Romney & Obama Campaigns Respond to Space Question
Romney and Obama Campaign Responses to Question on Space Policy, ScienceDebate
12. Space. The United States is currently in a major discussion over our national goals in space. What should America’s space exploration and utilization goals be in the 21st century and what steps should the government take to help achieve them?
Barack Obama: … “From investing in research on advances in spaceflight technology, to expanding our commitment to an education system that prepares our students for space and science achievements, I am committed to strengthening the base for America’s next generation of spaceflight. No other country can match our capabilities in Earth observation from space. In robotic space exploration, too, nobody else comes close. And I intend to keep it that way.”
Mitt Romney: “… A strong and successful NASA does not require more funding, it needs clearer priorities. I will ensure that NASA has practical and sustainable missions. There will be a balance of pragmatic and top-priority science with inspirational and groundbreaking exploration programs. Partnering Internationally. Part of leadership is also engaging and working with our allies and the international community. I will be clear about the nation’s space objectives and will invite friends and allies to cooperate with America in achieving mutually beneficial goals.”
Would Mister Romney care to elaborate on what a “practical” mission is?
We already know, from President Bush’s terms that the Republican & Democratic porkonauts are not about sustainablity but feeding the pork train to nowhere. So what exactly is a practical pork project that is sustainable?
Donald:
I believe a ‘practical pork project’ is one of those oxymorons like ‘military intelligence’. ‘Pork’ by it’s very nature is as transient as an election term. ‘Sustainability’ could probably lead to ‘the opposition’ claiming credit some years down the road… so that’s out too.
Folks:
Seems to me that the best space policy is to have more of the same kind of agreements as NASA has with SpaceX. Fund for milestone based development, assist these companies with NASA legacy of knowledge & research. Fund scientific missions but leave human spaceflight to commercial enterprises. Any BEO human spaceflight program should be handled the same as commercial crew to LEO. If one works, why not the other?
tinker
Romney supports commercial space in his answer to question 12. See the relevant parts of his answer on the topic: “Space is crucial to America’s international standing. Independent access to space, the launch of satellites, and the travel of citizens to and from space continue to be seen as major technical achievements that convey not only America’s military and economic power, but also the power of American values. The success of private sector enterprises in achieving these objectives opens a new chapter in American leadership. […] Rebuilding NASA, restoring U.S. leadership, and creating new opportunities for space commerce will be hard work, but I will strive to rebuild an institution worthy of our aspirations and capable once again leading the world toward new frontiers.”
I do not believe he could politically say he agrees with President Obama on anything. He has not so far, that I have heard or seen in the news. If the President is for it, the right wing is “publically” automatically against it.
To get a proper feel for this I found that I had to read the responses to all of the questions, not just #12. What I got, in summary, is that Obama feels that he’s done the right things and for the most part intends to continue with the same policies. Romney, on the other hand, feels that a a lot of things need to be changed, but he rarely gives any details on just how he thinks they should be changed, so we’re still left guessing, as before.
On space specifically, again Obama seems to be sticking with his existing plans, whereas Romney clearly intends a NASA house cleaning, which, it seems to me, means he will kill off anything not related to his national security and fiscal fixations. The one things that Romney does indicate clearly in his space response is that NASA will not be getting any more money, which we can probably be safe in assuming means NASA will be getting less money.
Personally, I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican (or even an American), so I think I can feel reasonably unbiased when I say that it seems to me that Obama is trying to work within the forces and restrictions that the country is facing, whereas Romney appears to thinks that by changing a lot of things he can improve America’s situation and save money in the process. Romney’s position would be great, if he was right, but if he’s the super businessman that his supporters have been claiming, then in reality he knows that change will always cost you more, not less, and too many changes at once makes for a rickety house of cards. This leads me to believe that he’s not being honest and up front about his policies, and the actuality if he’s elected will be much different than the campaign promises. But that’s SOP; what really worries me is the number of average people who are swallowing his medicine wholesale, not realizing that he’s leading them down the garden path.
So, from both a space and and a general perspective, many people may not like all of Obama’s policies, but at least we know, for the most part, what they are. With Romney we’ll have to wait and see what the surprise in the box is.
Steve
Mr Steve, Excellent read. Concur.
Let me add. Both see that space won’t be a decider here, and would rather spend the words elsewhere rather than being taken off topic.
One good thing. Romney finds he can’t afford a uncompetitive position ala “commercial space”, so he’s at least a “me too” here. This means that Rep. Wolfe and company have to reign in their ways, and might lead to more than one HSF provider long term.
They’re still not out-competing the Dem’s here, but at least not digging a hole in the ground as before. Both parties need to give America the best in HSF policy to chose from.
For years Senator, then President Obama has been ranted about as being anti business and pro big government.
Here was a perfect example to illustrate him working with a bi partisan congress to close a nightmarishely big government pork project called CONstellation and replaced it with a low cost private sector commerical solution.
Hell commercial crew and Musk could be a poster child to show support for a successful entrepreneurial enterprises using different lower cost contracting solutions and immigrants coming there to make it big.
I thought it was a goldmine and a missed opportunity.
I agree Donald, he should have used Spacex as a poster child, but why would any politician dare to speak about wasteful NASA in the current environment if he doesn’t have to.
Proof they are ALL chicken$%&#s!!!
We need a revolt against big money owning both parties. We are being lead down the garden path while we sleep.
Choose fool this party or that party!
Guess What! we own both of them it doesn’t matter!!!
lololol
Follow the money lololol
We stand a better chance of fighting THEM with the DEMs I think??? But they may just be slicker?
Rommey is one of THEM for sure lololol
Where is the third party????
They shut them up again?????
nightie night america!
Joe Q Taxed and robbed
PS Did Obama bust up the big banks??? NOOOO!
Will Rommey bust up the banks NOOOOO!
Would Teddy Roosevelt have busted up the Banks YESSSS!!!
I tend to agree, Steve.
I don’t think anyone will see Romney’s hole cards unless he is elected.
That worries me a lot.
There needs to be a change within NASA, its priorities are out of alignment,A true mission needs to be established.Obama’s administration fails to even give NASA a goal to achieve,just spinning the “wheels” its riding upon.I’m going with Romney,he seems to be approaching the program with a more level head.
“just spinning the “wheels” its riding upon“
Bobby,
That is the fault of certain members of Congress, not either NASA or Obama. Obama did propose more sensible and useful tasks for NASA (including long overdue R&D) but those same Congress people wouldn’t let them happen. You have Republicans who deliberately kill Obama proposals repeatedly, for the sole reason that Obama proposed them. That’s not politics; that’s just plain childishness. You can have NASA and a national civil space program, or you can have Romney/Ryan in the White House — you can’t have both; the writing on the wall is very clear on this; don’t delude yourself otherwise.
Steve
I do not hear strong support for NASA from either
side. I do not understand why either political party is reluctant to involve the
scientific community to help establish and validate NASA programs. NASA should
be an agency devoted to supporting science. Understandably NASA’s origins
during the “Cold War” were political; but, that was over 50 years ago
and it should have been able to get out of that rut. The manned space program
has been and still is driven by politics. Not that that the manned program has
not produced significant advances in engineering, and to a lesser degrees,
science. The fantasy that a launch system requiring 5 humans to accompany each
payload would be cost effective never came to pass. A large part of NASA’s
budget has been diverted to the manned program and current planning favors
continuing on this path. The real productive part of NASA has been in its
unmanned space exploration programs by expanding our knowledge of the universe
and our knowledge of our earth through earth orbiting satellites. Both manned
and unmanned explorations are worthwhile, but when it comes to allocating
limited resources the manned program wins out every time. I do not get a warm
feeling that decisions are being made that best utilize NASA and the obligation
that the US has as a major nation to use its capabilities to advance human
knowledge.
Edward,
I don’t think you can think of “Science” people as a block in political matters. Like most Americans, their political choices are either inherited from their parents or a function of where they live. In fact, I would say, at this point in time, the only “groups” that you can think of as “for” either party on mass are the youngest, the oldest, and the poorest. This isn’t always true at election time, but I think it is this time around.
As for $$ allocations, manned programs are much more expensive to do than unmanned programs, but when you adjust the “split” with a cost difference weighting factor, the manned programs don’t typically get that much more than the unmanned. SLS is somewhat of an exception to this rule (blame the pork). For the Shuttles, the operations costs are what were way out of line, not the hardware. They were never supposed to cost anywhere near what they did to launch, and it wasn’t NASA people doing the operations, but mostly contractors (it seems that extortion is SOP at KSC).
“the obligation that the US has as a major nation to use its capabilities to advance human knowledge.“
This is not an idea that you’ll get a lot of Americans to agree with, even in this day and age, which I find to be very disappointing. I would say that acceptance of this idea (which you’ve nicely expressed very succinctly) would be a turning point, and a stepping stone, right around the globe. If the wealthier and more capable nations take the initiative, and share their knowledge, then we can move closer to a situation where all nations are more equal in terms of wealth and capability, which would be to everybody’s advantage. The catch is that your US politicians are the same as those in other countries — they can’t understand this idea that balanced would be better. They are still living in the past, where the goal is to be wealthier, stronger, and more capable than you neighbors, friend or foe. And the voting public appears to be less aware of this than they should be and not very interested trying to fix it. The US Congress has been running NASA, other federal agencies and even the country’s laws to their own advantage, instead of doing what’s best for the citizens, for quite a while now. That’s a very ugly thought, but the evidence is there for anyone willing to look. Perhaps it’s somehow easier to see this from an outside perspective, for some reason. I’m a Canadian, and I right now am seriously worried about my American neighbors.
Steve
” because it’s clear that Obama came up snake eyes.”
yet there will be the very first commercial “pizza delivery” to the ISS in october???? SO this means nothing?
Of course, the response will be that SpaceX started their effort before Obama took office, but the GOP did not want any piece of the commercial pie because their “constituents” (lockheed, boeing, ATK, etc.) were not fully on-board with the commercial resupply effort.
what IS obvious is that with the financial melt-down, MOST americans were complaining about government waste. Since NASA space missions make the front page, they were the posterchild of government waste even while doing things that have never been done before for a fraction of the $$ that is left on the floor after the DOD makes their yearly withdrawls.
Obama would have shot himself in the foot by increasing NASA funding even if it was the right thing to do for the country, because it would be ammunition for the opposition (even if the smart thing was to fund NASA at higher levels because the average “voter” does not appreciate what NASA actually accomplishes).
Does NASA waste $$ ??? – YES, but far less than some other federal programs that get less publicity for doing so …
“yet there will be the very first commercial “pizza delivery” to the ISS in october???? SO this means nothing?”
This cargo program was started under the Bush administration.
Stuart Gray: “Of course, the response will be that SpaceX started their effort before Obama took office,…”
It’s like Pavlov’s dog
I believe space policy is important, the readers of this forum believe space poly is important, the general public, not so much. That is is the real issue, making space and the advancement of knowledge an important issue. When the main topics of discussion in a campaign include space and science policy, then we will get thoughtful and complete answers. Until then, it makes little difference which answer you believe.
Meaningless guff from both sides. It’s a shame Romney burnt his boats with Newt – there might have been a hint of using NASA as an enabler for space projects, similar to the X-prize or Commercial Cargo / Crew, but covering BEO as well as LEO.
As it is, post-November is a big TBD, and more likely to depend on porksters in Congress than presidential vision.
For three generations, NASA was the only game in town.
Now, however slowly, things are changing and the commercial sector is beginning to foster a parallel space program to the government-funded one. Yes, there is still government money going into commercial space, and no, not all the business cases will close yet, but it’s now possible to envision a time, about a decade away, when federal support won’t be needed and visionaries rooted in the business world will finally carry us where we should have been twenty years ago.
Just imagine the progress that could be made if space exploration were freed from politics, pork-seeking lobbies, home-state gimmies, and the bureaucratic megalith NASA has become.
In the coming decade, I expect space to remove the lead boots of government control and finally take off at speed.
For that reason, I’m relatively unconcerned about the candidate’s positions. IMHO, before 2020, they will be irrelevant.
NASA HSF is over, people just don’t realize it, or won’t admit it until the program after SLS/MPCV fails. Because SLS/MPCV will fail and whatever follows it will fail. NASA is no longer capable of designing and developing large-scale HSF systems. That capability was dismantled during the Shuttle program in favor of operations. That’s all there is left is operations people and we retired our operational systems. So we are now screwed and it doesn’t matter what Obama or Romney say or do, or even Congress. Nothing short of $30 billion per year will save NASA, and that ain’t gonna happen. It is over, folks. Go home, nothing to see here. Commercial space is our only hope. That’s the only thing NASA knows how to do anymore, buy stuff.
And we’re not even very good at that…
The cost of NASA programs is a major stumbling block. There are many reasons for this, but one important factor is the costing methodology they share with the Pentagon and the high prices that it makes “acceptable.”
Two years ago, or more, NASA costed out the development of the Falcon 9 and found that SpaceX had done the job for a small fraction of the cost estimated by their software. A (huge) cost that they would have considered reasonable even though it was several times SpaceX’s actual outlay.
While there are many brilliant people at NASA, researching many important and game-changing things, procurement is terribly flawed with the exception of the SAAs at the heart of COTS, et al.
NASA’s inability to manage programs appropriately is responsible for the cost over-runs on the JWST and Orion, and will be responsible for those we can expect on SLS.
Free of Congress, lobbyists, and cost-plus contracting, NASA could perhaps still do great things, but nobody I know expects those things to go away. Nor do many people really expect SLS to fly. Instead they expect it to be cancelled due to cost over-runs.
Mark,
I like your thinking, but I (very strongly) think that your one decade estimate is way too short. The “market” is still essentially commsats and NASA (or NASA enabled projects), and the commsat business alone is not nearly large enough of a market by itself. The other things, like tourism, are still much further in the future in terms of making money, which they will have to do with NASA (and the other nation’s space agencies) out of the picture — and I say this as a sincere optimist.
Steve
In the evolution of the commercial airline industry there was a considerable period when both federal R&D (through the NACA) and federal start-up funding (through airmail contracts) were vital, but from the start the goal was not simply for the government to fly difficult missions but rather for government investment to create the technology that would allow a sustainable market-driven industry to form. NASA can provide vital support for the evolution of human spaceflight to a sustainable level, but only if it follows the NACA model rather than the Apollo model.
Daniel,
I certainly agree with what you’ve said, but it’s not the whole equation. Putting aside whether NASA spends too much or too little money and does things well or poorly, large portions of “NASA money” are not spent on NASA any more than they were spent “on the Moon.” Many billions of dollars over a period of decades have flowed from the NASA budget to US industries, particularly to the aerospace companies, large and small, new and old.
IF NASA readopts a NACA-type function, which I’ve always very much endorsed, but discontinues doing “missions” then billions of dollars will stop flowing to industry, period, because the “commercial” companies are not going to pick up the slack and start doing them. There’s no profit or other gain in that for them. NASA has been their biggest customer, by far. If you take that away, most of the companies involved in NASA programs are simply going to disappear, completely, along with all of their experience, designs, tooling, everything. Perhaps Boeing will buy many of them up for pennies on the dollar if they can survive on military contracts. But I’ll bet what would be lost if that happens will turn America into a third world country within a decade.
What companies will gain/save from NASA research is tiny compared to what has been spent on purchasing products and services from those companies for so long. We all know this, but nobody’s asking the obvious question — what is the effect going to be on all of those companies when NASA no longer buys “missions” and equipment and services?
We all bitch about NASA being a jobs program, but let’s be realistic, without that “government” spending being inserted into industry, a lot of that industry is going to disappear. The problem with the “pork” is that Congress seems to be concerned only about that industry cash influx and not everything else that NASA exists for, except perhaps where it affects “national security,” meaning weapons. And the average American is not connected to any of this; they are largely oblivious, and so not an affecting factor.
“Commercial” space is not going to replace or supersede NASA any time this century in a sane USA, but are we talking about a sane USA? I suspect the GOP would gladly gut NASA, cutting it back to a NACA-type function with a NACA-type budget (at best). And then they could crow to the American taxpayers about all of the billions of dollars a year they’ve saved. And the Romney’s of the country will have decimated yet another US industry, a critical one, and the US public, by and large, will have let it happen in total ignorance.
We can let NASA “contract out” missions under much better terms and much more efficiently than in the past, but NASA still needs to be “doing” those missions, even if only as a customer buying whole packages. The budget money allocated to NASA every year is just like all of the rest of the money in the US and every country with a fiat money system — every dollar is spent many times over and performs many different functions, most of which are unseen by the original holder of that dollar. Removing, or even significantly reducing the NASA budget will have a domino effect on both the US economy and its ability to compete evenly on the world market. The people to whom the US owes its huge debt would become uneasy by the implications and lost abilities implicit in a neutered NASA and this too will drag down the economy. America needs a better working NASA, for sure, but most of all America needs NASA, and not simply a NACAized NASA, to continue being America, to continue to survive. If I were an American, I’d be doing anything I could to get the message across to as many people as possible and make then understand, so that maybe, just maybe, the people can take back their wealth and their heritage from the aging personal-pension-padders in D.C.
Steve
Daniel named two aspects of US Govt funding of the US aviation industry. NACA and Airmail. You’ve emphasised one side, technology R&D (NACA), while just glancing over the other (Airmail)…
“We can let NASA “contract out” missions under much better terms and much more efficiently than in the past, but NASA still needs to be “doing” those missions”
You underplay how huge of a sea-change this would be to NASA’s standard method of operating. You just need to look at how “alien” commercial cargo/crew has been, and how the industry itself has lobbied against it! “Fly a few tons of cargo to the ISS” and “Fly a handful of our astronauts to the ISS each year”, tiny missions, and it is like someone declared war.
The Airmail contracts weren’t about having industry create a government designed plane, for a government run airline. The space program shouldn’t be either.
ISS may have accidentally developed commercialisable technology (TransHab, the NACA role), it didn’t subsidise the creation of a commercial space station building and operating industry, it built a government designed and operations space station (singular).
Imagine instead that the original funding ($8b, not the eventually cost) was split between the things Freedom was intended to do. That is, the things NASA wanted a space station for. (Spacecraft assembly & fit-out, satellite refurbishment, materials science, and life-science.) Then they offered to lease space aboard future commercial space-stations (plural) that could meet specific parts of those requirements. Like commercial-cargo/crew, but with entire privately owned and operated space-stations.
Likewise, the shuttle was a purely NASA program, not the founding of a commercial “space-liner” industry. Shuttle replacements were likewise purely “internal”.
This is the problem I’ve always had with the constant whining for “Presidential Vision”, meaning “Kennedy-style Apollo challange, but to my favourite target”. It is actually not a vision, it’s just more of the same.
Hi Paul,
It looks to me like you and I are seeing most of this the same way and, I think, mostly for the same reasons.
Daniel advocates bringing back the NACA-style research, which was hugely successful in the pre-NASA days, and applying it across all of the relevant technologies; in other words, not just aviation (Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate) research, but also research for “space” and all of the sciences and engineering disciplines that go into it. The results of this research (would) flow freely to US industries, and often foreign ones as well, depending on their nature; i.e., all of these research results are public domain (when not classified) and are, in theory, free to use. There are some projects of this kind going on now, but they are, for the most part, speculative, high-end things like far-out propulsion ideas, with no foreseeable value in the relatively short term. And all this time, essential issues like radiation effects mitigation and truly closed ECS systems don’t get the attention (and money) that they genuinely need. I agree with Daniel 200% on this and have been pushing the need for more and better research for a long time. However, there is one way in which Daniel and I appear to differ. I may be reading him wrong altogether, but the way he presents this proposal, which he has done several times at NASA Watch, suggests to me that he thinks that NASA should be revised to doing only this NACA-type research and basically getting out of the other things it traditionally does (in a very inefficient way, for various reasons). **[ Daniel: If I’ve got his all wrong please jump in and set me straight. ]**
I said, and you quoted: “We can let NASA “contract out” missions under much better terms and much more efficiently than in the past, but NASA still needs to be “doing” those missions“
When I say, “those missions,” I’m talking about HSF missions (hopefully minus SLS), the planetary missions, the Earth monitoring satellite missions, the telescopes (all kinds), and all of the mission types that we have normally associated with NASA. They must still be done, for the same reasons as always (another discussion for another time), and if NASA doesn’t do them, nobody in the US is going to do them, not even other government agencies. A lot of people, including employees and avid fans of NASA itself, have for quite a while now being calling for reforms, restructuring, center closings, replacing all management, and every manner of “shake-up,” right up to suggestions to just close the whole thing down permanently (which is the worst possibility that could happen for the US; and Romney/Ryan might already be thinking in those terms). We can’t lose NASA, and “restructurings” in their many guises accomplish nothing except to waste additional time and money. Therefore, there is but one alternative left — NASA must change how it does business, in several and major ways. I don’t really underestimate or underplay “how huge of a sea-change this would be” to NASA and to the companies it deals with. It would be a huge change; dealing with the political entanglements that interlace themselves in NASA’s operations will alone be a huge and revolutionary undertaking. And it certainly couldn’t be made to happen overnight, or without a top-notch, detailed, long-term implementation plan, but, But, BUT… if the way NASA does things doesn’t start to change, and soon, the sole alternative, for NASA and all of those companies it deals with, is permanent extinction, along with all of the jobs and corporate taxes which that entails. I think that when considering this real possibility we can adopt that wonderful line that Gene Krantz never actually said: “Failure is not an option!“
There is an additional, hugely important factor that typically gets overlooked whenever someone brings out the NACA/air mail concept, and that is a man named Douglas. At the same time as NACA began having a positive impact on the infant aviation industry, Douglas Aircraft started mass producing the Douglas DC-3 airplane. This machine, single-handedly, created both the military and commercial airline industries, almost overnight, all by itself. The only thing in aviation history that comes anywhere near having such a large impact is when the Boeing 747 created the long-distance, high volume commercial airline industry. Even the impact of Boeing 707 (the original jet engine passenger airliner) is minor compared to the introduction of the DC-3. It was the airplane that started it all. And it was the military use of the DC-3 (which came along at just the right time) even more than the air mail contracts that set the whole thing running and made it sustainable. But, whether you credit the military or the air mail, either way it was government contracts and government purchases that made it all possible; government allocated money, call it investment, subsidies, pork, stimulus, whatever you want, the fact remains that without it the infant airline industry would not have been created nor would it have survived long enough for non-government customers to come into existence, which is necessary for an industry to become self-sustaining (or to “close the business case” as some here like to say).
As far as I know, those old-way companies who got and stay rich based on cost-plus government contracts have been the only ones to react unfavorably over the SAA and have “lobbied against it.” But they lobby against anything that confers any advantages on the newer aerospace companies, which contract reform certainly does. And the Congress critters connive with the lobbyists only because it’s those same old-way companies who are providing the huge campaign funds (and pension “funds”) to those critters and lobbyists. Otherwise, certain multi-faced Senators would be supporting the exact opposite position — move more to contacts that reduce government spending to something more in line with the “value” being received for that spending, like SAAs instead of eternal cost-plus programs. This would allow for a non-destructive budget reduction when necessary (let’s face it; sometimes it’s necessary), or for the same budget (i.e., the same level of investment in the economy) you can be doing more and/or better programs. (Just once, it would be nice to send an orbiter or rover to another planet with all of the instruments/capability that the program plan originally included.)
So, by NASA doing essentially the same things, but in better ways, they win, the economy wins, the new space companies win, the taxpayers win, and the old space companies have a choice — adapt to the new game in town, or start losing market share on a regular basis, in spite of whatever your tame Congress critters can do, because one major benefit of contracts like SAAs over cost-plus is their simplicity, which makes them much more transparent to all involved, which means that screw-ups and questionable actions are seen while they’re still happening instead of much later when it’s too late to squash them, or even see them. Litigation after the fact only adds cost for the taxpayers; it “corrects” nothing, and even the old space offenders don’t lose by cheating; that’s what they pay such big insurance premiums for (which, of course, are reflected in the cost of every cost-plus program they do.)
So, the bottom line, you’re right the government does not either create or operate industries. What they do is provide new (and failing essential) industries with the means to come into existence and/or survive long enough to become self-sustaining, hopefully with a sufficiently non-government market to be able to grow. The government does this by spending taxpayer money; this is reality and there is no way around it. But the nice thing is, it works! Whether by tax breaks, subsidies, loans, or, ideally, as a buying/using customer, tax dollars INVESTED in the creation and growth of essential industries by the government is what creates and maintains the economy of the United States (or any other country). So (simplifying greatly), in the long run there are really only two “fiscal issues” to provide answers for each year: 1) How much money are we going to take from the people in tax dollars?; and 2) How can we best redistribute (invest) that tax money to provide maximum benefit and quality of life to the citizens? (I’ve cheated horribly by ignoring things the debt and interest rates, but that’s another 1,000 words.)
“Imagine instead that the original funding ($8b, not the eventually cost) was split between the things Freedom was intended to do“
Absolutely bang on! That’s what I’ve been arguing for (using the ISS, among other assets) since the days when Keith was working on Reagan’s Space Station Freedom. I think that we have to be honest with ourselves, though, and realize that the “intent” of Freedom that was being presented to the public and other world leaders was probably quite different from what was discussed behind closed doors in D.C. Platforms and policies change with time for both parties, but one thing has been fairly consistent: if the senior Republicans are willing to spend billions on something (anything) then they see value in it as a weapon of one type or another. I would be very surprised if Freedom, under Reagan, was any different. Similar arguments apply the Shuttle, but whole books have been written about the “mistakes” relating to the Shuttle, so let’s not get into that now. It was the wrong thing, at the wrong time, and tried to be everything to everybody and failed. All that aside, it was still a bloody marvelous boat and you gotta love the Shuttle, even if it was a huge net loss. For a short time, it defined America in a way similar to Apollo 11, and in that context was truly priceless.
“This is the problem I’ve always had with the constant whining for “Presidential Vision”, meaning “Kennedy-style Apollo challange…”“
I would argue (until the room ran out of oxygen) that the last thing America needs is a “Kennedy-style Apollo challenge.” It would destroy the US in many ways and more completely than could ever be recovered from. The reasons are many, and quite a few of the NASA Watch regulars could list them for us off the tops of their heads, so I won’t drag out any details. As far as national space policy and programs go, the situation is very straight forward — you can have “vision” or you can have practical, enabling decisions; you can’t have both. Apollo was a wonderful achievement (public, political and technical), in many ways, but the cost (which far exceeded the price) was/is more than could ever be paid again. Among other things, the government’s involvement in the manipulation of major industries during the implementation of Apollo came close to destroying the existence of both the “democratic republic” and the “free market” (I’ve never liked that term) in the US, which right now are already in a weakened condition from the abuses of Congress and their disdain (particularly from the GOP) for bipartisan politics (my opinion only, of course). I keep waiting for the day when some Republican Senator insists that “today is not Monday” simply because the President was rumored to have asked “How was your weekend?” I’ll bet the two parties couldn’t agree on what to name such a visionary challenge, let alone agree on whether to do it.
Sorry to go on so long, but you hit on what I consider to be some very important issues which don’t seem to get the attention that I think they require.
Steve
There is one HUGE difference, President Obama has released a position paper for what the OFFICIAL American space policy is. Just like all President’s have did. We KNOW what the American space policy is under this Administration. The onus is not on the President, we have years or actual experience on what his policies are and where this Administration is moving NASA and US space policy.
We have nothing from the Romney camp other than .. I will get together some experts and tell you what i will do … later.
To try and compare the two positions .. well .. that is silly.
I don’t know. Obama basically can be counted on to try to do as he says. He said he was going to delay Constellation. It wasn’t so much Obama-NASA seemed to do it to itself, but its about 5 years behind where it was supposed to be according to the schedules of five years ago. With Obama you have a bit of a stand-off since the Republicans won’t work with him.
Romney I’m a bit more concerned about. You really cannot trust very much because he flip flops regularly and he thinks nothing of shutting down everything to save pennys-really not save, his goal is to send the money into the wealthy’s pockets, instead of paying the middle class aerospace workers.
I think with Obama you will continue to see gradual change to a commercially driven program. Romney, I’m afraid, is more likely to take drastic measures from which the American space program may never recover.
Bingo!
Are you kidding? “Obama can be counted on to try to do as he says”.
Obama had the biggest flip flop on space that I’ve seen by canceling the constelation program when he promised on the campaign trail in Florida that he would “shorten the gap” between the space shuttle and it’s successor (nope, just made it waaaay bigger). Obama put thousands out of work in Florida (among other states) and essentially flushed the nations’s investiment of billions on constelation down the toilet. I agree that his administration has firmed up their position and are not likely to change much anymore. I’ll be blown away if Obama wins Florida.
But I honestly don’t see how this “comercial” path is much different than that previous government run programs. Comercial space is an oxymoron, like clean coal. It’s designed to make people feel like there’s a difference (you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig). The only “comercial” customers that will make these buisinesses profitable are governments. There aren’t enough millionaires willing to buy joy ride tickets to sustain a comercial space program, they will be govenrment funded for many decades before there is a true comercial need for human space flight. If NASA is the so-called “comercial customer”, trust me, they won’t let their astronauts fly unless they are calling the shots.
When it all comes down to it, I don’t think you can trust what any politician says on the campaign trail. Mr. Obama proved that during the last election. As for “drastic measures form which the American space program may never recover”. Sorry, it’s already been done. Canceling Constelation has delayed America from launching their own astronauts for at least a decade (probably much more). I sure hope we can get someone to give us a goal or vision for the future (and the funding to get us there), but I’m sure that Obama won’t provide that now or in the next 4 years.
Trapper,
Two things: One, Obama may have made certain decisions and proposals with respect to Constellation, but the reality is that whoever became President in 2008 would have been forced to either cancel it or modify it out of recognition (assuming that a President could do that without Congress interfering). Constellation was a flawed plan, both technically and financially. I realize that a lot of people will argue that statement, but anybody with even a small portion of the requisite knowledge realized that the funding allocated for it was far too short of what would have been required, enough so that it was hard to take it seriously. And increasing the funding to what it would take was never going to happen; not even close. Constellation was designed to fail, whether by intent or lack of knowledge we’ll probably never know. Personally, I consider it a failure by the current White House that they took so long to act on Constellation. I think it’s also worth pointing out that here we are, all these years later, and still no one, from anywhere, has provided an intelligent and doable plan for closing the gap (SLS is certainly not it!). So you can’t really condemn a President for not also being a rocket scientist (and yes, that’s also a dig at the fools who saddled us with SLS).
Second, it’s easy to present a convincing argument when you redefine the accepted terminology to your own liking. “Commercial space,” which has been discussed openly and publicly for years now, refers to the commercial product and service providers, not the customers! And if you go back and actually listen to what little all of the politicians on both sides have said, none of them talked about “commercial customers.” The only customer they’ve discussed is the federal government, by way of NASA, NOAA and DOD, period.
And as a concession to the facts, I’d like to point out that Obama did not put thousands out of work in Florida, as you claim. That was the work of George W. Bush, a Republican, who canceled the Shuttle and created “the gap,” and then failed to properly fund his proposed replacement programs. Bush also managed to spend more money as President than one would have thought possible, by far canceling out all of the money saved under his predecessor, Clinton, a Democrat. Now we have another Democrat President who is inclined to cancel or cut back any expenses that he sees as either waste or destined to fail (like Constellation) and you’re complaining. Yes, Obama has spent a lot of money too, but it was almost all in the name of trying to recover from the economic car crash that his GOP predecessor left the country saddled with.
“I’m sure that Obama won’t provide that now or in the next 4 years“
And neither would anyone else. If you elect Romney/Ryan, you won’t get either vision or funding, and you’ll get a lot less of anything than you will from Obama (if Congress lets him). You’re disappointed that Obama didn’t give you what you think you want, but that gives you no reason to think that his opponents will give it to you; empty logic. I guess we’ll all wait and see together.
Steve
Agree to disagree. The same argument of budget overruns and program issues cold be made for any of the previous NASA Manned Space programs. The difference is that in the past we resolved the issues and moved forward. If McCain had been elected, I don’t believe that Constelation would have been canceled. We would be getting ready for more test flights for Ares-1 and be flying humans again within in a few more years. I know you and many others feel that it would have been a mistake, just like some thought the shuttle program was a waste, but I’d say it’s what made us the leader in manned space flight with more capabilites of any other nation. Just when we were beginning to expand these capabilities with Constelation, we pull the plug and go from leader to hithchikers.
Just to clarify my point about “comercial space”. NASA does not build rockets, they have contractors build them. With Comercial, NASA is still having contractors build them rockets. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the concept, but don’t believe it will work as described. I do believe letting contractors have total control from design to launch would be more efficient, but I just don’t see NASA letting go of their control when it comes to their astronauts safety. They probably have a good point, the astronauts deserve the same man-rated safety requirements as before. Also, with the state of things now, if NASA just let a comercial company do their own thing and had a disaster with astronauts aboard, we would be back to square one.
I know the Romney/Ryan ticket will not have all the right answers, but I’m left with a very bad taste in my mouth with Obama’s broken promises and lack of vision. I also think that constantly changing directions is the worst thing we can do, but believe that Romney will understand this as well, which is why I don’t think he will cancel “Comercial” efforts or SLS (although it’s clear that most here would welcome that). We need to quit pumping money into things then throwing them away, let’s see these things through and maybe we will start to see some results from our investments. We just need to get hold of the right vision and stick to it.
We are Tick pilots. Danger is our business. Like hard hat divers that risk their lives to bring us cheap oil. We are the same in commercials space. Hundreds of people died to bring man wings at the begining of the last century.
I get so Sick of this CHICKEN attitude.
IS SPACE WORTH IT OR NOT!!!
CHICKENS PLEASE STEP BACK!!!!
GO PLAY JOB PROGRAMS.
Put some DAM seats in a cargo dragon and some air and lets FLY!!!!!!!!!
THE RIGHT STUFFFF!!!!!
THEY DIE EACH DAY TO FIGHT CRAP RELIGION WARS!!!!!!
SHUTTLE flow 150 some missions
Falcon is safer after a few more flights
y’all want to go to Space or sit your safe little back sides on earth?
The tick pilot Team
The same guys and gals that tested NACA BEO programs that built moon and mars tranfer vehicles, lived in Bigelow habs on at L1 and many other future dangerous Islands in the sky.
Mike,
I sense disillusionment from you, with a capital D. Hang in there; things could always be worse. In fact, if Romney and Ryan are elected then things certainly will be worse. I’m reminded of a Robert Heinlein suggestion: when in doubt, find some well-meaning fool and then vote so as to cancel him out.Steve
Given the generic quality of the responses, I was struck by the specificity of Obama’s singling out of NASA’s unmanned program. I get a pretty distinct sense that he does genuinely appreciate and support it. Which is encouraging.
PS we need to revolt against the crappy way both parties treat us. on wall street and k street.
Any one with a set out there???
Teddy Rossevelt for pres.
oh he is dead
It has to be us!!!!!