President Obama has included dropping the space program from the government budget, and privatizing it, as part of his plans to cut “unnecessary” spending in his Fiscal 2011 Budget proposal.
It is perfectly understandable that the President wants to cut spending wherever he can, a very difficult task in any case.
But taking the National Aeronautics and Space Administration out of government funding will likely kill off major elements of the astronaut program and the proposal to return to the moon by the end of the decade and eventual space travel to Mars.
It is an issue of science and an issue of defense that intertwine, and it would be a tragedy if the government withdraws from the space business, just as it was a tragedy that Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter held back on space investments, only finally to be reversed by Ronald Reagan’s promotion of the space shuttle program, which has made many wise technological contributions to this country.
A country that loses its vision of the future is a country that will later regret what it has wrought. The space program should NOT be cut back, as we must have a sense of our future always present as we face the challenges of the present!