Jim Muncy leading a forum on presidential space politics, consisting of himself, Alan Ladwig, Lori Garver and Courtney Stadd. It's a bi-partisan panel, since Alan and Lori are Democrats, and Jim and Courtney are Republicans.

Jim: already seven months into longest, hard-fought and expensive presidential campaign in history. People in this room can have more effect on our prospects for space than anyone in the Oval Office. We tend to look to presidents to set the direction and lead, but it doesn't have to be just about what they do. Yet, we should wish that we can have an impact on what they do on space, and in a perfect world, we'd have a debate in 2008 debating the merits, successes and failures of the G W Bush administration, and missed opportunities, and new opportunities and what their agenda would be. This is about as likely as Kurds, Shia and Sunnis in Iraq singing Kumbaya with Harry Reid.

What is the art of the possible. What could she say or he do to take up the good things that were accomplished over the past eight years and move them forward, or identify things that should be fixed? Asks Courtney for a report card on Bush space policy.

Courtney: Mixed record at best. Columbia afforded an opportunity to make some major changes, VSE addressed anxiety about presidential space leadership. We can argue about destinations, but we can be happy that there is one for now. New administration will inherit transportation problems. Current NASA leadership has put in high-quality people that would allow next administration to make some advances. Now in private sector, thinks that Bigelow is a dream come true, and told them that he's willing to help as long as they don't make NASA a key part of the business plan.

Lori: Agrees with Courtney about Columbia environment setting new policy to move beyond LEO, and a highlight of the past six years. Increased commercial space transportation pool by order of magnitude over Alt Access. But need more participants (two not enough). Also have issue of no broad base of support for the program. Overall grade: C-

Alan: Space science uber alles a symptom of the fact that the space science people have always had a long-term vision and agenda that didn't need a president to support them, but human space flight community has been less visionary, and was waiting for president to stand up. President stood up, but hasn't said much since. Cuts to aeronautics almost criminal. COTS good new model for how to get things done. Good things have happened over the past eight years, but it's not much because of what the government has done. Agrees with Lori's C- grade.

Jim: Going to be generous and give them an Incomplete. In human spaceflight and space operations, NASA was not doing a very good job early in the decade, and could have embraced alternatives to space station access more aggressively, but thankfully the Russians bailed us out. Gerstenmaier doing a good job of getting station built and Shuttle retired. Gives them a B or an A- on that. On the science side, they initially threw a lot of money at science because they didn't know what they wanted to do, and got people too excited, so that later "cuts" appeared much worse than they really were, because they were really small increases. Gives the administration (not the president) a D grade. The architecture, by Mike Griffin's own definition, will have to be implemented by a future administration, and Griffin has as much as said that the decision to actually go to the moon will have to be determined by a future congress. Vision itself A- (could have been more commercially oriented), but implementation has been flawed, and thinks it unfortunate that whether or not we're really going back to the moon remains uncertain, and poorly argued. Needs a more forthright statement that we are going back to the moon, and need more embrace of commercialization, and too much focus on the gap. The only gap will be of American-government-flagged spaceships going into space.

Lori: Wants to defend Mike Griffin. Has said great things in the Washington Post and other places about the importance of space and colonization, and it's unlikely we'll ever get a stronger advocate in that regard. Jim agrees on that score.

Courtney: Officially not aligned with either party. Sees a fundamental problem with the country, and sees a fundamental dysfunction of organization of the government, regardless of party. We have a 1950's style government in the twenty-first century. Have good vigorous people on the Hill, but a no one with the necessary science and technology knowledge. Lots of policy wonks and political science types, but not people who understand the accelerating technologies. People will look back in a few decades and wonder how people we were condescending to recently are beating us. Fear as an American citizen is the fact that NASA is a symptom of a much larger problem with how the government is organized. We are sitting in "six and a half square miles, surrounded by reality." Space policy is a parlor game populated by a very small group, and hopes that next president will broaden that base.

Alan: Hopes that we can get people to think about space in a broader context than NASA (group NASA and DOD together, rather than just with NSF).

Courtney: NASA was stovepiped in the Bush administration.

Lori: Under Kerry campaign, space was grouped under science and technology, and she would have preferred it as part of national competitiveness.

Jim: Space has wide impact: environment, energy, etc. Space fits in everything, and we want a space person on all the transition teams.

Alan: Nothing magic about how teams are set up, but we might be able to get some people in. Unfortunately, support for the campaign is a more important criterion for choice of who is in transition than subject knowledge.

Courtney: Signal-noise ratio of campaign very high, and hard to penetrate it with policy analysis, particularly if it doesn't seem to help politically. Campaigns are crisis driven, and it's hard for space geeks to get much attention. We have an infrastructure crisis, and we're not grappling with it. If we can get space into that conversation, we might be able to get some traction with it, but it takes a long time to get national consensus. We have responsibility to grab the political apparatus and politicians by the lapels, and tell them that we have a serious problem.

Jim: If you're running the transition team for the new president, what are the top three things related to space?

Alan: More support for longer-range R&D (quotes Golding that NASA should be doing things that the private sector won't : do). Needs better collaboration between NASA and DOD. Better, but still too much stovepiping going on. Third, NASA has to be more commercially oriented. If they can't outsource parabolic flight, why should COTS contestants think they'll do it with ISS delivery?

Courtney: Wants a suspension of all commissions for a period of time. Would tell the new president that we have real problems, and are going out of business as a bureaucracy and a country. Overdue for reinventing NASA and government overall. Will be six to nine months before new administration recognizes NASA and picks a new administrator, because it's too low a priority. Then there will be a scramble to get someone in. Would hope and pray that the next group running a transition will set it up up front. Whether true or not, there's a perception that this administration is bad on science, and this should and could be a high priority for any next administration.

Jim: Describing an article he wrote fifteen years ago called "Never trust a space agency over thirty." Next year it will be the fiftieth anniversary. We're not very good in this country at reinventing our institutions. Only thing that tends to work is to shrink them (often randomly). Doesn't know if that's possible.

Alan: There's a precedent when NACA became NASA. Maybe because the mission has changed, it shouldn't be constrained all in one agency.

Lori: They may create a department of the environment, pull Goddard out. Jim suggests moving it to NOAA.

Alan: We should plan to hammer out some policy suggestions for the next administration at the next year's conference, but also get other sectors involved, such as the environmentalists, and military space plane people.

In response to a question as to whether or not Shuttle should be extended to close the "gap," Jim says "Hell, no." Points out that entitlement programs are going to be increasing pressure on the budget in the future. Courtney mentions that one day of Iraq is a useful science program. Don't ever underestimate the tremendous inertia that these programs have.

You've double-posted this one Rand.