Guest opinion: President’s space proposal helpful but not bold
Last month President Obama released his proposed budget for next year.
That budget essentially did away with America’s human space exploration program. The response to the President’s proposal was swift and loud.
I even challenged him to a debate in hopes of establishing a meaningful dialogue about the national benefits of maintaining our position as the world leader in space exploration.
The President Obama then came to Florida and announced what he called a “bold new vision” for our nation’s space program. While his revised proposal will save some of the jobs that will otherwise be lost when the Space Shuttle is retired -calling his announcement “bold”, or using
the word “vision” to describe the proposal, is a stretch.
It does appear that our “push back” to the President’s initial budget proposal was at least partially successful. An increased investment to upgrade the Kennedy Space Center is a good start. Funding to retrain displaced KSC workers is also a positive for Florida, as is an increased role for Florida in NASA’s research and development efforts.
However, it appears that the President still fails to grasp just how important our space program is to our position in the world as an economic and military superpower. The President plan to increase NASA’s budget by $6 billion over 5 years would appear to be a step in the right
direction. Unfortunately, the promise of additional money without a more specific mission for the space program, and a specific time table to accomplish that mission, is more of the same old Washington mindset of throwing taxpayer money at the problem and hoping it goes away.
If we really want to be “bold” we must embrace the concept of the Constellation Program -we should go back to the moon in preparation for an even bigger goal -going to Mars. We have a lot of work to do if we are going to develop the technology necessary to put astronauts on Mars.
That is why the idea is bold – because we don’t have the ability to achieve such a mission today. The same was true when President Kennedy issued his challenge to put a man on the Moon by the end of the 60’s.
It was his challenge teamed with a defined mission and specific timeline that made it a bold idea. If the President wants to change the name of the program to put his “stamp” on the mission so be it. But to Mars we must go.