Newsgroups: sci.space
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: National Space Council (from: What's New )
Message-ID: <1989Mar10.174706.860@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <2028@pur-phy> <435@corpane.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10 Mar 89 17:47:06 GMT

In article <435@corpane.UUCP> sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes:
> > 2. A NATIONAL SPACE COUNCIL WILL BE ESTABLISHED BY PRESIDENT BUSH
> > to oversee the implementation of his space policy.  In a report
> > to Congress issued Wednesday, he gave the composition of the 10-
> > member council.  It will be headed by the Vice President and will
> > include several cabinet officers, the NASA Administrator, the
> > Director of the CIA, the Director of OMB, the National Security
> > Advisor and the White House Chief of Staff...
>
>... What does the Director of the CIA have to do
>with space? Oh, yea... spy satelites. Looks like they have all the
>spy and defense deptartment bozos on the 'council' and no scientists
>or space experts. This bodes very badly. Must mean that they are taking
>SDI seriously, to the exclusion of anything else...

I think you're over-reacting.  The idea is to get all the government
agencies with major space interests involved, and the scientists and
space experts are all with NASA.  With the exception (mentioned in the
original piece) of the President's Science Advisor, what other high-
level government bureaucrats speak for the constituency you're thinking
of?  Most government civilian space activity goes through NASA; that may
not be a good thing, but it's a fact.

Also, in case you haven't noticed, the military space budget has been
larger than the civilian space budget since well before SDI.

I agree that the proposed NSC lineup does not sound impressive, but for
different reasons:  it incorporates too many high-level bureaucrats who
will be unable to meet frequently, meaning that it will have a hard time
getting anything done.
-- 
Welcome to Mars!  Your         |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
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