The Vision Thing Update 

Per UPI's Frank Sietzen, one of the writers who broke the Bush initiative story:
President George W. Bush plans to make a major speech early this summer defending his plan for a new U.S. space exploration initiative, administration sources told United Press International.
Sources said although drafting the speech -- termed a vigorous call to support the president's new space exploration policy he announced last January -- has not yet begun, aides have been narrowing prospective dates and venues.
"The president wants to speak about space," a senior administration source said.
Rather interesting news. The speech will reportedly be timed around the release of the report of the President's Commission on Moon, Mars, and Beyond. I'm curious as to whether it's been his plan all along to follow up with the Vision after the completion of the report he mandated in his first speech (Kennedy's two main Moon speeches, after all, were several months apart), or whether he's responding to criticism that he hasn't been an ardent enough advocate of the program. Personally, I had kind of made my peace with Bush taking a relatively hands-off approach to the program this year out of fear that it become overly politicized. His involvement has the potential to ensure the death of the program if he fails to win re-election, which would have disastrous consequences for American space program. Odds are already being laid down for an July 20 date, since it's hard to imagine that Bush would host a White House reception for the 35th anniversary of Apollo 11 without even addressing the subject of returning to the Moon.
Addendum: Cosmic Log has some commentary on the subject.

:: :: 07:15 :: David :: [permalink] ::