Jonathan wrote:
We all know President Bush announced his Vision for
Space Exploration in early 2004. My question is who
came up with the idea? What was the pre-history of the
Vision that intends to guide our national space policy for
the next forty years or more?

All I have found so far follows...

"Surprisingly, much of the early work on the new policy was
made by a group of anonymous junior White House staffers
who, by the book's account, had a genuine interest in space
exploration and sought to create a new vision that would
reinvigorate the space agency. This "Splinter Group" spent
months meeting informally, reviewing white papers and
proposals, before inviting more senior advisers and, eventually,
NASA officials into the discussion. This led to the creation
of two "Rump Groups" that narrowed down proposals for a new
exploration plan, keeping in mind fiscal limitations that ruled out
any plan that required significant additional funding for NASA.
The result of these deliberations, spread out over most of
2003, was a plan the President approved on December 19
and announced to the world at NASA Headquarters
on January 14."
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/198/1


I would like to know who the ..."anonymous junior staffers"
of the 'Splinter Group' were. Who were the Nasa officials?
Who were the members of the 'Rump Group'?

The Sphincter Group.

They couldn't sew it up, apparently.

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