Among the many bold decisions of our current president, the
January 2004 announcement on restructuring the nation’s space
efforts has been perhaps the most unfairly criticized. This book
covers the political action surrounding this decision in detail,
following several distinct threads from 2003 through 2004. It
even includes some information following the recommendations
of the June Aldridge commission report.

The authors had early access to a number of the key players,
and were behind the first comprehensive (UPI) news accounts
on the new “Vision for Space Exploration.”

The need for change was made clear by the problems unearthed in
the aftermath of the Columbia accident.
The authors make a case against former NASA administrator Dan Goldin,
but weaken it by discussing 2001 and 2003 in such detail, while
devoting almost no text to 2002, Sean O’Keefe’s first
year as administrator.

The complexity of public policy for human spaceflight really traces back to
a lack of clear purpose in the 3 decades since Apollo, with a variety
of conflicting presidential and congressional directives. The Columbia
investigation report, echoed by Congress and many others, called for
a new national statement of purpose for human space exploration.

Sietzen and Cowing highlight the White House groups that worked to create
the new vision – evolving from a group of mid-level staff to department
deputies and heads and later including Sean O’Keefe’s direct
involvement. The outcome – moving humans beyond Earth orbit
again – was almost inevitable. The emphasis on the Moon in the
early stages has compelling incrementalist logic. The authors describe
the wave of grassroots and industry support that followed.

Support from Congress and the general public has been less
forthcoming. First, Congress was not consulted, and not even
informed after asking questions of
White House staff, until the president spoke. Second, the
unveiling was twice delayed and bits and pieces leaked out, to the
extent that well before the president spoke headlines blared about
a new trillion-dollar mission to Mars, and it became
fodder for late-night comedy.

This was doubly damaging because the statement was not supposed to
be about a single “mission” with a particular price tag, and in particular
was not really about Mars at all. The main immediate impact of
the new vision in ending the space shuttle and major space station
operations seems to have been little noticed outside of the space community.

The authors discuss much of this – but unfortunately lack
some perspective since they had joined in the fray
pre-empting Bush’s speech. Did their authoritative report mean fewer
people actually paid attention when the president spoke?

The other mistake was the leak, in the same week, on cancelling
future Hubble servicing missions. The overwhelming outcry
suffocated serious discussion of the new plan until much later.

The book includes color photos and a DVD focused on the announcement
of the new vision. The DVD also has NASA simulations of Moon
and Mars exploration: fun but not terribly informative. A still-empty
website is mentioned that promises appendices and further notes.

The text is marred by a leaden style; there are also some glaring
typos (for example a silly story of O’Keefe on becoming administrator
is repeated twice). Some pages seem merely a data dump – long public
quotes from NASA and politicians – do we need these?

Nevertheless, skim between the anecdotes and data and you will
gain a good feel for some of the personalities at work in space policy.
The authors communicate well the excitement the new vision brings,
and the extent of the transformations already under way at NASA.