Dennis Powell talks about the unpleasant choices potentially facing a president, given our disastrous space policy for the past few decades, that has resulted in our relative impotence as a space-faring nation.

Fear is a great motivator. Getting whacked by a rock, or watching it skim by at 60 kilometers, or dig a new hole in the Moon, might actually motivate some money and interest in building space capability.

I think the President would have been well advised to push for asteroid detection/defense as the next major space effort... It would dovetail nicely with the Administration's ballistic missile defense at least in philosophical terms, even if the tech commonality isn't that significant. And it is surely also more utilitarian & pragmatic than merely sending a few men to the Moon again.

MARCU$

"I think the President would have been well advised to push for asteroid detection/defense as the next major space effort... It would dovetail nicely with the Administration's ballistic missile defense at least in philosophical terms, even if the tech commonality isn't that significant."

While this is logical theory, I don't think it would be at all practical. Asteroid defense still has a significant Giggle Factor. It's certainly less than it was in the past, but it exists.

Considering all the flak that the administration has taken for the new space vision, which arguably has far less Giggle Elements than asteroid defense, there is no way that such a policy would have made it through the vetting process. Someone would have proposed it and maybe even convinced a lot of people in the White House, and then a political operative would have stepped in and said "Are you kidding me? They'll ridicule us!"

billg, great idea for a sf book, "Whack the Moon." Some political action fanatics adjust the orbit of some rock to hit the moon for a political point... unknown to them, a member of their team makes a slight adjustment to their adjustment and surprise... North Korea bites the dust.