Closing Marshall?
NASA Amendement Would Weigh Marshall Closure, Space News
“U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Science space subcommittee, is expected to introduce an amendment to the NASA authorization bill July 18 calling for a commission to consider closing NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.”
Marc’s note: If true, this would be seem to be a political shot across the Republicans bow as part of the budget battle with Alabama’s Representative Mo Brooks, and fellow committee member in mind. It’s unlikely to get traction to happen.
I don’t feel NASA costs are due as much to the number of centers as to the activities they conduct. At present most of Marshall seems focused on the SLS. This forces Alabama legislators to support SLS, which is counterproductive for NASA as a whole.
Huntsville, Alabama, needs to be represented more effectively. Mo Brooks is a demagogue who is too highly partisan.
The rest of America needs to be represented more effectively! America’s space program isn’t just for Alabama, Florida, Texas and California. Sure there a few others but otherwise these states representatives dominate the Science and Space committees. I always wondered what would happen if these committees were filled with representatives from states that didn’t have a space center or corporate facilites that benefit the most from their legislation.
I agree with your basic logic Michael, but I think perhaps the most effective and efficient setup would be either an equal mix of space and non-space states, or proportional representation by (national) population. Either one would theoretically better reflect the wishes of the people, on average, and perhaps move more of the arguing, bargaining and repetition to the time period before the formal (sub)committee meetings.
Another thing I would consider is making the meeting process more efficient and interactive (both in the meeting and with the public) by replacing the traditional one-at-a-time verbal polling and summary by the clerk with an electronic wall board fed by “vote” switches at the members’ seats, which would show each rep’s vote and the running total. From the point of switch re-activation for each issue a timer would display time remaining to make a vote. Tradition is important in many aspects of government, but this is an area where I think that modern equipment would be more expeditious.
If it was by population those same states would still dominate the committees, including New York (cough…shuttle enterprise…cough). Of course that is only Congress, the Senate is another story completely considering how its structured. I agree 100% with everything else you said, although I consider campaign finance reform to be more important at this time. What can I say, I want to see Senators and Congressmen in NASCAR style suits covered in logos of those who financed their elections.
I suspect that campaign financing reform is for ever going to stay on the wish-only list, even though it has both legal precedent and need pushing it. These old folks and their protégés are not going to vote any meaningful cutbacks for themselves. It would probably make a significant difference it they did, but it’s a clear case of The Mice Voted to Bell the Cat.
I like your idea with the sponsor suits, but there would be too many undisclosed contributors not included (DOD, oil companies. mining companies, anybody exporting natural resources, etc.).
Did you know for the most part each state has a NASA space grant consortium, a few years back I found that Oregon had set aside land for a space port in eastern Oregon, that land was eventually leased to a cattle feed lot, at the time of it’s construction the largest in the world. It’s abundantly apparent that many states are left out of the loop. PA has an excellent launch vector over lake Erie, there are very few states that are just too densely populated to be launching experimental space craft.
Presumably land set-asides and other currently unused, or other-use, assets are provisions for future opportunities, when things become commercial services rather than R&D and testing.
Lessons have been learned from watching where and how airports and their nearby support businesses have come into being and grown. A few ahead-of-time provisions can save enormous amounts of time and money, instead of having to buy much appreciated land (perhaps with housing and small businesses already on it) when the spaceport demand kicks in. They can eliminate rezoning, noise pollution problems, moving current land users, etc., and build the roads, bridges and other facilities to the right capacity the first time.
Also, the time pressures, and therefore the costs, can be reduced by spreading the spaceport facilities development work out over time.
What I’m not sure about are the legal issues and the land use requirements/expectations for land bought but its development deferred until a later year (e.g., how are property taxes calculated?). But the people who can affect any needed legislation changes are already in the loop.
Steve… If you are still around in the year 2113, all chemical launch systems will have been replace with new technology. One will be able to fly from their back yard to space. Oops… It might be in the year 2213. Sorry about that. 🙂 — Hogg
PS: We all will be in the stars by that time…
Boss, I salute your optimism, but I think there will be a few developmental phases in between then and now that will require large numbers of vehicles to be “launched” from the equivalent of today’s airports, even if we consider only the traffic control problem and learning to deal with it. And to be honest, it will require a major improvement in typical driver etiquette before an ideal Jetsons-like system would work.
PS: By 2113 I’ll have long become one with the worms, but I hope your predicted “new technology” will be alive and growing strong.
Michael… How about Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakotas? Should not cheat these folks out of NASA Space and Aeronautical projects… Right? Any way… The US Army could take back Redstone and kick the space cadets out. — Hogg
Sorry for the late reply.
What about those states? I think you are reading into the message of my post incorrectly.
Honestly I could care less where everything is built and managed from as long as the American Space Program is focused on the progress of our country into space; not as a jobs program to feed pork to specific districts in states that have the most seats in the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (19 out of 40). That means even though those four states only represent 28% of the population of the U.S., they represent 47.5% of the committee. Having Lamar Smith as the Chairman (R-Tx) gives them an even more distinct advantage. Maybe Steve is right and filling committees in congress based on population isn’t that bad of an idea. I think the best bet is to place representatives that are impartial to the American Space Program be seated on this committee (by extension the sub-committe on space also)
For a long time, NASA’s needed it’s own equivalent of the Defense Department’s Base Realignment and Closure Commission: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…. As wasteful as Marshall’s projects are these days, it is a jobs program at Congressional bidding, not by its own design. An independent commission needs to evaluate all of NASA’s Apollo-era aerospace-industrial footprint and determine which centers need to close. Otherwise, NASA can barely afford to stand-still as its facilities decay, let alone to advance in to deep space.
It will be fun to watch this play out “again”… over the next few years. If I had to predict the outcome… well, I would say MSFC’s budget doubles and one or two of the aero centers pay the price for it.