“The National Space Society (NSS) commends NASA and the Executive Branch for proposing to increase spending for science, technology, and sustainable economic development in space; however, we believe the President’s 2011 budget request would leave the job only partly done.”
We need to support a space program (human and robotic) that goes beyond low-Earth orbit.
We need a space program that will bring the inner solar system into our economic sphere and extend human presence throughout the solar system in accordance with U.S. national space policy, by adopting a long-term vision including power and materials from space.
The confluence of interests necessary to establish and maintain a national Space Policy is forged from a potent blend of promise, political interest, and economic wisdom … the promise of new real wealth — in terms of knowledge, resources, and technology; the political interest of the body politic, and those that serve it; and last, but not least, the economic wisdom to choose goals and missions sufficiently compelling that they can and will endure across multiple administrations.
The proposed NASA 2011 Budget is pregnant with opportunity, laying forth a cornucopia of constructive endeavors in a reasoned programmatic framework while at the same time seeking to strike a balance between proposed funding and the programs to be carried forward.
That said, technology development without requirements, without a set of missions that it is intended to enable, runs the risk of irrelevance if not being deemed a squandering of resources.
The challenge before us is to establish policy that sustains the confluence of interests necessary to achieve the future we wish to see come to pass … people living and working in thriving communities beyond the Earth, and the use of the vast resources of space for the dramatic betterment of humanity.
We need to support and expect a bright future in space, and the private sector cannot do it all alone.
Our space endeavors, government and commercial, provide strategic capabilities that define us as a nation and help maintain our leadership in the peaceful exploration and development of space.
We need a comprehensive space program worthy of a nation willing to lead on the space frontier.
Accordingly, whatever restructuring of NASA’s future is sustained and funded by this Congress, and those that come later, should be held to the standard of goals and destinations that foster the expansion of human activities and civilization into space beyond low Earth orbit.
Ad Astra!
- Gary P. Barnhard
It’s sad to see National Space Society attacking the most visionary plan NASA has ever had — a plan based on the forward-looking principles that former NSS executive directors Lori Garver and George Whitesides have worked so hard for.
Major General Charles Bolden has said, “NASA will accelerate and enhance its support for the commercial spaceflight industry to make travel to low Earth orbit and beyond more accessible and more affordable. Imagine enabling hundreds, even thousands of people to visit or live in low Earth orbit, while NASA firmly focuses its gaze on the cosmic horizon beyond Earth.”
NSS would have NASA chuck all that, for what? Another rerun of Project Apollo.
The Flexible Path being pursued by NASA under General Bolden’s leadership will allow NASA to go forward into the future, not just “back to the Moon.” Developing new technologies and using low-cost commercial transportation will enable NASA astronauts to go to the asteroids, the Lagrange points, the moons of Mars, Venus — and yes, maybe even take a side trip back to the Moon. NASA astronauts will finally achieve their first, best destiny — to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Instead, NSS is calling for a “truly ambitious space program” where astronauts merely go where Buzz and Neil have gone before. NASA would dump the International Space Station into the ocean, just so it can spend another $100 billion building a new space station on the Moon — a station that it could not afford to operate, because NSS wants to postpone the development of low-cost human spaceflight capability until commercial services are “demonstrated to be safe” (a phrase that Mike Griffin used to mean, roughly, “when hell freezes over”). Even if NASA could could afford to operate the lunar base, NASA astronauts would become housesitters, not explorers, and the agency would spend another 50 years going around in circles — as NSS governor Buzz Aldrin has warned.
All human progress depends on the willingness to innovate, to take risks, to try new things. Sadly, NSS only wants NASA to try old things. If we fall into that trap, America will lose its leadership in space. General Bolden is leading the charge over the next hill. Let’s follow him and not take counsel of our fears.
All the universe or nothing — which shall it be?
I am so glad to see NSS making this declaration, the whole new Presidential proposal has had me concerned. But I was thinking the NSS campaign should be a little bolder, something like “STOP THE SLAUGHTER, RESTORE THE VISION!” (referring to the slaughter of one of the greatest parts of our heritage, and referring to the vision for space exploration and having that clear moon-mars goal for our nation, as well as the NSS focus on human spaceflight goals). I love seeing that book mentioned on an NSS books page, The New Space Race, mentioning the coming surge of China, and how America is kind of shrinking back on that rather than boldly inspiring & uplifting our youth in a way that only a clear, gradual NASA goal can, and not just the very welcome increasing of new, commercial space. I don’t know if others have feelings like this, but that’s my 2 cents worth, thanks much for the great work and website.