On Thu, 4 Feb 2010 14:06:53 -0800 (PST), Eric Chomko
wrote:

Comparing Cameron to Obama is a stretch.


As far as the magnitude of the risk goes, yes.

....Unless you think Constellation was poorly designed in the first place.

Which comes around to my point: Outside the aerospace and space
enthusiast communities, who even debated the point? Probably nobody.
The lead sentences of the story were about the cancellations, not a
celebration of a "better choice." You can't get past that just by
arguing on usenet.

.... Where's the Augustine commission's heavy lifter going to fly from
without them?

Wallops Island?


They have LC39-sized pads I never hear of?

.... You sound bitter ....

I don't feel bitter.

..... What do you really want, if you allow yourself to
push your party agenda aside for a minute?


No party agenda involved. As for what I want, I thought Constellation
had the best shot of getting astronauts back to the Moon and on to
Mars. That program is now dead, so I want to see what happens. But
something HAS to happen, or it's a misstep for Obama.


If Obama's space plan isn't a hit, it will be a flop, and he'll
probably spend the rest of his life explaining it.

There is no middle ground? ....

Not for Obama. The messianic image that grew around him during the
2008 campaign set him up for trouble. Even in good times, he never
would have lived up to it; anything less than being awesome and his
adminstration could be considered a flop, even if he's competent a the
job (which I believe he is). Well, it wasn't the best of times, and
he elected right in the middle of a finacial meltdown and charged with
fixing the whole world. Along the way, we learned he's only human.
He and the dems have major political problems, no question. Can he
get around them? Maybe, but a gamble that doesn't play out hon't
help, regardkess of whether it directly hurts his reelection chances.

...... Anything is better than the Bush plan was.

That remains to be seen. What matters is when the rubber meets the
road.