JAMES OBERG ON NASA'S NEW STRATEGY.

On 15 April, NASA got its long-awaited marching orders from President Obama. The agency is to send people to Mars using a series of ”stepping-stone” destinations that are themselves of interest: Lagrange points, near-Earth asteroids, and Martian moons. The plan is pretty much exactly what Planetary Society president Wesley T. Huntress Jr. proposed in 2004.

Umm, well, maybe, but I haven’t seen anything to buttress Huntress’ claims that Obama’s program “proposes a more lofty, challenging, and appealing goal to the American public” and “will inspire many more American youngsters to go into science, engineering, and math and to do what has never been done before.”

Nor am I convinced that the ‘president demonstrated that he is fully engaged [with space exploration].”