The Great Space Waste

Certainly, there are a lot of things that the U.S. government needs to deal with down here on Earth. But what ever happened to outer space? After the end of the Cold War, the hard politics of space competition gave way to international cooperation and liberal idealism embodied in the International Space Station. With the ...

Certainly, there are a lot of things that the U.S. government needs to deal with down here on Earth. But what ever happened to outer space?

Certainly, there are a lot of things that the U.S. government needs to deal with down here on Earth. But what ever happened to outer space?

After the end of the Cold War, the hard politics of space competition gave way to international cooperation and liberal idealism embodied in the International Space Station. With the Columbia tragedy of 2003, years of reported NASA mismanagement, ISS partners unwilling to foot their portions of the bill, and a lack of public interest in space exploration, one of America’s greatest liberal dreams has simply become a mess. Literally, the space station is disgusting. The mess is only going to get worse as the Space Shuttle Discovery drops off about 5,000 pounds of supplies next week.
 
Unless the launch goes off without a hitch, the shuttle program will probably be grounded indefinitely. Lacking a means to fly until the next generation vehicle is ready around 2011 (an optimistic estimate), President Bush’s dream of returning to the Moon is the only notable U.S. space policy currently on the table. Obviously, Columbia had a debilitating impact on space exploration, but three years later we could at least be honoring those astronauts with the development of a comprehensive space policy.

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