P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

Before deciding what to do about national space policy, Obama set up an outside review panel of space experts, headed up by my friend Norm Augustine, former head of Lockheed Martin and a former government official.

Does it make sense for the U.S. to expend hundreds of billions of dollars to mount a new Apollo-style program to return to the moon? Or have we blazed that trail? Shouldn't we help other nations achieve this goal with their own resources but with our help?

I know Obama knows better than George W. Bush.

One of the things I'm proudest of is, on my record 'That Was the Year that Was' in 1965, I made a joke about spending $20 billion sending some clown to the moon. I was against the manned space program then, and I'm even more against it now, that whole waste of money.

Why should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition? Why should the United States and the Soviet Union, in preparing for such expeditions, become involved in immense duplications of research, construction and expenditure?

Going back to the moon is not visionary in restoring space leadership for America. Like its Apollo predecessor, it will prove to be a dead end littered with broken spacecraft, broken dreams and broken policies.

Russia is still the leader in world space exploration. But its position of leader involves great responsibility - we have no right to lag behind. We can and we must move constantly forward.

In critical ways, Obama has reversed not just Bush policy but every president's approach to the world since the Second World War, save for that of his soulmate Jimmy Carter.

Donald Trump's administration is floating a proposal to return to the moon - and to shut down the International Space Station to help pay for it. The first part of this idea is good. The second is horrible.

There's a bigger difference between the first and second Bush administrations than there is between Bush and Obama. That's really true.

Over the last eight years, the Obama-Clinton administration has undermined our space program tremendously. That will change. So many good things come out of it, including great jobs. And it will change very quickly under a Trump administration and it will change before it is too late.

I think the crux of the matter was that if we were going to become partners in, for example, the International Space Station, we had to gain the respect of a country like the United States and particularly its space organization, NASA.

I think it's good to have competition. Now we have a third country that can launch astronauts, so it's good for all of us. It makes us a little bit more competitive and wanting to be the leader.

There were about six years when there was not one American who went into space. We shouldn't do that again.

Congress came to see NASA primarily as a jobs program, not an exploratory agency.

I think both the space shuttle program and the International Space Station program have not really lived up to their expectations.

After Apollo 17, America stopped looking towards the next horizon. The United States had become a space-faring nation, but threw it away. We have sacrificed space exploration for space exploitation, which is interesting but scarcely visionary.

Well, I don't think we should go to the moon. I think we maybe should send some politicians up there.

President Bush's proposal to focus our resources on sending humans to Mars is intriguing, but it is not the most compelling reason that Americans ought to focus our interest on the Red Planet.

The government will see that human spaceflight is useful - for science and the economy - and inspirational.

In 1966, NASA took over in space, and it has been a bureaucratic mess ever since.

You see countries like India really investing in their space program because they see it as inspirational and good for their economy.

Not everyone will understand this need for America to lead the world in space.

There are many experiments and a great deal of research that can be performed on the station that make a difference in our lives and we are committed to supporting this important vocation.

It's very sad that there's going to be a hiatus in manned space flight from the U.S. The Shuttle was a fantastic, hugely complex vehicle. It was inevitable it would come to an end, but this is the opportunity for the commercial world to get involved. As the Shuttle era ends, another window of opportunity opens.