We are now back on the road to nowhere

[JimMcDade]

We are now back on the road to nowhere:

from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/sc...e/28space.html

Celebrating U.S. Future in Space, Hopefully

By DAMIEN CAVE

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — With rock music blaring, fifth graders count down from 10-9-8 to the rocket boosters’ firing up, and blasting the computer-generated astronauts toward space.

“Hey, the future looks good, huh?” says Ken Larson, jumping to center stage at the new Exploration Space exhibition here.

Mr. Larson’s job is to inspire the next generation as much as he was inspired — by his father, a reporter who befriended the first astronauts, and by his grandmother, one of the first 10 employees here at what one plaque calls “the hot burning center of American dreams.”
The center is cooling, though. The space shuttles are scheduled to retire this year and instead of replacing them with new rockets for a return to the moon— the plan under President George W. Bush — President Obama wants NASA to focus on the long-term challenge of reaching deep space.

Simply put, the United States will no longer be sending its own astronauts through the stratosphere. Instead, they will hitch rides with the Russians until around 2016, when private companies start carrying NASA astronauts and other passengers into orbit.

That is, if Congress goes along. Several senators, including Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, have already pledged to save the rocket program, Project Constellation, arguing it is vital for space, security and the economy.

Here at the Kennedy Space Center, the celebration of the future now comes with asterisks. At the visitor’s center, for example, which draws 1.5 million people every year, caveats have been forced into an extravaganza built for maximum wow.

Mr. Larson’s script, for instance, now includes this lawyerly line: “We can’t confirm exactly where humankind’s next steps in space are going to take us.”

Explicit references to Project Constellation have mostly been stripped out, with a few telling exceptions, like the metal sign near a trash can in the food court. And the moon has gone from a hot goal to a hypothetical.

In the video games at the center of Exploration Space, those who joystick their way to a safe landing hear, “As soon as NASA starts a lunar program again, we’ll send you an application.”

This is partly a product of unfortunate timing. Exploration Space, the most recent addition to the visitor’s center, welcomed its first guests in December.

Two months later, the new Obama plan surfaced, forcing changes to Mr. Larson’s script after what a spokeswoman described as “tweaks to the messaging.”

Sharon Foster, a no-nonsense fifth-grade teacher from Emerald Shores, Fla., said she had hoped for more. She recalled the rush of early space flight, of the ground shaking like sand on a busy clothes dryer, while she watched from nearby as American pioneers bolted toward the heavens.

Ms. Foster said she hated the idea of relying on others — especially the Russians — to get to the International Space Station.
Mostly though, she worried that her students would never share her own wide-eyed experiences.

“I don’t know where we’re going to get the inspiration for the children,” Ms. Foster said in a visit last week. “What are we going to do to get them excited to be engineers and pilots?”

The visitor’s center tries. There is a feel of don’t-you-get-it admonitions in the 3D Imax movie that includes Leonardo DiCaprio’s asking, “Will we ever find anywhere as perfect as our planet earth?”; and in the nine billboards at the entrance that tell visitors space exploration is “a destiny, not a destination” because “it is the driving force of ingenuity” that “fuels our economy” and “creates the passion to pioneer.”

Two weeks ago, the president told a crowd at the space center that he, too, was “100 percent committed to the mission of NASA and its future.” He highlighted a proposed $6 billion increase in NASA’s budget over five years, and plans to save local jobs by refurbishing the center’s aging infrastructure.

But Florida’s Space Coast seems to want more ambitious goals that can be packaged into excitement. Foreigners now make up 40 percent of the visitors at the space center, and Mr. Larson said they often knew more than Americans about the benefits of space exploration, from satellites to research on antibiotics.

As he prepared for another countdown, and another presentation about the future, Mr. Larson added, “The thirst for knowledge just isn’t there anymore.”

[klydemorris]

I find it very telling that Obama did NOT visit the VAB, LC39, the LCC or the Delta or Atlas pads... he only went to SpaceX's pad to see their COTs prototype launcher which is, BTW, two years behind schedule.

For someone who is being sold to us as a true space buff who is really "engaged" in spaceflight, it seems to me that the guy would have used his presidential push to tour all over the place.

Perhaps he had Bill Nye the science guy do that for him. Whish brings to mind the question... What the f$%& was Bill Nye doin' there in the first place!? It's another example of just how little Obama cares about NASA and NASA HSF.