Presidential Meddling in Space Policy Must End

This is a big problem.

"In December 2017, President Donald Trump signed his first space policy directive that makes the astronauts' return to the moon an official goal of the United States."

The problem is allowing the President to drive space policy. It has caused a lot of wasted money and delays in progress. We need to have a Space Council that is independent of presidential meddling.

Look at some of the worst damage done. Nixon canceled the Apollo program wasting 2 missions worth of hardware. Obama canceled the Constellation Program wasting billions of dollars worth of time and equipment. We simply can not continue to progress at a proper pace with this presidential meddling.

Look at what happened with Kennedy. He made a policy decision that lead to the moon, but then right when we were really picking up steam Nixon canceled it. That was one of the biggest mistakes any president has ever made.

Space policy should be driven by goals that advance the human condition. Experts in the proper fields must be employed in the naming of those goals. Perhaps have a congressional vote on the goals. In the end once the goal is set, and the project funded, meddling should be forbidden by congress or the president. Funding must be permanent and sustained, also forbidding meddling with that funding least the goal is lost and work wasted.

I have contempt for Trump, but I must say I like the idea of a orbital lunar base. There would be advantages gained for the OWE. The OWE should be the ultimate goal, and all other sub-goals be subordinate to that. That's how I was taught to complete a project. One must break the project down into processes and sub-processes. You can even break the sub-processes down further. If you want to reach the goal of project completion, one must follow each process to the end without interruptions.

That's what we have now with presidential meddling, interruptions. Goal busting interruptions.