Technology Investment Critical for NASA, Nation

摘要

American technological leadership is paramount today, vital to our national security, our economic prosperity and our global standing. America is the nation we are today in no small part because of the technological investments made in earlier decades, because of the engineers, scientists and elected officials who had the wisdom and foresight to make investments required for our country to emerge as a global technological leader. Those investments accelerated our economy through creation of new industries, products and services. They have yielded lasting societal benefit to all of us.Decision Time for America's Future in Space< RICKTUMLINSON >There are moments in time when a decision or set of decisions that may seem or may not seem important can change the vector of history — times when a simple choice can decide the course of civilization. These moments of choice are framed and defined by a coincidence of historical forces converging at exactly the right time. The same or similar choice made in a different moment, by a different person in a different place, might have little or no effect, but when the forces, players, moment and place do line up, amazing things can happen. Isabella made such a choice; the Founding Fathers made such a choice; Kennedy made such a choice. From each of these flowed other decisions, actions and reactions, an infinite number of smaller choices, each leading to its own infinite number of actions and reactions, literally changing the future in the years, decades and centuries after.