Posted on 01/19/2004 12:17:20 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON -- The man chosen to lead the way to the moon and Mars is a one-time astronaut trainee and former Defense Department hotshot who is almost giddy about outer space travel.
"It's going to be fun," Pete Aldridge said in an interview. "My goodness, the president says this is what we're going to do."
President Bush appointed Aldridge, 65, to head a commission charged with figuring out how to carry out the president's vision and bring in industry and other countries as partners.
In 1986, Edward Cleveland "Pete" Aldridge was training to fly on a space shuttle as a payload specialist, or non-career astronaut, right before the Challenger explosion. His flight was scrapped after Challenger erupted in a fireball during liftoff.
A few months later, Aldridge was appointed Secretary of the Air Force under President Reagan.
Born in Houston, home of most astronauts, Aldridge has degrees in aeronautical engineering and currently serves on Lockheed Martin Corp.'s board of directors. He retired from the Defense Department last spring after working 18 years at the Pentagon.
At the time, he was serving under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. He says he was looking forward to "a more relaxed period of my career," and like many government retirees he was enjoying the Florida sunshine early last week.
He got the call from Bush just two days before the president announced his new moon-Mars plan and rushed to Washington to be there for the speech.
Aldridge didn't immediately know who would be on his commission or when the first meeting might be. He said the president will appoint the other members, probably no more than 15, all experts from both the private and public sector.
The commission will offer advice on Bush's plan but will not pitch alternative ideas, Aldridge said -- like skipping the moon and heading straight to Mars.
"The purpose of going to the moon is a step to go to Mars," he said, and the commission won't challenge that concept. "We're not going in and saying, 'Well, Mr. President, we believe you're wrong.'"
Bush asked Aldridge to report back to him within four months of the commission's first meeting.
Bush wants astronauts on the moon by 2020, possibly as early as 2015, but the president has no time frame for a Mars landing by humans. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe said that would depend on how quickly a new crew exploration vehicle can be developed and how everything else falls into place.
"We'll get there (Mars) when it's time, like a good wine. Not before it's time," Aldridge said with a smile.
As for what all this will cost, Aldridge repeated the president's position that the program is affordable roughly within NASA's budget, with a slight increase. He said he does not worry that the venture may be launched with too little money.
"Trying to do something cheaply is a first indication of failure," he said. "It can't be done that way."
And what would that end goal be? According to the new policy they must support future manned missions. Currently scientists use them to increase our knowledge about the planets and their history. While that may not be all that worthwhile, the knowledge we get from space telescopes have a bearing on physics, and our ability now and especially in the future to control our environment.
I would rather not maintain Hubble. However we could launch a brand new one for much less than the cost of one maintenance mission.
>And you really think it's a good idea for GWB to tell them what type of spacecraft to build? Nothing like that has occured, so far as is known.
He's already told them to build an Apollo type capsule.
Atos
Like what? The few useful spinoffs NASA has developed have been done on the ground as basic research. There's very little need for new goverment controlled manned missions.
Actually he said that all of NASA's new projects will have to support manned missions. When it comes to unmanned probes, GWB's paln is for them to actually increase, but they'll have to support manned missions. As to whether that will actually be the case, or if this is more GWB doublespeak (like how he supports a strong dollar), I don't know.
Now can you help me out? On the White House policy page there is this claim:
Kidney dialysis machines were developed as a result of a NASA-developed chemical process, and insulin pumps were based on technology used on the Mars Viking spacecraft.That sounds to me like we wouldn't have dialysis machines if it weren't for NASA. However, that's not even close to being true. Dialysis machines go all the way back to the mid-1800's, and the first useful ones come from the 1940's. Can you explain to me what NASA means by that claim?
"The Earth is too fragile a basket for the human race to kepp all of its eggs in." - Robert Heinlein
Well, that's much different than your claim he was ditching telescopes and robot explorers, now isn't it?
I think Bush is lighting a fire under Lockeed and Boeing. You might say, it's a message in a capsule.
I don't think we're going international on this. If some of it is, I would imagine it will be on our invitation and under strict guidelines. At least in a perfect world, it would be. But then in a perfect world we'd all go together. So we should go alone and let the others come later as they can.
You know, Bush wants freedom and democracy to spread around the world. As soon as those who need it the most, begin to respond to this approach they too can add to the world's collective knowledge and help out with advancing technology. Gosh what a concept! Thank God for George W. Bush.
It's different, but it still amounts to putting emphasis on NASA's weakness. We already know that the Hubble is going to be ditched.
I think we should allow NASA to keep developing space telescopes, put new planetary explorers on hold, and start a whole new organization for manned exploration. We could get four times as much done for half the money.
No it puts emphasis on exploration. Human-robotic exploration. It will repair the tear in our nation's exploration fabric and open up all areas of science. Telescopes on the Moon are in the offering. The farside shielded from Earth's radio noise will give astronomers something to see. Don't you agree? Or how about arrays of telescopes or dishes in craters pointed back into time? We'll need robotic missions to start. Orbital missions to more closely examine lunar resources, get samples and identify landing sites. There is plenty to keep everyone busy. Robotics will advance along with human presence. They compliment each other. Alone neither can maximize their potential.
And as for the President growing government... at least his spending targets individual's, businesses and corporations rather than the sinkholes of graft that fuel the Left's statist powerbase. I would much prefer to see the beneficiaries of government legislation and spending be Pfizer, Merck, Honeywell, Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed, Halliburton, General Electric and Microsoft (Their employees, clients, contractors, shareholders, and customers) than trial lawyers, organized crim-labor, teachers unions, the UN, foreign extortion, the National Endowment for the Arts(???) and the endless cycle of welfare dependency. That is wealth destroyed.
Atos
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