Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Robert S. Walker have published an op-ed stating, “The Obama administration’s budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration deserves strong approval from Republicans. The 2011 spending plan for the space agency does what is obvious to anyone who cares about man’s future in space and what presidential commissions have been recommending for nearly a decade.”
Their op-ed in The Washington Times, titled “Obama’s Brave Reboot for NASA,” can be read at http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/12/obamas-brave-reboot-for-nasa/
In the op-ed, Gingrich and Walker state, “Bipartisan cooperation has been difficult to achieve in Congress, but here is a chance. By looking forward, NASA has given us a way to move forward. It deserves broad support for daring to challenge the status quo.”
Gingrich, who is on the board of governors of the National Space Society, and Walker, who was chairman of the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry, add, “In the same way the railroads opened the American West, commercial access can open vast new opportunities in space.” They state that commercial spaceflight “has the potential of creating thousands of new jobs, largely the kind of high-tech work to which our nation should aspire.”
