Earth Observation

> I just noticed something. Democratic administrations talk about Earth
> Observation and focus NASA on unmanned space objectives. When
> Republicans are in, the Earth Observation systems get seriously
> downgraded or canceled and we get expensive (overruns galore) manned
> programs that spend money in every congressional district possible.
>
> Why should this be? The parties are not that much different in many
> ways though the corrupting influence of big oil seems strongest in the
> Republican party which could explain the lack of Earth Observation. Why
> would the Republican party favor manned space programs and the
> Democrats unmanned?

Treading into gross-generalization land, I think it's often true that
the Republicans are most interested in whatever directs the most money
to their big corporate sponsors -- manned missions just happen to be
good for that. Democrats in general are most interested in minimizing
such spending, and protecting the climate; unmanned missions happen to
be better for that. I doubt that either party really cares about manned
vs. unmanned per se.

It's disappointing though, given Obama's desire to "motivate and inspire
students to excel in science and math" [1], that he doesn't see the
value of manned space in doing exactly that. Take a small fraction of
the money from your least-favorite war, and give it to NASA to have
people do interesting things in space (such as build a lunar base), and
you'd have students scrambling to become scientists and engineers.

On the other hand, if/when commercial space takes off, the same thing
will happen, with a lot more great job opportunities to go around to
boot. So I credit the last two presidents with one not-so-dumb move
each: Bush for lifting the Moon taboo, and Obama for (finally!) getting
NASA out of the launch business, thus ensuring a real commercial launch
industry.

Best,
- Joe

[1]
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2009/11/24/obama-launches-new-stem-initiatives/