AFP Quotes NASA Critics In Weekend Feature Article
The French News Service AFP is reporting that a notable list of
space exploration experts is critical of the Obama administration's
initiative to shift the bulk of low-earth-orbit (LEO) space work to
commercial providers. Coincidentally, those experts quoted share in
common years spent with NASA, or otherwise benefitting from agency
largesse.
The feature
article is titled, "Obama under fire over space plans," and was
published over the weekend by Breitbart. It quotes former Apollo
Astronaut and first man on the Moon Neil Armstrong from his recent
testimony to federal lawmakers, in which he warned, "We will have
no American access to, and return from, low Earth orbit and the
International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in
the future." Armstrong called the current state of the US space
program, "embarassing."
The last man to walk on the Moon, Astronaut Gene Cernan, calls
trusting LEO missions to commercial providers a "mission to
nowhere...we are on a path of decay. We are seeing the book close
on five decades of accomplishment as the leader in human space
exploration."
AFP also quotes Representative Ralph Hall, a Republican who
represents Texas, which has benefitted economically from NASA
spending for decades. Hall says of vague, unfunded plans for
exploration of asteroids and the planet Mars, "If NASA doesn't move
out quickly, more and more of our industrial base, skilled
engineers and technicians, and hard-won capabilities are at risk of
withering away."
Space Policy Institute Director Scott Pace, a former NASA
associate administrator who worked in various federally-funded jobs
linked to the agency going back more than two decades, tells AFP,
"I don't think any of the ISS partners looks at what we are doing
in the US with commercial cargo and crew and feels very
confident."
Bearing out Pace's opinion, Russian officials recently hinted
they might try to block the first attempt by SpaceX, a commercial
space provider, to dock its Dragon spacecraft with the
International Space Station, citing the risks of unproven
private-sector technology. Not long afterward, an unmanned Russian
Progress supply craft, an example of decades-old,
government-managed space technology, was lost when its Soyuz launch
vehicle failed.
Highlighting the role of politics in NASA, current agency
management is (at least publicly) on-board with the new direction,
admitting the Constellation program canceled by the Obama
administration in favor of commercial space was over budget, behind
schedule and lacking in innovation.
AFP's negative take on the end of government management of LEO
comes in ironic contrast to an update from SpaceX Founder Elon Musk
last week at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Musk noted
that his Dragon spacecraft (pictured) has indeed had its first
docking with the International Space Station delayed by the
Russians, not by politics, but by concerns over the readiness of
the half-century-old, government-managed, Soyuz rockets to safely
get the required station crew members to the ISS on time.