One sees that NASA has a proposal for a new, powerful rocket. It’s a design that’s impressive, expensive, and oddly aimless.
NASA’s problems are the problem of many government plans – the plan offers a Next Big Thing without a clear goal. NASA once built rockets to send Americans to the moon and back; now we propose large rockets for the moon, asteroids, Mars, whatever. Where the lunar goal once drove the means (e.g., Mercury, Gemini, Apollo), now the means are a multi-billion-dollar end in themselves, with the wishful view that we’ll find something to do with all this advanced rocketry.
Kennedy set a clear goal for space exploration; NASA’s new rocket proposal isn’t a goal, it’s a public-spending sinkhole.
(Funny moment: the news host obviously wasn’t prepared well, and initially thinks the NASA animation shown in the segment is a different, existing American rocket.)