Florida Today reported Sunday that lobbyists from Florida and six other states have gone to D.C. "to persuade members of Congress to change the proposed NASA budget so that there is a bigger focus on human space exploration."
The group complains there the U.S. won't be launching human flights for several years from Kennedy Space Center, but of course they don't mention that this decision was made in January 2004 when President Bush cancelled the Shuttle program. They say they worry about U.S. astronauts on Russian craft, but that deal was signed by the Bush administration in 2007.
It would be nice if just one of these people would admit that this situation is due to Brevard County elected officials failing to act for the last six years.
These people are politicians, you don't really believe that they are going to admit that they screwed the pooch, do you?
ReplyDeleteBy the way, John Kelly has a piece in FT about the shuttle Enterprise and its role in flight testing the shuttle concept. As he pointed out, it essentially took a decade to design, build and test Enterprise. I don't remember when the Saturn V was designed, but it took at least 8 years before we made it to the moon. He further goes on to point out that the design, development and testing of a heavy lift vehicle will probably take another 10 years at least. If you add on the design development and testing of a crew module and the other hardware needed to go to Mars (or where ever), who knows how long that will take. The point is, it is going to take a while before we are ready to go anywhere and if they don't start soon, they will not be going anywhere in the next decade.
Yep, I saw the Enterprise column. As I wrote a few days ago, we collect Enterprise memorabilia.
ReplyDeleteAs for admitting they screwed the pooch ... The first step in solving a problem is acknowledging the problem. The problem is that we have a company town. When the company cuts back, jobs are lost. We need to diversify, and that's been the problem since the 1960s. This problem didn't suddenly begin when the Obama administration released its proposed budget in February.
Thanks for all your posts. We may not always agree, but I do appreciate your participation.