Obama’s NASA: Political Correctness Over Space Exploration

By Bob Ellis on January 28th, 2010

Diagram of the NASA Constellation program

Schematic of Nasa Constellation Program for Moon mission.

President Barack Obama is not only mortgaging our future and that of our children and grandchildren with his out-of-control trillions in spending, he is not only flushing America’s respect and credibility with his never-ending Apologizing for America Tour, Obama is not only leaving America vulnerable with his administration’s haphazard and offhanded security posture…he is also squandering our role as the world leader in space.

From the Orlando Sentinel:

NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.

When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.

There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.

In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama’s long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new “heavy-lift” rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.

In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.

We are the nation that went to the moon first–the only nation to have gone to the moon, and having done so several times.  We are the nation that has explored the planets. We are the nation that has sent a space probe outside our solar system.  We are the nation that built the first and only reusable spacecraft.

And now President Obama has made the decision that we will soon be hitching a ride like bums with the Russians if we are to get into space for a while.  The space shuttle program is going away…with no replacement on the horizon, and as you have just read, no real plan to push forward into space, either.

Apparently studying a non-existent socialist hoax and celebrating an immoral and unhealthy sexual practice at taxpayer expense are now the priorities of our national “space” agency.

American presence in space is important to the expansion of knowledge–for ourselves and ultimately for the rest of the world that will eventually share in the knowledge we gain.

American presence in space is also vitally important to national defense.  Space is the “high ground” in modern warfare, the place where reconnaissance satellites gather intelligence to keep us out of wars or provide us the intelligence to win unavoidable wars quickly.  Space is where satellite weapons can be placed, both offensive and defensive; we cannot abandon that ground to our enemies, especially with the belligerent communist Chinese on the verge of real space flight.

The Democrat Party has come a long way from the monumental, inspiring patriotic vision of John F. Kennedy…to the utter lack of vision and attitude of national shame personified by President Barack Obama.

For the sake of national security, for the sake of national pride and prestige, for the sake of national vision, 2012 cannot come too quickly.

HT: National Review.

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Categories: Commentary
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  • There seems to be no facet of American exceptionalism that is safe from Obama and his socialist minions. From American healthcare, the greatest that the world has ever seen, to higher education, to American innovation, to industrial might, to space exploration, and on and on. It almost seems as though they are intentionally trying to reduce America to a third-rate socialist country, doesn't it?

    Response to DCM: You might want to have a look at a piece I wrote back in 2008: http://www.dakotavoice.com/2008/05/search-for-m....

    In "Search For Martian Life Continues" I made the point that there will always be just enough "evidence" to justify yet another mission to find life on another planet. And the point is exactly as you said--they believe that finding life elsewhere will somehow be a fatal blow to Judeo-Christian beliefs about Genesis.
  • Brian Rutledge
    Finding water and even simple life, like microbes,on other planets won't be a fatal blow to Judeo-Christianity. It will simply mean God initiated genesis of life occurs elsewhere other than earth.Maybe almost endless number of times. I am not a Biblical scholar, but don't believe the Bible says we are God's only creation of life, does it ?
  • dcm
    The point is not how such finds would affect Judeo-Christianity (since, as you say, it really wouldn't). Rather the point is the reason such searches exist in the first place: to find any inconclusive little scrap of evidence that can be fit into the "life-created-itself" hypothesis. Such scraps are desperately clung to, because real scientific validation for said hypothesis (though it's presented to the public as "firmly proven fact") just isn't forthcoming. Thus, it's just more of the already-too-much money & effort being poured into trying to "prove" false science. And that's the real problem with it.

    So far, Christiany has handled everything *real* science has brought up just fine. Shoot, we wouldn't have science as we know it without Christianity.
  • Brian Rutledge
    I have to agree with Mr. Ellis in that our space problem is on a quest for knowledge.Part of that knowledge would naturally be looking for simple life forms or even not so simple life forms.We have searched the depths of the oceans and the highest, coldest regions on earth and found life where it wasn't expected.

    Philosophers, religionists, atheists,scientists etc can have their own personal views on whether finding such life would imply a " life created itself " hypothesis.

    But to your point, anyone who states that 'finding life elsewhere' scientically equates to the mantra " life creates itself" is ignorant of science and religion
  • "But to your point, anyone who states that 'finding life elsewhere' scientically equates to the mantra
    'life creates itself' is ignorant of science and religion."

    Well said, Brian.
  • That's right, Brian. God tells us in Genesis that He created the heavens, the earth and everything in them. Life was created in a sucession of days as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis but there is nothing that I've read that would necessarily exclude the creation of some kinds of life on another celestial body. I doubt very much that such life would be anything more than simple non-intelligent forms because I think the Bible would have told us if He had created another form in His image and likeness.

    "So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them."

    I do not expect that we will ever definitively prove that life exists anywhere other than on earth, but as long as we have the means we'll keep searching. In any case, my belief and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ does not depend on either proposition.
  • dcm
    Space exploration needs to be done for the right purpose. Far too much of it exists for the sake of straw-grasping for evidence that could, with enough imagination, be interpreted as vaguely helping to "prove" the false hypothesis that life somehow created itself on Earth. ("Look! We found water on Mars!") That's the part of the space program that deserves to be cut for good.
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