Obama's plans for NASA changes met with harsh criticism

WaPo ^ | 3/9/10 | Joel Achenbach

[Nachum]

Harrison Schmitt's credentials as a space policy analyst include several days of walking on the moon. The Apollo 17 astronaut, who is also a former U.S. senator, is aghast at what President Obama is doing to the space program.

"It's bad for the country," Schmitt said. "This administration really does not believe in American exceptionalism."

Schmitt's harsh words are part of a furious blowback to the administration's new strategy for NASA. The administration has decided to kill NASA's Constellation program, crafted during the Bush administration with an ambitious goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020. Obama's 2011 budget request would nix Constellation's rocket and crew capsule, funnel billions of dollars to new spaceflight technologies, and outsource to commercial firms the task of ferrying astronauts to low-Earth orbit.

[Names Ash Housewares]

It’s not just “PR”, it’s also reality, and it’s a popular selling point because the tech is something tangible in daily lives that people can understand.

Do you really want a list here though?

Would it make a difference?

I’m sure you’ve seen the lists before and google is certainly there to explore the questions further in great detail.

I’ve certainly been convinced a very long time of the spinoff benefits. It’s only logical they would occur, whenever you do things for the first time. Serendipitous discoveries will come that would not have occured otherwise.
Just the way it works, the nature of exploration.

If you think it’s hyped, fine, But it is rightly so in my view because people need reminding.

And again...

The nations that lead on the frontiers, dictate the course of human history.

I think that is an important spinoff no?