Former NASA Chief On US Space Policy: "No Vision, No Plan, No Budget" (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: During a congressional hearing Thursday, former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin had harsh words for the space agency and the space policy crafted by President Obama's administration. Under the Obama administration's guidance, NASA has established Mars as a goal for human spaceflight and said that astronauts will visit the red planet by the 2030s. However, a growing number of critics say the agency's approach is neither affordable nor sustainable.

On Thursday, Griffin, administrator of NASA from 2005 to 2009, joined those critics. The United States has not had a serious discussion about space policy, he testified, and as a result, the space agency is making little discernible progress. NASA simply cannot justify its claims of being on a credible path toward Mars, he added.

Comments

Money will return once China lands on the moon

[Thanshin]

China, Europe or India have to put people on the moon to relight US population's push to get back to the head of the race.

Until then, it seems simply too hard to get enough political support.

Re:Money will return once China lands on the moon

[DerekLyons]

China, Europe or India have to put people on the moon to relight US population's push to get back to the head of the race.

No, it won't. Not only is the Space Race long over, the political conditions that lead to it no longer exist, and the general public of the US never supported the race that much in the first place.
 

Until then, it seems simply too hard to get enough political support.

Apollo only had political support because JFK took a bullet to the head in Dallas. And even then that support barely lasted two years before the budgets started getting slashed - by the time we actually landed, the program was already running on vapors.

Re:Money will return once China lands on the moon

[Nutria]

After we have colonized several planets,

Which planets? Only the Earth has anything remotely like the environment and resources that we need to sustain life.

(It) is a certainty that if wee do not get off the planet the human race will die.

You've been reading too much sci fi.

We need nuclear power rockets yesterday

Yay, let's spread even more tons of ionizing radiation into the atmosphere than we already have!! And near places that are a lot more populated than Las Vegas in 1958!!

understand you are cool with killing off the white race

The only thing worse than some Utopian sci-fi nerd is a Conservative sci-fi nerd.

Re:Money will return once China lands on the moon

[Richard_at_work]

A good indication of how public feeling was fading was that Apollo 13 wasn't going to be televised during the lunar approach, and doubts were being had about the landing itself.

Re:Mike Griffen always has harsh words.

[NotDrWho]

Just because he's an asshole doesn't mean he's not telling the truth.It could just mean that he's finally free to say what he should have been saying when he was director.