In Monday’s Space News (5/17/10) it’s reported that Gene Cernan (Apollo 17), testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on May 12 that NASA head Charles Bolden “expressed some concern over the potential of the commercial sector to be successful in any reasonable length of time.”

According to Cernan, Bolden also mentioned that if a commercial market for the private space launchers being developed now doesn’t appear, the government may have to fund a “bailout” of these companies. Bolden’s alleged comments — which Bolden expressed uncertainty about — were made the previous week on a NASA conference call. Despite Bolden’s uncertainties, it seems unlikely Cernan would have been sent to the Moon on Apollo 17 if he couldn’t accurately process verbal communications.

Much stronger comments against Obama’s proposed space policy by a KSC space engineer were circulated this week via email by Fred Haise, who went to the Moon on Apollo 13. Virtually all the astronauts who are free to speak clearly oppose Obama’s new direction.

BTW, fusion propulsion is certainly not a requirement for manned Mars missions. And waiting for advanced propulsion systems is not a legitimate technical reason for delaying human spaceflight to the planets for 2 – 3 decades. Trying to sell this kind of stuff to the public does not speak well of current NASA leadership.

The history of Maslow Windows over the last 200 years shows that a much bolder deep space strategy is likely to emerge toward 2015, much like it did in response to Sputnik in the late 1950s, about one long wave ago.