Did you watch the final Discovery launch?  I had tivo tracking CNN, Fox and MSNBC to compare attitudes, which is alway fun, and something about the post-launch conversation on Fox struck me.

It was Astronaut Tom Jones who did what few in the corp do publically, he mentioned that he thinks that "we have no goals right now, it's a failure of National Leadership."

And this image popped in my mind:

I took that in the Burbank Mall on January 8th 2010. I remember that I'd been seeing it appearing at malls and places around the Valley and it just struck me to snap a phonepic.  It seemed a positive sign in that it was a young black kid being shown with the Big Dream and we were so close to hearing the much anticipated, much awaited, oft postponed Obama NASA plan.

January 2010 through February that poster was everywhere and, as we know of AdCouncil PSAs, it was likely going to be there for a while since most of the off-traffic poster frames keep the same government stuff up till paid advertisers buy the space.

But a funny thing happened to this particular poster, and I noticed hte same thing happened out at the Sherman Oaks mall where there were a few of them... a couple of weeks later, before the Obama NASA press conference, these were replaced not with paid ads but with random AdCouncil posters.

How about that.

Now, check me: I praise the Obama Administration for appearing to work hard to keep as much NASA budget as possible going to the COTS program even though the old NASA money machine really hates it.  I personally think, for what my thoughts count, that as the NASA budget falls again there is SOMEONE who keeps the COTS alive.   SpaceX doing for less than a half billion what Boeing and Lockheed and Rocketdyne and the rest have not been able to do with many tens of billions for 40 years was NOT something to throw under the rug.

But as I cautiously give Obama's group credit for continuing the Bush COTS program, I keep remembering that poster above, and I keep seeing the frames now filled with different pictures. 

Obama stood up and smiled at the cameras and read his speach of letting commercial do the grunt work (FINALLY!) but that good was offset by his re-pointing NASA-The-Leader at maybe perhaps sending Americans to an Asteriod sometime before the year 10,000. Ok he said 2030, which is the now standard practice of a President choosing a date exactly just beyond his thinnest hope of being in office or available as a paid advisor.

I think an Asteroid mission for humans is a great idea, as is the supposedly simpler and bigger-buck-bang Phobos Landing (that the Russians and Chinese keep swimming around as their No-NASA team mission dubbed "Red Planet").  But set a stinking date in stone for America because Someday Never Comes.

COTS is just plain the only thing to do to save money, let SpaceX haul the cargo to the ISS in the upper atmosphere... duh!  But now what is the plan for NASA?  Seriously.  The continuing saga of BoeHeed selling paper rockets costs a lot of money - *wastes* a lot of money -  and getting humans exploiting Space Resources is darned important for this one-basket-of-eggs.

So, along with Cavuto on Fox (the other networks didn't ask today), we should all ask Obama: What is the plan, Exactly? 

Tom Jones is in the circle and sees far more than you or I ever could, and so as we feel great about the last three launches lets figure out who is really for The Big Dream of getting beyond robots doing our work for us.  And lets expose those who are just talk. Before it's yet another 40 years and there is truly no getting back to any kind of leadership position.