CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER has an interesting column on Bush’s Mars proposal, and says the critics haven’t been paying attention:
As for the Kennedy stuff, the Bush proposal has less to do with a vision of man’s destiny than with a totally dysfunctional government agency. NASA gave us the glory of Apollo, then spent the next three decades twirling around in space in low Earth orbit studying zero-G nausea.
It’s crazy, and it might have gone on forever had it not been for the Columbia tragedy. Columbia made painfully clear what some of us have been saying for years: It is not only pointless to continue orbiting endlessly around the Earth; it is ridiculously expensive and indefensibly risky.
The president’s proposal is a reasonable, measured reconfiguration of the manned space program. True, he could not go all the way. Binding agreements with other countries made it impossible for him to scrap the space station — a financial sinkhole whose only purpose is its own existence. But he is for phasing it down and for retiring the shuttle within six years.
That frees up huge amounts of NASA money to do what is useful and exciting: going to other worlds. For this generation, the only alternative to wandering about in low Earth orbit — other than the Luddite alternative of giving up manned flight completely — is to return to the moon. And this time, stay there.
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: Ken Silber says that those who charge Bush with financial fecklessness here have it backwards:
In its financial aspects, the Bush plan also is pragmatic — indeed, too much so. The president’s proposal would increase NASA’s budget very modestly in the near term, pushing more expensive tasks into the future. This approach may avoid an immediate political backlash. But it also limits the prospects for near-term technological progress. Moreover, it gives little assurance that the moon-Mars program will survive the longer haul, amid changing administrations, economic fluctuations, and competition from voracious entitlement programs.
Something more visionary is needed. Getting to the moon and Mars will require innovation on the financial side as well as in space hardware.
He has an interesting suggestion.