Is the “space race” alive and well in the United States?  President Bush would like  NASA to put men back on the moon by 2020, and then onto Mars between 2035 and 2037. The Russians plan to build a new manned space transport system by 2015 . China plans to send another rover to the moon in 2012.  Is Bush’s timetable in jeopardy?  President-elect Barrack Obama has made it clear that he does not consider either the moon nor  manned Mars exploration a priority in his administration.  His transition team looking at spending cuts to the Constellation Project, the successor to the Space Shuttle.  This program is supposed to create to a permanent manned base on the Moon by 2020 with a manned mission to Mars to follow.  How will this timetable be affected  light of Obama’s repeated campaign statements that he does not consider funding for pure exploration a NASA priority?  He feels the money should be used for education and infrastructure as well as more  immediate impact  NASA initiatives such as national security.  While he appeared to back off this stance, it was pre-economic meltdown.  The bottom line is that while Obama appears to fully support  the continued development of more immediate impact NASA initiatives he  has very different views than the Bush administration on pure “where no man has gone before” space exploration.

Short sighted or prudent?  What are we expecting to accomplish with such lofty goals?  I frankly have “First Contact” visions of a Vulcan space ship passing by one day , detecting our spacecraft on its way to Mars and deciding to stop by and say hello.   After that everything will change.  It will unite humanity in ways never envisioned. Hunger, war, poverty will all be a thing of the past.  Well maybe I am stretching things a bit but it sure sounded good when William Ryker and Deanna Troi said it in the movie First Contact.  Don’t we all hope that will happen in our lifetimes?

In reality I am in agreement that NASA pure exploration funding should be slashed and realloacted to NASA initatives such a international security.  I  believe the colonization of the moon is important from a technology advancement and global conservation standpoint. I however question whether NASA as it exists today is the way to go for the long term in pure space exploration.  When it comes to space exploration is not that what we are really talking about?  We are talking about the long term.  The only way to surge ahead beyond our lifetimes may be to take a step backwards in our lifetimes.  That step backwards would be to re-structure NASA and divert funding for pure exploration to the private sector.  It is already being done to a a degree anyways. Let the free-market create momemtum.  NASA should be encouraging private industry to jump into the fray to a much greater extent than they are.  It however has been an irresistible force meeting an immovable object. The only way to shake it up may be to cut funding and encourage NASA to encourage others to kick in. In the long term, I believe we would see more private funding, expanded notions of what can be achieved and  further advancement of space technology than we would ever see with back and forth NASA budget battles. What would we lose?   Space is not going anywhere. The Vulcans will still be there.