President Obama opened himself up for questions on Reddit today. The few answers he gave were safe and uncontroversial human-interest fodder: the White House recipe for beer, who watches the dog, and his favorite Bulls player. The only real question of merit came regarding the space program.
He name-checked Neil Armstrong as “a reminder of the inspiration and wonder that our space program has provided in the past.” What he failed to note was that one of Armstrong’s rare public statements was a letter to the administration castigating the President for gutting the same space program.
With the retirement of the Space Shuttle program, the Constellation project was to be our next means of achieving low-earth orbit. That was cut from the budget, and if we want a ride into space at the moment, we’ve got to book it with the Russians.
That’s right: we have to pay the Russians to get us into space. Continued...