Wow, someone actually noticed...
Today, NPR reports that the Government Accountability Office has listed NASA among "13 urgent issues facing the new administration."
Yup, you heard that right. With all that's going wrong in the country these days - the stock market crashing, homes being foreclosed, the auto industry going bust - NASA made the list of things that President-elect Obama needs to focus on.
Specifically, the GAO is concerned about the multi-year gap between the retirement of the space shuttles and the launch of the new Ares rockets. I've mentioned that in this blog before. Now that the International Space Station is almost done, we're going to be stuck relying on another country - most likely Russia, who isn't being entirely friendly right now - to get there. It's got people worried.
And Barack Obama wasn't exactly the most NASA-friendly presidential candidate. A position paper his campaign released early in the year proposed cutting NASA's budget and delaying the Ares in order to divert money to education. But Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), who has actually flown on the space shuttle, went to Obama and confronted him on the issue, and in August the campaign released a new position paper that space enthusiasts will like much better.
What will happen in the new year and the new administration? Only time will tell. But it sure would be nice if we had a space policy that didn't look like it was just floating around aimlessly.
Yup, you heard that right. With all that's going wrong in the country these days - the stock market crashing, homes being foreclosed, the auto industry going bust - NASA made the list of things that President-elect Obama needs to focus on.
Specifically, the GAO is concerned about the multi-year gap between the retirement of the space shuttles and the launch of the new Ares rockets. I've mentioned that in this blog before. Now that the International Space Station is almost done, we're going to be stuck relying on another country - most likely Russia, who isn't being entirely friendly right now - to get there. It's got people worried.
And Barack Obama wasn't exactly the most NASA-friendly presidential candidate. A position paper his campaign released early in the year proposed cutting NASA's budget and delaying the Ares in order to divert money to education. But Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL), who has actually flown on the space shuttle, went to Obama and confronted him on the issue, and in August the campaign released a new position paper that space enthusiasts will like much better.
What will happen in the new year and the new administration? Only time will tell. But it sure would be nice if we had a space policy that didn't look like it was just floating around aimlessly.
Comments