Space Politician Bill Nelson Just Noticed Politics in Space
Spending debate puts NASA’s mission up in air, Hearst
“What is sad to me is that NASA has always been above politics,” says Nelson, who flew aboard Shuttle Columbia for six days as a payload specialist in 1986. “Now it’s gotten to be a partisan issue and that is a sad day for the country.”
Keith’s note: Politics? Senator Nelson laments the appearance of politics in space policy?! Stunning news. But wait:
A. How did Nelson get to ride on the Space Shuttle?
B. Who forced the White House to pick Charlie Bolden?
C. Who forced the Administration’s hand on SLS aka “the big rocket”?
– and so on. What a hypocrite.
I have tried many times to call Senator Nelson’s office and gotten only voicemail. Guess you need a check nowadays.
A long time ago Nelson’s tried calling me – some staffer who yelled (literally) into the phone. So I hung up on him. They never called after that.
Keith you may never have written truer words, and the truly sad/scary part is that Sen Nelson would actually be ‘shocked’ to think they are true. He probably means R and D politics when it is the ‘haves (Florida, Texas, Maryland)’ and ‘have nots and the rest of us’ politics.
He was one of the ones who helped force Nasa into building the archaic SLS monster rocket at huge expense to the nation. Without his help they would not have been able to call it a nonpartison effort. He was the one that convinced Obama to build SLS where Obama wanted to commercialize space to bring down costs and hold off on building anything until some research had taken place to come up better ways to get there.
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SLS is Nelson’s second vanity project after STS-61C, so NASA HSF continues to be his little play-thing.
An alternative name for the SLS is the world’s most expensive rocket.
I thought Musk said it best!
And if it is built and used (that’s a big if, likely an if with a large magnitude imaginary component), it will likely have the lowest mission frequency of any manned vehicle…….in history.
Bill Nelson continues to portray himself as NASA’s best friend in the government, but it seems to me that he’s no different from all the others — he supports what he likes at NASA, but doesn’t hesitate to undermine and dismiss anything else, regardless of consequences.
But I consider Nelson to be harmless compared to Lamar Smith. How did we end up with a chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology who is clearly intent on hamstringing NASA preparatory to reducing it to complete insignificance (or perhaps killing it off altogether). For example, his “go-as-you-can-afford” proposal for NASA illustrates clearly that either has no understanding of how large technology programs must planned and executed, or he does understand it and is deliberately trying to incapacitate NASA’s ability to function. You can’t treat science, engineering, R&D, program management, etc. with the same logic that you’d use to acquire a stamp collection.
Powell’s article implies that JSC sees the commercial firms as a threat, and then he just leaves the statement lying there, with no explanation or attempt at justification. I see this as potentially explosive and should be either opened up and fully explained or just left unsaid. If JSC is actually not in harmony with NASA top management and government policy, and this casually becomes public knowledge, how long will it be before the other NASA centers air their own dissatisfactions and it all starts falling apart from the inside, as well as being incapacitated (by the government) from the outside?
Leaders in Houston remain optimistic that NASA, Congress and the White House will reach an agreement on the next destination for manned space exploration — an asteroid or the moon. This was not attributed to anyone, so I guess it must be Powell’s own opinion. I wish I could be as confident that things will be worked out; how long have the multiple splits between groups been going on already? And the only things in NASA’s HSF world that are happening are SLS and Orion, for which there is no money now or on the horizon to actually use for anything.
I read John Culberson’s three proposals for NASA’s future and was disappointed. None of them is going to happen and that should be completely obvious to Culberson, suggesting that he will be no improvement over Smith.
Finally, I give points to Gerstenmaier for cheer leading — it takes guts — but I suspect he’s no more optimistic about NASA’s HSF future than anybody else as long as there is “politics in space.”
Nelson is an advocate of manned space flight but quoting Senator Lloyd Bentsen, Jack was a friend of ours and “you are no Jack Kennedy”. He just looks out for his own (KSC) not for great changes that are needed. We are stuck with SLS because of him.
Nelson (KSC), Mikulski (GSFC), Shelby (MSFC), Hutchison ( JSC, retired) – all supported NASA for what it was worth in their states.
Not until space advocacy groups unite and fight for real change for how NASA is managed by congresses and presidencies, there will be no change.
The NASA budget would be acceptable if set at $18B in 2013 and then adjusted for inflation each year. NASA administrators and directors would be ecstatic, if and only if, such a fixed budget came with a fixed agenda, set goals with realistic timelines. With those two changes and additionally ditching SLS right now in favor of commercial heavy launch vehicles, NASA could plan for a manned Mars mission, capture an Asteroid to study robotically in Earth orbit, plan for a Europa mission, and more. If an international effort, a Mars mission could be launched by 2030.
Musk is testing Raptor next year 🙂 Sounds like he will have a recoverable BFR flying, before NASA has SLS.
The Race is on. and Spacex BFR may not cost me a dime 🙂
Add
Let me correct and clarify some. Where I typed NASA I should have typed PUBLIC SPACE.
Also Rocky was incorrect in thinking that I was talking about falcon Heavy in this post. The Raptor engines /4x the thrust of the current merlin D, Musk is testing has early as next year are the engines that are most likely for the MCT the Mars Colonial Transporter!!!!
Musk has started building the vehicle that will take us to Mars NOW!!!!!!
And I predict that He will have it flying with humans before public Space/congress and NASA ever fly their first SLS or any other BFR mission
The race is already over! NASA lost. SLS and Orion are not reusable designs. 4 times as costly as Falcon Heavy.
Nelson, Hutchison and Shelby took the easy way out to save 1000s of high salary jobs in their states. They re-created Constellation, i.e. SLS/Orion over the objections from Obama. Yes, there was no heavy lifter in 2010, nothing available, so Do-It-Yourself was not unreasonable. Falcon 9 did not fly until June 2010. Falcon Heavy’s maiden is not until early next year but a successful maiden flight will make it more clear that SLS should be abandoned, now.
Raptor’s design using methane is linked to the concept and plans to produce methane and oxygen from the Martian atmosphere for rocket fuel.
With your SpaceX cheerleading, you should also keep in mind that they are not perfect. So far they’ve had excellent results, but there’s still a long way to go. Objectivity is useful.
You should also remind yourself that SLS was not NASA’s choice but was forced upon them. Likewise, Bolden wasn’t NASA’s choice. NASA has done good work, despite the problems they have now, problems that have been caused by Congress, a disinterested public, and some poor leadership at NASA.
It should also be kept in mind that SpaceX and so many others in the space industry are building on a legacy built by NASA.
It’s quite popular to malign NASA, but such commentary does absolutely nothing to improve anything. Despite the maligning, NASA still exists, and despite what you and others may think, the “game” is not over. SpaceX has not “won” space.
I am always perplexed by the lack of objectivity of some readers at sites such as science blogs, engineering blogs, and NASA Watch.
I wonder if we are reading the same blog.
Is there a question or point in there?
If you are so troubled by NASA Watch, then why do you read it?
Personally I think the conversation is more informative when there is a diversity of opinion. I would welcome people who are troubled by what I say to feel free to comment on it.
He was critizing some of the readers/posters on NASAWatch (not NASA Watch itself).
If I criticize NASA I hope it is always with a constructive alternative. I agree that NASA has a vast legacy. NASA and SpaceX should be partners, not competitors, so it isn’t a question of which will “win”. If they can work together effectively both will win. If the partnership is undermined by conflicting goals or mistrust both will lose.
I absolutely agree that SpaceX and other new ventures share a common legacy, i.e. NASA and they remain, in part, dependent on NASA funding. Without funding their development would be slowed to stay afloat, some fail. Legacy ranges from simply inspiring guys like Musk when younger to legacy HW and SW. I have mentioned this before. But I must say that NASA has lost, figuratively, in that, the delays of CxP/SLS – poor mgmt, bad design, re-designing, cost over-runs, has given SpaceX time to prove their Falcon series. The Heavy and XX versions can replace SLS, save NASA (taxpayer) dollars and save time otherwise wasted on SLS. I had wanted to phrase it as lost and won. They will have also won in the sense if they accept these new circumstances and change course.
NASA missions have changed our view and understanding of the Universe. It is dear to me despite its inefficiency, poor mgmt. Its not all their fault. As I and others are stating here, politicians have screwed NASA and made space flight twice as costly besides what NASA does to run up costs.
I agree. NASA has consistently had the cards stacked against them, for a long time, by self-centered politicians and an indifferent public, yet they have still managed to accomplish many amazing things. In fact, it’s really just HSF that’s a mess, and that’s the area where the politicians have done most of their damage. In other areas it’s mostly money issues, but with HSF they keep actively interfering.
As for the SpaceX cheerleading, are we always objective? No, but it’s hard not to want to jump on the bandwagon when they are doing, with help, the things that so many of us want to see done, and doing them in ways that seem to make more sense than the traditional aerospace ways. Metaphorically, they’ve become “the home team” for many of us who are still dreamers. Life is somehow better when you have a home team; ask any sports fan.
If you read my original post, in no way does it malign NASA, as you imply. You mixed up rockies remarks with mine. You suggest that I want NASA to go away! That is incorrect! I want NASA with regards to human space flight to change to a NACA role, where they use our tax dollars to help commercial Space companies develope sustainable highways to the inner solar system so that Humans can one day soon live and work in space.
“We are stuck with SLS because of him (Nelson)”
—
You missed the point of being ‘above politics’.
In the 2010 “compromise” to cancel Constellation, the requirement of 70 and 130 mT retained the 4 engine and capsule development programs, no mission hardware, and the HLV architecture. IOW, nothing really changed.
Your plot clearly show the costs of Apollo HLV architecture vs the budget today. One needs 100B or so to repeat Apollo. HLV: at least 140B. Is there a different, cheaper way?
A lunar program has nothing to do with NASA’s Space Grand Challenges. The one year trip to Mars is in microgravity and twice the GCR versus the 1/6th g lunar surface–wrong environment, different solutions.
“By 2025, we expect new spacecraft will be designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the *first ever* crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space” in a flexible path forward.
Contrast this with “We will redo the Apollo programs cancelled due to its costs with similar hardware flown that last 4 decades that will not demonstrate a capability to travel to Mars beyond 20 days nor reduce costs to IMLEO.” To infinity and beyond…or is infinity the time scale?
Space used to be “above politics.” One would think that engineers could advance technology to do something new or reduce costs to do something else, then add the political constraints of job distribution.
If one returns to the pre ESAS depot centric architecture thrown out by fiscal conservatives it would eliminate the need for a launch vehicle sized above ~20 mT. IOW, even FH may be too big and not required.
What did Boeing state in regards to depots?
http://nextbigfuture.com/20…
“Because most of the mass necessary to get to the
moon is propellant (though Boeing would never say so), a space gas station might even eliminate the need for a heavy-lift launcher altogether, increasing the launch rate of smaller, cheaper vehicles, which in turn could cut costs for getting to the moon and, eventually, Mars.”
To head to Mars, NASA needs to demonstrate both hardware and crew can survive the environment for the year long trip. Where is the L2 Gateway habitat to provide this demonstration? The LEO depot to reduce LV size? EP to reduce the mass of the Mars trip?
Nope. Democrats must follow a ‘go-as-you-can-afford’ exploration strategy -(what in the world does this mean?), a new leadership structure is required, we must bar funding for a stepping stone mission and select the ‘right’ mission: Bipartisan Legislation Sets NASA’s Focus on the Moon http://stockman.house.gov/m… “The moon is where we will learn how to live on Mars. A real destination will inspire our youth to make the sciences a career as did the Apollo program”
But how will you get there safely and extend the crew time to years not weeks, and how do you redo Apollo on todays budget to inspire youth? Nothing stated.
Is this a fair summary of today’s program? Since we cannot afford the moon, we will retain HLV/Orion, develop an ISS centric architecture, retain focus on the moon, and cut NASA’s budget including science so we can ‘explore sooner’.
Actually, the internal NASA studies have shown some true leadership with a robust path forward that actually accomplishes something new and provides the long term benefits and solutions required by *law* in its original charter. Perhaps the leadership required is simply to tell NASA to follow the law its charter, not the 2010 act?
To date, how many politicians have mentioned a depot to reduce LV size and provide lower costs to LEO and BEO and a L2 gateway stepping stone to an asteroid, Mars and the moon?
In doing so, is this not going ‘beyond politics?
One can claim several mission concepts as being stepping stones to Mars but that does not mean they are time and cost effective. Landing astronauts on the Moon is not a good stepping stone and not time or cost effective. Many technologies needed for a Mars mission can be proven on Earth or LEO. The Asteroid Initiative is a great idea except that the manned mission is an ineffective means of studying asteroids. Allow robotics to do the grunt work. If you want to send astronauts to a NEA orbiting Earth, be honest about it. A manned mission to an asteroid, after 40+ years in low-Earth orbit would be epic but expensive and provide little to press towards Mars. NASA knows that an Apollo 8 type mission rehashes the past too much and we have all kinds of detailed observations coming from LRO, LADEE, … If you want an inexpensive mission to hand astronauts something to do beyond LEO, placing a NEA in Earth orbit is not a bad idea but do it so that it does not effect SMD missions and do it without SLS, use commercial.
“Not until space advocacy groups unite and fight for real change “
We keep coming back to this. I agree with you, as I suspect most here do, but how do you bring it about? We’re far more fractured than the politicians, and probably just as stubborn. These days it seems we don’t see consensus even within a single advocacy group, let alone amongst the many groups. We can’t even agree on Moon or Mars.
Also, there will be a lot of “space fans” who are not associated with any of the advocacy groups, but we’d want to get them actively “on the team” as well; they’re a resource not to be wasted.
We’re fighting against seasoned pros with large organizations behind them, so it’s not unreasonable to think that we’d need and “organization” as well, and funding to operate it. If there was a simple answer, we’d be doing it by now. So, how do we make it happen?
We need to continue drumming this need to organize. First I would say that the organizations need to arrive at a first agreement. They will choose a single manned flight objective or a simple majority vote. Its going to be a while before advanced (SEP/Ion) propulsion opens up the solar system for more casual travel. The choices now are essentially Moon or Mars or Near-Earth Asteroids. I suspect it is likely that Mars will be the chosen destination of these groups and probably by a 2 to 1 vote.
Once you have a consortium of space advocate groups then you can reach out to “independents” – the silent majority if you will. They are important, absolutely.
The reason why space advocacy groups need to do this is because enough is enough. Handling of our beloved agency NASA has been mistreated by politicians for 40 years (Yes, by politics – Nelson!). Broader speaking, looking at the mess of our government, we have seen the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement arise (& flounder). If we approach this sensibly and organize, space advocates can do much better. Chaos in government and the 40 year record of managing NASA, justifies citizens taking charge, taking responsibility for setting the agenda and how NASA is managed. Politicians do have the upper hand, have the power but they have faltered miserably and the American people want to see their tax money used wisely, optimally and to see returns.
To me this is the same delusion that affects those who go on about “Leadership” and “Vision”. The idea that if we change one thing, if we do one thing, if we find the right gimmick, everything will somehow be fixed.
It’s just not true. NASA’s budget has been fairly static for a long time, and falling in real terms. That won’t change, no matter who the Administrator is, no matter who the President is, no matter which party dominates Congress. The major manned program will get about $2.5 to 3 billion per year, whether it’s the shuttle, Constellation, SLS, or the next shiny thing. And if NASA and its contractors can’t build a manned launcher for $2.5-3b/yr then they have no one to blame but themselves. The problem is not funding, the problem is not the President, the problem is only partly Congress and the Administrator. But the core of the problem is the culture at NASA and its primary contractors.
It is both that NASA culture and contractors and Washington politics. I agree that the funding level is appropriate and internal allocations are OK but that inefficiency in the NASA culture and its use of contractors is amplified by the politics that control NASA funding and prime objectives. Its mostly the manned activity (HEOMD) that politicians mess with and cause havoc. It impacts SMD. I do not think we are chasing a gimmick. The public doesn’t have much potential to fix the internal problems of NASA but we can take control of the high level goals and force politicians to keep their hands off NASA objectives. “Senate Launch System”. “We will return to the Moon” (Bush I & II). We will visit an Asteroid by 2025 (Obama). This has to stop. These manned program objectives should be set by NAS just like their Decadal surveys guide the mission lineup of SMD. And changing the NASA budget by $500M up or down year after year is not steady state and causes systemic problems, shuffling funds, pausing projects which leads to additional costs to restart and finish.
Except all major programs run overbudget and overschedule.
Even MSL, originally budgeted at $650m (medium class mission) to launch in 2009, ended up costing $2.5b and launching in 2011 with several instruments pulled and others reduced. Over three times the budget, years late, and cut in the quality and quantity of science it can deliver.
And JWST is so bad, people measure its budget in multiples of Nimitz aircraft carriers.
It is not just HSF that fails.
No. As long as NASA so consistently fails to deliver on what it promises, it will always be messed around with. You say that political messing causes the failure. Maybe it makes things worse, but IMO the majority of the failure is internally driven. And if that’s the case, “keeping their hands off NASA” won’t stop that internal failure, it will just let it run wild. Every analysis of NASA programs talks about poor management and lack of proper planning. Every one. And the result is always… more poor management and lack of proper planning.
The mythology that many space advocates have about the causes of NASA’s failure, I suspect, also infest the agency itself. And it allows a failure of program management to hide behind excuses of “lack of funding” and “political interference”.
But that was my point, NASA’s budget is not going to be increased, regardless of who is in power. If NASA can’t manage its budget, it can’t manage any budget. Likewise, political bickering is hardly going to stop. If NASA hasn’t learned how to cope after 40+ years, the problem is no longer the bickering, the problem is NASA’s failure to learn.
By continually using excuses of budget and politics, the real problems at NASA are actually allowed to fester. And when the space advocate community buys into those excuses, we help cover up those real problems.
[Example, most of us probably consider Nelson to be precisely the kind of corrupt interfering know-nothing politician that you want kept away from NASA. I know I do. Yet Nelson is the best possible result for NASA. He is as good as it gets. He likes HSF, he flew in the shuttle, he is a “believer”. You don’t get politicians who are more pro-NASA. And yet… SLS. Neil Armstrong – Neil first-man-on-the-freakin’-moon Armstrong – spoke out against commercial crew before he died. With friends like that, how exactly is the politics of NASA going to improve?]
Disagree. The Washington politics, how NASA is handled by them must change. Yes, SMD contributes cost overruns and I said that before, those two missions. NASA should be given a fixed budget, say $18B in 2014 and locked to the rate of inflation. And the setting and declaring of objectives should reside with NAS, not a president, senators or congressmen. Given those changes, NASA will have just itself to blame. NASA wants to get the most for their money, for their effort and will make internal changes. Despite the $1B overrun of MSL (I worked on that project and $1.6B was feasible but $2.6B was the final cost), JPL has made good strides to improve project frameworks and management. Improved practices will reach every corner of NASA eventually and especially if they do not have the chaos created by politicians. Space enthusiasts don’t have the muster to thow out a Senator such as Nelson or Mikulski but I am not willing to accept that the US citizenry is at the mercy of these tenured legislatures (lifers).
Paul and Rocky,
I’m working on a (I hope) comprehensive response to Rocky’s original answer (to me asking “how?”), but in the mean time, having read your comments, two things occur to me:
1) I think you’re both working from the perspective of symptoms, as opposed to causes and requirements, which inevitably ends in suggesting things that can’t be made to happen; and
2) I think we need to approach things more from the attitude of carrot AND stick. It’s fine to say, if we do such and such, this situation will get better, but life doesn’t really work that way (it assumes more common sense and altruism than people will actually apply). Unless there are consequences for “failure” — consequences that can be clearly seen up front, the “bad guys” lose nothing by sticking with the status quo. I fear that dealing with political types must approached much like dealing with misbehaving children; different toys, but the same kind of boys.
The above is just my humble opinion, and stated rather crudely, I admit, but I’m short on time right now. I hope you’ll keep this topic alive.
Steve
Keith
How did Nelson force the White House to pick Bolden?? Clueless to that?
Gee, where do I start since this is widely known all over Washington …
I could be wrong, but I thought at the time that Obama wanted Garver for the job and was rebuffed by the NASA establishment.
There were not many good choices to pick from and also politics dismissed several candidates. Also recount that the NASA Admin job pays way below grade. CEO types
from industry would have to file for food stamps to take the job. Bolden
and others in high level NASA management have military pensions that
provide overall good income. And running NASA or a NASA Center is not for
sissies, there are a lot of A-holes in NASA management, difficult to
impossible to fire, and the NASA Admin must live with the nightmare that
politics – Nelson, Shelby and others, play with the agency. The Admin oversees 7 major centers and several other facilities, 20,000+ employees.
SLS putting 70 tonne to LEO in one go. Can we do something useful with this payload mass like launching a space coach with 30+ passengers?
I think the plan is that the development money will be cut and the money will be used for Mars. 3 billion a year now. How much will be needed to build a SLS? There should be plenty of money left.
I suppose Raptor will use LNG? It is only 600,000 lb. thrust. I was thinking F-1 size. They will test it at Stennis next year.
The article is a bunch of old quotes lumped together. Nelson was talking about the partisanship voting on his NASA Authorization bill. He was saying that NASA Authorization bill usually get bi-partisan and almost unanimous votes in the Senate.
What politics of mine are showing, “Tired of dogma”?
I always find it somewhat odd to respond to comments from people who are afraid to use their own name as they question my motives. FWIW I am a Democrat. If I lived in FL I would almost certainly vote for Nelson for a variety of non-space related reasons. That said, I still think that he is a hypocrite when it comes to space politics given that he used his political position to get a space shuttle ride — and I am not afraid to say so — with full attribution. Any other questions, my anonymous friend? Have a nice day. I need to go vote.