A month or so back someone actually did a poll of former astronauts (gasp) and came up with about 60% opposed and 40% for the new plan. I’d have to dig for the reference, but he’s not alone. Chang-Diaz and Chiao are both supporters, though admittedly they both run private space companies. Sally Ride has come out strongly in favor of it as well, she was on the panel that encouraged that the line of thinking behind it, after all.

“Buzz Aldrin is the only Apollo astronaut to come out for the plan. About a dozen against. If the current astronaut core had any guts there would be even more noise. That is actually a fairly representative sample.”

Buzz Aldrin is about the only astronaut with any credibility. He’s been a great advocate for pushing the space program forward. He’s the only astronaut I’ve consistently seen at major space conferences (e.g. AIAA). You can tell he’s a regular because he’s not surrounded by people seeking autographs… I’ve stood right next him in the back of the room watching the same panel.

Do we have the government exploit oil resouces? Coal resources? Does the government do our mining? Harvest our timber? Grow our food?

Why do you want to follow a stalinist model? Commerce and the private sector does what you want, not the government.

So you want private enterprise shut down and instead want a huge government program instead ….

Indeed. Marcia Smith on The Space Show has expressed doubts that Constellation can be forced on NASA if the President if he doesn’t want it. http://thespaceshow.com/detail.asp?q=1340

Because the civil human space flight budget isn’t big enough to fund major systems developments, Space Shuttle operations, and lunar exploration at the same time.

Duh…

“Did the ISS have to stay permanently on the drawing boards, just so that some new, amazing propulsion technology could finally be developed?”

Of course not. The ISS doesn’t have a propulsion system.

Duh…

“Nevermind that NASA might well be trapped in LEO for the next twenty years”

Says who?

Don’t make stuff up.

“Landing on an asteroid would be a far more gloomy end to a huge space journey, than a three day Lunar arrival would be.”

We should base multi-ten billion taxpayer dollars decisions about civil human space flight targets based on which target is sunnier and happier?

Are you kidding?

“ignores the salient fact that the surface of an asteroid is VERY similar to the Lunar surface: airless, crater-battered, rocky & dusty. The equipment needed for such a mission would match fully the requirements needed for a Lunar expedition.”

False. NEA missions are simpler. Lunar missions require landers. NEA missions do not.

“May Congress veto the President on this issue, and restore Project Constellation!”

In the U.S. federal government, the Presidency holds veto power, not the Congress.

“all these Bolden statements!! (That guy totally lacks an understanding of the engineering aspects to space exploration plans!!)”

This from someone who thinks that the ISS has a propulsion system?

Oy vey…

That Aviationweek article contains multiple false statements. For example, the complaint “that so far the new plan doesn’t have any procedures in place for capturing benefits from the more than $9 billion spent on the Constellation Program of space shuttle follow-on vehicles” is flat wrong. Any idiot (at AWST or elsewhere) could have done a simple online search and found multiple references (from the ESMD AA no less) to knowledge-capture exercise underway as Constellation winds down:

msnbc.msn.com/id/35209628/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Piss-poor journalism, even for an industry rag.

FWIW…

Since we did we destroy the Moon? Or our nonexistant base camps there?

Don’t make stuff up…

Only if you don’t bother to read NASA’s FY 2011 budget request or the OSTP fact sheet for tomorrow’s speech, which reads:

“The President’s vision for NASA space exploration enables a set of stepping-stone achievements in space that will take us further and faster into space, allowing us to reach a range of destinations including lunar orbit, Lagrange points, near-Earth asteroids, and the moons of Mars, and eventually Mars itself. This sequence of missions will begin with a set of crewed flights to prove the capabilities required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit. After these initial missions, our long-duration human spaceflight technologies will enable human explorers to conduct the first-ever crewed mission into deep space to an asteroid, thereby achieving an historical first; venture into deep space locations such as the Lagrange points (potential sites of fuel depots that would enable more capable future missions to the Moon, Mars, and other destinations); and then send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth.”

Don’t make stuff up.

“And by the time the president decides in 2015 on what new heavy lift vehicle will be built, a new President will be in power less than 14 months later”

The next President takes office in 2018, not 2016.

Duh…

No, it’s not. For example:

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574475091646686368.html

“How does another decade marooned with our enemy on the space station do that.”

Beats the PoR, which would have “marooned” U.S. civil human space flight on the ISS for only a half-decade, followed by 12 or so years of destinationless Ares I/Orion flights, at which point Ares V could be launched with an empty payload shroud.

FWIW…