Words don’t match actions in space either

The Republicans have touted their support of NASA and the space program, with the crown jewel of putting a man on Mars. Much like their rhetoric of actually going after Osama bin Laden, reality does not match their words.

NASA has been cut severely under the Republicans, and here’s the consequence: we will be entirely reliant and subservient to Russia for all missions to the International Space Station for a minimum of 5 years.

The Space Shuttle program has had maintenance cut so badly that the shuttles must be retired in 2010. NASA’s response was to come up with a replacement, the Orion. We could have gone from Shuttles to Orion if the program was funded, but Bush and company needed to funnel the money elsewhere. As a result, Orion was underfunded and will not be ready to launch until March of 2015 at the very earliest. Therefore, Russian Soyuz capsules will be used exclusively during the gap. Russia will be in complete control of who goes to the ISS, and could completely deny access to the US. The antagonizing of Russia by the Republicans in Poland and Georgia could be just the excuse Russia would need.

George Junior, just like his father before him, talked a good game about Mars, but set the goal beyond his term to hide the lack of actions matching the talk. In the meantime, our actual and current interests in space were shortchanged as money was funneled elsewhere. We simply must get the old Republicans, with their neocon mindset, out of power.