More On The Shuttle - Part 2
Well now it's time for those beloved fools in Congress to start putting their 2 cents in. According to the New York Times:
A report citing a "broken safety culture" at NASA has provoked a wide-ranging debate in Congress over the future of the space program, with some lawmakers suggesting that human spaceflight be curtailed and others promoting a broad expansion of space exploration, including a revival of long-shelved plans to send astronauts to Mars.
I think we ought to get back to the Moon first, before we start sending people on multi-year journeys millions of miles away.
In the House, Representative Nick Lampson, Democrat of Texas, wants to nearly double NASA's $15 billion annual budget. Yet Representative Vernon J. Ehlers, Republican of Michigan, says he thinks the space agency may need to scale back.
It was exactly this kind of double minded thinking that got us in this mess to begin with. There is one voice of reason in all of this:
"We are going to have to examine the whole issue of the future of manned space travel, where the emphasis should be, what our priorities are," said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, one of two Congressional panels planning hearings for next week.... And Mr. McCain said Congress needed to examine its own conduct, including pork-barrel spending and budget cuts to the agency that drew criticism from the investigators.
President Bush, however, seems to be rather lukewarm concerning manned spaceflight:
In Crawford, Tex., where Mr. Bush is vacationing, reporters asked his spokeswoman, Claire Buchan, about the White House's vision for space exploration.
"The president very much believes that space is an important frontier and that the space program should go forward," Ms. Buchan said, without elaborating.
I guess looking for those WMD's must be a full-time job.
File under Space, The Final Frontier
11:58:49 PM 
