It's the season to petition congress with rhetoric to garner renewal and more funding for NASA projects. Below are five speeches given on May 7th, 2008 before congress's Senate Hearing on Reauthorizing the Vision for Space Exploration by Frederick Tarantino [CEO and president of Universities Space Research Association], Joan Johnson-Freese [Chair, National Security Decision Making Department of the Naval War College], Major General Robert Dickman [USAF-Retired] [Executive Director of The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)], Gene Kranz [Advisory Board Member for the Coalition for Space Exploration and former NASA Flight Director / Director Mission Operations], and George Whitesides [ executive director of the National Space Society]. It is about economics, environment, education, embracing private enterprises and the world space exploration community. I don't agree will all of the thoughts but it is a positive direction. Wouldn't it be great if the billions were appropriated and public referendums were set up to vote on proposed projects. That would certainly spark debate regarding unfeasible trips to Mars, tenability of the ISS, other smaller research projects--get the public involved.Frederick Tarantino
Joan Johnson-Freese
Major General Robert Dickman
Gene Kranz
George Whitesides
I have noticed in the testimony there is some sniping of the Iraq war. While I agree to its costs on many fronts I hardly see the connection to NASA. There has been a tremendous amount of misdirected funding in this government and we can backup to more debacles such as President Johnson and his war on poverty. That alone contributed several trillion dollars down the drain. I can also point out foreign aid to dictators to the tune of a trillion or more. Bringing politics into the discussion is as much lunacy as is humans blasting off to Mars when machines can do the same without the extra expense of hauling test pilots to asteroids.
ReplyDelete