Message to the President Concerning Human Spaceflight
In Future of NASA: Analysis, I mentioned that I would be sending a message to President Obama concerning the options for human spaceflight included in the initial report of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee. Well, here it is:
Mr. President:
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write to you concerning the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee. I was very impressed by the public meetings and the documents released by the committee. Their deliberations have been thoughtful and thorough, and they produced a compelling set of options for future human space exploration. While investigating the different options, they found that NASA’s current architecture for returning to Moon is pointless and counterproductive. I fully agree with this finding. We can do better, even on a limited budget, by following one of their alternative architectures which includes commercial crew transportation to the International Space Station and a technology development program. By taking their advice, we can reduce the cost of access to space and improve our capabilities to conduct future missions beyond Earth orbit. Finally, I am excited by the discussion about the Deep Space architecture, with its missions to the asteroids and Mars. I hope that we can find some room in the budget to send humans further out into space than they ever have been before, and return them safely to the Earth. Thank you very much for your time.
Matt Wronkiewicz
Ventura, CA
With a claimed rate of 10,000 messages received per day, you might wonder what the point is of sending a message to the President. I see two reasons for doing this. One is to at least balance out the arguments for space district job retention and for diverting the human space exploration budget to more local concerns. The other is to increase the visibility of outer space issues in the Administration. Essentially, the “open government” initiative boils down to a giant write-in poll. If that poll gauges no interest in human spaceflight, the administration will conclude that shutting it down would have no effect on his approval rating.
To take the next step and contact the President, either write a letter or make a call. When writing, address the president, but keep in mind that your letter will be “read” by an overworked staff member. That staff member’s job is to enter your contact information in their database, digest your letter as quickly as possible, and then pigeonhole you into some category. The category you want to be pigeonholed in is “supportive of human spaceflight and of the Augustine commission’s recommendations”, and, if at all possible, “not a nut case”. My advice for communicating effectively to a disinterested political staffer:
- Be polite
- Be brief
- Don’t get technical
- Use key words, first letter of each capitalized if possible
- Say what interests you about the topic
- Represent yourself, not an organization or company
- Be unique, or at least don’t submit my letter as your own
So, that’s it. If you do take my advice, make a note of it in the comment form below. Please mention if, upon reading your letter, President Obama flew out to have lunch with you. I hope to provide additional opportunities for influencing the future course of human spaceflight over the next couple of weeks. Also, keep an eye on Ferris Valyn’s diary. He’s covering the same ground I’m going over, from a more partisan perspective. I plan to steal all his ideas.
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Tags: human space exploration, human space flight, human spaceflight, nasa, space district, space issues