Last week, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing on the future of human spaceflight. The witness list included both supporters and opponents of Obama's proposed NASA budget. Next week there will be another hearing, on the House side. Only this time, there will be mostly opponents of Obama's proposal. Why is Bart Gordon, who chairs the committee, and can add alternative viewpoints (including supporters of Obama's proposal or the Direct proposal), basically limiting it to people supporting George Bush's failed Constellation?
More below the jump
The hearing itself was quite the spectacle. As I mentioned, both supporters and opponents were on the witness list.
Supporting it included:
Presidential Science Advisor John Holdren
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
Former Lockheed Martin President Norm Augustine
Opposing it were:
Neil Armstrong
Captain Gene Cernan
After the dust settled, I doubt many minds were changed. I was in attendance, and will provide some first hand accounts later (hopefully on Thursday). But at least there was a decent mix of supporters and opponents, both from within the administration and outside the administration.
But here is the witness list for the upcoming House hearing
Supporting Obama's plan:
Charles Bolden
Opposing Obama's plan:
Neil Armstrong
Captain Gene Cernan
Tom Young
This upcoming hearing on the House side is a real slap in the face at Obama, and any chance of good space policy. People have said that we need to have a debate about the future of NASA. Personally, I would argue that we had that last year, during the Augustine Hearings. But even if there is a need to continue this debate, then let's have a fair debate, with equal representation. Let's have some supporters of Obama's proposal, such as Jeff Greason, or Sally Ride. Or lets get some Direct supporters there as well. And lets get some young voices in there as well (since it's us Millennials and the like who will be living with the effects of Constellation if that goes forward, and are being drawn towards NewSpace and commercial space).
The fact that this is a member of our party, Bart Gordon, doing this, makes this even more frustrating. He needs to understand that a show trial against Obama's plan will hurt our nation as well as a party.
Please contact Chairman Bart Gordon ((202) 225-4231 or click here), and ask him to add some more people to the list, particularly supporters of Obama's proposal.