Op-ed: It's time to refocus NASA's energies
From the Houston Chronicle:
On Monday, the Houston Chronicle published an editorial that discussed my commitment to NASA and Houston's Johnson Space Center "Dark skies" (Page B5, March 10). I'd like to discuss that in more detail here.
Just over a half century ago, President John F. Kennedy laid down a marker in Houston and made the commitment that like the great pioneers that came before us, we, too, would set sail on a new sea and send a man to the moon.
We embarked upon that endeavor as a nation because the opening vistas of space promised high costs and hardships, as well as high rewards.
Today we find ourselves at a similar crossroad. 2015 is just as critical a time for our national and commercial space programs as was the case in 1962. Future exploration is certain to present hardships, but it also promises big rewards - in the form of new resources, new frontiers and new economic opportunities.
As chairman of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, my first priority for the subcommittee's space component is refocusing NASA's energies on its core priority of exploring space. We need to get back to the hard sciences, to manned space exploration and to the innovation that has been integral to NASA's mission. We need to ensure that the United States remains a leader in space exploration in the 21st century.
