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2013 Space Policy: A Scattershot Experience

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 17, 2013
Filed under ,

Lots of Meetings But No Unified Message on Future Space Exploration, SpacePolicyOnline (Marcia Smith)
“Four meetings in Washington, D.C. over this past week addressed the future of space exploration, but no unified message emerged. There was a focus on the role of the entrepreneurial NewSpace private sector and public-private partnerships, but also on the traditional model of government contracting with major aerospace companies. Integrating what all of the prominent individuals involved in these events wanted the public and policymakers to hear is challenging. That is not to imply that the organizers – a potpourri of government and non-government institutions — intended there to be an integrated message from four separate events, but in an era when a cohesive rationale for and approach to space exploration is needed, such an outcome would have been helpful. Instead, it was more of a scattershot experience. Four events featuring a variety of new and established players arguing in favor of space exploration from various viewpoints. Here’s a quick rundown.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

2 responses to “2013 Space Policy: A Scattershot Experience”

  1. dogstar29 says:
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    I agree. STEM is not NASA’s primary mission. To say we are going to Mars to encourage kids to stay in school is absurd. Ironically what is now called “spinoff”, i.e. developing commercial technology and export-oriented products with markets that are not NASA itself, in partnership with American industry, with practical benefits for our economy, used to be NASA/NACA’s primary mission. Now it is just an inadvertent byproduct. One thing I did not see in any of these meetings was the understanding that America needs high-tech manufacturing and exports a lot more than it needs men on Mars.

    Regarding STEM, I would just say that in my experience American companies are willing to hire American graduates, however a large percentage of American university graduates in technical fields are international students; US born students are in many cases just not willing to work as hard.

  2. Denniswingo says:
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    Unless and Until the policy of the United States in space is to expand the domain of mankind economically and politically into the solar system we will continue to fail. Science alone, education couple with science are both insufficient to marshall the resources required to take mankind beyond low earth orbit again.