Without direct Presidential intervention, not only may the Moon, Mars, and Beyond be headed for a train wreck, but most other NASA programs are at risk as well.

O'Keefe said he "didn't see a big substantive difference" between NASA and Congress, but late last month, in a rare bipartisan rebuke, the leaders of appropriations subcommittees in both chambers of Congress -- Walsh, Mollohan, Mikulski and Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) -- sent a letter to O'Keefe denying him the authority to reprogram 2004 funds in order to launch the new initiatives.

"NASA has not provided sufficient information" to justify the changes, the lawmakers said. Further, the letter added, "any activities that have begun without prior approval by the Committees . . . will be suspended," and any cuts in programs or staff "shall be subject to review of the Committees prior to approval."

By preventing NASA from making changes, the letter has brought the new programs to a dead stop. And by denying NASA the ability even to lay the groundwork, the letter ensured that no changes will occur should Congress fail to pass a new NASA spending bill this year and simply continue 2004 levels. There is a strong possibility that this could occur in an election year.

This face-off has left many proven NASA programs in limbo, particularly those in Earth science and aeronautics, and could also disrupt the timing of the Vision initiative. O'Keefe told the House subcommittee last month that 85 percent of NASA's 2005 budget increase was related to space station activities -- including the space shuttle -- and that the plan would "compromised" if budget increases were denied.

I place the blame, in part, on Congressional irresponsibility. Imagine, telling NASA on the one hand that it needs a new vision and on the other hand, when it's provided, getting so skittish about paying for it that the entire space agency is thrown into chaos.

I've now concluded that the President needs to intervene, sooner rather than later.

Addendum: Jeff Foust thinks that the Washington Post in engaging in a little hyperbole in its reporting on the Moon,Mars, and Beyond Initiative.

More evidence that the Kerry Campaign is in disarray.

Filmmaker Roland Emmerich will shortly destroy New York City for the third time, in his environmental hysterical epic The Day After Tomorrow. Of course his method, an ice age brought about by global warming, is slightly more implausible than space aliens or monsters emerging from the ooze.

Looks like the Kerry Campaign is less racially diverse than--say--the Bush White House.

Dennis Wingo begs to disagree with Bob Zubrin on a variety of subjects.

Is the President's Moon, Mars, and Beyond initiative in trouble? This commentary and this story would seem to suggest that yes it is.

The reality is not as bleak as one might think, for two reasons.

First, there is a consensus that changing NASA to doing something like Moon, Mars, and Beyond is not an option, but rather a necessity. The sticking point, however, is on paying for it.

Second, since final decisions on spending won't take place until a special session after the election, this is plenty of time to calm objections to the plan and build support for it.

Here are a few suggestions on how to do that.

The President should have a meeting with key members of Congress to quietly explain to them why they need to get behind his initiative. This should include reasoned argument and threats. The latter would consist of a promise to veto any bill that does not adequetly fund the initiative.

Then the President should make a speech (or maybe a series of speeches) laying out the case for the initiative. The speech should take place in Florida. It should make two points. The first point is that the trillion dollar price tag is fiction and that the thing can be done at a reasonable price. The second point should lay out how doing the initiative will make the country and the world a better place by expanding both scientific and commercial opportunities and by spreading human civilization across the solar system, thus ensuring it's long term survival.

It also might be a good idea if surrogates (O'Keefe, some members of the Aldridge Commission, Cheney, etc) make similer speeches.

On the list upcoming alternate history novels, we have the one below about how a fleet from the year 2021 winds up in the South Pacific in June, 1942.

According to the British newspaper, the Independent, the best crew for an expedition to Mars would be one of eunuchs. I like Tom James's suggestion a lot better.

A film poking fun at the mullahs is a big hit in Iran.

If sending people to fix the Hubble is "unsafe", does that mean that sending people to Mars is even more so? The answer, not provided in the linked article, lies in whether one thinks one can build a far more reliable vehicle than the shuttle has proven to be.

Chris Mathews developed a well deserved reputation as an honest liberal, willing to call President Clinton out for the scoundrel that he was. With his almost school girlish worship of John Kerry, Mathews has thrown away that reputation.

Jim Oberg has some interesting things to say about the Chinese space program, including it's possible designs on the Moon.

The key to more ambitious Chinese moon plans - to the rover mission, for example, or even a fly-by of the moon by a manned spacecraft - is the development of a new and more powerful booster called the CZ-5. Comparable to the European Ariane-5 booster or the Russian Proton-M, it will not be a simple upgrade of previous vehicles in this series, where more power was obtained by adding side-mounted boosters, stretching the fuel tanks, and installing high-energy upper stages. Those incremental advances have reached their limits, and an entirely new design of large rocket sections and bigger engines must be developed over the next five years.

China has stated that it intends to develop this mighty rocket for launching larger applications satellites into 24-hour orbits, and for launching its small space station. The components are too large to move by rail to the existing inland launching sites, so they will be shipped by sea to an entirely new launch facility on Hainan Island, on China's southern flank.

This new launch vehicle is a major quantum-jump in the Long March family and presents very formidable engineering challenges. It will take tremendous efforts, and significant funding, and some luck as well, to make it work on the schedule announced in Beijing. And until the booster is operational, ambitious moon plans cannot be attempted.

Once the CZ-5 is man-rated - and we re talking about at least five years, probably more - a beefed-up Shenzhou vehicle could be launched to the Moon. Two different possible flight plans are available: a simple swing-by (as with Soviet Zond probes in 1967-1970) and a lunar orbital flight (as with Apollo-8 in 1968). The simpler variant could be carried out with a single CZ-5 launching; the orbital profile could require two launches.

At the present time, however, there is no hard evidence that the Chinese government has officially sanctioned such missions - nor is there any need for them to do so at this point, since much of the technology to realize such options is already under development for more near-term goals. Nevertheless, Chinese capabilities for human lunar missions - at least to orbiting it - can quite reasonably expected to become available in a timeframe similar to NASA's "Return to the Moon" strategy, and the option to fly such missions as an equal participant may prove to be irresistable to the Chinese government.

Read it all.

The Village Voice jumps on the anybody but Kerry bandwagon.

If things proceed as they are, the dim-bulb Dem leaders are going to be very sorry they screwed Howard Dean.

Sweet.

Here's another story that examines the trillion dollar space program myth.

Bill Clinton announces the impending publication of an epic work of fiction.

John Kerry has a melt down on national TV about his various lies concerning the medal throwing incident. Is it too late to draft Hillary?

When death is all there is, how one faces it can be very important indeed.

The Lunar Recon Orbiter (must get a better name for it) is the first step for a return to the Moon.

Dwyane Day says that the United States should challenge China to a space race. (Where have I heard that suggestion?) His reasons are very interesting.

Addendum: Rand Simberg (among others) catches a big factual error in Dwayne's article.

The real moon landing hoax (not the one about America faking the Moon landing) was one perpetrated by the Soviets shortly after they lost the race to land a man on the Moon. Simply stated, the Soviets were not really in a race at all. The Western media picked up on this bit if disinformation, leading to the myth of how we "wasted" tens of billions on Apollo in a race that really didn't exist.

Of course, the Soviets were in the race. And only now are we finding out how close they came to winning it.