New Directions For NASA

The U. S. House passed a budget for NASA this week that embraces President Obama's plan for the future of NASA manned spaceflight. The budget means the shuttle program will end next year, costing thousands of jobs, but opening the way for private companies to take over transporting humans to and from low Earth orbit, thus freeing NASA to focus on manned deep space exploration.

The question might be whether this new policy will hold. The American political situation seems to be in a particularly turbulent phase at present. The election next month could flip control of the House-- and possibly the Senate, as well-- to the Republicans. If that happens, the GOP might decide to put its own stamp on space policy, which could well take the form of directing NASA have its own manned spaceflight capability independent of whatever private companies can come up with. A NASA manned spacecraft, of course, might demand a specific goal.

And so it might go.