Robert Costa has a piece over at National Review Online, with the usual conventional “conservative” wisdom on the new space policy, complete with the Kennedy mythology. I may ask Kathryn (or Rich, who I guess is the editor there now) for space for a rebuttal.

[Update late afternoon]

The Corner has the transcript from the panel on Bret Baier’s show yesterday, with Krauthammer’s comments. It leads with the usual ridiculous hyperbole:

We are seeing the abolition of the manned space program.

That’s right, the extension of ISS, the development of a viable commercial human spaceflight industry, the development of needed technologies (neglected in the past administration) to affordably get beyond low earth orbit is the “abolition of the manned space program.” What is in the water that DC conservatives have been drinking?

And what it does is it ends our human dominance in space, which we had for 50 years. We have no way to get into earth orbit. We’re going to have to hitch a ride on the Russians who are charging us extraordinary rates and are only going to increase that.…

And that was the plan laid out by the Bush administration. But now that Obama is president, it’s terrible. As I told Rich Lowry and KLo via email, this is an important debate, and it has to be debated, but not in such a logic-free and fact-free environment. I’m very disappointed in Dr. K., who is usually quite perceptive on other issues.

Praise for the new space policy from Buzz Aldrin.

You know, everyone has been saying how noteworthy it is that Neil Armstrong has spoken out against it, because he’s been such a relative hermit for forty years. I have a different take. Buzz has spent the past four decades fighting to get better space policy, and one that opens up space for all of us, and has earned his space-policy chops, while Neil has been a reclusive professor in Ohio, and not engaged at all. While he’s an admirable man for his life accomplishments, I’m not really interested in the opinions of a Neil-come-lately on this issue. Either way, I don’t find argument from astronaut authority particularly persuasive when the arguments themselves aren’t.

[Update a few minutes later]

Here is Scott Pace’s response on C-Span. I haven’t listened to it but I’m assuming that he’s just expanding on what he said on To The Point yesterday.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Actually, I shouldn’t necessarily assume that. His discussion on To The Point was occurring as, or right after, the president was speaking. He may have revised his thoughts after he saw the speech.

MSNBC actually has a pretty well-balanced story on the new policy, and some (but not all) of the old-guard astronauts’ opposition to it (more here — I’m disappointed to see my old boss Glynn Lunney on the list — I need to call him and straighten him out). That’s probably because Alan Boyle was involved. Unfortunately, so was Jay Barbree, who still thinks that SpaceX is the only potential commercial provider for human spaceflight.

Clark Lindsey is appropriately unimpressed with the opponents’ arguments (such as they are). I agree with him that they denote a lack of seriousness, and attention to what’s been going on. I’m working on an op-ed for AOL News along the same lines to coincide with tomorrow’s festivities at KSC.

On several levels. I don’t have time to adequately critique it right now, because I’m about to be on another conference panel, but briefly, ignoring the foolish hysteria (we were in the same position from early 2003 to late 2005), one would never know from this article that the decision to end the Shuttle program was made over six years ago. We had a different president then. His name wasn’t “Obama.”

I have some questions for Lori Garver, and answers, over at Popular Mechanics.

[Saturday morning update]

I should clarify the nature and history of this.

Some people have accused me of throwing her softballs.

Guilty as charged, mostly (though be aware that PM edited some of my questions, though not, of course, her answers). I am unapologetic. And I am pleased to have nauseated Mark Whittington (if I really did, given as he is to hyperbolic exaggeration). That, to me, is always a sign that I’ve done something good.

I make no pretense to be a “journalist,” at least in the hypocritical journalism school sense, nor do I make any pretense of objectivity, at least on this subject. I do, however, unlike many of the hysterical critics of the new policy, adhere to reality. I support this policy, and have never tried to hide that. While it’s not perfect, I think that it’s far better than anything that has come before, going all the way back to the beginning of the space age. While Lori and I have often had our (friendly) differences, I think that she has been unfairly beaten up and slandered for the past few weeks (if not longer) and my purpose was to elicit her views, on the record, and put them into a widely-read popular venue. Not to mention get a little money.

As for the issue as to whether I “let her get away with” things, it should be understood that this wasn’t a back and forth, with follow up. I wanted to do that, but PAO said to submit a list of questions, and she would answer them. I could have followed up on this result, but that would likely have delayed publication for more weeks (it was about a month between when I submitted, and when I received these answers). I thought that it was more important to get this out there now, when I had it, prior to the upcoming event on Thursday, than to delay it further.

[Late evening update]

I just realized (I missed it when I first saw the piece on line) that I get a little overedited. In the phrase, “Can you talk about how much curvature in the wake we’ve seen over the past ten years to provide some context for where we are now relative to the “golden years”…it was submitted as “Goldin years” (i.e., a reference to the administrator when she was an AA). The PM editors probably missed the reference, and thought that I’d just misspelled it. I’m trying to get it fixed.