Culberson: NASA Decision A "Surrender"
Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) slammed Pres. Obama's decision to end the next phase of American manned space flight, calling it part of a pattern that has weakened the country.
In an interview with Hotline OnCall, Culberson said the admin's decision to cancel the Constellation program amounts to a surrender of the U.S.'s historic position as the global leader in space.
The Constellation program is billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. Obama's proposed budget, released in Feb., would cancel funding for the program. Without it, Culberson said, the U.S. will have no manned space flight capabilities in the future.
"He's shut down the whole thing. He's proposing to cancel America's manned space program, which is typical of this administration's pattern of apologizing for America's success, kowtowing to our enemies, bowing to foreign dictators and their obsession with trying to make terrorists like us," Culberson said.
"In my mind, it's just part of a pattern of behavior. Once again, here's Obama surrendering the high ground, walking away, surrendering America's leadership in an area where we have led the world. It's just another illustration of how urgent it is that we get these people out of the White House as quickly as possible," he added. "It is maddening."
But Culberson, who represents a district in the NASA-heavy Houston area, said the problem pre-dates the current administration. He blames George W. Bush, who first proposed the Constellation program -- and its mission of returning astronauts to the moon and, eventually, sending them to Mars -- in a major address before the '04 State of the Union. Bush never followed up the address with the funding NASA would have required to properly operate Constellation.
"This is one of many unfortunate legacies left to us by the Bush administration. Unfortunately, President Bush's quote, vision for space exploration was nothing more than a press release and a publicity stunt for the 2004 election. Because it was never followed up with sufficient funding to fulfill what he laid out," Culberson said.
"I'm very unhappy about the fact that the Bush administration got the hopes and expectations of the nation and these engineers and scientists and astronauts, they got their hopes up and they didn't fulfill them. It's a terrible thing to do."
For more on the Constellation program, Pres. Obama's April 15 visit to the Kennedy Space Center and the debate over manned space flight in the U.S., check out your OnCall editor's write-up in this week's National Journal. Non-subscribers can find a free preview we published over the weekend here.
The problem was caused by the republicans.
They didn't fund their program. Further,
Ares 1 was a bad design, years too late, and
too expensive.
Obama is just holding NASA accountable. NASA
has no one but republicans and themselves to
blame.
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