Cernan 2011
Commercial today, still don't yet know what they don't know
Very little if anything has changed my assessment of the Administration's space policy since my testimony before this Committee over a year ago. I recounted the words of my colleagues and myself in describing the Administration's plan for the future of Space Exploration - "Devastating", "Slide to mediocrity", "Third-rate stature", "Mission to nowhere." Although with the SLS System we will provide the foundation for designing "missions to somewhere" - they have yet to be defined. So today I stand behind my testimony and convictions of sixteen months ago. Nowhere did I find then nor do I find today one penny in the FY2011 budget proposal in support of Space Exploration. Although I do believe and hope that someday they will succeed, I still assess that those entrepreneurs in the world of commercial space who continue their claims of being able to put humans in space in little more than three years for something less than $5 billion, today still "don't yet know what they don't know." My statement that "the sole reliance on the Commercial Sector without a concurrent or back-up approach could very well lead to the abandonment of our $100 billion, 25 year investment in the ISS" is now more prophetic than ever.
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