How NASA Can Keep Up with Star Trek (and China) in Space

Forget airplane crashes, argues a top Washington policy expert. If America doesn't want its technological progress outpaced by the rest of the world, time has come for Congress to stop blocking space funding -- and for the Obama administration to start trusting the new Wright Brothers of aerospace.

Click here to read Tom's Esquire.com column for today.

Comments

[Neil H.]

Regarding your third suggestion, it's unfortunate that just today it was revealed that NASA's commercial crew and cargo program is getting a $113.9 million cut in the latest House Appropriations Committee bill, with the stated reason of "program phase out." The "COTS" program which the House is trying to cut is pretty much the only major program NASA has for fostering private spaceflight.

[Matt Osborne]

Mr. Barnett, it's funny you should mention space debris. An article appeared at Huffington Post tonight in which Johann Hari makes a very strong case for concern about that very issue.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-strange-problem-of-sp_b_214600.html

[Devin Weiss]

I read on internet land that NASA decided to do a manned mission to Mars by August, 1982, but that Viet Nam war was far too costly. This type of mission could have been a drop within the fiscal bucket, compared to the military spending back then. When you compare the worthiness of a manned mission to Mars to that of slugging it out in Southeast Asia, I vote Mars, completely. We lost Viet Nam; what a waste. We lost our earlier mission to Mars; what a waste. Now, we have economical woes and budget cuts. Once more, Mars takes the back seat just to fall out of the vehicle. What can we do in order to avoid strike three?