The Washington Post has an editorial against the Vision for Space Exploration in general, and Mike Griffin’s implementation plans in particular. As usual, there are unstated assumptions built in:

…we believe that the needs of NASA — and the country — can, at this point, be better served by continuing and expanding robotic exploration.

But what are those needs? They don’t say. They think they know what they are, and assume that everyone agrees with them. But I can’t think of any needs of mine that are met by sending robots to other planets. NASA obviously has some need to do so, because they do so, but clearly that doesn’t satisfy the sum total of their needs either.

Once again, we have clueless pundits making policy pronouncements when we haven’t had a national discussion or debate about what the purpose is of having a national space program and policy. Until that happens, it will continue to be driven by the needs for pork in certain congressional districts.