you said: “That is what happens when politics rather than engineering drives any such project”.

HELLO. When space cadets ask the President and Congress to fund a space project, they are spending public monies. That means the project is subject to the same processes and influences that shape every other expenditure of public $. To wit: POLITICS.

Spaceflight requires engineering. But space policy is just that, POLICY. Engineering is just one consideration.

BTW, for the record the roots of international cooperation in ISS go way back to the beginning of the program in 1984, when NASA Administrator James Beggs took a road trip to Europe to convince the members of the European Space Agency to come in as partners in what became known as Space Station Freedom. Japan joined as well. Then during Bush 41 and Clinton, both NASA and politicians brought Russia into the program.

One huge improvement of the VSE is that it doesn’t call for a multi-governmental project. It calls for an broader human enterprise with the U.S. funding major systems that can include industrial participation from many nations.

– Jim

Return to flight is not progress – it is moral human transportation regression.

The new NASA administrator will need to be able to communicate clearly and accurately VSE plans during public hearings and private meetings with congress. This year will be true test VSE and whether the past will be the future or something new will be born.

I hope to see more private companies like Space-X continue forge new ground and hopefully lead the way. There announcement today to take over Cape’s pad 36 is great.

That’s not apparent at all. It’s apparent that the (Democrat) Congress we had in 1993 wouldn’t do so, but it’s even more apparent that the Congress we had in late 2004 would, since they approved full funding of the president’s Vision for Space Exploration sans “international cooperation.”

You’re living in the past, and the fact that it’s past should be unlamented.

While it is true that Europe built parts of the ISS, logic does not dictate that those parts would not or could not have been built without Europes doing so. It is also true that Congress may have killed ISS long ago without international participation to “save money”, but that would not have been a bad thing as it turns out. ISS in it’s present form is not worth the money that has been and will be spent on it.

I firmly believe that had the US went ahead with Space Station Freedom as a primarily US built endeavour we COULD have done so cheaper than has been the case with ISS.

In short, international particpation as practiced in the case of ISS has cost the American tax payer, not saved. That is what happens when politics rather than engineering drives any such project.

I’m being realistic. It’s apparent that congress will never fund NASA or private industry to the level necessary for the U.S. to do it on its own. Why should we bare all the costs?

So? That was our choice, not necessity.

The U.S. needs to have its own capabilities but we cannot become a space faring on our own.

This is utter nonsense. Of course we can. We simply choose not to.

I’m hoping that Congress has learned to consistently fund NASA and to give clear goals but so far that is not the case. They may have fully funded NASA but they gave them mixed signals because of politics.

Let us hope not.

Expanding Europe’s evolvement in the American space program could help mend relationships.

Maybe, maybe not, but ISS has proven to be a disaster due to attitudes like this. We need a space program whose primary focus is space accomplishments, not “mending relationships” with corrupt anti-American EUreaucrats.