Senator Barack Obama has done what previously would have been thought impossible… he has actually made Senator Clinton look reasonably palatable as a Presidential candidate (cue soap opera music).
So far only two of the 127 people running for President have bothered to formulate any sort of space policy. Hillary Clinton to her credit, has come out in favor of NASA’s plan to develop the Orion spacecraft and the capability to go back to the Moon (she has stopped short of fully endorsing the return to the Moon, but that’s not an issue since if she were elected for two full terms, the first Lunar mission wouldn’t be until four years after she left office).
Last week, Obama unveiled his space policy… if you want to call it that. The Senator, who I am sorry to say represents my home state of Illinois, has decided that despite the emergence of China as a space faring nation with aims on a manned Lunar mission… despite the fact that Russia plans on launching its own Lunar program and may very well join forces with the Chinese… despite all of the innovation associated with the US manned spaceflight program… Obama has decided that the US space program is not a worth while pursuit.
Yes, with everything that’s going on in the world Barack Obama thinks that the best idea is to “pause” our manned spaceflight program until at least 2020, and then decide if we want to take it up again. That incidentally would also be long after he leaves office, even if he served two full terms. He says that he would take the money already allocated for Project Constellation and divert it to education.
I think Kevin said it best: “If you’re not going to have a space program, why do you even need education?”
This reminds me of what I have read about Walter Mondale’s crusade against the Apollo program in the 1960’s and 70’s. Despite the fact that NASA’s budget then (as now) was less than .01% of the national budget, Mondale’s war cry was that the money should be spent on the War on Poverty… since the hundreds of billions of dollars we were spending each year weren’t enough, I’m sure that NASA’s $3-4 billion Apollo-era budget would have put them over the top.
This time Obama is already transparently trying to weasel out of any debate on this… to him if you are for sending people back to the Moon you are obviously against education.
Say what you want about Hillary Clinton but she isn’t stupid. By supporting NASA’s plan for space exploration, she is showing that she can at least vaguely see where things are heading… China is trying to become the dominant country of the 21st century, and much in the way that the Soviet Union was able to claim technical superiority after Sputnik, if the Chinese can get to the Moon before the US they will certainly have a huge advantage, and if they can make some sort of claim to the vast resources on the Moon then they, and not the US will be the world’s lone Superpower. If Obama has his way, while China has people walking on the Moon, we will be lucky if we can remember how to get people into orbit, let alone explore the solar system.
Normally I shy away from making political disagreements personal, but I have to tell you, if Obama cannot see the value of manned spaceflight in general, and NASA’s new Lunar program in particular, then I really have to question his intelligence.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again many many times in the future, there will be a new space race between the US on one said and Russia and China on the other, and that race will be the most critical thing we will be involved in over the next 20 years… anyone who doesn’t realize that should not be President of the United States. Period.
