A white flag against a background of stars

Charles Krauthammer- as usual- hits the nail on the head, this time as regards President Obama's decision to effectively withdraw the United States from manned spaceflight and grant the Russians a monopoly in space- that is, until the Chinese and the Indians join them.

Notable quotes: "Of course, the administration presents the abdication as a great leap forward: Launching humans will be turned over to the private sector, while NASA's efforts will be directed toward landing on Mars.

"This is nonsense. It would be swell for private companies to take over launching astronauts. But they cannot do it. It's too expensive. It's too experimental. And the safety standards for getting people up and down reliably are just unreachably high.

"Sure, decades from now there will be a robust private space-travel industry. But that is a long time. In the interim, space will be owned by Russia and then China. The president waxes seriously nationalist at the thought of China or India surpassing us in speculative 'clean energy.' Yet he is quite prepared to gratuitously give up our spectacular lead in human space exploration."

Krauthammer goes on to point out that the challenges to be overcome before NASA will be able to send astronauts to Mars are even farther beyond the abilities of the private sector, and that Obama's decision means that the public sector will not be even trying to solve them.

At least in this country.

"Fifty years ago," he concludes,"Kennedy opened the New Frontier. Obama has just shut it."