dtb said:

>I wonder if that is partly behind the current Bush Vision. Not
>that W paid much attention to space policy at the time, but
>when Columbia forced the issue, I suspect some of the players
>from back then, and possibly Poppa Bush himself, expressed
>regrets for missing an opportunity to change directions.

Ultimately what drives funding for Space Exploration is the military application of aerospace technology. Almost all aerospace technology is dual use. If there was no military role for aerospace technology then we would never have gotten past Robert Goddard's liquid rocket experiments. I should emphasize that I personally find this very frustrating. Space exploration and development by itself should provide more than adequate justification for advancing aerospace technology (Why can't other people see this?).

When one talks to guys from the military side of the aerospace business, a point almost always made was the incredible military success of the Iraq/Persian Gulf wars. At one time Iraq had the 4th or 5th most powerful military on the planet. Despite this, the United States destroyed Iraq's military power and occupied Iraq while sustaining only a few hundred American casualties with minimal collateral damage. This incredible success was due to overwhelming technological advantage (read "aerospace" technology) that included air superiority. Air superiority was achieved not only through figher planes and bombers but also with space assets monitoring action on the ground. The discussion then proceeds that if America wishes to continue winning wars then we must maintain our superiority in both air and space. The discussion's punch line then comes that the first nation to develop a perimeter of military battle stations (killer satellites) in Low Earth Orbit would have an almost unassailable military advantage that would cost an adversary hundreds of billions of dollars to defeat (there's a big advantage for being the first on orbit). The final argument is that military superiority in Low Earth Orbit means air superiority. In turn, air superiority means victory for land forces on the ground.

A weakness with this line-of-argument is it ignores the issue of asymmetrical warfare, e.g. the United States versus al Qaeda. An al Qaeda terrorist wearing a suicide vest doesn't give a rat's ass if there's a 20 gigawatt laser canon floating overhead. All the terrorist cares about is sneaking into the local shopping center with his suicide vest so he can kill a maximum number of women and children. Of course, the counter-counter argument is whether military victory is possible through terrorism alone. If the terrorists are operating from a safe haven then the 20 gigawatt laser comes into action during the process of wiping out the safe haven. So the argument goes around-and-around. However the bottom line remains, if you want advanced aerospace (military) technology then you need aeronautical engineers. If you want to attract young people into aeronautical engineering then you must have an exciting Space Program (killer satellites alone aren't that interesting). Bush-Senior saw this when the Cold War was winding down which is why he advoacted the Space Exploration Initiative.

Gary