While campaigning in Florida, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made some comments on space policy during a speech in Kissimmee. According to this article in Florida Today, he expressed support for a strong space program.
Obama stated his support for the development of the Orion spacecraft, which will replace the Space Shuttle ater its retirement. He also made comments about the need to revitalize the space program and expressed concern that other countries might "leapfrog" the United States.
However, Obama's public statements are contradicted by his policy position statement on grade-school education, which can be viewed at his website. At the end of this paper, Obama claims that he will pay for his education proposals partially by "delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years." If enacted, this measure would effectively be the end of the Moon-Mars Initiative.
Even in the best case scenario, NASA is likely to face a five-year gap between the final flight of the Space Shuttle and the first flight of Orion. Senator Obama's proposal would, at best, increase this gap to ten years, during which time the United States will be unable to send humans into space. Realistically, however, the five year pause in Project Constellation will mean the complete end of the program. The NASA workforce will drift away, just as happened between the end of the Apollo flights and the launch of the Shuttle. And after pausing a multi-billion dollar program for half a decade, bureaucratic realities will make it all but impossible to get it moving again.
The Committee for the Advocacy of Space Exploration believes that if Senator Obama is truly devoted to a strong American space program, including the development of the Orion spacecraft, he should remove the cal for delaying Project Constellation from his education policy statement. Until then, we will believe what we have in writing, rather than what is mentioned in a speech.
