From: roberts@CMR.NCSL.NIST.GOV (John Roberts)
Newsgroups: sci.space
Subject: Re: Space position
Date: 26 Jul 92 12:15:22 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
	formerly National Bureau of Standards


-From: aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)
-Subject: Re: Clinton Space Position
-Date: 26 Jul 92 00:53:27 GMT

-What he said.

Ditto.

->I've
->heard (unofficially and third hand) that the NASA folks aren't unduly 
->concerned about the space platforms of either of the major candidates.

-NASA as a burecracy will indeed do fine whoever is in power. The middle
-mamagers who are now running scared under Goldin would like a Clinton
-administration.

-I would hate to see the just beginning effort to fix NASA get derailed.

Who on Earth would want to replace Goldin, when he's had such a promising
start? There are plenty of examples of Cabinet members being kept on through
a change in Administration, if they're doing well. (And, in case you didn't
know, Goldin is actually a Democrat, though that doesn't get talked about
much. :-) I would guess that Goldin is likely to stay, whoever is elected.

->Note that the platform isn't too different from the current trends in
->Administration and Congress - keep the manned program going, support...

-Except for two important differences:

-1. They want to keep the Shuttle which currently consumes 1/3 of the
-NASA budget.

*Everybody* wants to keep the Shuttle for the time being, though nobody's
particularly happy about it. Even Goldin, from an unmanned space background,
wants to keep the Shuttle going. (And SSF, for that matter.)

-2. clinton pretty much comes out and says there will be no effort put
-inot Moon/Mars.

As opposed to the current thriving SEI program? :-) Seriously, what
candidate with a reasonable chance of election has promised more, *and*
given some clue as to where the money would come from? (Yeah, I know, GB
promised colonies on the moon by 1999 or some such, but try asking him if
that's still the plan.)

(It's my own opinion that starting actual manned Mars exploration / lunar
colonization right now, with current hardware, would be a mistake, and I
don't think you're going to find anybody in power who's going to push very
hard for it.)

->There are several indications in the proposal that some of the military
->space funding would be shifted to the civilian space program, which ought
->to be beneficial to the civilian program.

-Except that the funding won't be transfered.

Just after I posted that, I read somewhere that the current Administration
has expressed interest in the same thing. If both major parties are behind
it, it might happen.

-Add to all this the fact that by law Al Gore will be the head of the
-Space Council and will be the point person on space policy. Except
-for Mission to Planet Earth Gore has shown almost NO interest in space.
-I don't expect him to support the human expansion into space in any
-way.

So why doncha write letters *before* the election to any candidates who you
feel are less than fully supportive of space exploration, urging them to
change their positions? :-)

Personally, I hope space is a nonissue in the upcoming election. With such
a close similarity of platform positions, that might turn out to be the case.

John Roberts
roberts@cmr.ncsl.nist.gov