India Slated to Beat the US to the Punch with Manned Spaceflight

ISRO, India's space agency, has been allocated funds to push forward with a 2014 manned space flight. Astronauts will be selected from a pool of Indian combat pilots.

The United States, at current budget levels and planning, will regain capability to launch manned flights no sooner than 2015, if all goes according to plan and schedule.

This announcement comes on the heels of the formation of an earlier partnership between NASA and ISRO that includes work manned space flight.

Tell your representatives that this is a shameful cessation of American space technology and national pride and urge them to solve the problem of the manned spaceflight capability gap. Tell them specifically about the current legislation and 2009 budget and what they should do about it.

NASA and India's ISRO to Collaborate on Human Spaceflight

NASA has announced that it has signed an agreement with India's space agency "establishing the terms for future cooperation between the two agencies in the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes." Later they state that the "two agencies will identify areas of mutual interest and seek to develop cooperative programs or projects in . . . human space flight," among other things.

This is a great way to make NASAs dollar go further. Collaboration with India's maturing space agency will open new possibilities with what NASA can accomplish with their budget. Contact the presidential candidates and your legislators and tell them that NASA can have ambitious goals and international collaboration will allow for those goals to be reached affordably while promoting world peace.