To boldly go where we have gone before

I heard a news item this past week that caught my attention. It seems that President Obama may appoint a new administrator for NASA. Current NASA head Mike Griffin hasn't been playing nice with the new administration, refusing to give them information they have requested on the agency's rocket program.

The Constellation program, which will bring Americans back to the moon and eventually to Mars, is, according to some reports, behind schedule and over budget.

President Bush announced the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010. There is a movement to extend the shuttle's life for another year. The Orion command module won't be ready for its first mission until 2015, so the venerable Russian Soyuz spacecraft will be doing all of the hauling to the International Space Station for the next five years.

The Orion was unveiled to the public this week. It looks very much like the Apollo command module, but is over twice the size. It will carry a crew of six. NASA hopes to land a crew on the moon in 2020.

The Chinese had their first manned spaceflight last year, which included a space walk by one of the three taikonauts (that's what they call their astronauts). China hopes to build their own space station and land a man on the moon by 2017, three years ahead of the United States.

So, it looks like we have another space race on our hands. Now is the time for all Americans to unite, so if the current NASA administrator doesn't want his job, I'll take it.

Look, I can't help it if the guy who literally has a bunch of rocket scientists at his disposal can't figure out that he needs to do his job. With all of that brainpower at his beckon call, he should also know that there aren't a lot of jobs outside of NASA for NASA administrators.

Manned space exploration has always been a way to generate national pride and distract us from whatever distasteful things are going on. In the 1960s, landing on the moon made us all forget, even for a brief time, Vietnam and the civil rights struggle. Kind of like going to a movie to escape your troubles for two hours.

If we are going to use manned space exploration to make us forget our current troubles, we need to get cracking. An international space station is wonderful, but certainly isn't flashy enough to distract us from the fact that we are broke.

Yes, it is time to go back to the moon. Or, if you are one of the conspiracy fans that think we faked the whole thing 40 years ago, go to the moon for the first time.

Either way, that's where we are going, especially if I am the next NASA administrator.

Back to my qualifications. When I was a teenager, my friends and I made model rockets. I wasn't very good at it (what do I look like, a rocket scientist?), but I was able to convince one of my friends who was good at it to make my rockets. Good delegation and people management skills -- check.

During one of our launches, a rocket burst into flames. We made sure that the grass didn't catch fire and the area was cleaned up. Ability to deal with adversity and damage control -- check.

I convinced my friends that we should form a rocket club and register it with the Estes Company, manufacturer of many of our model rockets. Leadership and organizational skills -- check.

It looks like everything is in order on my checklist.

Let's see, this will be a political appointment.

Wait, this could be a problem.

I paid my income taxes this year, and every year since I was 18.

Another promising political career down the drain.

President Obama, I'm ready to serve if you can look past my obvious inexperience and faithful payment of income taxes.

As always, I welcome your comments. You can reach me by email at tstangl@lemarscomm.net, telephone 712-546-7031, x40 or toll free 1-800-728-0066 x40.

Thanks for reading, I'll keep in touch. Feel free to do the same.