[henkster]

The best policy for the space program is competition. When we had it from the Soviets, we put a man on the moon. Since we started cooperating with them, the space program became just another bureaucracy that guzzles tax dollars with results that aren’t justified by the expenditure.

And of course, you get hacks like Hansen, who instead of trying to get something worthwhile out of space exploration, is dead-set on embracing the global warming hoax that will destroy the economic foundation that makes his program possible.

[GonzoGOP]

"The best policy for the space program is competition."

Internal works too. The policy should be multiple paths to a common goal so that if one path fails, not unlikely in a bleeding edge field like space exploration, you can quickly shift directions.

Most people don't know that there was a Gemini to the Moon program that was being developed at the same time as the Apollo project. If the Saturn V hadn't worked as well as it did, or if they hadn't been able to recover from the Apollo I fire they could still have gotten to the moon by the end of the decade.

Now we have Space-X with the Falcon-9/Dragon and the NASA developed Aries I/Orion. Either can do the immediate job of running cargo to the ISS. While NASA favors the Aries I/Aries V for Moon/Mars work, the Falcon-9 and EELV could also be used if they can't work out the problems they are having with the stick. And then their is Direct 2.0. Sure it is just a paper project, but so was Gemini to the Moon. Once you have the engineering done turning a paper project into a real ship is sometimes easier than fixing an unexpected problem.