Outsourcing NASA? Sounds like an invitation to disaster

Andy Pasztor has an article in The Wall Street Journal about the latest in the space program:

The White House is launching a political counterattack to fend off escalating congressional criticism of its proposals to outsource US manned space missions to private industry. Facing bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill and lacking prominent champions of such unprecedented space ventures among most large aerospace contractors, the administration hopes to regain momentum on the issue with a personal appeal from President Barack Obama.
The White House said the president would outline his plans for space exploration at a conference in Florida on 15 April. The event will give him a forum to defend his proposed cancellation of existing National Aeronautics and Space Administration projects intended to take astronauts back to the moon and deeper into the solar system. The bid to outsource many of NASA's current manned exploration programs has sparked opposition partly because of the job losses critics say it would entail. State and local officials in Florida, an important swing state for the 2010 and 2012 federal elections, have projected more than 9,000 job losses statewide from the proposed program cancellations, combined with the planned retirement of the space-shuttle fleet by early 2011.
Critics, including former astronauts and space pioneers, also oppose White house proposals to replace existing hardware construction programs with still-unspecified efforts to develop generic new technologies for boosters and other space capabilities. By eliminating clear-cut timelines and destinations for NASA programs, they say such a shift threatens to derail manned exploration efforts, potentially for decades.
But NASA and the White House counter that the agency's existing exploration plans are too slow, expensive, and rely on too many backward-looking technologies to keep the US in the forefront of such endeavors. While seeking to kill the current program, the White House has proposed spending billions of dollars to nurture fledgling commercial space operations and fund what it hopes will be game-changing technical breakthroughs.
Slated to feature a slew of high-level industry and government officials, along with some of the industry workers most affected by the proposed changes, the April summit is geared to help Mr. Obama sketch out more-detailed, long-term goals of manned and robotic missions to the moon, asteroids, and eventually, Mars.
Proponents of the new direction for NASA believe it will create thousands of jobs, including many in Florida, and promote innovation they contend has been stifled by NASA's bureaucracy.

For a look at more excitement in the space program, go buy Rico's father's book on the subject here.