President Barack Obama waves farewell after speaking at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Thursday, April 15, 2010. Obama visited Kennedy to deliver remarks on the bold new course the administration is charting to maintain U.S. leadership in human space flight. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Source: Discovery News
President Obama’s new direction for NASA as outlined in his speech at Kennedy Space Center last Thursday — if successfully implemented in the coming years — will help us better pursue fundamental questions about the universe: are we alone? Can we avert lethal space debris?
For starters, the fact that the President is actually increasing NASA funding should be evidence enough for critics that his administration sees our space program as a fundamental asset to American innovation, technology, inspiration and reassertion of our pioneering spirit. It would be tempting for any other president today to cut back NASA as yet another sacrificial lamb in these anxious and tough-talking times where the Government is accused of overspending.
What’s ironic is that Obama was born the same year, 1961, when President John F. Kennedy set landing humans on the moon as a decadal goal. This was done purely to overshadow the Soviet Union and not in the spirit of exploration and discovery at a $25 billion price tag (in 1960s dollars).
To continue reading this story: http://news.discovery.com/space/obamas-vision-for-nasa-bolsters-space-science.html
