Can NASA Outsource Space Travel?

Mother Jones writer Kevin Drum has an interesting political take on the Obama space policy plan now before the US Congress. The influential liberal writer weaves a discussion with blogger Rand Simberg into the opinion Simberg, an aerospace engineer, prolifically contributes to high-quality spaceflight commentary.

Liberal journalist Drum writes in the opening paragraph, "I had dinner with some friends the other night, and one of the guys who showed up was Rand Simberg, ... who writes frequently about NASA and space flight in general. As it happens, Rand and I disagree about the value of a manned space program, and since he's a conservative, we disagree about nearly everything else as well. But it turns out there's at least one thing we agree about: Barack Obama's plan for space exploration is both pretty conservative and pretty good." - MORE