Isn’t this cute? He still imagines we can (or should) do Apollo again.
[Update a while later]
Interesting timing on that Whittington piece. I just got off the phone with David Livingston, and one of the things I told his listeners was to stop trying to do Apollo again. Particularly because the Apollo they imagined, in which the nation was united behind a big goal in space, never happened.
You should really read the piece, and the book it is derived from, perform making statements like that. My thesis is a little more complicated than “let’s redo Apollo.” Bur then, you like writing in slogans.
Your thesis that stakeholders should be consulted, plans should be technically sound, and funding streams should be stable is about as insightful as saying that the sky is blue. Thank you for enlightening us, Mr. Obvious. Of course, you contradict yourself by holding up SEI and Griffin, both of which generated plans that were anything but technically sound and that never fit the available funding stream by a long shot. (And that did try to replicate Apollo on the Moon and at Mars.) So maybe that wasn’t your thesis. I’m guessing you were never clear on your thesis is in the first place. But what is clear is that the editorial standards at The Hill have fallen to juvenile, elementary school levels in terms of both content and writing.
Dr. Livingston has requested listeners to suggest guests with opposing viewpoints who could be on his show together. Would the two of you be interested in something like this?
Given the kinds of written exchanges we have, it’s difficult to see how that would be productive.
On the contrary! One doesn’t get synthesis without both thesis and antithesis. Putting it all out there and letting the listeners decide who makes more sense is far more productive than the two of you sniping at each other in print.
It might not be a lot of fun for you and Mark, but would make for one very long, entertaining podcast.
I am not going to engage Mark verbally, where he can simply make up whatever he wants and completely mischaracterize what I’ve said, and I can’t just direct them to scroll down to see what I actually wrote.
“Americans will never go back to the moon or on to Mars, unless the next president pays attention to the political process necessary to keep the program funded and on track.”
“Americans” is not equal to “NASA”. This is why Rand says you’re looking to re-do Apollo.
I will make you a bet, Mark. Ten US dollars says the next American to set foot on the moon doesn’t work for NASA.
10 dollars on next person on the Moon not being American either.
Are Rand’s and Whittington’s views necessarily mutually exclusive? No.