FROM STATION TO ARTEMIS
Aviation Week & Space Technology/November 23-Dec. 6, 2020, pg 6. – As President Ronald Reagan’s point man on space, defense and arms control in the U.S. Senate in the early years of his administration, I recall how proud we were when, in his 1984 State of the Union Address, he announced NASA’s new direction, to “develop a permanently manned space station and to do it within a decade,” as noted in “The ISS Through the Years” (Oct. 26-Nov. 8, p. 48).
The accompanying main article, “ISS Turns 20,” brings back a ton of memories, not all of them positive. I lost track of the number of attempts by then-Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.) and others to terminate space station funding as far back as 1991, but it must have been more than 20.
We summoned the calvary, and in a landmark House floor vote in 1993, support for space station funding prevailed by a one-vote margin (216-215).
Today, I am deeply involved in supporting fulfillment of the current Artemis Human Landing System (HLS) program objectives. I suspect Artemis might only be a dream if we had not fought the naysayers over space station funding those many years ago.
Ron Sable, Paragon Space Development Corp. Board Chairman, Tucson Arizona