The Orlando Sentinel printed a story on the 8th saying that the President's space plan is adrift on Capitol Hill. It appears that there is no leadership in Congress to push the plan. The president is now busy making his bid for reelection, so it has necessarily fallen by the wayside. If Bush wins reelection, some impetus for pursuing the plan may come forth. If John Kerry wins, I think the plan would be scrapped given that it would be viewed as Bush's plan. This has happened a lot in my career in the space program. It happened with Reagan's plan for the space station, and the station plan changed markedly with the subsequent administrations. Given the current polls, and that congress is always slow to act, I don't think we will see much in the way of budget this year.
The one thing about the Space program you can count on is that no matter what one President proposes, the fact is that that plan will change a lot. Given the history of the space program it's not likely that it will change for the better.
We had a vehicle, the Space Shuttle, that was supposed to make access to space routine. It only partially succeeded. We were supposed to have a space station that was to be a base for interplanetary missions, for serviing on-orbit satellites, for research. We now only have a station that does research into microgravity and life sciences. So now we are going to replace the shuttle with a crew exploration vehicle that will eventually travel to the moon and mars. Given the lackluster response by Congress, I expect what we will get will be very, very different.
There's a Slashdot article today about this topic.
I was really into the space program as a kid. Back then I didn't understand the politics behind it. Now I see just how political it all is, and it's depressing. Bush's space "initiative" seems like a bunch of election year hot air to me, and it's causing havoc with existing space projects.
I think NASA needs to be disentangled from the politicians somehow. Space projects are long term goals that can't be rearranged every four years. Projects are moving along and then a president decides we need to focus on manned missions to the moon and Mars. I'm all for manned missions to the moon and Mars, but they'll never happen before another politician has a chance to completely shift the focus again.
As a kid I figured there was a chance of me visiting the moon in my lifetime. Or at least get to earth orbit. Now I think there's little chance of that. If I'm lucky someone might reach Mars before I turn 100.
Posted by: Mike Boone at March 11, 2004 03:48 PM