dont worry there are left wingers as well….its just that the right wing right now is so goofy.

anyway back to space Robert G. Oler

Another (and much more so) is mindlessly flinging about the phrase “right wing.” It might be close to number one, in fact.

As if Constellation, as funded, was going to end up exploring space.

What General Lyles was talking about was balancing one key function of NASA with others. The oft valued enterprise sustainability isn’t achieved with propping up one function by pulling the rug out from under another, as was happening over the last few years.

that charge is one of the top ten that take a person out of being considered seriously as a space policy person.

It is the stuff of simple partisanship

Robert G. Oler

Critics say this proposal means the end of American HSF.

Translation: This proposal means the expansion of American HSF beyond an expensive, slow, risky, single-point-failure government monopoly.

General Lyles (ret.) may be urging a sensible balance in NASA, but we are probably past due for a balance between NASA and the private sector. Not the cozy contractor balance of yore, but a balance springing from the wisdom of NASA’s charter, or mission statement.

NASA should be making us proud by pushing the envelope of space technology, and making that technology available to private companies, including new-space start-ups.

NASA should be an enabling resource for the private sector, not a roadblock. NASA, your culture may have been defined by Apollo and shuttle (by both their triumphs and their tragedies), but it’s time to leave that nest and fly into the future.

Only now, when it looks like Congress is not going to allow Constellation and NASA’s manned space mission to suffer a premature death, does he speak up.

And what does he say in support of Constellation? That actually exploring space was getting in the way of other, more important goals. It is beginning to sound like Obama is worried that there might not be any extra funds left over for him to divert into the pockets of his supporters…

I have no arguments for keeping man in space. He probably wouldn’t like to be kept there anyway.

“You people would argue about toilet paper.”

I guess if we weren’t worried about men in space we wouldn’t be arguing about toilet paper.

I believe it is important that human beings exercise the ability to move beyond the Earth. Both physically and intellectually. This ability comes from development of transport architecture, and also from knowing what is beyond the Earth. But that’s my opinion.

In the context of preserving the breadth of NASA activities, as per the lead post, it is sobering that the Space Act, which defines the task of NASA, says nothing about human space flight. NASA not only has no mandate to keep men in space, but no mandate to put them there.