In a Huntsville Times article Wednesday, Congressman Bud Cramer (D-AL) said opposition to funding the Vision for Space Exploration comes from both sides of the aisle:
Cramer said he and other NASA supporters in Congress are pushing to approve the money, but are fighting liberal Democrats who want more money for social programs and conservative Republicans who see space exploration as an unneeded cost, he said.
Not terribly surprising, although it’s too bad he didn’t name names. He added that Congress “probably” won’t get back to work on NASA’s FY05 budget before November 15; in fact, the House and Senate are not scheduled to reconvene until the afternoon of November 16.
If opposition is bipartisan, then support is also bipartisan.
It seems that support/opposition of the Vision for Space Exploration will be on pro-NASA/anti-NASA lines, not party affiliation.
Bud Cramer (D-AL) being an example of a Democrat supporting the VSE (due to the NASA Center in AL).
If it’s regional pork politics as usual for NASA, then the centers will continue to oppose each other rather than work together.
Their reason for existence will be jobs rather than exploration, and the exploration initiative will die in all but name and Powerpoint slides.
NASA’s transformation cannot and will not be bottom up.
NASA can only transform from the bottom up. But it won’t. A top down approach will not work either unless a couple of very major reorgs happen. The first few reorgs should be done to kill any inertia at the middle and bottom. Then the last reorg is to give new inertia and direction to go.