Obama-Bolden Meeting: President Seems Supportive of NASA, But Road Ahead Unclear

Little information has been released about what transpired in the Obama-Bolden meeting yesterday. The few glimpses suggest that the President is supportive of NASA, but not what path he wants the agency to follow.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about the results of the meeting at the daily press briefing yesterday (see it on C-Span beginning at minute 44:15), but he made it clear that he did not yet have a “readout” from the meeting. His comment that “The President believes that NASA plays a vital role going forward” is a nice sentiment, but seemed to be a standard response about NASA rather than anything related to the meeting.

Florida Today’s Flame Trench blog quotes another White House spokesman as saying that :

“‘The President confirmed his commitment to human space exploration, and the goal of ensuring that the nation is on a sustainable path to achieving our aspirations in space,’ said White House spokesman Nicholas Shapiro. …

‘Against a backdrop of serious challenges with the existing program, the Augustine Committee has offered several key findings and a range of options for how the nation might improve its future human space flight activities,’ Shapiro said. ‘The two spoke about the Administrator’s work at NASA and they also discussed the Augustine Committee’s analysis.'”