Speaker Pelosi Skeptical of Manned Space Funding

You are missing the point. NASA is a jobs program for *white* collar
workers.

NASA as a jobs program is a cancer that warps all NASA programs to non
productive ends. The whole space station thing is an excellent example
of what happens. NASA needs a new project, a reason for using the space
shuttle and keeping NASA jobs. It cannot be too difficult because
failure is bad for getting continued funding. It needs to be a manned
space effort because most of the people in NASA work the manned space
effort in some way. Besides astronaut publicity is great. And most
important it needs to be something that multiple states and nations can
contribute to. Notice that there is nothing in that list that has
anything to do with a long term goal like space habitation.

I went to work in Clear Lake, Texas for an aerospace contractor who had
both military and NASA work at their facility during the time that space
station was being conceived because I had always wanted to participate
in NASA programs. This gave me an opportunity to attend open NASA
meetings and to participate a little bit in the contractor side of NASA
though I was mostly working military programs.

A few years later I was so disgusted with NASA that I spent a couple of
months in a one man campaign to dissolve NASA. The few replies that I
got back from congressmen were sympathetic and basically said that NASA
was a tool for international relations and a white collar jobs program
and the fact that they were incapable of doing anything useful really
wasn't a concern.

All congresspeople regard all government expenditures as a jobs
program. The key for their votes is always "how many people in my
district that vote for me does this bill employ".

Our problem as activists is to find activities that employ highly paid
white collar professionals in every congressional district that actually
contribute to our goal of space habitation and then get those activities
mandated by congress. It doesn't particularly matter which spending arm
actually manages them, DOD, NSF, NASA, DOE.

Mitchell James