I received the following press release yesterday about an event on Capitol Hill next week on a fairly generic topic: American leadership in space. It has a rather eclectic mix of speakers, including Pete Worden; the press release also uses phrases like “Humanistic Dialog” that, at the very least, start raising eyebrows. I probably won’t have the time to go myself, but perhaps some readers’ curiosities will be piqued enough to attend:
For Immediate Release
July 12 2004
Space For Progress
contact: Amalie Sinclair
(831) 425-2807
anadem@saber.net
Space For Progress Forum — Restoring America’s Leadership in Space
Cannon Congressional Caucus Room, The Capitol, Washington DC
Thursday July 22 2004 10 am – 4:30 pm
A Public Forum With
Ambassador Jonathan Dean – Union of Concerned Scientists
Brigadier General Pete Worden – Legislative Fellow, Sen. Sam Brownback
Dr Leonard Weiss – Federation of American Scientists
“Critical space systems are vulnerable” states General Worden, Senate Legislative Fellow and former Director of Development and Transformation at the Space and Missile Systems Center of the Air Force Space Command.
Space is THE VITAL KEY to national security, to civil and military strength. The crucial choice today is between our security or global de-stability. American leadership in space can create a new economic stimulus for this country and this century, but we are right at the crossroads. The SPACE FOR PROGRESS forum discusses the critical ways for America to lead the world again.
Communication, navigation, surveillance, reconnaissance, early warning and remote sensing –including asteroid hazard mitigation– environmental monitoring, education, and everything from crisis management to entertainment all rely on space.
For the first time in history, space enables the active dialog across political and physical borders that is an essential for our global society today. We have a duty to ourselves, to all the children and their children to make the right decision now.
10 – 12.30 Potentials: Innovative Legislation and Humanistic Dialog.
LUNCH
2.30- 4.30 Restoring US Leadership in Space: Technical Feasibility & Forward Plan
This reads, well, bizarrely (is that a word?). Note that two of the speakers are from liberal lobbying groups and the third is not known as a liberal (but has willingly engaged them constructively). Who is really sponsoring this?
But the overall announcement is itself all over the map. For instance, what exactly is meant by “Restoring America’s Leadership in Space”? If the United States has lost its space leadership, who currently has it? And how is that defined? And it looks like most of the subjects pertain to military space, not civil space.
I suspect that the person who wrote the press release is not exactly fluent in these issues. As I noted a few months ago, “leadership” is not a word that is often used in the American space program. It used to be very common, but not anymore. So its use here seems anachronistic.