…about space policy
The three say they don’t know for certain why the White House has failed to provide the appropriate guidance and funding needed to implement the Vision, “though we suspect it can be explained by Bush not knowing all the facts about what the real impact of NASA’s annual budgets has been since the loss of the Columbia in 2003.”
I think the problem is less in the funding, and more in the lack of guidance. Once Griffin was hired, the White House apparently decided that it was mission accomplished, and refocused to much more pressing issues, despite the fact that NASA’s implementation seems to fly in the face of the original vision and the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission.
And Clark Lindsey gives them a lecture of their own:
These Senators don’t seem to know that NASA could have chosen to pursue an innovative low cost approach to space development and lunar exploration rather than choosing a very long and very expensive path to two new vehicles, both of which will be very costly to operate. These Senators apparently don’t even know about COTS, the one modest effort taken by the agency towards lower costs for space hardware development and operations.
Well, what most Senators don’t know, particularly about space, could fill a small library. Maybe even a large one.