Posted 10/04/2007 05:24:00 PM by Douglas

Fifty years after the first man-made chunk of metal made it into low earthorbit, humans are still at least a decade from leaving, yet again. Time to wax poetic about the impacts the space program has for mankind (and for your home constituency), but what NASA really needs is some vision. No one seems to know what's going on. Is the shuttle fleet going to be retired in 2010? Is it going to fly two, three, or four more years? Why? Are we really going to go back to the moon and then on to Mars? It's kinda sad when NASA's top administrator thinks that the next space race is going to be China, and we've already lost.

he Soviets beat the United States at getting a satellite, and a man, into space. Now, the Chinese may get to the moon before the U.S. can make a return visit.

Fifty years after Sputnik became the world's first artificial satellite, a new race is under way with the finish line on the moon. NASA, the former lunar champion, already is predicting defeat.

"I personally believe that China will be back on the moon before we are," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a low-key lecture in Washington two weeks ago, marking the space agency's 50th anniversary, still a year away.

"I think when that happens, Americans will not like it. But they will just have to not like it."

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Knute Rockne!

Seriously, is this supposed to motivate the people that are fighting countless levels of NASA bureaucracy to get the new ship designed, built and flown?

Either there's public support for a manned spaceflight program, or there isn't. We're not going to get anywhere ever again with this half-assed "designed by committee" approach to space travel.