[quote]”We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor, but when John Kennedy called of going to the moon, he didn’t say it’s too far to get there. We shouldn’t even try.”[/quote]

He was using the Apollo effort to describe how the American people were willing to rise to the challenge to go and do something that was truly hard to do. When he said “we can do it again”, he wasn’t speaking about going back to the moon, he was speaking of the people being willing to roll up their sleeves and work at something truly hard. It was a tribute to the American spirit under the leadership of someone who can inspire them, something which George Bush has never done, and which he believes John McCain is also incapable of. His speech was about Barak Obama, not the Apollo program.

Don’t read too much into what Ted said; he is well known for his metaphorical references. This is one of them.

Huh?

NASA cancelled Apollo 20 in January 1970 and Apollo 18 and 19 in September 1970, seven months and more than a year, respectively, after (not a few weeks before) Apollo 11 in July 1969.

And Ted Kennedy has held his Senate seat since 1962. He never held an Executive Branch position where he could singlehandedly cancel a NASA program. Are you confusing Ted with Robert Kennedy?

C’mon guys…

JFK had not much more interest in space per se (if any) than his brother(s) ever did. He told his advisors something like, “we all know Apollo is a waste of money [compared to the social programs we should really be doing] but the American people are demanding a response to the Russians…”

(And yes, I’m sorry that Ted is so ill…but he has a seat for life, no matter how long that turns out to be. And not only do we have an all-Democrat Congressional delegation and Governor, but hardly any Republicans in the ‘Great and General Court’ – the state legislature.)

How do you know? Evidence?

“For him, Apollo is a metaphor for what he considers the real work of government, which is providing health care and other goodies to everyone, at the cost of freedom and, of course, very high taxes.”

You actually know that inside Kennedy’s mind, he thinks of Apollo in metaphorical terms for government programs?

Weird…

“The letter also calls for speeding the creation of a robust commercial US spaceflight Industry. Sounds like a call for funding COTS-D to me.”

These two goals may sound mutually conflicting in the light of the problems with Ares and Orion (or equivalently Constellation as a whole) but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way. Cancel Constellation, and use the Shuttle to transition to a RATIONAL second generation vehicle, using the SSMEs.

That way, everybody wins, and we’ll be all the way to Phobos, Deimos and Ceres by 2020, bypassing the Moon and Mars entirely. Ares I is DEAD.

Anyone who thinks Constellation isn’t dead will soon get their reality check.

I’m guessing the color of that check will be pink. Patience for Griffin is thin.

The letter also calls for speeding the creation of a robust commercial US spaceflight Industry. Sounds like a call for funding COTS-D to me

And this is in a letter to the president requesting action, not a mere campiagn document…

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/files/mccain_vitter_hutchison_letter_on_russia_space.pdf

That is by far the most likely outcome, which is why there should be no backsliding on the retirement of the Shuttle.

— Donald