Space Policy Snapshots

Can NASA keep public’s curiosity piqued?, Houston Chronicle
“Paul Spudis, a senior scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, said Curiosity’s success doesn’t change the fact that the agency is still looking for a vision. “It’s tangential to the agency’s fundamental problem – where is it going and why?” Spudis asked. “Since (2010) NASA has been floundering in strategic aimlessness and national irrelevance. Only the momentum of existing programs started long ago, like the International Space Station and Mars Science Laboratory, are keeping it alive at all.”
Editorial: Curiosity rover critics shortsighted, USA Today
“Those who would slash space program budgets apparently haven’t learned history’s lessons and don’t see the great possibilities that the future presents — possibilities reflected in every image transmitted back from the rover.”
Editorial: NASA scientists nail gold medal Mars dismount, Ventura Star
“President Barack Obama, who has been accused by Republicans of being insufficiently ardent about “American exceptionalism,” called the landing an “unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future.”