Comments on: Seeking in-depth space policy commentary

By: Perry A. Noriega

Perry A. Noriega — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 00:30:42 +0000

Mark Whittington and I must be equally blind, or at least presbyopic, because we bote are (or in my case were) GOP supporters of the first rank, who in my case have had to reconsider my allegiance to a political party that disdains and devalues what I consider to be of supreme importance. Sounds like what happened to Jack Schmitt when the GOP gave him little or no support for his reelection bid to the US Senate in 1982 in New Mexico.

I’ve carried on ideological battles over space policy and goals with the Republicans for years. Then I suddenly realized they were about the past, geocentrism, stasis, and technocracy/reactonary, and I was about the future, space settlement, space utilization, dynamism, Karl Popper, Manuel Castells and Network organizaton, pragmatic libertarianism, practical anarchism,and individual activism for space. And theyb were not.

Unfortunately Dynamists do not correspond well to conventional left-right political paradigms, nor do they play well with others in the conventional authoritarian-bureaucratic-hierarchical sense of conventional orgainzations. Thus Dynamists and conventional Republicans are not only not on the same page, they are not even reading from the same book.

They also do not agree on conventional views of what space is for, who should go there, who and how it should be paid for, and how it should be sold to an atomized culture successfully, if at all.So there is a gap as wide as space itself regarding space for the common man and woman the conventional space community has yet to recognize, let alone bridge. But I keep trying, one person, one editorial, one posting, one conversation, one speech at a time. Ad Aster per Aspera I guess.

By: Robert G. Oler

Robert G. Oler — Wed, 18 Aug 2004 04:23:47 +0000

Mark Whittington is a friend, a good writer but he is blinded by GOP politics. I oppossed the space station in the 90’s (so did Mark I cowrote several Space News and other op eds along those line).

As Rand points out there are so many other issues on the top burner that civil space isnt even going to blip except in certian areas.

Robert G. Oler

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 03:53:19 +0000

Unfortunately, there are much larger issues in this election than civil space policy. Don’t expect anyone to pay much attention to it, one way or the other.

By: Dogsbd

Dogsbd — Mon, 16 Aug 2004 18:29:51 +0000

Although the supporting votes on ISS of 97/98 are not specifically mentioned the article does state, “Kerry now supports the space station”.

It then goes with “his opposition to human exploration beyond Low Earth orbit is just as intense as his opposition to the space station had been in the 1990s.” which, judging from Senator Kerry’s own statements, I would say is a fair assessment.