If I were a member of the Mars Society, I’d be looking for a new leader, or looking to form a new organization. This seems like a very unprofessional press release to me (but hardly out of character for Bob Zubrin). Does he really imagine that this is going to win support for any cause associated with him?

I agree that O’Keefe’s decision was a mistake, and that the robotic mission was a waste of money. I also think that he should have left earlier, and let someone else make that decision, because he was obviously unable any longer to deal with risk after the trauma of Columbia. But that doesn’t justify this kind of vicious, personal attack on a good man.

Also, this is simply wrong:

Alone among space advocacy groups, the Mars Society responded the former NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe’s stupid and cowardly decision to desert the Hubble with forthright opposition, exposing as fraudulent the technically illiterate oaf’s claims that a mission to Hubble was more dangerous than missions to the Space Station…

There was nothing fraudulent about it. It was true then, and remains true, that a Hubble mission is in fact riskier than an ISS mission. O’Keefe’s mistake wasn’t in believing that it was riskier, but rather in believing that it was too risky. He was wrong, but that doesn’t mean that we should pretend that the risk isn’t greater. I agree with Mike Griffin’s decision to go forward (and think that, if anything, it’s late–he could and should have made it much sooner), but only because we are continuing to fly Shuttle for ISS. It certainly wouldn’t have been worth keeping Shuttle alive just to fix Hubble.

In the meantime, Bob might want to invest in a Dale Carnegie course.