![]() ![]() But he shouldn't have to do it by himself. If Obama wants to send us even farther into space than JFK did, he'll need to capture our imaginations: to enchant us with fresh visions of what we'll find out there. The Soviet menace-which provided some of the motivation in the 1960s-hasn't been replaced by a comparably terrifying threat from above, nor does the galvanizing effect of Kennedy's assassination apply. But President Obama can't rehash JFK's arguments and expect that NASA can once again command nearly 5 percent of the federal budget. Kennedy faced this dilemma, he used a mix of Cold War fears, national pride, and New Frontier optimism to send Americans hurtling toward the moon. Though the committee has kind words for commercial-space programs and international partnerships, the fate of America's space adventure seems to depend on an overstretched, debt-saddled public agreeing to cough up more money over more years. Exciting proposals for voyages to alien moons aside, the report's attention to dollars and cents makes it a cosmic buzzkill. There's just one catch: NASA doesn't have the resources it needs to pursue these plans. Those options, as described in the Augustine Committee's just-released final report, must have sent a little thrill up our Spock-loving nerd in chief's leg: setting up a lunar base, flying to a Martian moon, etc. Continued abuse of our services will cause your IP address to be blocked indefinitely.Six months ago, President Obama asked a team of academics, astronauts, and aerospace executives to give him options for the future of the space program. Please fill out the CAPTCHA below and then click the button to indicate that you agree to these terms. If you wish to be unblocked, you must agree that you will take immediate steps to rectify this issue. If you do not understand what is causing this behavior, please contact us here. If you promise to stop (by clicking the Agree button below), we'll unblock your connection for now, but we will immediately re-block it if we detect additional bad behavior.
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