AFP Quotes NASA Critics In Weekend Feature Article

The French News Service AFP is reporting that a notable list of space exploration experts is critical of the Obama administration's initiative to shift the bulk of low-earth-orbit (LEO) space work to commercial providers. Coincidentally, those experts quoted share in common years spent with NASA, or otherwise benefitting from agency largesse.

The feature article is titled, "Obama under fire over space plans," and was published over the weekend by Breitbart. It quotes former Apollo Astronaut and first man on the Moon Neil Armstrong from his recent testimony to federal lawmakers, in which he warned, "We will have no American access to, and return from, low Earth orbit and the International Space Station for an unpredictable length of time in the future." Armstrong called the current state of the US space program, "embarassing."

The last man to walk on the Moon, Astronaut Gene Cernan, calls trusting LEO missions to commercial providers a "mission to nowhere...we are on a path of decay. We are seeing the book close on five decades of accomplishment as the leader in human space exploration."

AFP also quotes Representative Ralph Hall, a Republican who represents Texas, which has benefitted economically from NASA spending for decades. Hall says of vague, unfunded plans for exploration of asteroids and the planet Mars, "If NASA doesn't move out quickly, more and more of our industrial base, skilled engineers and technicians, and hard-won capabilities are at risk of withering away."

Space Policy Institute Director Scott Pace, a former NASA associate administrator who worked in various federally-funded jobs linked to the agency going back more than two decades, tells AFP, "I don't think any of the ISS partners looks at what we are doing in the US with commercial cargo and crew and feels very confident."

Bearing out Pace's opinion, Russian officials recently hinted they might try to block the first attempt by SpaceX, a commercial space provider, to dock its Dragon spacecraft with the International Space Station, citing the risks of unproven private-sector technology. Not long afterward, an unmanned Russian Progress supply craft, an example of decades-old, government-managed space technology, was lost when its Soyuz launch vehicle failed.

Highlighting the role of politics in NASA, current agency management is (at least publicly) on-board with the new direction, admitting the Constellation program canceled by the Obama administration in favor of commercial space was over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation.

AFP's negative take on the end of government management of LEO comes in ironic contrast to an update from SpaceX Founder Elon Musk last week at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Musk noted that his Dragon spacecraft (pictured) has indeed had its first docking with the International Space Station delayed by the Russians, not by politics, but by concerns over the readiness of the half-century-old, government-managed, Soyuz rockets to safely get the required station crew members to the ISS on time.

FMI: www.nasa.gov ; www.spacex.com