14 DAY TRIAL // President Bush's ambitions for space exploration are well known to us. However, most of us were not aware (and perhaps neither was he) of the fact that America's own trade and visa policies are slowing down the international cooperation, a vital component of the exploration program.
At least this is a conclusion of a report written by George Abbey, former head of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Neal Lane, former White House science adviser, who say, in their report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, that ''The vitality of America's space program is in question at a critical point in time. Around the world, the United States was long considered to be the unchallenged leader in all aspects of space exploration and technology. That is no longer the case."
The report listed four "serious barriers" to the U.S. space program, which are: the negative impact of U.S. export controls on U.S. space commerce and international cooperation, the expected decline in the U.S. science and engineering work force, inadequate planning for NASA's future, and the erosion of international cooperation in space.
The authors called Bush's long-range plan to send Americans to the Moon by 2020 and eventually to Mars "bold by any measure," but also "incomplete and unrealistic."
"It is unrealistic from the perspectives of cost, timetable and technological capability," they wrote. "It raises expectations that are not matched by the administration's commitments."
NASA's officials had nothing to comment on the subject.