MISSION TO NOWHERE. “Big, fat, pointless and expensive describes [the] plan to twiddle our fingers” say Paul Spudis and Robert Zubrin about Obama’s cancellation of NASA’s Constellation manned spaceflight program. “If implemented, this decision will guarantee a decade of non-achievement by NASA's human spaceflight program, ...”

But the entrepreneurial space industry -- collectively called "NewSpace" -- are finding fresh opportunities for work as NASA and the White House redirect U.S. space exploration efforts.

As I’ve pointed out before (here and here and here), I’m not sanguine about the future of manned spaceflight.

Low Earth orbit (LEO) is, I think, within the reach of commercial enterprise and NASA certainly has a role to play in technology development for exploration and eventual colonization (of the moon, Mars, and asteroids).

But as Spudis and Zubrin imply, what is lacking in the Obama administration is leadership and a coherent “Vision for Space Exploration.” With neither direction nor destination, manned space will likely falter.