When the success of a mission costing hundreds of millions of dollars, and the lives of human crews is dependent upon the reliable functioning of every part of the spacecraft, we do not buy those parts from the local Ace Hardware store. The specifications for every part used, and the test procedures required run hundreds of pages each.

My work for NASA was as a provider of such parts and assemblies. Anyone involved with NASA understood and took pride in doing their job as best as humanly possible. Every part has to be able to withstand the harsh conditions of space, the temperature extremes, the hard vacuum, and the radiation spectrum and intensity.

In the time I was involved in our Moon program, NASA was run from the top down by scientists and engineers, our successes in space were legendary. Today NASA is run by politicians, political hacks, and bean counters. It is now a miracle we have the successes we do.

Of course, there is waste in the space program. There always has been instances of poor judgment in trying to keep projects on schedule. There has always been pressure from politicians to bring business to their constituents and financial contributors. And there have always been low level employees who just thought it was a job and didn't get the can do big picture.

Now our space program must be privatized. The simple truth is that many of the brightest and most innovative people will no longer consider working for NASA.