Guess who said this today:

“Instead of spending enormous sums of money on an unimaginative and retread effort to make a tiny portion of the moon habitable for a handful of people, we should focus instead on a massive effort to ensure that the Earth is habitable for future generations.”

Yup, it was the guy who was in charge of space policy for much of the 1990s.

And here’s a quote from Clinton’s former science advisor:

I’m sad about the focus on human space flight when we’re doing so well with robotics which extend human presence. This refocus on human flight is something that worries me greatly.

Actually, to be fair, it’s what I’d expect a science advisor to say, since manned spaceflight, including the president’s new proposal, has little to do with science per se. What’s frustrating is the ongoing implicit assumption that science is the reason we have a civil space program, an assumption which few ever question, which is why we continue to have these arguments and cognitive dissonance.

Anyway, I’m very happy that neither of them is in a policy-making position any more.

[via Keith Cowing]