I think the term "privatization" is just a banner or symbol for their desire for change, which is more nebulous than most realize. A person of another culture might have chosen a revolutionary symbol, or another type of metaphor depending on the emotional message they want to communicate. There is a problem with using symbolic terms: they can easily be twisted.

Take this photo as one type of symbol....

"This is as unacceptable as it is predictable! The
White House and Congress must demand NASA do more
than just rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic."

Rick Tumlinson
Space Frontier Foundation

Here the image of the space shuttle, probably the most spectacular machine ever built is juxtaposed with a quote by Rick Tumlinson, founder of the Space Frontier Foundation, employing metaphors in response to the CAIB report on Columbia, to express his disappointment with the lack of change. It's a little silly if you ask me, after all the SFF has never attempted anything on the scale of what NASA does, and probably lacks the expertise to launch anything into space, let alone a manned spacecraft.

"Privatization" is just too inexact to be taken seriously. NASA is a goal-oriented administration if anything. Putting a man on the moon is a goal. Building a space station is a goal. Privatization is not a goal, it is a paradigm, a vague symbol, an idealistic construct of how we believe the world should work... a process at best, a different kind of beaurocratic structure...

Not a goal.

Of all the things that NASA has done that no longer impress people:

- put men on the moon
- sent probes to all the planets
- landed rovers on Mars and the Moon
- launched space telescopes and earth observation satellites
- built and manned the international space station

... these goals would be too menial, too mediocre for NASA today. They need to think bigger. The question is what goal would be worthy of an organization like NASA?