In Space, No One Hears You Flip-Flop

2008 Obama Space Speech

In what is probably one of the most succinct pieces about the multiple transformation regarding space policy by Obama, Eric Steiner lays out the nonsense from the reality in his op-ed article, Sterner: In space, no one hears you flip-flop

From the very first paragraph, Sterner pulls no punches but lays it out in all of reality’s ugliness,

When President Obama arrives in Florida today for his space summit, he will bring considerable baggage with him. When running in the primaries to be the Democratic nominee, he promised to cancel the space-shuttle replacement program, known as Constellation, to pay for new education initiatives. As a candidate in the general election, he famously changed course, promising to accelerate Constellation and close the gap between its arrival and the shuttle’s departure from the nation’s space capabilities. His first-year actions started to make good on the promise. Then, with his fiscal 2011 budget request, the president changed course again, proposing cancellation of Constellation, as he had promised in his earlier incarnation. Truly, it must be said that the president has delivered on his promise of change – he changes every year.

Some, who mistakenly felt just two weeks ago that opposition to Obama’s space plans was weakening, are unhappy with the inconvenient truths outed by Sterner. Still, in their criticism they do not dispute Sterner so much as say to heck with reality, let’s try commercial launchers for human space flight and see what happens, our nation’s leadership in human space flight be damned. It is our hope that members of Congress will act with a bit more reason when voting on whether to enact the President’s flip-flop on space.

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