Report slams Bush space vision (BBC News)

(I bet the Headline wanted to include the word "Ludicrous," but couldn't)

Report slams Bush space vision

President Bush's vision for human space exploration is doomed to fail without a major injection of funding and changes in space policy, according to a report.

Thursday, 23 June, 2005, 17:02 GMT 18:02 UK

The paper, by two influential experts, says current US space policy "presents a paradoxical picture of high ambition and diminishing commitment". The report identifies what it says are four key failures of national policy that hinder future success in space. But others have drawn attention to the authors' past democrat associations. The paper was written by George Abbey, director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, from 1995-2001, and Dr Neal Lane, White House science adviser under President Bill Clinton from 1998-2001.

Steps for improvement

It has been released by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is based on workshops with space companies, international agencies and scientists.

The four failures of national policy projected to hit future space successes that were highlighted by the paper were:

* Inadequate planning for Nasa's future
* Erosion of international co-operation in space
* Congressional restrictions on the export of space technology that hinder sales to other countries
and hamper information sharing across borders
* A projected shortfall in the future US science and engineering workforce, made worse by visa restrictions on foreign students

Dr Neal and Mr Abbey said they were hopeful about Nasa's new administrator, Mike Griffin, who has a scientific background and has already begun to change the agency's much-criticised management culture.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4124376.stm>
(more at link above)

:sarcasm:

With all the junk floating around in space and on liftoff, a plan to regularly inspect the orbiter for damage to the reentry heat shield/tiles, and repair if necessary, should have been in place dating back to the early missions.

My hunch is that the people who do post-flight inspections of the orbiters have known for decades that a Challenger disaster was inevitable.

low Earth orbit, supposedly cheap and resusable.

What a crock!

Now they have no booster powerful enough for manned flight outside of low orbit. They have no vehicle designed for extraorbital exploration.
NASA has very little but a bunch of pie in the sky plans and a cheerleader for President. NASA is a mere shadow of the NASA of 1969.

NASA is a national embarrassment!