re: federal door stop factories
>That's money that could have been spent on space exploration rather than a 977 page door stop that no one will ever read.
I hear your pain about having to preempt the nuts (and I personally called in to slap Kaku around when he was bloviating about Cassini on an NPR talk show).
Unfortunately, produding a 977 page door stop that no one would ever read is sort of a core competency for NASA, and for most federal agencies, not an unusual project....