Sample Letter to Congress on NASA policy changes - 2010-02-22 12:02:33 Many folks have asked me for a sample letter to help them write their Congresspeople and Senators concerning the recent policy changes for NASA in the 2011 budget. Here is one. Please change in any way you like. For best results, I would recommend sending your letter via email, fax, AND snail mail, all three. Some representatives read their email but most do not. Faxes and snail mail are probably the best way to get their attention. Of course, calling their offices is probably the most effective. To find the addresses and phone numbers of your Congresspeople, search out their websites by their names. Usually, all the necessary information will be found there.
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The Honorable (or Senator) U.S. House of Representatives (or U.S. Senate) Address Washington, DC
Dear Congressman (or Senator) Y:
It is my belief that the end of NASA's human spaceflight program as announced in the 2011 budget represents a failure of basic management principles. A good manager never shuts down a large program without having a sound plan on what to do next. I am very much against this sudden and wholesale restructuring of the American space program which was done in secret without consultation with either Congress or NASA field personnel. I believe NASA, a national asset, is being put at risk by these policy changes. The people of the United States have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to create our space agency. Its engineers and technicians combined with its test, training, development, and launch facilities are unequaled in the world and are the result of fifty years of experience in spaceflight. I do not believe the present administration should have the right to toss it all away without close Congressional scrutiny and input from the American people.
I ask you to help restructure the 2011 budget in such a way that NASA will once more have a sharply defined national human spaceflight goal. Please also assure that the United States will continue to have the assured access to space Presidents and Congresses over decades have recognized as a necessity for national security.
It is my preference that NASA's goal would be to build with our International partners a laboratory on the moon similar to the NSF's South Pole Station in Antarctica. It would be a resurrection in a different form of our moon program canceled by this budget, much the same as President Clinton established the goal of building the International Space Station after the old Space Station Freedom was set aside. This goal would, as President Kennedy so eloquently put it, "serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills." Putting our engineering and scientific talent to tackle this task will also stimulate our economy in ways no other federal program possibly could.
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