I'm not a real rocket scientist, but my teleprompter plays one on TV.
Posted on 09/04/2010 8:35:20 AM PDT by Marcus
One of the talking points coming out of the Obama administration is that the one thing wrong about the new space policy that cancelled the Constellation space exploration program was that it wasn't sold properly.
Lori Garver, NASA's Deputy Administrator and one of the architects of the plan, expressed that sentiment at a recent meeting of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
The following is part fiction written for the purpose of conveying ideas in the form of a dialogue, but I think encapsulates the problem with space policy and selling a government space program in our time.
(Excerpt) Read more at associatedcontent.com ...
I'm not a real rocket scientist, but my teleprompter plays one on TV.
A few weeks ago, we went to Nasa in Clear Lake. My old college roommate works there, and she got us a wonderful behind the scenes tour of Nasa. We went down to the bouyancy lab, toured mock-ups of the Space Station, Shuttle with an astronaut who had just been on the shuttle, and toured 3 mission controls (shuttle, space station, and the Apollo) with a flight director.
It was really a cool tour, and my husband was on cloud 9.
The astronaut showed us the Russian capsule that our astronauts will have to use to get to/from the space station. It’s awful.
To me, Nasa is the type of programs that you want to spend our tax money on. Lots of private enterprise has been developed based on Nasa discoveries (pace makers to name one).
The whole Clear Lake area is going to be devastated when they cut the Nasa programs.
It makes me so sad to think we are throwing away our dominance in space.
Wow. This IS Don Draper. The same Don Draper that makes me go weak in the knees. Thanks for this post, Marcus. Great read, and it sure looks like Matthew Weiner nailed his lead character...and that Draper nailed Obama. ;-)
I’m one of them. My 20+ year career at JSC will be ending soon. The contract I work has begun layoffs. It’s only a matter of time. Time to do something else I guess.
The thing is that Nasa is such a bi-partisan program. At least, I think in the public it is a bi-partisan program.
Once Nasa is dismantled it will be so hard for another administration to build it back up.
I’m so sorry about your career.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.