February 10, 2010

Davis defends NASA

You can read the entire article HERE on the Huntsville Times website.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
By Shelby G. SpiresTimes Aerospace Writershelby.spires@htimes.com
Huntsville Times
No 'retreat from human spaceflight,' congressman urges

America cannot step back from its manned spaceflight program or suffer any delays by changing course, U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, said in Huntsville Tuesday during a meeting with aerospace industry executives.

Davis, a candidate for governor, joined Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle and former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin in the meeting with 20 aerospace executives from companies such as Boeing and Dynetics to discuss strategies to keep the Ares rocket and return trips to the moon in the federal budget.

President Barack Obama sent a budget to Congress Feb. 1 that slashed the Marshall Space Flight Center-managed Ares rocket programs and transferred the money to start NASA technology and science programs.

"It's simply too important to our nation and for our national security," Davis said in a presentation at the Davidson Center for Space Exploration at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center.

"I happen to believe John F. Kennedy got it right when he challenged us to go to the moon before the end of the 1960s. People were skeptical that we could accomplish that then, but we did it in eight years.

"If we back away from our commitments now, then it could be 15 years before we start flying humans in space again."

Battle said the efforts to restore the funding "are bipartisan. This is about the American space program and our commitments. We all have to work together."

Griffin, a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, said the time and money spent on the Ares program would be wasted if NASA were to stop working on the space shuttle replacement that he proposed as NASA administrator five years ago.

"It's unthinkable that we would stop. There's nothing out there on the drawing boards or in production that could do what Constellation and Ares is intended to do," Griffin said.

Stopping Ares work would not close Marshall, he said, but would cause the center to lose jobs and contractor work.

Also, Davis noted, students and younger people would probably choose other careers, creating a shortage of skilled workers the space agency needs.

"We cannot do to ourselves what our enemies have tried to do to us, and that's to retreat from human spaceflight," he said. "We have to act boldly and achieve our goals."