Newsflash: George Bush Made U.S. Dependent on Russia
Obama failed space program; Romney would revitalize it, opinon, Gene Cernan, Orlando Sentinel
“Frankly, the world’s leading space-faring nation shouldn’t have to pay Russia for rides to the International Space Station. That’s not only an insult to the hundreds of women and men like me who have built a legacy based on, literally, reaching for the stars, but it also hurts the local economy and puts local jobs at risk at a time when Florida’s unemployment rate is already higher than the national average.”
Keith’s note: With all due respect, Gene, a little history lesson (not that you care): when George Bush decided to shut down the Space Shuttle program in 2004, there was a blatant and openly admitted gap in American human access to space that no American spacecraft – Constellation or otherwise – would have met under even the most optimistic scenarios until 2014-2018 (that date constantly slipped). Your good friend and ghostwriter Mike Griffin openly admitted that repeatedly. George Bush set us on the path to paying Russia to gain access to the ISS – regardless of what timeline you chose to refer to. He then proceeded to underfund Constellation and did not push Congress for funding so as to make it incapable of achieving its avowed goals.
Under the plans now in place for NASA’s commercial crew programs, there will likely be indigenous American access to space sooner than Mike Griffin would ever have achieved with his bloated, underfunded, and oft-delayed Constellation program. Let me suggest that you check your facts before you embarrass yourself further.
If the criteria for depending on Russia is not having a redundant vehicle to replace the shuttle then blame whoever was at the wheel when the HL-20 was cancelled in 1993. If it had been available when the (IMO necessary & overdue) cancellation of STS happened we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
The discussion is not about the lack of a redundant vehicle. The discussion is about the fact that Bush killed the space shuttle on a schedule that meant it stopped flying years before the planned replacement vehicle would be ready.
A redundant US human launch vehicle would be great, but it’s likely to impractical at current flight rates, due to the cost of dividing flights among two systems. (Even the ELV policy of keeping both Atlas and Delta launch vehicles flying has turned out to be expensive.)
Agreed. This is about a gap – and where it came from. FWIW Obama added 2 Shuttle flights – but Cernan doesn’t seem to know that.
And there is only a gap FOR LACK OF a redundant vehicle. If HL-20, or any other US vehicle, were operatoonal there would be no gap regardless of who made the STS decision.
Having an HL-20 would be cool, but the lack of the HL-20 was an established fact at decision time. It’s entirely possible that Bush has never even heard of the HL-20 (even considering that allegedly he was diligent about doing his homework before such meetings).
congress would never ever allow a competing vehicle .. ESPECiaLLY something like the HL-20. It was to cheap, to small of a program, not enough pork to spread out.
IT would be harder to justify a shuttle launch to put seven people into space for 1.5 billion if the HL 20 could do it for 300 million. NASA would be ordered to launch cargo on EELV’s and suddenly the taxpayer gets to see just how much of a cash hot the shuttle was.
That was one thing, that congress would not allow .. for 3 DECADES .. nothing could be brought to the party that made the shuttle look like an expensive waste.
What was expensive was merging Atlas and Delta into a cost-plus monopoly. This made it more profitable to abandon commercial launch and raise prices for the US government, which had no alternative. Obama would keep competition in Commercial Crew and SpaceX would like to add competition to DOD and government launch services.
Gene has been an irrational whiner since Apollo.
The presidents plan is the only sustainable manned spaceflight program in history. It’s insulting that he called it anything but that.
These talking head conservatives are becoming a plague to this county let alone NASA
This is a tough comment to read. Admittedly the Bush administration developed a plan and never adequately funded it. However, I think your comments are a bit lacking, yes the Bush administration called for the retirement and replacement of the space shuttle. But in all fairness many space experts had been calling for this to happen for more than a decade. At least under Bush’s administration there was a top level mission, accompanied by a plan with milestones. Yes there was a gap in manned spaceflight ability under the Bush administration, but there was a plan to get Americans back in orbit on American vehicles in a timely fashion. There is NO plan from the current administration, neither is there any mission or a strategy as to how we meet that plan. The private sector is taking the lead and will likely be the first to return Americans back into orbit, but that has little to do with the current administration so it always disgusts me when they take credit for the endeavors of the private sector.
The private sector taking the lead has everything to do with this Obama administration. This was the desired plan before congress got involved.
Mike Griffin, Bush’s appointee has desired and expected nothing but failure for these commercial companies
“Bush administration called for the retirement” To be clear, Bush didn’t call for the retirement of the shuttle, he ordered it.
1. The gap in American crew access was caused by retiring the shuttle before a replacement was in place.
2. Obama added 2 shuttle flights
3. Where is Romney’s “plan”?
Where is Obamas plan
I guess you have not been reading the news for the past several years.
Commercial Crew. Do those two words ring any bells?
Nixon’s plan was build a shuttle .. not what to do with it. Obama’s plan for the Nation is to have both commercial crew and cargo. Add tools to the toolbox like a new domestic engine for heavy lift, fuel depot technology, closed loop life support, in space power and propulsion. If you actually READ the 2010 NASA budget proposal it was pretty clear, even without me dragging out the chalkboard and drawing some flowcharts for you to understand.
Just because CONGRESS said screw your plan we are not funding it, instead we want a monster pork rocket that is now the default “plan” for the Nation.
You are under some mistaken idea that the President of the United States gets handed some sort of magic wand after the election and they can just wave it and make things happen.
The President presented a CRYSTAL CLEAR plan in the 2010 budget request. But congress controls the purse strings so every President has plans they iniate and plans that they have to execute that are congress’s plan. BUT it all falls under the plan for the Nation.
We are currenly operating under a combined plan .. what the president wants and what congress wants and congress, that does the funding, gets the last word.
So your complaining to the wrong crowd, complain to the republicans in the house and senate.
OMB FY 13 Budget summaryhttp://www.whitehous… “Implements a lower cost program of robotic exploration of Mars that will advance science and will also help lay the foundation for future human exploration” 21st Century Space Exploration: “The Next Chapter That We Can Write Together Here at NASA”, WHite Househttp://www.whitehouse…. “Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit. And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space. So we’ll start — we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it.”
NASA Announces Next Steps in Launching Americans from U.S. Soil, White Househttp://www.whitehouse…. “And second, just two years ago, at Kennedy Space Center, President Obama set a goal of sending humans farther into space than we have ever been — to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the 2030s.” NASA Mars Rover Team Hears From President Obama, NASAhttp://www.nasa.gov/mis… “What you’ve accomplished embodies the American spirit,” the president said. “Our expectation is that Curiosity is going to be telling us things we did not know before and laying the groundwork for an even more audacious undertaking in the future, and that’s a human mission to Mars.” Obama said Curiosity’s landing advances his goals of improving education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. “This is the kind of thing that inspires kids across the country,” he said. “They’re telling their moms and dads they want to be part of a Mars mission, maybe even the first person to walk on Mars.” NASA Lands Car-Size Rover Beside Martian Mountain, NASAhttp://www.nasa.gov/mis… NASA Administrator Charles Bolden” “This is an amazing achievement, made possible by a team of scientists and engineers from around the world and led by the extraordinary men and women of NASA and our Jet Propulsion Laboratory. President Obama has laid out a bold vision for sending humans to Mars in the mid-2030’s, and today’s landing marks a significant step toward achieving this goal.” Statement by the President on the Launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, White Househttp://www.whitehouse…. “Today’s launch may mark the final flight of the Space Shuttle, but it propels us into the next era of our never-ending adventure to push the very frontiers of exploration and discovery in space. We’ll drive new advances in science and technology. We’ll enhance knowledge, education, innovation, and economic growth. And I have tasked the men and women of NASA with an ambitious new mission: to break new boundaries in space exploration, ultimately sending Americans to Mars.” President Obama Calls Crews of Atlantis and the International Space Station, NASAhttp://www.whitehouse.g… “The President wants NASA to capitalize on America’s entrepreneurial energies to drive a competition to reach Low Earth Orbit and the space station, all while tasking the men and women of NASA with an ambitious new mission: to break new boundaries in space exploration, ultimately sending Americans to Mars.”
President Obama Calls Crews of Atlantis and the International Space Station, NASA
And in all fairness he added two flights because he had no replacement in sight under his plan or should I say lack of a plan
When the flights were added Constellation was still underway.
Keith, Cernan listed Romney’s plan. Didn’t you see it? It’s to have a meeting. I bet there might even be PowerPoint slides!! Cool! Meanwhile, SpaceX, Orbital, et al will be out there actually doing things.
The replacement program was in place before the shuttle was slated for retirement, Constellation. That program may have had problems but it was the replacement program and was canceled by the Obama administration.
John,
Your misstatement has been corrected so many times here that I can’t be bothered to explain it to you again. I can’t believe you keep saying it. Give it a break.
Steve
Unfortunatly you are wrong on your civics. The President has absolutly NO POWER to cut constellation. The President sends a budget REQUEST to congress, it carries no force of law at all.
A BI PARTISAN CONGRESS refused to fund the Constellation pork train any longer … get your facts straight.
The President recommended building a new domestic engine for a heavy lift FIRST. Congress said we want our pork and AGAINST the President authorized and appropriated funds for SLS.
AGAIN Congress controls the purse strings. Nixon tried to drag his heels on spending money for something he didn’t support and so congress passed a law that the Presidents have to spend funds for things they don’t want. The President did not want SLS or Orion, they are cash hog pork projects that are killing our space program.
There is no Romney “plan”
He is bye bye car 🙂
“has little to do with the current administration so it always disgusts me when they take credit for the endeavors of the private sector.”
So you would prefer they launch a program that competes with the private sector so that you can have the warm and fuzzy feeling of having milestones?
The federal government, both under Bush and Obama is an active participant in this private sector activity; they are funders and customers and this is important.
The fact that they are far more hands-off about how it’s accomplished is not so much a failing as it is the one reason Dragon is flying now instead of “maybe 2019” or something.
Commercial flight is actually NASA-paid for commercial flight and that budget was passed in this administration. Case closed OK? Listen, any president can say, “Hey lets go to Mars!” but you need to get the budget passed. Obama’s administration has supported commercial flight where it matters with dollars in 2012, not promises in 2007, “PLANS” in 2006, or whatever but actual DOLLARS today. Besides, the Shuttle killed 14 people it had to be shut down before it killed anymore. Blame Bush, Reagan, Lincoln or whoever makes you feel good, but right now the money is coming from this administration and the money has put Dragon and the US back in the game.
Was that a reply to me? Cause that was basically what I was saying – that the federal government is a funder and customer. (Last administration as well; some COTS work was under the Bush admin as well as IIRC a DARPA grant to SpaceX.)
“There is NO plan from the current administration”
So you call Orion/SLS , Dragon/F9, Dream chaser, CST, and Blue Origin “NO plan”??? The current plan looks to be FAR more exciting than any plan since Apollo. Have you been napping?
Orion/SLS were pushed by Congress, not the current administration. The other programs have not been funded to actually carry a crew to orbit. Currently SpaceX is funded to demonstrate up to an in-flight abort test, Boeing thru CDR, and Sierra Nevada thru a propulsion test. No contract has been let for an actual crewed flight nor any proposed date.
Sure, but everything you mentioned above sure resembles a “plan” to me.
None of the things that any of you have said have anything to do with a mission or direction for NASA which does not exist. Building hardware is not the mission, you build hardware to support a mission! When these vehicles are built where are they going, how many astronauts do they need, what in space habitats and propulsions systems need to be built, when does that construction begin, do they even interface with these other vehicles? When you have a mission then you can look at the suite of hardware that needs to be built, develop implied tasks and look at the order of events which things need to occur in, NONE of these things have happened because there is NO NASA direction under this administration. Merely building launch vehicles is NOT a mission. I might also add that Orion is the continuation of a Bush era vehicle and the private companies you mentioned would still be working towards there own designs even if Obama was not in office. The only direction this administration has is to do whatever private industry wants to do which is fine for the company, but not for a nation.
phoebus1A,
I would say the fact that you clearly equate “a plan” with “a mission” shows that you have a very narrow understanding of what NASA is for and how space is (must be) developed and explored. Your insistence on a mission implies that you think we already have all of the knowledge and hardware designs that we’ll ever need, and now all we have to do is start using them for missions. Considering that the lion’s share of our HSF space hardware designs are decades old, then by your logic we could have been back to the Moon and even have had people living on Mars long before now. That is clearly not the case.
I’m not going to try to cram a long detailed lecture into a post (assuming I have any idea what I’m talking about). One reason that I’m not is that I don’t see why one of us here should do that much work when you clearly have done very little yourself to understand what the situation really is. Invest some time learning the numbers and requirements involved for any mission you choose. And then look, in detail, into the capabilities that currently exist and see how well you can match them up with your mission requirements. If you do the job properly, you’ll discover that there is a lot to be learned and a lot to be done yet to provide us with the capabilities to execute any mission worth doing. You can’t create mission prerequisites by doing the mission. The fact that these prerequisites are still necessary is part of the current “plan” that is driving decisions and activities. If you don’t see the addressing of these essential tasks as being part of a plan, that’s a misconception on your part. Far too many people who look at what NASA is doing and fail to see the particular program that they most wanted are crying “there is no plan!” Personally, I’m getting mighty tired of that nonsense.
Steve
Wow that was an incredibly contemptuous and arrogant response to my comment. In the hopes that we can foster a discussion as opposed to an argument I will try to be less rude in my rebuttal. Arguably one of the best successes in NASAs history was the Apollo program where they most certainly did not take the approach you recommend. They first developed a mission, then selected the most applicable technologies for development. I think you are putting the cart in front of the horse. If you indiscriminately develop technologies then wait for a mission, history has shown that you will likely get a mission with requirements that can not be met with the technologies you develop, so the mission ends up being scaled back until it is unimaginative and not worth the tax payer dollars because you become limited be technologies that were not well thought out with respect to the mission at hand. Also I can think of 10 possible in space propulsion technologies and 4 possible launch vehicle technologies that may merit investigation and development. Whitout a mission there is no way you can select which one you wish to develop and end up taking the expensive route by funding the development of all of them at many times the necessary costs. This is not a model that we can pursue in these tough fiscal times. The ONLY way you can effectively pursue technology development in an efficient and affordable manner is if you have the mission first. With all due respect, i don’t think I am the one that needs to do my homework with the flow of events required to successfully develop USEFUL technologies and systems.
wow .. what a load of BS.
There is theoritical and applied. I highly doubt that apple invests in tech for the next mission. The whole idea of a “mission” is a stupid way to run the space program, it is a holdover from the 50’s.
When a 18 wheeler hauling 20 tons of cargo leaves from NY to Cal. is it called a freakin’ mission? So why is a 200 mile trip called a mission… silly.
“ah california control this is new york control, we are monitoring the vehicle … blah blah blah”
NO transportation system runs on the mission model.
Space is a place not a program and we should treat it as such.
You define the goal not a freakin’ mission. Jeff Greason laid this out very well.
phoebus,
I don’t know what else to tell you. I wasn’t giving you an opinion about what needs to come first; it is well understood fact. If you have the opportunity to do so, I respectfully suggest that you talk to some people who do aerospace management for a living and see what they tell you, then it won’t matter what I say. They have to work with and for the NASA people, so they can tell you what works and what doesn’t. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with people who have worked and managed NASA programs, and I take them at their word that they understand these things. If that makes me “incredibly contemptuous and arrogant” to you, I’m sorry, but that’s just the way things are. For whatever it might be worth, I have worked in the aerospace industry.
Your introduction of the words “indiscriminately” and “USEFUL” doesn’t do your argument any justice. The R&D items that still need to be addressed have been identified and recognized for decades.
Sorry to repeat myself, but I would like to stress to you that Apollo is not an example of how any program should be done; with all due respect, anyone who still holds up Apollo as the shining example of how to do a space program has yet to learn the facts about how Apollo was accomplished and what it cost the country. That can never be done again. If you don’t understand why that’s true, then I was justified in saying you still have things to learn. No insult intended.
“The ONLY way you can effectively pursue technology development in an efficient and affordable manner is if you have the mission first“
I’m sorry, but this statement simply isn’t true. History clearly proves it wrong. You can’t talk about “an efficient and affordable manner” in the same context as either “mission first” or Apollo. They are totally contradictory.
I also encourage you to think about the idea that “not the plan I wanted” does not equate to “no plan.”
Steve
Ummm, Aerospace management is my profession and there are few people I know in this profession that share your opinion, is aerospace management your profession? Mission derived requirements are the FIRST step in developing any plan or direction. And this is not an issue of “not the plan I wanted”, simply put there is NO plan under the current administration. They wait to see what private industry says they want to day and after the fact call it a plan.
“Building hardware is not the mission, you build hardware to support a mission!”
Well, that leaves out the shuttle and the ISS then. Oh wait, they were each others’ mission. Clever loophole.
What do you mean, the Shuttle was developed with a clear mission, but the mission dissolved before it was fielded. The station also has a clear mission to support microgravity science, which is why it was designed and built in the manner that it was.
Isn’t it the governments job to assist the private sector? I always get confused when people talk in circles on here!
Bush should bear the blame for shortchanging Constellation. Having said that, the point of electing Obama as president was to undo the mistakes of the Bush administration. He ran for the job and that was part of it. Obama even say so himself and claimed he could fix the mistakes Bush made. Instead, the US economy has not recovered from the downturn in 2008, and Constellation was cancelled in 2011 with no replacement in sight. Obama offers no solution-only tired excuses and that you, the voter, must re-elect him to get the results that you want even though he made lofty claims for his first term that he did not deliver. Obama should be judged on that.
I guess you missed the fact that Orion is moving closer to launch, Dragon has flown to ISS twice, and Cygnus is being integrated on the pad.
That’s a weak argument. If the Russians stopped launching the Soyuz, the US will not be able to send astronauts to the ISS. That fact has not changed. Obama left a gap between the shuttle and the shuttle’s replacement just like Bush did. Don’t give Obama a pass for something you criticized Bush for.
What exactly do you propose?
The gap is a little bit of a red herring IMHO; the Bush administration created the gap and this is not in dispute.
The gap was then not realistically removable; even if Obama convinced Congress to fund the revival of the Shuttle program, there would still be a gap as by all accounts the shuttle was already cancelled whether they were flying or not.
If Bush had somebody executed, would you blame Obama for not un-executing him?
Cernan suggests Obama “failed” the program and we have no plan. But there are many plans, and they are live, and vehicles are _flying_ in _real life_.
There is a sense that a program is only legitimate if it is a megaprogram micromanaged by the Administration – or worse, Congress. But we have one of those (SLS) and it’s on exactly the kind of schedule with exactly the kind of benefits you can reasonably expect from such a beast.
IMHO this is the most exciting human spaceflight scenario we’ve seen in decades; certainly in my entire life. It didn’t spring forth from Obama’s head, but he is a participant and I for one appreciate that.
🙂
Strongly agree Joe
“If Bush had somebody executed, would you blame Obama for not un-executing him?”
Shuttle was flying when Obama took office.
” But there are many plans, and they are live, and vehicles are _flying_ in _real life_.”
Are you talking about the asteroid mission slated by 2025, long after Obama had left office?
Perhaps you don’t believe Shuttle program director Wayne Hale who clearly said in 2008 that Shuttle could not be extended because all the parts suppliers had been fired and could not be requalified. And perhaps you did not read the plans for Constellation in 2004 which Bush clearly stated there would be a gap of years in US human launch capability. Obama has built from scratch a new US human launch capability (Commercial Crew). SLS/Orion was not originally intended to support LEO and still has no mission worth its price.
I am astounded by all the historical revisionism going on here.
Vulture4 claimed “Obama has built from scratch a new US human launch capability (Commercial Crew)”
Really?
While SpaceX’s performance has been impressive, they are still YEARS away from having a qualified human launch capability…
It’s not George Bush’s fault that America’s private space industry can’t compete yet with Russia. Taking vehicle development from NASA was merely the first step.
They can and they will, they just need time and funding to grow. SpaceX is already taking away a ton of Russia’s potential commercial launch service customers. Others will follow especially when human-rated vehicles start getting off the ground.
If NASA could focus less the jobs program that is SLS then maybe they could help these companies get off the ground faster and more effectively
Christian,
I’m afraid your comment makes no sense to me and doesn’t align with the facts. What are you trying to say?
Steve
very Good
Stop it. Constellation was supposed to replace the shuttle. Bush passed it, NASA agreed that the shuttle fleet needed retiring. Obama cut constellation in favor of the private sector. This led to the gap.
http://www.washingtonpost.c…
Constellation was never intended to replace Shuttle, because ISS and all LEO HSF activities were to be cancelled to make Constellation appear “free”. In reality Constellation (and SLS/Orion) were vastly underbudgeted, as John McCain pointed out in 2004.
Your long term memory is flawed. Please read this article from 2007 about Griffins comments about the gap:
http://www.chron.com/news/n…
Thanks, greased stink, that 2007 article is a definitive reference. Let me quote from it:
“Griffin told a Senate subcommittee that a $545 million funding shortfall would delay use of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle until early 2015.
NASA plans to terminate its aging shuttle fleet in 2010. Griffin had long said that the next craft for human spaceflight would be ready by 2014.”
Unfortunatly you are wrong on your civics. The President has absolutly NO POWER to cut constellation. The President sends a budget REQUEST to congress, it carries no force of law at all.
A BI PARTISAN CONGRESS refused to fund the Constellation pork train any longer … get your facts straight.
The President recommended building a new domestic engine for a heavy lift FIRST. Congress said we want our pork and AGAINST the President authorized and appropriated funds for SLS.
AGAIN Congress controls the purse strings. Nixon tried to drag his heels on spending money for something he didn’t support and so congress passed a law that the Presidents have to spend funds for things they don’t want. The President did not want SLS or Orion, they are cash hog pork projects that are killing our space program.
CONGRESS is killing our space program .. NOT President Obama.
“This led to the gap.“
What planet have you been living on?
The Obama policy provides both competition and redundancy for Commercial Crew. The elimination of competition on the EELV program gave the one remaining contractor sole source status for a single customer (US government) that had nowhere else to go. This resulted in an overwhelming incentive to the contractor to increase costs rather than to control costs, with predictable results. When there’s only one supplier the government has no choice but to pay whatever is asked. The elimination of redundancy in the Shuttle program cause repeated years-long stand-downs.
The Obama administration has gradually recovered from the Shuttle shutdown by the Bush Administration with a competitive and redundant human access to LEO. Congressional opposition has vastly slowed Commercial Crew and continued to pour money into the missionless and unsustainable Orion/SLS.
The space program has survived many challenges and tragedies, but the bitter politicization and partisanship illustrated here, including blatant historical revisionism, criticism, and even overt hostility and contempt for leaders and ordinary people based not on objective evaluation but rather on political party, seems more likely than any technical challenge to undermine our future.
You are right to say that Obama simply followed through on Bush’s plan to retire the Shuttle and that was the right decision. However, you go on to give him credit for commercial space which is another case where he is simply following through on plans laid out by the Bush administration (also the right decision). The commercial push got its start with the creation of the COTS program and the Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office back in 2006/2007.
However, under the Obama administration, the Constellation program was cancelled and has been replaced by a vague plan primarily guided by Congress rather than NASA. Also, NASA’s budget has been reduced rather than increased by the $5 billion per year he promised during the campaign.
Bush gets credit for starting COTS – it occurred on his watch.
But not Commercial Crew – It may have been talked about before (as COTS-D. But the Obama administration actively pushed for it and get it funded by Congress. So the credit for that goes to Obama.
ah .. show me a freakin’ republican congress that would give THIS President an additional 5 billion for NASA. what .. do you live in dreamland and have slept through the last 2 and 1/2 years?
188 fillibusters and 205 filibuster threats later show me where the republicans in the house were willing to this President a dime.
Obama asked for 400 million in the stimulus and the opposition lead by Rep. Senator Shelby cut it to 50 million.
Obama asked for an additional billion twice, refused.
Obama asked for 6 billion over 5 years to fully fund commercial crew and close the gap. That was chopped by republicans in the house to a one year funding of 270 million.
Obama in the next budget asked for 850 million for a single year, that was chopped to 406 million.
This last one he asked for 830 million and it was chopped to 525 million.
GWB made the right policy decision to retire STS and Obama made the right decision in sticking with that plan. GWB failed to get proper funding for Orion to begin with. The administration pigeon holed NASA into reusing old hardware instead of finding what works best and is sustainable.
However GWB’s administration also brought us COTS which finally bore fruit when SpaceX made its first official delivery. Obama wisely built on that.
I’m no Obama supporter (and I dislike Romney as well) but I think the President has us on a plan that is as close the the right course as can be made when you consider the political climate. The SLS is a stupid move but I can see that the project was forced on him by Congress. As Neal Tyson has said, “politics is the currency in Washington.” With that in mind I give the President a solid A- on space policy.
It’s the rest of his actions I have a problem with, but that’s a story for another time and another website..
The Constellation program got all the funds they were originally promised in the VSE rollout, it was only after that nightmare design Ares 1 that funds were running out and Griffin started scavaging from other programs.
And another point, when Griffin was selling congressional meetings on the hill about the merits of his choices he said OVER AND OVER it was a pay as you go program. You can not underfund pay as you go by definition.
“You can not underfund pay as you go by definition“
Vladislaw,
True enough; but then neither can you meaningfully predict milestone dates nor a finish date with pay as you go, yet Griffin did, and then the various program managers continued to offer up revised dates and revised costs, so there was never an honest story right from the start.
Griffin also tried to make pay as you go sound like a bargain, when in fact the longer you take, paying as you go, the more it costs you. And I’m sure he was aware of that simple fact.
Constellation was never properly planned or funded. It was a desperate bid to keep NASA in a business that it should never have been in.
Steve
I do not know if I agree with Griffin and dates, the Ares 1 requirements changed how many times? The different shrouds? 4 seg or 5? total payload to LEO? Occillations? I think that everytime a a milestone was set the design was immediately changed and that milestone was moot. I remember seeing an image of the Ares 1 with like 12 different itterations that griffin tried… ALL at cost plus… it was a design gravy train.
Good assessment. No matter how you look at it, the only static aspect of Constellation was it’s being doomed to fail.
Of course that is not exactly true. Pres. Bush had a plan to have Ares-1 flying astronauts to the ISS by this time.
A capsule on an EELV might have been flight tested by now, but there was not enough pork in that option and it would have mean’t more layoffs in congressional porkonaut’s districts. So that was scrapped and the ESAS was born .. there was no chance of a 2012 launch with that pork train to nowhere fraud.
With infinite money, that may have been the case. But Constellation, which Ares I fell under, was never funded anywhere close to the level that would’ve been required to accomplish the timeline you’re suggesting, and there was no chance that it was going to be.
Just for fun, the Ares I-X test rocket, launched exactly once in 2009, cost $450M. More than the entirety of CCDev 1 and 2. That’s just the test vehicle. On the (very) low end, development costs of the Ares I were initially thought to be $28B, later revised up to $40B.
Let’s ignore Ares I and just consider that Orion, the development of which has continued essentially uninterrupted since 2006. Maybe it could’ve been ready by itself? Well, it may make its first unmanned flight in 2014, around the same time that Dragon is slated to be doing pad abort and in-flight abort tests (with a manned flight possibly following in 2015). A manned Orion flight isn’t likely before 2020.
So no, regardless of what Bush may have thought, there was no realistic way for Ares I to have been operational by this point.
Nevermind that Ares I was a terrible idea in the first place: A solid rocket that can’t be turned off, relying on a launch escape system that may not have even been physically capable of pulling a capsule away fast enough in the event of a failure.
You speak the truth Keith
Folks:
If competition and free enterprise had been the drivers of the American space program from the start, we wouldn’t be having this argument. The space program ended up in the governments hands because it was started to satisfy government goals and nothing more! That it is still in government hands is merely tradition… and nothing more!
So, you not only have to get American space industry out of the government’s clutches fiscally, you also have to have sound commercial goals to drive it, not unsustainable government ‘missions’ to nowhere.
tinker
I would alter your last sentence … yes out of their clutches. but .. make the government a freakin’ traditional customer of commercial transportation services. The government .. as an anchor, buying 100 seats a year at a PUBLISHED fixed price per seat is what I would like to see.
These asinine comments towards Gene Cernan are insulting,bias and just plain ignorant.Gene’s pushing for an more robust program with obtainable goals and nearly all the replies are politically related. No one is reading between the lines and shows the public critical thinking process is hampered by their biasness.
This hampers the progress of any program being planned or considered.
If anyone is ever qualified of consultation on NASA’s future, its the astronauts of past and present who should be.
Remember the saying,”those who forget the past are condemned to repeating it”.
If Gene Cernan is “qualified of consultation” how come he keeps putting his foot in his mouth? He’s made public statements that were clearly incorrect several times lately. And his public statements have been clearly politically based as opposed to being related to “NASA’s future.” I certainly respect the Apollo astronauts for what they did during Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, but lately several of them have unfortunately made fools of themselves in the name of politics. Being a high-caliber astronaut doesn’t make one an expert in any other field, including knowing how to run the nation’s space agency.
Isn’t there a high-caliber astronaut running the nation’s space agency right now?
Keith – I recently retired so I don’t have a dog in this race anymore (at least as far as employment goes) but after reading your introduction and the actual article, I am bothered by one thing – you seemed to imply that Griffin ghostwrote Cernan’s statement.
Is there any real evidence of this or were your comments a bit of “sideline sniping” at someone espousing a position you don’t agree with?
Each Nasa shuttle flight cost more than the entire 12 flight SpaceX contract..
NASA blew $20 billion on it’s failed/cancelled Constellation program..while Spacex produced vastly superior hardware for under $300 million
Obama cancelled Constellation..
NASA has blown $500 billion in 40 years since Apollo without a single American getting beyond low Earth orbit… Leaving us begging for rides from Russia
Private enterprise SpaceX can save the US space program from more wasted decades of big govt waste, pork, incompetence