SocraticGadfly: Hey Armstrong and Cernan, get a few clues

May 13, 2010

Hey Armstrong and Cernan, get a few clues

Stop looking at today's space program and its needs and goals for the future as though we were still in the middle of the Cold War.

1. As long as it's done in a spirt of cooperation, which has been the case so far, to the degree it's been needed, what's wrong with relying on the Russians more for transport to the space station?

2. Manned trips to the moon again is just your romanticism speaking. If we want to mine the moon for anything, that can probably be done robotically. As for a way station to Mars, the space station will work better for that if we don't do a direct shot.

3. s for a manned trip to Mars, whether directly or via the space station, on a number of grounds, we're not ready for that yet. We haven't tested astronaut psychology enough yet, we haven't determined how to do a robotic pre-human launch camp set-up, and a bunch of other stuff.

I agree that Obama is expecting too much, outside of low-earth orbit stuff, from the private sector.

Otherwise, no, you're wrong, and dated.

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