When I first read Bush's proposal, one of the first things that struck me was that it seems to be far too little new money, and far too little time,
It took only 8 years from JFK's speech until Apollo 11, and JFK's speech happened less than four years after the very first ever object was launched into Earth orbit.
to accomplish the goals he set out in his proposed time frame. Nasa's new "fast and cheap" development philosphy probably won't be acceptable for manned spacecraft. This blog entry by Gregg Easterbrook puts out some numbers that seem to support the same conclusion.
http://tnr.com/easterbrook.mhtml?pid=1198
EXPLORING THE CREW EXPLORATION VEHICLE: NASA wants hundreds of billions of dollars, and the best name the agency can come up with for its new spaceship is the Crew Exploration Vehicle? How inspiring!
Less inspiring than, frex, "Lunar Module"?
The name doesn't even make sense.
Who cares?
Will the task of the vehicle be to explore the crew?
No. Its task will be to >>>>> LAND HUMAN BEINGS ON MARS <<<<<.
_That's_ what's inspiring about it.
So far all money numbers announced for the Bush plan seem complete nonsense, if not outright dishonesty. We shouldn't expect George W. Bush himself to know that $12 billion is not enough to develop a spaceship. We should expect the people around Bush, and at the top of NASA, to know this. And apparently they are either astonishingly ill-informed and naïve, or are handing out phony numbers for political purposes, to get the foot in the door for far larger sums later.
Obviously it is only a start. The converse of "No bucks = No Buck Rogers" is also true. Open your mind, man. And your heart.
As somebody on That Other List is fond of using as a .sig quote:
"It's time for the human race to enter the solar system." -- Governor George W. Bush
-- Ronn! :)
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