President Bush's decision on the direction of the U.S. space program is likely to shape the endeavor for at least a generation, but mainly as a focus for what is sure to be a wide-ranging public debate over where, why and how much. Participants in a day-long symposium on the future of human spaceflight held here in anticipation of a long-expected presidential space policy announcement demonstrated that consensus on Bush's plans will be both important and hard to achieve. As U.S. space experts outlined options available to Bush and the best ways to achieve them, there were early hints that the president had made his basic choice and was looking for an optimum time to reveal it. The interagency review that went into Bush's decision was very tightly held within the administration, but its parameters were shaped by the map of the solar system and the lessons of history. One of those, repeated several times at the Next Century of Flight Space Imperatives Conference, was the need for broad public support. Without it, long-term funding necessary to meet ambitious goals in space probably won't be there, according to panelists assembled by Aviation Week & Space Technology and the Sharespace Foundation.
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