Excerpt

The international space exploration industry faces two related and bewitching obstacles to its long-term programmatic health. The first is a U.S. administration that views exploration through the lens of the overall economic and political problems afflicting the American economy. In other words, no blank check is forthcoming for NASA, given the nation’s deep fiscal woes. And this political reality is an international issue, since
no matter what might be said in public, it remains true that America is the critical instigator of major space exploration programs of this and perhaps the next generation as well.

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