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There's considerable factual and historical background available to
illuminate the discussion of the future of the U. S. space program.

A possible starting point is NASA's charter from Congress, the Space Act
of 1958, available at the NASA history page at
http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/history.html.

To come up to the present, check out the Columbia Accident Investigation
Board report at http://www.caib.us, particularly Chapter 9, which surveys
the Shuttle-era human space flight program and cites lack of a guiding
vision in the post-Apollo years, while recognizing the outstanding quality
of the people of NASA who do the actual building and flying.

One of the most important responses to the CAIB report was the series of
hearings held by the Science Committee of the U.S. House of
Representatives. The hearing on October 16, 2003 dealt with the future of
the space program in general. Check it out at
http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/full03. You can read the prepared
statements by the committee chair, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, and five expert
witnesses. Many of the ideas in the new Bush proposal were articulated in
that hearing.

For insight into the days of Apollo, you can listen in on a spirited Oval
Office discussion between President Kennedy and NASA Administrator James
Webb about their somewhat different views of the purpose of the Apollo
program. Go to the JFK library at
http://www.jfklibrary.org/pr_jfk_tapes_tape63.html.

For further context: the well-known sound bite in which JFK proposes the
moon program to Congress ("I believe this nation should commit itself
before the decade is out...") actually came at the end of a long speech
asking for dozens of other funding items related to the worldwide battle
between freedom and tyranny as JFK saw it. You can reach the whole speech
from the NASA History page cited above or at
http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary/j052561.htm.

More recently, a number of commissions besides the CAIB have critically
studied NASA and the space program and made recommendations for the
future. Some of their reports can be reached from the NASA history pages,
though some of the links don't work. Another source for recent commission
reports is at
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Previous_Reports.html

I spent some time with these sources in preparation for an experimental
workshop for high school students, "Space Citizenship." My goal was to get
the kids to realize that Congress really controls the course of the space
program, and that they can write to their Congressional representatives,
soon vote for them, and soon after that run for election to their seats. I
think some of the kids got it, but I also discovered that some of us are
still not clear on the relationship between a billion and a trillion.

Steve Fentress, Director
Strasenburgh Planetarium
Rochester Museum & Science Center
657 East Avenue
Rochester, NY 14607 USA
phone (585)  697-1946
fax (585) 271-7146
e-mail [log in to unmask]
www.rmsc.org

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