NASA is using "lessons from the past" for moon landing...why are...?

Question

Why are they just now using lessons from the past? Why do they need to go to Museums for this information? It seems as if they are just now starting what they should have been doing for over 4 decades. What do you think?
The new manned exploration project, called Constellation, is deliberately drawing upon lessons from the past as the space agency works to meet a congressional deadline of flying the Ares rocket by 2014. (Yahoo News)

Answer 1

You've got a PR flack talking to a reporter. I think that there's been a bit of a transmission error.

It's not like NASA hasn't tried to build on past experience; it's just that the past experience (from, say, the Apollo program) was stuff that generally they couldn't afford to do anymore. As for "just now starting what they should have been doing for over 4 decades": once Apollo made the moon, Congress decided that the political point had been made and cut NASA funding so far that the manned spaceflight program had to be completely reinvented (the Space Shuttle).

If NASA had had the funding that they were getting for Apollo all through, a lot of this stuff we're talking about doing by 2014 would have been done long ago.

Answer 2

I suspect that "NASA is using lessons from the past" doesn't mean that it is a new operating procedure for them. Each and every NASA endeavor draws experience and knowledge from the previous one. First, the simple space shot, then the orbit, then a monkey, then a man, and the progression goes on, each project drawing from knowledge gained in the previous projects. Progress and technology is constantly building on previous discoveries and technology.

Answer 3

Because Burt Rutan and the x-prize kicked their rears. They were just lazing around knowing they were the only space folks in the US. With competition they know they actually need to do things again.

I love the x-prize. 100mpg car is the next x-prize.