Obama Gets it Right with NASA's New Direction

Space travel has been a fascination of mine for longer than I can remember. On July 20, 1969 my eyes were glued to the television as "Buzz" Aldrin landed the Lunar Module on the moon and Neil Armstrong planted the first human step on the moon. As the Apollo 11 command module orbited the moon I couldn't help but feel how proud I was to be alive to see this and be in a country of such great innovation and American know how. I had another reason to feel that way since my Aunt was an executive secretary for the Bendix Corporation who made the rockets that propelled the craft to it's destination.

I was 14 years old then. Now that I am much older, and possibly wiser, my interest moved toward NASA once again when Barack Obama was elected President and I wondered what he would do with the agency. There have been many articles written on how Obama has steered NASA in the wrong direction and has changed their mission to the point where NASA is no longer "on mission" as they once were. I am definitely not a fan of Obama's policies regarding the economy but when it concerns his direction for the space program I have no choice but to defend him and his plan.

NASA has never been completely about space travel. Going to the moon and other planets are great things that must be accomplished but NASA and it's vendors have always been on the forefront of technological development. The technology that is developed to complete missions assigned to the agency have brought the world many inventions that have been used in a large number of industrial applications critical here on Earth. A lot of these inventions, many payed for by the tax payer's dollar, have been given freely to be used by anyone that has an application for them. All of the sciences have benefited from this. From the other side, NASA has always encouraged scientists and industry outside the agency to share their technology and to ask for help for development of what they may need to move technology forward. This two way transfer is a great thing and it is what Obama is trying to encourage and accelerate.

With NASA Administrator Charles Bolden's appointment of Dr. Robert Braun to the post of Chief Technologist of NASA this program of technology development and transfer got a booster shot. According to Dr. Braun the cancellation of the Constellation program was a good thing. It was mostly about sending humans back to the moon. Now the emphasis is trying to understand more about humans being in space, developing better propulsion systems and infrastructure so that multiple missions in space will be possible in the future with a greater success rate and move us much further that would have been possible by continuing in the previous direction. At the same time, the U.S. economy would be helped with the activity created by this new direction.

Obama deserves the credit for getting it right with this new direction and gives me hope that America may continue to lead the world in the sciences and we, as Americans, can once again feel the same as many of us did on that hot July day 41 years ago.

Charles F. Bolden, Jr. "NASA Internal memo: Message from the NASA Administrator: Feb. 3, 2010." SpaceRef
Various, "NASA Tech Briefs." Tech Briefs
NASA Tech Briefs, "NASA's Chief Technologist Leads the Agency's New Focus on Research and Innovation." Embedded Technology