Steinn points to that rarest of rarities, a Gregg Easterbrook column on scientific matters (in Wired no less!) that isn't completely idiotic. In this case, he takes on the misplaced priorities of NASA.
Of course, this being Easterbrook, it can't be entirely right, and I think he's too harsh in assigning all the blame to NASA itself. For example, he writes:
NASA's to-do list neglects the two things that are actually of tangible value to the taxpayers who foot its bills -- research relevant to environmental policymaking and asteroid-strike protection. NASA has recently been canceling or postponing "Earth observation" missions intended to generate environmental information about our world. For instance, a year and a half ago the agency decided not to fund Hydros, a satellite that would have provided the first global data on soil moisture trends. NASA focuses its planetary research on frigid Mars rather than Venus, which suffers a runaway greenhouse effect. The agency is conducting only a few sun-study missions -- even though all life depends on the sun, and knowing more about it might clarify the global-warming debate. But $6 billion a year for astronauts to take each other's blood pressure on the space station? No problem!
Those are all true, and all highly regrettable decisions, but they're also not NASA's decisions. For the most part, they're doing what they can within constraints set by the President and Congress. The top-level priorities are set higher up in the administration, and the current administration has made Mars a top priority, for whatever reason. NASA managers aren't cutting Earth-observation projects because they're evil bastards with misplaced priorities, they're cutting Earth-observation programs because they haven't been given teh funding to keep them going while also meeting their obligations to pursue the Mars mission.
You could maybe try to argue that they deserve blame for not fighting the Mars thing harder, but, really, do you think that would make any difference with this administration?
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NASA is stuck in a mindset that is quite simply counterproductive: that they are rocket scientists and therefore smarter than anyone else and therefore don't have to change anything they are doing, no matter how badly they are failing (ie the Shuttles, the ISS, X33, Mars Climate Orbiter etc etc etc). I wrote about what NASA actually should be doing here:
http://robot_guy.blogspot.com/2007/05/ok-smart-guy-so-how-should-vse-be…
"NASA is stuck in a mindset that is quite simply counterproductive: that they are rocket scientists and therefore smarter than anyone else..."
Correction, if you please: "NASA TOP MANAGEMENT is stuck in a mindset that is quite simply counterproductive: that they are rocket scientists and therefore smarter than anyone else..."
I was one of the NASA "rocket scintists" and gradually came to accept Dr. Jerry Pournelle's assessment about NASA executives as dangerous Communist commissars who should be dealt with by "extreme prejudice."
Metaphorically speaking (you Homeland Security folks pissing away $10 Billion annually on so-called R&D, managed as arrogantly and wrongly as NASA).
One thing you must always remember about NASA: they are NOT a science agency. They will support science that is aligned with their goals (Moon/Mars science therefore gets high priority these days), but any science performed on NASA's dime is a bonus. While Bush and Congress deserve some of the blame, Jonathan is quite right to point his finger at NASA top management.
NASA's real purpose is to maintain some kind of space flight program, and that has always been their priority.
Eric, it could be argued that NASA's real purpose is to maintain NASA itself. It was certainly argued thus in a letter addressed to the 9th floor and reprinted at nasawatch.com:
http://www.nasawatch.com/archives/2007/05/petty_politics.html