Ted Cruz Supports NASA's "Core Mission"
Sen. Cruz: Focus NASA on Its Core Mission: Exploring Space, and More of It
“Texas has a major stake in space exploration. Our space program marks the frontier of future technologies for defense, communications, transportation and more, and our mindset should be focused on NASA’s primary mission: exploring space and developing the wealth of new technologies that stem from its exploration. And commercial space exploration presents important new opportunities for us all. We must refocus our investment on the hard sciences, on getting men and women into space, on exploring low-Earth orbit and beyond, and not on political distractions that are extraneous to NASA’s mandate. I am excited to raise these issues in our subcommittee and look forward to producing legislation that confirms our shared commitment to this vital mission.”
– NASA Defunder Now Sets NASA’s Agenda in The Senate, earlier post
– Political Climate Change Ahead for NASA and NOAA, earlier post
“political distractions that are extraneous to NASA’s mandate”
Wow, yeah, if we could just get rid of those political distractions….
Yeah, pretty ironic coming from possibly the most partisan and destructive loon in the Federal government.
Where “political distractions” = things a politician disagrees with.
on the hard sciences
As long as it faces away from the Earth…
“I am excited to raise these issues in our subcommittee “
I really hope Keith revisits this post after the first committee meeting and share what “issues” he raises in the subcommittee.
If Cruz really is for commercial Space and against SLS doesn’t he have to go along them to hold chair till 2016 with new president, when Falcon heavy is flying?
It is heartening to know that is 2016 he will be out of a job as chair. It is extraordinarily difficult for his party to hold the Senate that year.
Why will it be “extraordinarily difficult” for the “R’s” to hold the Senate in ’16? They Just took control of it a week ago. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to give it ohhh I don’t know say a Month or three before making said commentary?
I was not judging. I was purely speaking about the technical issues of election cycles. The seats that were fought over this cycle were, due to location, destined to swing Repub.
The 2016 cycle is the total reverse. It is almost impossible for the Repubs to hold the Senate because of where the seats are going to be fought over.
To quote a Republican operative:
“Democrats in 2014 were up against a particularly tough climate because they had to defend 13 Senate seats in red or purple states. In 2016 Republicans will be defending 24 Senate seats and at least 18 of them are likely to be competitive based on geography and demographics. Democrats will be defending precisely one seat that could possibly be competitive. One.
Read more here: http://blog.chron.com/gopli…
valid points, but you might have missed that the R’s hold 31 State houses & or Gov. Mansions as of last Nov. Nov. ’16 is an eternity away in politico circles. Lots can and very well might happen. My primary concerns are: 1. The Country is headed in the right direction economically & safe from terrorist engagement. 2. Whomever is chosen as the next resident of the WH, maybe finds five min. a week to actually give a rip about manned space flight. Ditto for Congress. 3. Said concern for manned space flight is forged around a strong mix of commercial & NASA. This will hopefully include a blueprint for CIS-Lunar development which will dovetail into supporting options for manned activity across the Asteroid belt leading to a Mars colony. The Mars colony will build upon proven architecture from the initial Lunar colony set up to provide feedstock for fuel depots to support/enable long(er) duration flights to the belt…
I am very concerned about the GOP hold on some state’s houses and govs. Many have engaged in, at minimum, gerrymandering to make it virtually impossible for a Dem to win a House of Reps seat, and at worst, create a disgusting and blatant process of deliberate voter suppression.
This has seriously impacted the ability of Democrats to run successful Congressional campaigns.
However, US Senators are elected statewide. Gerrymandering does not apply. Voter suppression is not nearly as effective in Presidential election years. As a result, the Senate is almost certain to return to Dem control. The House of Reps will take a few cycles. Mostly as the the senior population transitions from the Republican-tending Silent Generation, born 1920’s to early 1940’s to the MASSIVE Dem-leaning Baby Boomers (late 1940’s to mid 1960’s).
I don’t understand the hate. Cruz is one of the most sensible politicians in DC. What’s wrong with NASA doing what it was founded for… space exploration and aeronautics?
What exactly has he done?
Senator Cruz is a conservative. Pro-life, pro-gun rights, pro-balanced budget, anti-Obamacare, anti-spying on US citizens. A progressive’s nightmare.
That’s an interesting and biased interpretation. As an actual Progressive, I find that Sen. Cruz uses baseless fear-mongering to manipulate people on issues like immigration, gun rights, women’s rights, the vital role of evidence based science in making policy, etc. I respect his intellect and education while opposing his pernicious policies that erode our civil liberties and pervert justice for American citizens. If Sen. Cruz shows leadership in helping NASA advance in robotic and human exploration he will have my full support. If he tries to use his position to sabotage research into the study of global climate change, I shall vigorously oppose him. As to why NASA is involved with monitoring our climate, you do realize that earth is a planet. See http://climate.nasa.gov/nas… for an explanation.
Why is it the Left is so obsessed with trying to tar & feather Sen. Cruz? Oh wait, could it be because he is unfailing in his efforts to call out the nonsense that is this administration? Is it because he like so many of “us” who do not subscribe to the Global Warming (oops not called that anymore) Man Made Climate Change Duckfart excuse for “science/justification” of said nonsense? Uhhh, Yeah. Name me One, just One, company (Halliburton) person (Bush/Cheney) or Country (The EVIL Oil soaked USA) that has EVER: Started, Created or by act of existence Caused a Hurricane, Blizzard, Tornado or ANY weather related event? (crickets) I may be getting up in age now (51) but I have been asking this simple question going back to Bubba’s days in the WH when the drumbeat of Global end of days was pounded out in a daily blather by his pet Tree.
Why is it that Mars has “evidence” of Global Warming uhhh errrr ooops; Man Made Climate change? So far as anyone knows in the entirety of humanity we have never set foot on the Red planet. Guess it was all those gas powered rovers NASA has been sending that caused it. Damn you BP!!! (ahem)
I guess for me so far as NASA (Manned Space Flight) is concerned, the WH lost my support for their efforts to change the direction of plans and the conversation was cemented in this simple little statement: “There’s no need to go back to the Moon; been there, Done that.” (ahem) Even more so, since that quote of the century is the fact they IGNORE all the evidence of Why we Should be going back too the Moon. Vast water/ice fields found/verified by the Indian space program. Water/ice found across vast stretches of the Lunar landscape within the regolith by NASA probes in the last few years. Never mind the fact not a single flight controller within JSC has directed a manned flight beyond LEO in 40+ years. Never mind that we DON’T have the infrastructure in place to support manned flights to Mars. Never mind that the Moon is only 40 hrs. away via translunar coast. Never mind the technology needed for manned Mars missions would Come from Moon/CISLunar development.
I close with this; when “candidate” O’Bama was early in his run for the WH he stated if elected he would put manned space flight on a 5 yr. hiatus. Using that money to invest in teachers/education. Now don’t get me wrong, all for improved education, improve the pool of teachers. But unless I’m mistaken, isn’t that what the Dept. of Education is for??? He has never supported or seen a justification for manned space flight.
Sadly, No President since Kennedy has set an agenda with a firm time table. A time table that was Less than a decade in duration. No, it is always: “We will go to Moon/Mars in the next 25-35 years time frame. Uggghhhh!!!
Global warming – ban coal fired power stations.
Man Made Climate Change = USA cooling – more coal powered power station to warm the place up.
It is important we get this right.
Senator Cruz is being tarred and feathered from across the political spectrum. He is a bomb-thrower that has done massive damage to his own party – where he is generally despised.
The world is not what you or I might “subscribe to”, or wish it to be. It is what it is. We had better learn exactly what the facts are if we are going to make good decisions. Right now we need more facts, not fewer. However the available facts on climate change appear fairly persuasive to me if you examine them in an unbiased fashion. If you disagree, I would be most interested in the evidence that you feel supports your point of view.
Obama didn’t say he would put “manned spaceflight” on a 5 year hiatus. He said he would delay Constellation five years. This probably would have allowed more support for Commercial Crew, which might actually have gotten us back to human launch by now. We were already into a 5 year hiatus in human launch when he took office.
http://www.thespacereview.c…
Well said
This just in. NOAA and NASA separately conclude that 2014 was the hottest year since records began in 1880.
“The temperature record is yet another brick in the massive wall of evidence that the climate is warming due to human activity. Of the twenty warmest years in recorded history, nineteen happened in the past two decades. Our entire idea of ‘normal’ is changing. The students in my classes live in a climate that is warmer than the one in which I was raised, just as my world as a child was warmer than the one in which my parents were raised. Talk about a generation gap!” – Simon Donner, associate professor of climatology, University of British Columbia. From “Scientists react to warmest year: 2014 underscores ‘undeniable fact’ of human-caused climate change,” at http://www.washingtonpost.c…
Reagan, Nixon, and Bush officials push Congress to act on Global Warming:
http://www.nationaljournal….
John McCain:
“Some urge we do nothing because we can’t be certain how bad the (climate) problem might become or they presume the worst effects are most likely to occur in our grandchildren’s lifetime. I’m a proud conservative, and I reject that kind of live-for-today, ‘me generation,’ attitude. It is unworthy of us and incompatible with our reputation as visionaries and problem solvers. Americans have never feared change. We make change work for us.“
Yep. Sensible.
I was going to begin a spirited denunciation of the horrendous wave of destruction Cruz has engineered, earning the revulsion of even his own party, but it simply is too disheartening. Others will have to carry the baton.
He even pissed off radical right fundamentalist Pat Robertson!
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I do not hate Mr. Cruz. However I am concerned by his hostility to Mr. Obama, by his desire to eliminate NASA climate science, by his rejection of the multitude of practical technology and important science NASA pursues in collaboration with partners in industry and academia, and by his rejection of science itself when it does not support his position. Here is a direct quote:
“One of the problems with the Obama administration is that it has degraded NASA. It has degraded for space exploration, degraded manned exploration because the Obama administration has undervalued that and shifted to funding other priorities,” he said in a statement. “It shifted the funding to global warming pursuits rather than carry out NASA’s core mission.”
I agree with that quote. Obama administration has tried to defund NASA despite Congress increasing funding. Also, leave climate science to NOAA.
The Obama administration has consistently proposed increases for the parts of the NASA program that have some potential for producing useful benefits.
“All told, Obama is requesting roughly $18.7 billion for NASA for 2010, a 5 percent increase that includes a roughly $150 million budget hike for the Exploration Mission Directorate – the part of NASA in charge of building the Ares I rocket and Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle that comprise the early elements of the moon-bound Constellation program”
http://www.space.com/6659-o…
Are you totally clueless about the budget sequestration? ALL agencies were supposed to be chopped. http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
Climate science belongs in both (plus other agencies like EPA, geological service, interior, etc.) For example, a major effort of NASA planetary scientists is the study of ice. Ice is an enormously central feature in the solar system and beyond. The data gathered and the analysis is central to the understanding of evolutionary processes and also our current Earth environment.
NOAA and NASA work hand-in-hand. It is not a matter of one or the other.
Cruz and Rubio would gut ALL agencies ability to study climate change. Its not shifting, its destroying. And it has nothing to do with conservative politics. It is a front by corporate interests to protect their cash cows. Rubio and Cruz are simply ambitious narcissists who see the benefit of being whores for the Koch brothers. (My apologizes to people in the sex industry who actually have to work for a living.)
It would seem that climate research is an area that NOAA would direct and research, not NASA. I would think that NASA would only be involved as much as they are for weather satellites.
Of course, the Senate committee overseeing NOAA is now led by Marco Rubio, so don’t expect to see much climate research getting funded over there either.
Show me just one statement by Cruz or Rubio saying they want to transfer the current NASA climate science funding to NOAA. It doesn’t exist. Like Posey they want to eliminate climate science completely, partly because some of their supportes, e.g. the Kock Brothers, are primarily in the oil business and are opposed to anything that might reduce our need for oil, and partly because they see climate change as a leftist plot rather than a physical phenomenon.
In terms of the labor division between NASA and NOAA, on the development side the best way to work this IMO is for NASA to manage sensor development, sensor testing on ISS and other platforms, and satellite development and testing, and for NOAA to take over a sensor or satellite monitoring task when it is demonstrated and operational. NOAA has full access to the data already.
Until and unless Rico and Cruz propose a compensatory INCREASE in NOAA funding we should not permit $1 in NASA climate funding to be cut. Cutting climate research is not gaining efficiency. It is stamping out science that, from the conservative point of view, is not politically correct.
“they see climate change as a leftist plot rather than a physical phenomenon”
Uhhhh, mmmmmmm, errrrrrrrrr the last time I checked Since the dawn of the Earth (after it cooled a little and major shifts in Plate Tectonics slowed to the more leisurely crawl we’ve all grown up with; the Climate has Changed many times. This has happened Even when Man himself was NOT present upon the face of said Earth. (Gasp! Blasphemous!!! KILL the Interloper!!!!)
I do feel that observation of climactic events should fall under the direction of NOAA not NASA.
I guess that makes me a “Flat Earther” too some, Far from it actually. Those of us in the “know” are well aware that Earth is really a Borg Cube: “We are Borg: You Will be assimilated, resistance is futile”.
Of course the climate has shifted many times, both regionally and globally – often with dramatic effects on the general ecosystem and the humans in particular. We are the apparent cause of the current shift (and why shouldn’t pumping vast quantities of greenhouse gas equivalents into the air not cause it?) and it is beginning to have some significant effects. A civilization with a population barely able to survive currently cannot withstand major shifts. Are you aware that there is only a 60 day supply of food on Earth? A single season widespread crop loss would be catastrophic, with war as the least of the problems. We think we know what is happening and must begin acting. It is not responsible policy: “When in doubt, gamble.”
Perhaps this is one of the things Senator Cruz was talking about when he said “shifting” of priorities: the NASA administrator, Charlie Bolden, said President Obama charged him with three things:
“One, he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic
contribution to science and engineering — science, math and engineering.” http://www.aljazeera.com/pr…
Bolden garbled himself up, but his point was commendable.
I am sure that Cruz would not want prevent him from “engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and engineering — science, math and engineering.”
Few things are more in the interest of the US.
In much of the Muslim world, society is decaying into radical theocracies, sliding in a new dark Age of ignorance. Getting them to modernize toward Western culture and ideals is an imperative.
Having their institutions and educational systems move from religion to secular technical and scientific pursuits is in our interest.
It must be emphasized to them that in their glory days they led the world in math and science. The word algebra is Arabic. . We use Arabic numerals. The names of the bright stars in the sky are Arabic. Chemistry, medicine and other sciences owe much to the Golden Age of Islam. They preserved (and expanded) the knowledge lost in the West when the Roman Empire collapsed into the Dark Ages.
This has disintegrated. We need to assist (for our own sake’s) in reigniting this lost capability.
Great that Bolden saw the value in spreading our values!
Bolden was NOT President Obama’s choice. He was Senator Bill “Monster Rocket” Nelson’s choice. Obama was refusing to fund a new monster rocket and Nelson’s man makes a stupid statement and we all know what happened then. Bolden disappeared and Nelson got funding for his monster rocket and no more stupid statements from Bolden.
Thank God… sometimes good things happen by hook or by crook.
So basically Ted Cruz doesn’t want NASA to become the Climate Change Agency. I’m fine with that. Don’t get me wrong, Ted Cruz is antithetical to pretty much everything I believe in, but I call this a case of taking the right position for the wrong reason. As climate change’s effects become more visible in coming decades, so will the scale of government response. In such a political landscape, NASA could easily become the “Climate Change Agency”. Such a move would likely hollow out the Agency’s other prioritizes as similar paradigm shifts have across government (e.g the Defense Department sacrificing traditional skills and an upgrade cycle to fight the Afghan and Iraq Wars). Immediate need will crowd out everything else.
NASA should remain focused on planetary science, space science, human space exploration, technological development and aerospace. Leave Climate Change research – extremely important and worth funding many times over – to the NOAA or something like that. The absolute last thing NASA needs is another fiefdom fighting for a share of the $17 billion pie at the expense of everyone else. There won’t be human space flight, Mars exploration, Deep Space research in the quantity or quality that needs to occur if NASA’s annual climate change commitment grows to be say, on the scale of the ISS. This is not about politics or “belief” in climate change, but rather about protecting our Space Agency from something that could overwhelm it and everything it does.
Ted Cruz… right for the wrong reasons, but right nonetheless. Something I never thought I’d say. With the Shuttle finally behind us and with SLS/Orion and Commercial Crew finally having tangible results after a decade and a half of paper projects, with Mars Sample Return, a Europa mission and maybe a Uranus orbiter in the coming decade and a half, the absolute worst thing that would happen would be to drop a new core mission onto NASA’s lap to take it off course.
Hey folks! Remember how we got to the moon? Everyone and the goverment
believed in THE RED MENACE. With Cruz being so anti everything, let’s put an internet strategy together where he believes that Russia & China have socialist plans to build a military base on the moon & Mars; and that they plan to destroy any incoming USA missions. Will it work? Duhhhhhhhh???.
In reality, there’s a higher probability of Cruz doing a Duke Cunningham scenario, gets caught and goes to jail.
Just a little harmony ???
I know this is probably an over-simplification, but Mr. Cruz is a grandstander. I would just prefer that NASA not be his podium. If he can be instrumental in getting the whole government shut down (not totally to blame, but a big part of it), NASA could be small potatoes by comparison.
the shutdown was VERY far from the whole government. in fact speeking of grandstanding the average citizen would have never even been aware of any of it being closed had the Obama admin not made a conscious political decision to make it hurt citizens. they did this by closing pullouts on the road to mt. rushmore, shutting off tours of the white house which were fully funded. shutting down the WWII memorial and closing out a group of WWII vets on what was likely the only chance any of them would ever get to see it. then letting an illegal immigration rally take place on the mall they had just shut down. so whatever you think of Cruz he pales in comparison to the petulant childishness of the Obama admin. which is manifested partly in NASA without direction except the part concerned with climate science.
What the Repubs did (unwillingly dragged by Cruz) was like blowing a whole in the bottom of a cruise ship. Yes, of course, only the people down in the hold drowned at first, but as time moves along more and more are underwater.
The Repub leadership pulled the plug on Cruz and patched the hole as soon as they started feeling the water at their ankles (as they knew was going to happen). Cruz is considered worse than Ebola by the GOP leadership. He is loved by Democrats. I plan to contribute to his presidential campaign and will certainly vote in the primary for him. He’s even better than Palin.
Cruz did not do this to repeal the Affordable Care Act. That goal was impossible to achieve. Not “unlikely”, or “a longshot”, no, impossible. The numbers were not (and are not) there to do it. The GOP leadership begged him not to do it as it would blow up in their faces. Cruz decided to do a grandstanding bomb-throwing anyway, harming his party and hurting the country, just to brighten his cred with his base and to feed his narcissism.
As was pointed out in The Fix: There is some danger in Cruz’s strategy, however. Antagonizing people like McConnell and Boehner might not cost him votes in Iowa (and almost certainly would win him votes there). But if it looks like he might have a real chance at the nomination, you can be certain that the party leaders — who have very long memories — will work privately (and maybe even publicly) to keep him from the prize. It’s of course possible that Cruz has built such a groundswell of grass-roots support by that point that no amount of work by party leaders could keep him from the nomination. But it’s also possible that any momentum he does build could be slowed or even stopped by those same leaders.
Cruz knows exactly what he is doing. He’s a savvy operator who is putting all of his political eggs in being the most conservative, most outsider-y candidate in the 2016 presidential field. Getting Boehner to hate him? That’s just par for the course.
no no, nobody in the hold was drowned by Cruz. just like in 1995 a few civil servants had to go home for a couple weeks. then they got paid retroactively. so they essentially got bonus vacation. as far as the people in the hold, those were the kids who came to DC to tour the White House and got turned away, the vets turned away from an outdoor memorial, the folks driving to mount rushmore and the guys holding the gun to the bottom of the cruise ship were entirely the executive branch. of course there is no memo connecting the petulant one to any of this because true believers don’t need actual written orders they already know the will of his petulance.
if you were right we now have a supermajority of dems in the house and senate… wait… they got clubbed like baby seals in november? how could that be?
An excellent anaysis of the 2014 election by a Republican operative can be found here:
http://blog.chron.com/gopli…
In commenting on the shutdown, Karl Rove (The Slimy One) wrote:
A shutdown now would have much worse fallout than the one in 1995. Back then, seven of the government’s 13 appropriations bills had been signed into law, including the two that funded the military. So most of the government was untouched by the shutdown. Many of the unfunded agencies kept operating at a reduced level for the shutdown’s three weeks by using funds from past fiscal years.
But this time, no appropriations bills have been signed into law, so no discretionary spending is in place for any part of the federal government. Washington won’t be able to pay military families or any other federal employee. While conscientious FBI and Border Patrol agents, prison guards, air-traffic controllers and other federal employees may keep showing up for work, they won’t get paychecks, just IOUs.
The only agencies allowed to operate with unsalaried employees will be those that meet one or more of the following legal tests: They must be responding to “imminent” emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property, be funded by mandatory spending (such as Social Security), have funds from prior fiscal years that have already been obligated, or rely on the constitutional power of the president. Figuring out which agencies meet these tests will be tough, but much of the federal government will lack legal authority to function.
But any strategy to repeal, delay or replace the law must have a credible chance of succeeding or affecting broad public opinion positively.
The defunding strategy doesn’t. Going down that road would strengthen the president while alienating independents. It is an ill-conceived tactic, and Republicans should reject it.
If climate change isn’t real, why the fear of collecting more data? I thought more data was a good thing in science?
Avoiding collecting data is like a fat guy not wanting to track his caloric intake or weight because he refuses to believe his doctor when he’s told he needs to eat better and exercise more. Why spend his hard earned money on a FitBit and a bathroom scale when there are clearly other spending priorities (cheesecake anyone?).
Purely FWIW, several right-leaning commentators have suggested that climate observation falls in NOAA’s brief rather than NASA’s. I’m wondering if The advent of Mr Cruz may indeed see such missions (and their associated budgets) moving to the other agency. In practice, NASA will still be involved on the engineering level but NOAA already deals more-or-less direct with ULA for launch services, so it would actually be pretty much NASA losing a chunk of its business.
Only if additional funding is actually provided to NOAA. No talk of that at all among the senators who propose cutting it out of NASA.
It will be interesting to see how this turns out. I remember this website when Barack Obama was elected in 2008. Everyone raved about how great his administration would be for NASA, instead this administration has been disastrous for NASA. In 2007-2008 he promised Florida voters that if elected he would continue shuttle flights and keep American access to space and he did just the opposite. Despite loosing American access to space and setting up NASA for an aimless policy (or lack of policy) he is still touted by many on here as having been great for NASA. Now comes Senator Cruz, who stated that he wants to increase the space component of NASA and wants more exploration with a better defined mission and everyone on here seems to hate him. I will grant you that at this point it is still talk, but if he carries through I wonder if many on here will be willing to admit they were wrong on the current administration and wrong about Sen. Cruz? I don’t see how shifting earth observing and climate science to other government organizations is anti-science. Yes this will result in a loss of budget for NASA, but also will result in more focus, which from my experience has usually led to better efficiency of spending and milestone completion.
Obama pushed to add an extra year of shuttle operation beyond Bush’s cutoff. The Ares replacement that he scrapped would have (if successful – not a slam dunk) would be available at the same time as the commercial crew (if its funding was at requested levels).
Obama was promoting a one year shorter gap than the Bush plan was going to result in.
BTW – I don’t see anybody here touting Obama on his space policy. He did stop a massively bloated program before it engulfed every dollar in sight. He just has not replaced it with anything doable at existing funding levels. He does not have real vision about NASA, but he really was pushing for programs Earth oriented with direct payoff.
First of all the conversation never mentioned anything about George Bush. However, the Bush era plan to retire the shuttle was predicated on the continuation of the constellation program which the following administration cancelled. Without constellation or a government launch vehicle there was no more reason to cancel the shuttle. It is true that the private sector is pushing ahead with a man rated launch vehicle, but that was in no way tied to the Obama decision to cancel the shuttle. His cancellation threw the nation into a void of ability. The Constellation program was not bloated, just the opposite, it was underfunded, but it was a direction with tangible payoffs that did not overlap with multiple other already existing agencies. But the point being is that it is obvious people on here want to hate Ted Cruz even when he advocates something that they have stood for in countless other posts on this site.
I mentioned Bush because he put the kibosh on the shuttle and rolled out the Ares replacement. Straightforward.
Constellation was vastly bloated. It had components without funding. Its schedule was sliding into nowhere space.
One of the major problems we face as space enthusiasts is the increasingly bitter polarization of American politics. Members of different parties are no longer seen as fellow Americans with different points of view, they are actually seen as existential good and evil. This hostility poisons the political process and undermines any attempt at reasoned debate.
What Bush did was anything but straightforward. The Ares I (which was never actually rolled out) was part of Mike Griffin’s Constellation proposal and was originally intended solely for the manned lunar landing mission in combination with Ares V. In the original schedule there was no plan replace Shuttle in its role of LEO logistics, and indeed there was no need to do so as US participation in ISS was to end with the final Shuttle mission.
Griffin made Shuttle cancellation inevitable by 2008, as hundreds of contracts for unique components and supplies had been closed out and cancelled. Wale Hale makes this absolutely clear, and he is no apologist for Obama; he was in charge under Bush and Griffin. Obama added two more missions but to restart Shuttle would have meant requalifying hundreds of new suppliers and would have taken years.
I certainly didn’t rave about Obama’s space policy, and I voted for him twice. His choice of the “flexible path” strategy made sense on paper but not in fact. He attempted correctly to cancel Constellation and replace it with an effective space technology program that would actually contribute to sustainable human spaceflight.
However the choice was not his. He was forced by Congress to implement Constellation (remodeled as SLS/Orion) but without funding for actual lunar landers or lunar base construction, so he had little choice but to bypass the lunar mission and defer to something beyond his administration, i.e. Mars.
“It is true that the private sector is pushing ahead with a man rated launch vehicle, but that was in no way tied to the Obama decision to cancel the shuttle. His cancellation threw the nation into a void of ability.”
Will we ever stop this historical revisionism? I was here when Bush cancelled the Shuttle program in 2004. His original plan was to cancel US participation in ISS and Shuttle operations simultaneously. There was no plan for Orbital Space Plane or Commercial Crew because there would be no station for them to fly to. Former Shuttle Program Manager Wayne hale made it clear that by 2008 there was no way to keep Shuttle flying. In fact his primary concern for Commercial Crew is the excessive number of requirements NASA is imposing.
https://waynehale.wordpress…
https://waynehale.wordpress…
Keith, Please activate the troll patrol in comments. We come here for space, not gutter politics.
“gutter politics”? Is there any other kind?
Just released from NOAA (likely the last one until after 2016 election):
The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2014 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880. The December combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was also the highest on record.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/so…