NASA has had lots of excellent plans. President Nixon was presented with a plan by von Braun and Vice President Agnew that called for a base on Mars by 1984 followed by permanent settlement. The elder President Bush had an excellent plan for sending people to Mars and the Moon (The Space Exploration Initiative). Go to almost any NASA civil servant who has been in the game for more than 20 years and he can probably show you a file cabinet filled with rejected research proposals. I should add that these plans are not pipe dreams. There is a rigorous technical review process at NASA that these proposals go through. The United States has long had the basic technology and economic resources to colonize Mars. The bottom line is that there is no political will. The decision has been made: The Space Program is to die slow and disappear. Think about it next time you're watching your favorite episode of Star Wars or Star Trek.
Gary
Space/Science » in reply to What NASA needs is a plan.
NASA has plans coming out of its ears....
The whole thread (29 posts)
- Ex-astro Phil Chapman on NASA
- Right About The Failure, Not So Sure About The Solutions
- Tom Brosz on NASA
- re: Unmanned v Manned
- What NASA needs is a plan.
- re: Ex-astro Phil Chapman on NASA
- re: Ex-astro Phil Chapman on NASA
- Painfully correct
- Excellent article