Fifty years ago today, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act which into law and established the United States federal space agency NASA. To date the organization has achieved some pretty amazing things. It is still the only space organization to successfully land people on the Moon. It has sent tons of satellites and probes to study other planets and comets. The Hubble telescope, which is run by NASA, has provided some of the most amazing images of distant space. All around NASA is great and I really hope that they achieve just as much (if not more) over the next fifty years as they did during their first.
They are saying their future is shaky once the Shuttle is over. Personally, I think the whole organisation should be scrapped. Then the expertise can go direct to private enterprise, and then REAL exploration may begin.
Government controlled organisations are terrible explorers.