A four-person crew of civilians launched this morning on a private SpaceX rocket for a five-day

mission that aims to include the first commercial space walk in history.

It comes less than a week after Boeing's troubled Starliner capsule returned to Earth without its astronauts.

NASA still has big plans, including sending people to the Moon and ultimately Mars.

But a sweeping new report out today from the to the Moon and ultimately Mars.

But a sweeping new report out today

from the National Academies of Sciences

raises questions about the agency.

Science correspondent Miles O'Brien joins us now.

So Miles, help us understand the essence of the concerns laid out in this report.

Well, Jeff, it's a concern which has been around for a long time, but it was well articulated by a very

prestigious group led by Norm Augustine a former CEO of Lockheed Martin and a kind

of a famous member of the aeronautical community.

And what they're saying essentially is NASA, you just mentioned some of the things are

trying to do, return to the moon, go to Mars. It has huge goals, big missions on its plate, and not nearly

enough budget and perhaps not the expertise to pull it off and on top of that maybe not even the

infrastructure. And much of this as I understand it is linked to NASA's

decision about a decade ago to partner in a more significant way with commercial contractors like

SpaceX.

What does the report say about the consequences of that decision and what it's meant for

NASA's workforce?

Yeah, you can put it in the category of unintended consequences,

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