Mars Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Space Exploration Initiative, NASA SP-2007-4410

Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 196 p. : Illustrations, black & white. Footnotes. Index. Cover has slight wear and soiling. After completing his undergraduate degree at Clark University, Thor Hogan worked for two years as a speechwriter and deputy communications director for the Democratic Party in Massachusetts - while going to law school at night. In 1998, Thor moved to Washington, DC to start graduate work at the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University. At the same time, he began an eight-year career as a policy researcher at a series of think tanks - this included half a decade as a project director within the RAND Corporation's Science and Technology Policy Institute. In this capacity, he was the principal investigator on numerous studies conducted for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). This is part of the NASA History Series. President George W. Bush s speech at NASA Headquarters unveiled the Vision for Space Exploration, the long-term plan that gave the space agency a new direction, away from the space shuttle and space station and towards a human return to the Moon and, eventually, human missions to Mars. At that time the announcement drew comparisons to the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI), the last major effort by a president to reshape the direction of NASA, with corresponding concerns that the Vision would meet a similar, unfortunate fate. Hogan goes beyond a simple recounting of history in Mars Wars to look at some of the reasons why SEI failed. First and foremost, arguably, were the conflicts between the White House and NASA administrator Richard Truly.…