got kiboshed in 1967 when the US signed the UN Space Treaty sharply (although not completely) limiting the militarization of space. Of course all the individual services were not happy with the idea of giving up their individual space activities and everyone in NASA just busted a gasket over the idea.
By the time momentum really started to build behind Apollo after the death of JFK, any move to encroach on NASA's turf was taken as an attempt to derail it from the end-of-decade goal.
Yes, and I'm not so sure that would have been a bad thing... even now there is talk in some quarters (and has been for some time, and seems to persist and seems to be growing slowly in volume and breadth) that NASA should be dissolved and its functions reassigned or at least completely reorganized to be better able to perform its assigned missions in a more efficient manner. Its undeniable that NASA has, over the course of the last 50 years, become a huge politically-oriented bureaucracy more interested in its own survival and growth than actually performing the missions which it is supposed to exist for. Granted, this is not ALL NASA's fault... NASA has been a political football used for political ends from the very beginning-- as you get deeper and deeper into NASA history is becomes more and more apparent... (just read an interesting book about James Webb, NASA's most famous director (and who controlled NASA through virtually the entire run-up to the first moon landing, and thus was the most responsible for Apollo). There's been political fingers in NASA's pie for as long as there's been a NASA, from the location of NASA centers (LBJ's choice of Houston for the Manned Spacecraft Center which now bears his name) just being one of the most glaringly obvious, to the choice of contractors and even the choice of individual systems design or hardware, or the choice of contractor to build it. ALL of these things have been used time and again since the very beginning to reward political friends and punish political enemies, rather than strictly adhering to the best and most technically sound engineering solution. In a way, it's a miracle NASA has managed to do as well as it has-- though the MASSIVE effects of bureaucracy and political cherry-picking is certainly showing now and making its presence known through the technological malaise and gridlock that NASA now appears to be mired in, perhaps beyond hope of escape.
Perhaps a push of the "reset" button isn't a bad idea... it would certainly break up the present logjam of the status quo... sometimes you need a storm to shake all the dead wood out of a tree. NASA has become more concerned about "ten healthy centers" than about the future of space exploration in this country, and more interested in development funding for everyone's pet project and keeping its favored contractors fat and happy rather than actually developing sustainable, affordable, cost and operationally efficient, safe spacecraft, launch systems, and hardware. NASA has REPEATEDLY robbed the unmanned scientific robotic spacecraft side of funding to pay for massive cost and schedule overruns in its manned missions development, primarily shuttle and ISS, and has done it again in trying to prop up the Constellation program before it was canceled, and is doing it again to sustain SLS/Orion development. This is particularly frustrating, because basically VIRTUALLY ALL the actual scientific discovery and exploration of the last FORTY YEARS has been done and achieved by the UNMANNED ROBOTIC side of the space program! Yet this anemically underfunded part of the program is the first part robbed of funding and left to wither on the vine whenever some big manned prestige project of dubious value runs into the rocks of funding or schedule problems. In truth, I question the continued value of manned spaceflight at this point. I could see it if we were going back to the moon, but Obama has put the kibosh on that (Been there, done that so he and his cronies say). "Mars in 20-30 years" has been an ongoing theme for the last 40 years at least... probably longer than that, going all the way back to the beginning of the space age. It looks no more realistic now than it did then... despite the political hype to the contrary! If we cannot afford to go to the Moon, which is right next door and is certainly easier to land on and in some ways easier to operate on, some ways harder... then how can we EVER afford to go to MARS, which is an order of magnitude more difficult and expensive and dangerous?? Heck, the gov't has pulled NASA out of COOPERATIVE missions with ESA on Mars missions which would SHARE COSTS, and we CERTAINLY cannot afford even a "simple" (infinitely simpler than a MANNED Mars mission anyway!) ROBOTIC sample-return mission from Mars, even with cost-sharing with the Europeans, yet these same politicos still make pretty speeches with a straight face about how we're going to land astronauts on Mars in 20-30 years... (SURE... and I have a bridge I'd like to sell on Ebay...) Even the vast majority of work going on at present aboard ISS is dedicated to studying and possibly ameliorating the effects of long-term deep-space flight on humans, ostensibly for a future Mars mission, which is rather unlikely in any honest appraisal of the current situation and future prospects of NASA. As for potential "manned" asteroid missions, there is NOTHING that humans can do of any particular value on an asteroid that cannot be done much simpler, cheaper, and easier, if not taking longer to do, with an unmanned spacecraft/probe/robot. As we examine the truth of Moore's Law, it's quite likely that by the time we're actually capable of considering a manned trip to Mars, robotics will have advanced to the point we achieve the same goals intended for a human mission to Mars with infinitely cheaper unmanned robotic probe missions... the military's present development of AI and robotic battlefield systems, UAV's, etc. is pointing the way in this regard. Look how far robotics has come in the last 30 years... how far is it likely to go in the next 30?? By the time we're ready to land people on Mars, it'll be cheaper and easier to simply land an autonomous AI robot on Mars, something like a cross between R2D2 and C3PO with a little "Terminator" thrown in, folded up in an aeroshell like the battle droids in the hover tanks in "Star Wars, Attack of the Clones" and deployed on the surface and activated when needed, on the surface of Mars, and having the benefit of not needing oxygen and water and sufficient warmth and air pressure to survive, dedicated surface systems, habs, supplies, food, medical equipment and supplies, tools and rovers and suits and surface systems, and an assured return capability to Earth... robots that will land on Mars and operate there for years, even decades, going places and doing things we could NEVER send a human to do because of the risk or simple impossibility of it... (things like, in a related vein, going to look for life on Europa-- notice how there is NO talk of manned missions to Europa... why is that?? Simply because, due to Europa's orbit within Jupiter's massive radiation belt, operating on the surface of Europa is the equivalent of camping out under the pressure vessel of an operating nuclear power plant reactor at full power, inside the radiation shielding-- fatal in minutes! In addition, supposing one DID land and immediately burrow under the ice for shielding, operating under an ice sheet miles thick in an ocean hundred of miles deep in a manned vehicle is simply infeasible in any possible future advanced technology scenario barring "magical" technology ala Star Trek/Star Wars... thus robotic exploration is PERFECTLY acceptable for this mission for which it is the ONLY possible alternative, yet because a manned Mars mission IS "technically" feasible and possible (given sufficient expenditure of time, talent, and money to develop the hardware to make it possible) manned Mars exploration is touted as the *only* way we're EVER going to *really* learn what's going on there... RUBBISH!!! )
Personally I think that dividing NASA up into at least three constituent parts, each separate entities, perhaps under a single over-arching authority sponsoring agency, is a good idea... One division would be SOLELY dedicated to developing, designing, building, testing, and flying ROBOTIC exploration space missions and satellite assets falling under NASA's present purview... The second division would be assigned the task of developing, designing, building, testing, flying, and training crews and controlling missions for MANNED space missions. The third division would be dedicated to the "pure research" and aeronautical research side of what NASA does (another part currently starved of funding to the extent possible when NASA needs more money for its "flagship" manned missions development). Notice I said virtually NOTHING about launch vehicle development... that's because, apart from some pure research in developing prototype or basic development work on new propulsion or improving existing chemical propellant engine design, those functions should ALL be turned over to commercial industry-- NASA should have ONLY enough in-house capability to accurately define and assess the capabilities and safety of commercially designed, built, tested, and delivered launch vehicle systems and choose the designs best suited to the mission as defined the most safely, sustainably, and cost-efficiently. THAT'S IT. No more "in-house" NASA-designed/Contractor-built with NASA oversight launch vehicles. Industry has proven itself COMPLETELY capable of LV development and design and overseeing their own operations in this regard, as Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9 (among many others) constantly proves. There is NO need for NASA to inefficiently duplicate this capability at GREAT expense over the course of decade-long programs (that usually end up getting canceled). This just makes sense, in the same way that the military does not actually DESIGN new tanks, planes, or ships, but merely defines the ROLES and MISSION, the requirements and specifications that the hardware has to be actually capable of achieving and performing, and then chooses among competing INDUSTRY designs and sponsoring prototype development and testing before selecting a final system and procuring it. NASA should do the same-- when NASA needs an HLV, put out the requirements to industry, gather proposals, evaluate them honestly, and then choose the best, safest, and most cost-efficient solution with the best prospects for success. PERIOD. NASA should ONLY be doing in design, development, and building, what industry is incapable of doing or inexperienced at doing-- spacecraft (well, cutting edge ones, as industry DOES have a LOT of experience with spacecraft, but deep-space spacecraft is more NASA's domain), advanced systems for manned deep space flight, such as habs, rovers, suits, etc... (yeah, industry again has a lot of experience here and SHOULD be tapped to the extent possible-- basically I'd relegate NASA to more of an oversight/advisory position on these types of things, and for pure research on advanced systems of the future, like Robonaut, In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), advanced nuclear/electric/ion propulsion-- things like this for which there is no "commercial market" and for which industry is going to be unwilling to dedicate capital and research funding towards on their own... )
Most of this is EXACTLY the sort of thing Harrison "Jack" Schmitt is suggesting, among others... (next to last guy on the moon, the geologist turned Congressman who flew on Apollo 17). The good-old-boy network and bureaucracy NASA has become needs a good strong shake-up to get it moving again... IMHO!
Later! OL JR
