3 Questions: David Mindell on Obama’s NASA proposal
In 2008, David Mindell, the Frances and David Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing and director of MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society, was the lead author of an independent review of the future of the U.S. human spaceflight program. Among the report’s many recommendations were that the nation set loftier goals for humans in space, focus research more clearly toward those goals and increase cooperation with other nations and private industry.In an interview with MIT News, Mindell responds to the Obama administration’s recent budget proposal for NASA. The proposal would increase the agency’s budget but would cancel the Constellation program, which was intended to send humans to the moon by 2020, and would also rely on the commercial sector to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.Q. Some observers have said President Obama’s 2010 budget proposal marks the demise of U.S. human space exploration. Do...