Holdren and Bolden Respond To Krauthammer
NASA Reaching for New Heightsm Charles Bolden and Dr. John P. Holdren:
“In his gloomy Washington Post commentary today on yesterday’s ceremony transferring ownership of the Space Shuttle Discovery from NASA to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, Charles Krauthammer urged readers to think of that transfer as the funeral for U.S. leadership in space. Nothing could be further from the truth. The United States remains far and away the world leader in space technology and exploration. As long as appropriate support continues to be forthcoming from Congress, this will remain the case indefinitely. “
the International Space Station…$53 billion marvel – I’d like to see what that number does or doesn’t include; it seems low for a program that has been spending about $3 B a year for 28 years, not including the 35 Shuttle missions and the money the internationals put into it
it was President Bush…who ended the shuttle program – but the actual plan was supposed to be to shut Shuttle down after a replacement was available; NASA and Obama had other options to keep the program going for many of the 5 to 10 years before a replacement comes on line
In cancelling Constellation…we have kept the parts of it that
made sense. A new heavy-lift rocket and multi-purpose crew vehicle – actually SLS looks sort of like an Ares V but it is not the same rocket; it doesnt matter, it is not much more affordable than the original Ares V; neither the SLS nor the Orion capsule have well defined or particularly useful missions; as long as you are talking about throwing the rocket and capsule away after every mission, which is what this system does, it is unaffordable and unsupportable; here is a good artile on why SLS likely will never fly: http://www.americaspace.org…
Bolden and Holdren are making some political statements that let them off the hook and they are trying to make everything seem pretty rosy. Make no mistake about it, the American human space flight program has changed and so far we don’t know how much we have lost, but we have lost everything we used to have. What it might someday be replaced by? No one knows.
You should read Wayne Hale’s blog. In 2008 he said the Shuttle program was dead. The decision to shut down the Shuttle program was made in 2004. Bush ordered all the supply lines eliminated. Many critical parts of the tooling were actually destroyed. Bush claimed he was creating a gargantuan new program to send a few lucky civil servants to Mars “and beyond”. Of course Bush never provided the money. Constellation violated the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in two ways. The CAIB recommended the shuttle continue to fly until the replacement was operational, and they recommended the replacement be designed solely for access to LEO, because, they said, any more ambitious attempt would certainly fail.
Bush ignored them. He left us with no access to ISS We new for years the train was going over a cliff. Now, after all this idiocy, Republican revisionists like Krauthammer claim Obama somehow went back in time to 2004 and cancelled the Shuttle. It reminds me of “1984”.
With all due respect to Krauthammer, who is a sharp observer and commentator, we have truckloads of space antiques in museums and as lawn decorations. The Saturn V lawn decoration at JSC could have been a Moon mission. The fact that it’s out there on the lawn doesn’t mean we’ve lost leadership in space (though I guess some would like to believe that). Leadership in space has nothing to do with antiques, and has everything to do with forward looking leadership and, (as Bolden and Holdren said) stable funding. The shuttles, when they weren’t antiques, were wonderful examples of that.
Yes the space shuttles are antiques. We can proudly drive our Model T down the street, but we don’t take it to the supermarket or to take the kids to soccer with it. It’s expensive to maintain, and in many respects is nowhere near as safe as a modern vehicle. But it’s fun to drive them because they symbolize something good about us. Krauthammer wants symbols of goodness, not capability. Oh, by the way, Mr. Krauthammer, Discovery wasn’t going to get us anywhere close to that asteroid you’re warning us not to hold our breath for.
So Mr. Krauthammer doesn’t like funerals or pallbearers? Well, we could have just quietly buried the shuttles in a ditch at KSC and kept the press out.
Hallie: Your points above seem to have been lost somewhere in the pallbearer Model-T and ditch comments. In fact what are your points? If they’re that Krauthammer is bad and Charlie and John are good, just say it.
If you’re looking for good/bad labels to stick on people, you won’t find it here. Krauthammer, Bolden and Holdren are all sharp people who look at the world in somewhat different ways. This is about ideas, not goodness and badness. Get over it.
There is a problem, and I think all three of these people understand that, but retirement of shuttle isn’t it. That’s my point. They all understand that commitment to a long term future of humans in space is important, and that commitment has to come from the public and Congress. So far, that commitment hasn’t happened. Krauthammer reads that lack of commitment as retirement of shuttle. I don’t.
It seems like Hallie’s Comments are slightly eccentric (0.967) and far more frequent than once every 76 years. Interesting points you make Hallie. You say “this is about ideas’. I’ll just listen to more of what you have to say and be a Hallie’s Come(n)t watcher.
Still. It DOES feel somber, at least to me, and I admit I have never agreed with Mr. K over anything.
Those machines might have been–were– hard to maintain, but they were hardly Model T. In many ways, at least to this non-scientist, they still represent cutting edge engineering.
Regarding NASA, in the main, engenders a feeling of dread.
The shuttles stood for something. They represented the ability of a great nation to dream– to dream, plan, and build a routine way to LEO. Looking at them one knew that the USA was confidently striding forward. And more than that: we knew that space was ours for the taking.
They were magical, fearsome beasts, tamed by a great nation, and they are gone with nothing left but silly in-fighting that has brought us nothing.
Where are the dreams? Is there not profound sadness seeing these mighty creatures gutted?
Michael,
Across the whole technical/non-technical spectrum, I thinks we learned more from the Shuttles and Shuttle program, than any pther, including Apollo. In my opinion, only Project Gemini comes close to teaching us as much as Shuttle has.
Steve
The most important thing the Shuttles could have taught us was how to build a new generation of reusable launch vehicles that would be practical and safe. This was clearly a matter of implementation, not a flaw in the rationale for a reusable launch system. Almost everyone who actually put their hands on the Shuttle flight hardware had important ideas about why it was expensive and haw a new vehicle could be turned around with much less fabrication and maintenance. Unfortunately no serious attempt was made to capture this knowledge before the people involved were fired. So yes, we learned a lot. But for want of a trivial amount of money we are forgetting it even as we speak.
dogstar 3,
Thank you! I get so tired of people saying that the Shuttle was a failure. They don’t see that it was the first of its kind, effectively an X vehicle that ran on too long with no follow up designs.
I see it the same way as the testing situation. Every time there’s a test flight of just about anything where the test article doesn’t perform perfectly in every aspect, we get all kinds of comments about how it failed.” It’s like they don’t understand what the word test means.
In the case of both the Shuttle itself and its launch system we’ve learned a great deal. Some, even much, of that knowledge boils down to: this doesn’t work well; don’t do this that way; this approach results in that undesirable result; etc. Learning how not to do something is valuable knowledge gained. We learn by making “mistakes.” Any one who doesn’t learn from his mistakes is useless in engineering. Likewise, anyone who observes “good” results from a test of anything new or changed and doesn’t subsequently employ those results in upgrades and/or the next vehicle design is useless in engineering (these statements are only my opinion, of course). In both of these ways the people who made the decisions about the Shuttle program were guilty. It was an X program that went on too long and almost entirely ignored what was learned along the way for 30 years. Disasters seem to have been the only event that resulted in any modifications.
For many years now, the obvious decision about what to do next should have been redesign the Shuttle implementing both what we’ve learned by using it and the advances in materials, computers, and anything else learned from anywhere and everywhere, and concentrating on the now-obvious changes in design/performance requirements (like the fallacy of refurbishment), and then analyzing the new design in the light of what we’ve learned. If the analysis looks good, then it’s prototype and test time, and then more testing, followed by more testing. The Shuttle program basically tried to go from prototype to a full-time system in use, which is ridiculous for a system intended to be used for many years and carry many people during those years.
What happened instead? There were no Shuttle upgrades, refinements, or redesigns — we took a huge step backwards, and decided to try to recreate something from the past that we’d already dismissed as not being on the road to progress. The only attempt to employ what we had learned from the Shuttle program — at enormous cost and loss of life — the X-37 was quickly canceled and tossed off to USAF/DOD, who gladly grabbed it up and have now taken it forward with redesign and more test flights. It could (and should) have been NASA’s, but Griffin and Congress between them cut off NASA’s head at the knees and we’ve uselessly floundering with Constellation and the SLS ever since, both unsustainable roads to nowhere that couldn’t possibly succeed, even if either had had a complete plan and enough money.
And for years now, all of what has been learned from the Shuttle program fades away, at best uncorrelated and packed in dusty storage boxes somewhere, uncataloged legacies of people now retired. In another recent thread someone told me that the NASA history office shouldn’t exist, that other entities were responsible for storing and presenting to the public data from NASA. I should have responded to that post with the obvious question: who acquires, organizes, cross-references and provides that data to the Smithsonian, or whoever? All of that data and knowledge won’t organize itself and then hitch a ride to the Smithsonian. And even if it magically could, the problem here is getting it into the heads of the current and next generations of designers, or at the very least made available to them. But, if it’s not organized and indexed and cross-referenced, it’s not particularly usable. So, we shouldn’t be surprised if NASA and contractor people continue to pump out requirements and designs that repeatedly don’t contain lessons learned.
Well, I guess that’s more than enough ranting for one day.
Steve
“I get so tired of people saying that the Shuttle was a failure. […] effectively an X vehicle that ran on too long with no follow up designs.”
OTOH, that is a failure.
“the obvious decision about what to do next should have been redesign the Shuttle implementing both what we’ve learned by using it and the advances”
Heh, “obvious” – and yet every proposal for a shuttle replacement that got traction during the ’80s and ’90s made exactly the same mistake as the Shuttle. Create what is really a 3rd or 4th generation design and try to get there in one step on a shrinking budget. It’s odd that the biggest “don’t do that” lesson from the Shuttle has always been ignored.
Worse, the current program is attempting instead to take first generation technology from the Shuttle (sometimes literally) and try to jury-rig up a brand new system out of it, using people who typically had no role in developing that first gen tech, nor any experience with developing new systems. How could smart people get things so precisely backwards?
When I see publicity shots of the removed shuttle engines lined up in storage, waiting to be recylced into the new system, I want to throw things at my monitor.
“OTOH, that is a failure.”
Not a failure of Shuttle, more like management, politics, etc.
hikingmike,
“Not a failure of Shuttle, more like management, politics, etc.”
What difference does it make? The shuttle did not do what it was meant to do. It was not reusable, did not lower launch costs, did not increase launch rates. It sucked up inordinate amounts of money and manpower (and political capital) for decades. And after all that it didn’t lead to a program that could do any of those things. As a program, it was a complete and utter failure.
No question that there is some sadness in the retirement of shuttles. I feel that too. They represented human space exploration to us for many years. They were indeed magical and fearsome, but their potential for enabling anything beyond ISS ended up being somewhat fantastical rather than magical and the fear was something induced in NASA budget accountants.
Shuttles may well have represented the ability of a great nation to dream, but they sure didn’t build a routine way to LEO. We’re still dreaming about that. Maybe next week?
Cutting edge engineering? Well, certainly a few decades ago they were, and certainly to keep irreplaceable and somewhat obsolete shuttle systems operating we needed more cutting edge engineering, but it’s not an edge that cuts that deeply anymore. ALL of the systems the shuttle ended up with, that we needed that cutting edge engineering to keep functional, are somewhat obsolete. How much of the “cutting edge engineering” on shuttle are you going to find in Orion? Precious little. The edge didn’t cut that far.
The shuttles were marvelous vehicles, and demonstrated that we as a nation weren’t afraid to try very new things. But they aren’t new things any more. Keeping them running way past their prime would demonstrate that we as a nation are afraid to try new things. Do we really want that to be their legacy?
You seem to have missed the point Ms. Wright. Shuttle was not a model T. It was the most advanced, most complex spacecraft ever designed, built, and launched, over and over again. Now it has been shut down, prematurely and before it was supposed to have been, since the decision to shut the program down stated clearly it was to shut down after there was a replacement flying. Bolden and Holdren missed the point too. SLS and Orion are not flying, won’t be flying for a decade at least, if ever. The American manned space program has come to a halt. Will it ever be brought back?
There certainly is a point that can be missed here. The shuttle was by no means a Model T when it was built. It was a triumph of cutting edge propulsion, avionics, and life support technology. It was certainly the most complex spacecraft ever built and launched. In fact, that’s why it ended up being so damned expensive to launch! The Model T automobile sure wasn’t an antique when it was built either. They are now proud antiques, as the shuttles are as well. Both of these antiques represent very well what our country is good at. We salute them proudly as we put them out to pasture.
If your metric for the success of the American space program is how many bodies we ourselves fling into orbit, we’re not doing too well. The Russians launch far more bodies. Do you really mean to say that the Russians have leadership in space now? Their space technology is by many measures quite primitive compared to ours. They don’t seem to be able to hit Mars if it looked like a barn. But their launchers are reliable, if limited in capability, and pretty cheap. Our leadership on ISS is crystal clear. That’s where people are actually living and working in space, as opposed to getting thrown there.
Yep, SLS and Orion aren’t flying. So who else has architecture that will confidently get humans out of LEO? Who are we “behind”? That being said, we’re on the cusp of a vibrant commercial program that will change the whole equation of the access to space. That vibrant commercial program is the equivalent of what the Model T did for transportation in this country.
The Model T stood for something. It represented the ability of a great nation to dream, plan,
and build a routine transportation network across the nation. Looking at them one knew that the USA
was confidently striding forward. The fact that they are now antiques doesn’t change that at all.
The decision to shut down the shuttle was indeed based on developing a replacement to fly (as well as the fact that the shuttle was hugely expensive and largely unsafe). That we screwed up the effort to make a replacement isn’t an excuse to keep the shuttle flying. In fact, keeping the shuttle flying would have been a lame excuse not to develop a replacement. Congress loves lame excuses, and that one was a set-up for them.
It was certainly the most complex spacecraft ever built and launched. In fact, that’s why it ended up being so damned expensive to launch!If you noticed, at the 11th hour when USA proposed they take over the Shuttle to operate commercially, they said they could do it for $1 billion a year or less, one-third what it was costing under NASA. Their proviso was to keep NASA out of it. The same people who were running up the bill by increasing the size of their organizations, ere the same people who never tried to improve upon the Shuttle’s performance and systems. For all of us who worked in Shuttle, we saw the dramatic inefficiency of the organization and the management. That was far less a problem of the vehicle.
Our leadership on ISS is crystal clear.
When the NASA management outsources modules and systems to the partners then what they are showing is that NASA has far less a role in development. Likewise, most of the research and the research facilities on ISS are partner provided and not US provided. No clarity in US leadership that I see.
SLS and Orion…who else has architecture that will confidently get humans out of LEO?
Soyuz was developed as a moonship first, and when the Russians gave up on their moon program, converted iover to an orbital logistics craft. If the Russians had a reason to send men around the moon the Russians have had that capability for 40 years.
Orion and SLS at this point are concepts. Orion is early in the design phase (actually only the command module-the service module is not being developed yet) and in the requirements phase for SLS and so far neither has a stated mission and goal. They are ill conceived as this article points out: http://www.americaspace.org…
In fact if you want to talk about Model T antiques, the Orion capsule concept is the throwback to a much earlier era, and it proved unsupportable and unsustainable. As the article points out, it will be far more expensive to launch a less capable capsule than Shuttle ever was which was why we did away with Saturns and Apollos in the first place.
Eh, USA says we’ll do shuttle for you on the cheap? Lot’s of people said that about shuttle. I guess the USA promise is more heartfelt than the promises we used to hear? Keep NASA out of it, they said? Fat chance.
Re ISS leadership, we built it, thanks to the shuttle trucking company. But it’s done, so we don’t need the trucks as much. Fundamentally, shuttle trucks things where we don’t need to truck things anymore. Besides, ISS happened because of us.
Soyuz to the Moon? Oh yeah. That’s what they say. Would you ride a Soyuz around the Moon? I wouldn’t. Ever wonder why Russia never sent people around the Moon on their Soyuz? You really believe a space agency is going to sit on a “capability” for forty years without using it? That’s a “capability” they have that we don’t? Have I got a bridge to sell you!
Soyuz around the Moon is right up there with USA discounted shuttle operations.
The idea that capsules are old and wings are new is awesomely naive. What was unsustainable about Apollo had nothing to do with its shape.
Heh, I thought a similar thought; Really? They could do the job for just $1b per year? Then why haven’t they been doing so?
“It was the most complex spacecraft ever built”
I still can’t believe people ever said that like it’s a good thing.
Well it’s certainly an impressive feat, but I know what you mean. You sure like to twist things.
Yes. And it can never be run cheap either. Cheap == boom!
Nostalgia does funny things to people.
Hallie,
I had the same sort of disappointing reaction the story that you seem to have had. Once upon a time, it was the media’s job to report the facts, maybe with some background, and maybe with some info about how people relevant to the story responded or reacted. It was supposed to be impartial.
It seems to me that these days more news items than not are op-eds, not impartial reporting, but written to express the writer’s (and/or the paper’s/blog’s/station’s, whatever) opinions, biases and prejudices, and worse, to evoke an emotional reaction (based on the writer’s biases) — attempts at either sensationalism or outright attack.
In this case — Shuttle transfers — there many possible personal and emotional reactions possible, dependent on your relationship to the Shuttle program, none of them inherently “bad.” Yet Krauthammer takes it upon himself to infer that the whole situation is bad. I personally consider this as bad “reporting”; In my mind, it is an attempt to evoke an emotional reaction from readers, period.
The Shuttle program, the people who worked it all those years, and the Shuttles themselves have both good and bad elements in their histories. A balanced, impartial presentation of those elements would have been a “news story,” and it would have provided the facts (hopefully correctly, but hang on to that grain of salt) which would allow readers to each decide for themselves how they felt about the Shuttle hand-offs, and why.
Personally, I thought about the “Skylab is Still Rotting in Huntsville” story posted this week and contrasted it to the Shuttle hand-offs, and easily concluded that politics is not the only significant consideration, as opposed to what I got Krauthammer’s opinion to be.
Steve
That is why Krauthammer is a Fuax News commentator.
Krauthammer has it pretty much correct:
“Is there a better symbol of willed American decline?” than the “suddenly cancelled” “Constellation … program to take humans…to the moon.” ? NO! “And with that, control of manned space-flight was gratuitously ceded to Russia and China.”
But what the heck, it was replaced with a mission to nowhere. And of course, nowhere is where NASA leadership is to be found (under this administration).
—John
John,
I have to disagree about Krauthammer having it correct. When you pick and chose only the facts and considerations you please, you can make almost any case. And “facts” have to be reported accurately. For example, Constellation was not “suddenly” canceled. It was canceled only after many months and after considering many factors, money certainly not being the least of them. Also, we all have a responsibility to use legitimate definitions. For example, I don’t see how anyone can label public indifference combined with lack of money (and a huge debt) as “willed American decline.”
The way I see it, he deliberately misrepresented chosen details and used overly grand words to distort the situation so as to sell his own opinion. Additionally, you, like so many others, attack “NASA leadership” but provide no details, no appropriate examples, to support your opinion, and don’t at least qualify your statement by admitting that it is an opinion. I find it curious that those people who attack “NASA leadership” are often the same people who, in other posts, claim there is no “NASA leadership.”
Final point, have you ever at least considered the possibility that buying Soyuz rides to the ISS at this point in time was a strategic decision with sound logic behind it? To be perfectly honest, I strongly suspect that the reason most people who complaining about using Soyuz do so simply because they didn’t get what they wanted from NASA/America, period. The real issue here seems pretty clear to me — America has to try and have available to it the maximum space capability for the very limited amount of money available, and having available is not the same owning and operating. Any suggests that I’ve seen that Russia may arbitrarily withdraw Soyuz service to the US are from people living in a different time. The Cold War is over and Russia is not looking to start another war, of any kind. Like China, they are much happier, and much wealthier, just taking our money. For whatever it’s worth, that’s how I see it.
Steve
Steve,
First, thanks for the considered response.
Second, my “attack” on NASA leadership is based on one simple fact: they aren’t leading – at least to anywhere that’s discernible. The MOST important part of Constellation was its goal – a permanent presence on the Moon, not the hardware to accomplish this.
When a president talks about some far distant goal, many administrations removed from his, he’s basically saying I really don’t care anything about this. The only realistic goals that are politically feasible are short term. His term in office + maybe a few years beyond that. It’s simply in the nature of our political system. Kennedy seems to have realized this and committed us to the “end of the decade”.
The only realistic short term goal (of value) would be to commit us to a permanent presence on he Moon – not Velcro-ing an astronaut to an asteroid or empty commitments about putting astronauts on Mars by 2030.
Probably most interesting/important is the critique from Neil deGrasse Tyson, where he talks about the best means to inspire future generations of engineers and scientists. His answer is a vibrant, exploratory space program that ultimately serves our economic interests.
—John
“he’s basically saying I really don’t care anything about this.“
John,
You may be right but I’ve interpreted it a little differently. I think his position was/is, I don’t think that the space issue is high enough up on the priorities list to spend all of the time and suffer all of the petty aggravation that Congress is almost certainly going to inflict. Whenever Obama did try to address the space issue, Congress went out of their way to frustrate or outright negate any of his requests and proposals. And it seemed to me that they did so, not based on the value of any of his requests and proposals, but simply because they were his. I may be completely wrong about this, but when the actions of a person or group contradict his/their words, I tend to believe their actions, every time.
“The only realistic goals that are politically feasible are short term.“
This point, I believe, is extremely important. More significant, to me, than the fact that this is the flawed way in which the system seems to work is the fact (as I see it) that so many people, on all sides of the game, appear to have simply accepted it. The complete lack of any ability to execute longer-term plans is the major malfunction (dysfunction) in the political system that prevents anything worthwhile from being accomplished in space activities (and other spheres as well). We can blame NASA, Congress, POTUS, whoever we like (or perhaps whoever we don’t like), but as long as the people, even self-proclaimed space advocates, remain totally passive and do nothing to try to force a change which “fixes” this malfunction, we all share in the blame. Personally, I believe that Congress fully understands this “malfunction” and uses it as a tool for obtaining its own ends. That sounds like something from the plot of a low-class TV movie, but I truly believe that it happens in real life, by both individual politicians and aligned groups of politicians, who will just as readily unalign on the very next issue.
“my “attack” on NASA leadership is based on one simple fact: they aren’t leading“
Although it’s a simplification, I think it’s fair to say that when those near the top of the chain of command are not providing leadership (or not being seen as doing so), it’s for one of only two reasons: either they are not making an effort to do so (or don’t have the necessary skills), or else there are other, more senior (more powerful) parties who are preventing, perhaps even ordering, “the guilty” from doing as they would like (like leading in the manner that the people lower down desire and expect). In the case of the NASA Administrator, I believe that it’s a combination of factors: not having the requisite skills to a sufficient degree and being prevented (and micromanaged) from above, where the second factor is the major concern. Bolden comes from a military (autocratic) background, where everybody, at every level, both follows orders and tells the truth, without exception and without any misdirection. It’s also a background in which everybody is a team player, even if they should happen to dislike their superiors. The situation that Bolden finds himself in now is very different, where personal gain and ulterior motives prevail, and the powerful people consistently abuse and humiliate him, yet he still hangs in there, doing the best that he can for NASA, despite the personal cost. If he could go back in time, before accepting the job, knowing what he knows now, I highly doubt he would take the job. As it was, Obama had to try twice to get him to take the job.
“The only realistic short term goal (of value) would be to commit us to a permanent presence on the Moon“
You may be right, but I’ve yet to see anyone make a case for this that doesn’t break down into circular reasoning and fall apart, but I’m always willing to hear/read proposals for a permanent (or at least long-term) lunar presence of any kind. Unfortunately, almost all of the proposals that I’ve reviewed reduce down to either, I want this because I want this, or if we built this then we’d have it. Neither of these is a justification for anything. What concerns me is that, “to commit us to a permanent presence on the Moon” is one thing, but following through is quite another, and while the commitment may be a short-term goal, actually achieving a permanent presence is not a short-term goal, but very much a long-term goal, which puts us right back into the same dilemma. LBJ knew this; that’s why he delayed his planned social programs for years while implementing Kennedy’s Moon commitment (and dealing with a no-win, never-ending war).
I’m going to give further thought to what you’ve said in your posts here. I suspect that sometimes I’m too ready to give the people in the space programs the benefit of the doubt. I figure that, good or bad, they’re all just people too, same as you and I. A friend of mine from years ago used to say “expect nothing from anyone, and you’ll seldom be disappointed.” I guess the realistic viewpoint lies somewhere between his and mine.
Thanks for your time and thoughts.
Steve
+1, completely agree Steve
Can you explain why small-government Republicans are opposed to commercial spaceflight and want a gigantic government program that would cost between $260 and $600 billion just to land a few civil servants on the moon with obsolete ELVs? How would they possibly pay for it? No mission? When even Bush wouldn’t fund the moon lander, even before his financial deregulation brought on the crash?
There isn’t a bit of logic to Krauthammer’s position. Constellation was never planned to return Americans to orbit, except for a few hours before TLI. Bush wanted to abandon ISS at assembly complete. Constellation would always have left America with no human spaceflight for years. Romney plans to slash government spending and taxes, and sees no value in going to the moon, but that isn’t mentioned either. Obviously Krauthammer doesn’t really care a fig about space. He hates Obama and is simply using space as a way to pound on his chest.
For how many years we knew the shuttle would have to be replaced? Various replacement programs would be started and then canceled. A plan for future exploration of the moon and later Mars was laid out and then underfunded and then canceled with some ideas about future research, going to asteroids (wow), having some unknown commercial company provide transport to space. It’s not unique to one President or Congress, but does seem to be unique politicians and to the US population (who tell the politicians what to do).
As an example of what Krauthammer said, look at the recent cancellation of the Mars work with Europe. I think he hit the nail on the head.
“It’s not unique to one President or Congress“
John,
I agree, mostly; the Congress situation is different from what we’ve seen. Some Congress people hang on, year after year, taking good care of the same wealthy companies and constituents who have lined their nests so well.
However, some people in Congress will kill (or at least seriously maim) a program simply because it was the President’s program. A new President will do the same to programs initiated or supported by the previous President, sometimes even if they’re in the same party. Most of the cancellations, it seems to me, are because of this childish behavior by senile or vindictive old Congress people and unseasoned Presidents. Find a way to make these jokers more accountable, like it was supposed to be, and maybe the cancellations won’t come so often.
Steve
The irony is that eight years after George Bush cancelled the Space Shuttle and irrevocably cut off the supply of parts. Republicans refuse to admit that it was their President who was responsible.
CK is correct – it is over. Forget about what
was done in past, forget about the fact that all things evolve and move on, the
question that is paramount during these evolutionary moments in time is this:
Are you relevant? And to be relevant in this business it is necessary to
innovate on the cutting and perhaps bleeding edge. It’s the old adage: Be bold
or don’t bother. So as everyone reflects on this end of an era the question in
my mind is where is NASA heading and are they relevant. The answers to these
questions are: No one seems to know, and today they aren’t relevant. If they
were relevant this blog would be littered with tails of great accomplishments
(in the current) and promise of more to come instead of massive overruns and
crash and burns involving ill-conceived and executed programs such as
Constellation. Oh yea, how much was spent on that and what did we get for it
and when can we expect the fruit of those labors to get us back into orbit –
after we de-orbit ISS? It took a decade
to get to get to the moon and what do you get these days for a 10 year effort –
just read all the GAO reports out there evaluating NASA’s large program
prowess. It’s pretty sad. I realize there are a lot of reasons for the lack of
performance, all not within the control of the Agency, but today no one wants
to actually MEASURE progress with actual and tangible outcomes that can be used
to measure success. The bar is scraping on the ground these days and I see no
hope of it improving in my generation and that is because for whatever reason,
NASA is no longer relevant.
“MEASURE progress with actual and tangible outcomes that can be used to measure success.“
Spaceman888,
NASA, as with NACA before it, and other groups, like DARPA, still today, can not be “measured” strictly in terms of “tangible outcomes.” The intangibles are often worth far more, since they are prerequisite to developing tangible items. They are also suited to being shared with industry, unlike most of the tangible items that NASA either produces or contributes to. Theory and empirical data, two of the most valuable things NASA has produced since its creation, are intangibles. Most, if not all, of the large tangibles are produced by contractors, not NASA, anyhow.
Also, as I’ve posted earlier on another topic, don’t judge all of NASA by the records of HSF and a couple of science projects with major overruns. The many things that NASA does, year after year, that don’t get major public/media attention (probably because they’re not controversial) are entirely relevant — maybe not to you or me, or space in general — but relevant in terms of being of definite value to some of the people in the US (or, ideally, in the world). There is also the time factor. Many intangibles are not of immediate use, but down the road they will be essential components/designs/theories of major programs.
Steve
I
agree whole-heartedly with respect to the intangible aspects of what NASA has
done. And those have been great and
far-reaching WHEN they were relevant. In
my mind, tangible and intangible contributions were due in large part to a NASA
of yesterday, not the post-mid-80’s NASA.
I have four filing cabinets of NACA papers that are works of scientific
art that resulted in huge advances in aerospace and spaceflight. I can take a sample of these pieces of work
and lay it side-by-side with work coming out of NASA today and there is no real
comparison possible – at least not in my professional domain. Also, my comments are really focused towards
relevance today and moving forward. It’s
about an Agency and Center leadership that is top-heavy and relatively
unenlightened (based on their performance) with no real mission to speak of
other than getting to retirement or the next paycheck. If that is not the case they are doing a
tremendous job of hiding their plans and progress for moving NASA into the 21st
century. Furthermore, my comments are
relative to spaceflight (manned and unmanned) and not the other aspects of NASA
operations such as aerospace and technology development.
Good reply.
In the new movie, Lockout, there is a futuristic next-gen shuttle that get’s people to LEO. It made my heart sink to see that.
There is no doubt about it. The shuttle design was amazing. Now we look back on the model T and see it as quaint. I wonder in a 100 years how people will see the shuttle.
I have an answer, it is called the X-37C
and D, and E… (after all, it worked for the starship Enterprise!).
They’d have to drop the X and put the things into production.
[edit: What is the USAF designation for a spaceship? Edit2: Should have googled first. “S” for spaceship. Duh. So S-37 once they’re in production.]
Ever since tinker first talked about making an x-37? into a space-liner I have been baffled as to why it hasn’t or won’t happen. In another thread I left a silly post about Spacex adding wings and landing gear to a falcon to maybe make a better reusable LV/ space-liner or 2nd 3rd generation dragon/falcon and pushing it on a track to the speed of sound before launch.
I have always thought an x-37 space- liner on a recoverable falcon heavy is the way to go to start the tourist space liner age!
Sadly for us to have that space-liner. commercial/provider space will have to reinvent it from near scratch I think.
In the 1950s or early 60s I recall that pictures of early staged rockets had little wings on them like Von Bueron was thinking x-37 like recoverable design all along.
If public space Nasa/congress wanted the public to have access to space NASA would all ready be building the x-37 D or E
I just watched
Lester Brown on climate change.
I believe all his thoughts on global warming are correct.
Global food shortages do to climate change.
Past civilizations collapsed do to food shortages.
Our civilization will collapse too.
Glaciers melt rivers dry up, food can’t feed the people, the s$&@ hits the fan (no brainer!!!!) That small window of opportunity to get into space, Elon talked about may close.
Other countries are leading the way to power the planet in a sustainable way, as our country argues like children. Again we can’t even agree on the problem yet alone plan a solution. As I feel it is urgent that we reinvent the way we power this planet and control our population. It is just as urgent that we learn to get ourselves affordably into space to get any and all resources in our reach.
The clock is ticking USA !!!!!!!
Don’t become irrelevant!!!!!!
As others have said, as much as we learned flying the space shuttle the one most important thing we failed to do was figure out how to fly rockets and innovate at the same time. Maybe Spacex will figure that out in the near future without congress!!!
After 236 years maybe the USA needs to reinvent our form of government? How’s the Canadian model doing Steve??????
I could be wrong here but I believe at least Obama understands the need to reinvent how we get power and the importance of Lester’s message, does Romney??
I didn’t speak up in the Global warming thread partly because I feel there is know debate, it’s a no brainer. I have a kid moving to the charleston South carolina coast and I’m wondering how safe he is should a large chunk of ice slide off Greenland in the next 25 years. Anyone want to take bets on that disaster not happening!!!!
Lol thinking of Keith’s picture of a man with his head stuck in the sand. Lol that man is uncle Sam!!!!
Sorry for the long rambling post. But to me it’s all relevant to our reason that we most start to settle space now and stop playing my rocket is bigger than your rocket pork games.
Joe Q scared public/tax payer
All of you at NASA WATCH should watch Mat Damions Show about Lester Brown and think about it!!!
I’m not an overly bright guy like many of you, but I believe that most of the time when I see truth I can recognize it.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientistt
Fellow earthling
Out!!!!!
Unfortunately, I’m not hopeful. I predict that, like so many concepts before it, the X-37C will die on the vine. And, as Pau451 has noted, it would need to move out of the Xperimental domain and into production.
Still, if it can be built as a technology demonstrator, that is a big step in the right direction. It’s nice to see the X series still in play. Another missed opportunity by NASA.
Its under consideration and a highly underrated follow-on retaining much of the best of Shuttle.
There’s already a proven military role, so unlike Shuttle there is a valid, proven “dual use” capability. It’s far better than Dream Chaser for a crew exchange role or on orbit duration.
Where it is “inconvenient” is in timing. And political deal making / apportionment – certain states get too much.
Don’t know how many times its been declared dead either. And still went on to make history. Still on orbit right now.
Maybe one more time?
Currently the U.S. can’t even duplicate Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight nor John Glenn’s orbital flight from 50 years ago. Russian and China can. It’s like 1957 all over again. The U.S. is at least 4 or 5 years away from launching an astronaut on its own. In the interim maybe NASA should launch a few monkeys. 😉
The interesting thing is that some of us have been trying to point this out for the past eight years, since Shuttle cancellation and Constellation were announced. However to be fair, SpaceShipOne is not that far from Shepard’s suborbital flight. Please no monkeys. They are very ill tempered.
It’s real simple. Krauthammer’s politics requires the big rocket to intimidate the world with.
No big rocket means no power.
Thus America has no leadership in space anymore.
Perhaps there is a different way to solve this dilemma for the right.
We let them build a 1 mile tall, city block sized Estes-like cardboard tube model rocket on the cheap. While flying real astros and real HSF hardware on existing LV’s. Then they can intimidate all they want … while everything else remains unaffected.
They already flew and were proud of one fake rocket – Ares Ix, so why not another?
Lol may I suggest they convert an old Walmart for launch support and use the parking lot as a launch pad. 🙂
Everyone wants to blame Bush for the decadence of the program but you have to remember that during his administration, he had to deal with a Democratically controlled House and Senate, so even if he’d come up with funding, he’d be voted down. So who’s at fault here?
Can you show that the Democrats under Bush were even a fraction as obstructionist and unwilling to negotiate and compromise as the Republicans under Obama?
Plus, Bush only had Dem controlled House and Senate for the last two years. For the first two, Dems controlled the Senate, Reps the House. Then for SIX YEARS, Republicans had the House, the Senate, the Presidency and the Supreme Court.
Yes, Bush canceled the Space Shuttle and underfunded Orion and Ares launch vehicles. Yes, Obama went commercial, and by the way everyone should support SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corporation for what they are trying to accomplish. No, NASA cannot deliver a large, complex human spaceflight project on time and within budget. Yes, the ISS is an amazing vehicle with remarkable capabilities, although one should keep in mind half of its payload racks are currently empty, and six people together logging only 50 hours a week performing experiments.
If space exploration is going to truly succeed, we must move away from the standing army of engineers and technicians needed to operate the next-generation of space vehicles. That means the jobs lost so far will never be replaced, which is not what politicians want to hear in ths economy. So we will build large, expensive, labor-intensive spacecraft and rockets, resulting in spaceflight continuing to remain expensive, and since it is expensive, will remain in government control. NASA does what it does and nothing changes.
Sorry to say this, NASA is dreaming if they think that public support and the money will be there over 25 years to support a human expedition to Mars. Mr. Bolden and Mr. Holdron should take a step back, and keeping in mind our economy, debt and other comitments, honestly answer the question ‘will Americans spend 5 billion a year for 25 years to land astronauts on Mars?’
One closing thought: as I stood in the rocket garden at Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex, waiting to catch a glimpse of Discovery one last time, a very smart 10 year old girl asked astronauts Hank Hartsfield and Charlie Walker a profound question: “someday, after we land on Mars, where will we go after that?” Hank and Charlie asnwered the question as best they could, talking about how it will take 25 years to get to Mars, but they couldn’t answer “where will go after that?”
Will we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to get to Mars? After NASA accomplishes this amazing feat, will we then scrap everything and remind people every minute of every day what a great accomplishment that was? Then will NASA go back and ask taxpayters for hundreds of billions more to redevelop the infrastructure they just scrapped for the next giant leap in space exploration? That’s what NASA has done throughout its entire history.
By the way, my answer to this bright young girl would have been “we will head out towards the stars….there’s a whole universe to explore!” John Young said something similar to that after STS-1. If you’re going to dream, dream big!
“Where we will go after that?”
Callisto, duh. At least according to the HOPE studying done a couple years ago.
hmmmmmmmmmm, interesting target. Most heavily cratered body in the solar system; mostly outside of Jupiter’s radiation belts, and balmy temperatures around -280 below zero. I don’t know if Callisto will be the destination that motivates our next generation of explorers to study math and science! Perhaps development of an architecture to support exploration of the outer solar system would be a goal that would capture people’s imagination.
Let’s build it, and continually improve it as we move further out into the Solar System, without the build it, scrap it, build another one, scrap it mentality of NASA.