Former NASA Astronauts On Commercial Space
Cernan: Pres. Unwilling to Invest in U.S. Future, Fox 26 TV Houston
“I’m angry. It’s very short sighted on the part of this administration,” said Cernan. “He is somehow unwilling to invest in the future of this country and the future of this country is important to me. I won’t be here 20, 30, 40 years from now, but my grandkids will. I want them to have the country I had. I want something better for them.”
We are Ready for Commercial Human Spaceflight, Leroy Chiao
“Many of my colleagues and peers have written articles and pieces, deriding the idea of commercial LEO access. Indeed, the track record of the self-described “New Space” companies has thus far, been marked generally with failure and arrogance. Not all, but many of these folks, before they run their companies into the ground, seem to spend the bulk of their time attending self-serving, self-aggrandizing conferences where openly slinging mud at NASA is sport. This is hardly constructive, and it brings discredit to others who have serious aspirations for the future of commercial spaceflight.”
Launching NASA on a Path to Nowhere: Analysis, Tom Jones
“The new budget, announced Monday, seems merely an attempt to disguise the demise of U.S. leadership in space. The president does away with Constellation, its Orion spacecraft, and its Ares I and Ares V boosters. The abrupt cancellation means the U.S. no longer wishes to send its explorers to the frontiers of knowledge and spacefaring skill. We are deliberately choosing to have no better space capability than do Russia, China, or India.”
Boosters Flare in Space Debate, MSNBC
“Another former shuttle astronaut, Ken Bowersox, is more bullish on the commercial prospects – perhaps in part because he’s now an executive at one of those companies, California-based SpaceX. Today Discovery News quoted him as saying that space contractors “should be able to come up with new and innovative ways” to fill NASA’s needs for resupplying the International Space Station.”
Keith’s update: And then there’s my (non-Astronaut) two cents’ worth …
Blasting NASA, Living on Earth, NPR
“COWING: Well, it already is commercial, the funny thing is that the Russians have been taking paying passengers for the better part of a decade now. And I always find great humor in that you have a country who’s got a capitalist economy that’s barely been a decade and a half old and they came out of Communism, and yet they’re teaching us how to commercialize space. And we’ve got an economy that’s two and a half centuries old based on the capitalistic way of doing things. So, this isn’t new, it’s just it’s new to America.”
