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Election 2016

Installing Trump's Space Policy At NASA

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
November 9, 2016
Filed under , , ,
Installing Trump's Space Policy At NASA

Keith’s note: The Trump campaign was mostly caught by surprise by their win. While there was a formal Trump Transition Team operating, it had not gotten to the point of working details of who would visit each agency and what they would do once they arrived. If you check this chart you will see that NASA is currently not a priority for the Trump “Agency Action Team” structure. NASA is not even mentioned.
Right now the bulk of the Trump Transition Team for NASA is headed by former Rep. Bob Walker and Mark Albrecht. Walker spent 20 years representing Pennsylvania in the House and served as chair of the House Science Committee. He also chaired the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry and was a member of the President’s Commission on Implementation of the United States Space Exploration Policy. Albrecht was Executive Secretary of the National Space Council between 1989-1992 and principal space advisor to President George H. W. Bush. Albrecht is currently chairman of the board of U.S. Space LLC. It is going to take Walker and Albrecht a while to get up to speed.

I am told by knowledgeable sources to “buckle up” and that the National Space Council is coming back. At one point or another over the years both Walker and Albrecht have also been floated as possible NASA Administrators. Both of them have said they are not interested but that just means that they are interested. As to when a Trump nominee to head NASA will actually surface, that is still unknown. NASA Administrator Bolden and Deputy Administrator Newman will be leaving at the end of President Obama’s term. It is likely that NASA Associate Administrator Robert Lightfoot will serve as acting NASA Administrator until such time as Trump nominee is confirmed. Trump political staff will likely show up at NASA HQ before that nominee is confirmed.
As for what might have happend: the Clinton Transition Team was much more organized and would have initially been led by Laurie Leshin and Michael Lopez-Alegria. Others would have joined in as activities expanded. They would have been on the job within a day or two had Hillary Clinton won. The Clinton Transition Team had a 6 week window during which it would complete its tasks. Their hope had been to be able to have a nominee for Administrator released before the holidays. The Clinton and Obama teams saw a Clinton presidency as a continuation, in many ways, of Obama Administration’s efforts. As such it was expected that this transition at NASA would be somewhat less contentious than the Bush/Obama transition was. As is standard procedure, the Clinton transition team would have done a top to bottom review of the agency. They would have been looking for the things that work and let them continue. They would also look for things that needed some midcourse corrections and made suggestions in this regard. And for the things (in some cases people) who were not working out or no longer needed, changes would have been there as well. It would not be unprecedented to see members of the transition team filling positions at NASA HQ while other members go back to their day jobs.
It is likely that the Trump Transition Team will take a somewhat similar approach with the exception that they will not have much interest in perpetuating much of the Obama space legacy – unless, of course, you consider this op ed “Obama’s Brave Reboot for NASA” written by Walker and his long time collaborator Newt Gingrich from 2010. In it Gingrich and Walker said “With the new NASA budget, the leadership of the agency is attempting to refocus the manned space program along the lines that successive panels of experts have recommended. The space shuttle program, which was scheduled to end, largely for safety reasons, will be terminated as scheduled. The Constellation program also will be terminated, mostly because its ongoing costs cannot by absorbed within projected NASA budget limits. The International Space Station will have its life extended to at least 2020, thereby preserving a $100 billion laboratory asset that otherwise was due to be dumped in the Pacific Ocean by middecade. The budget also sets forth an aggressive program for having cargo and astronaut crews delivered to the space station by commercial providers.”
If you look at the two op eds penned on the Trump campaign’s behalf by Walker this year, you will note that there is no specific mention of SLS/Orion, NASA’s Asteroid Retrieval Mission, and NASA’s #JourneyToMars thing. Nor is there any interest in climate studies. Does this mean that these programs are not going to be supported/cancelled – or just that the Trump team hasn’t decided what to do about them? Stay tuned.
Trump’s Stance On NASA Climate Research, earlier post
Trump Space Advisor Wants To Invite China To Join ISS, earlier post
Trump Promises to “Free NASA”, earlier post
Second Trump Space Op Ed Omits Support of SLS, Orion, ARM, #JourneyToMars, earlier post
Trump Space Advisors Omit Support of SLS, Orion, ARM, #JourneytoMars, earlier post
Trump and Clinton Campaigns Talk Space, earlier post

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

68 responses to “Installing Trump's Space Policy At NASA”

  1. ThomasLMatula says:
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    It will be interesting to watch. One piece of low hanging fruit would be to use the Soyuz to do a joint Russian-USA around the Moon while commercial launch firms ramp up to expand the human presence in LEO.

    Basically it would just be funding the private mission that has been proposed for over a decade.

    http://www.spaceadventures….

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      I don’t think I get the point you are making here – wouldn’t this be seen as some sort of olive branch to Mr. Putin?

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        Like the Apollo-Soyuz mission its function would be geopolitical – demonstrating to the world the willingness of the two nations to work together beyond the ISS. It would also provide great photo ops and bragging rights for the two leaders.

        If it could be scheduled for the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11 so much better as it would demonstrate how far the two nations have come in their relationship in space exploration.

        • Michael Spencer says:
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          50 years after Apollo we use Russian hardware to get to the moon?

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Why not? We use it to go to the ISS. Now if Elon Musk could put aside his Mars fantasy for a while and focused we could probably do it in a Dragon, but NASA would have to go back to the way it worked in the 1960’s to make it happen. Today’s NASA would probably take three years just to do the MS Power Points and flow charts on it.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            It’s just that your comment surprised me – of course it is possible, but it’s the ‘optics’, as they say.

            OTOH it might shock a nation to learn the only way there is thru Soyuz (for now, anyway).

  2. RocketScientist327 says:
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    The Trump Campaign was NOT surprised by the win.

    • kcowing says:
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      Gee, were you on the phone with me today when I talked to Trump people?

      • RocketScientist327 says:
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        Yes. In fact I was in touch with the staff and also one of the chief’s polsters. We were confident.

        What I would also say is when you are in situations like this you hope your pollster know’s their stuff. Even though “our guy” was confident there is always that nervous energy.

        Internal Trump Polls were very different from most public polls which oversampled the <censored> out of Democrats. Its fine. We move onward.

        • kcowing says:
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          Then there other prominent Trump people who will say exactly the opposite. SInce I have no idea who you are or who you talk to I will go with my data.

          • Terry Stetler says:
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            Michigan Republicans saw the same thing. About the time WaPo was seeing a 12 point Clinton lead Trump was preparing to pass her, and on election day he hadn’t peaked yet. Not to mention totally ignoring Wisconsin after the convention.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      Anybody seriously following the elections (and the damned polls) had to be surprised. I really love the power of prediction from statistical sampling. The math is solid.

      I see Nate Silver has a discussion of how to interpret the election in terms of polling accuracy; he points to the impossibility of the ‘softer’ issues (my term, not his). The math is well understood. But skewing poll data to match, say, the incidence of white/brown/educated/not educated voters is a very tricky deal resulting in errors that are far outside any acceptable sigma values.

      • JadedObs says:
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        None of the more reputable polling showed Hillary with more than a 3-4 point lead in key swing states and the mathophobic morons in the media never pointed out that that lead was in the polls’ margin of error. Trump won – but not in a big blowout and in many states, his victory was within the polling margin of error – and even so, Hillary got the popular vote – unfortunately for her that vote was clustered in big blue leaning states & cties while Trump has better distributed support in rural & small town America.

  3. Mr.Anderson says:
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    I would like to see the SLS/Orion canceled, private space services expanded, and a refocus on the moon and mars. I’m a firm believer in Climate Change, but I know that’s going away for the next several years until Democrats can restore those programs.

    • muomega0 says:
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      Why is this a democrat issue to solve? Unity abandoned?
      Energy and climate change are *national security issues*. To have any single person in Congress not trying to unite the country in this regard is abhorrent at best.

      I first find it disingenuous to take credit for cancelling a program 10Bs more expensive when the same group created the CxP beast with gerrymandering, then stalled and delayed 5 years! to cancel Ares I when they knew it could not loft Orion due to the inconvenient truth of LAS mass.

      Solely lunar if SLS/Orion are retained, journeytoNowhere lies.

      To those who elect officials who thinks they know more than the generals and are disengaged: deplorable. Same for those who have health care though a government set aside, but vote to kill ACA for those who are not ‘our kind’.

      “As a political candidate, I’ll go with what people feel,” rather than the actual facts.” Gingrich on how unscientific America is
      http://www.forbes.com/sites

      https://thinkprogress.org/4

      • Mr.Anderson says:
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        Without trying to turn this into a political rant, it’s a Democrat issue to resolve because the science denying republicans that now control the US government have made it clear they think climate change is fake, and have said if elected they will scrap all federal funds to agencies that are doing climate change studies, and redirect that money elsewhere.

        • Daniel Woodard says:
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          The Florida Space Coast is now represented by Bill Posey, who plans to eliminate climate research, which really isn’t needed because, he believes, the Earth is only 6000 years old. Evolution is next.

          • fcrary says:
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            Well, extreme climate changes do tend to cause many species to become extinct, and others (which can adapt) benefit. So, in a sense, I suppose evolution is next. But I don’t think that’s quite what you mean.

          • muomega0 says:
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            Cost estimates for sea rise alone is between 1B to 1T/yr dependent upon the number of proactive measures implemented and the level of sea rise (some estimates are 130cm (~ 4ft) location dependent this century). If a board can be ‘worried’ about fueling after the crew arrives, it would appear much more is at stake with the former. Rather than trying to recover the past, we need to be thinking about best possible futures, hopefully a well informed one and not endangering people and future costs for short term gain. http://theconversation.com/

          • muomega0 says:
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            Right on que: a push for keystone and short term gains. Lets hope this is not the future Americans really want: pushing the cost burden to the future generations.

        • ThomasLMatula says:
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          One of the disadvantages of the post WWII big science model is that science becomes political. Prior to WWII most science was funded by foundations and donations by the wealthy. Only the U.S. Geological Survey, Dept. of Agriculture and Smithsonian did any real funding of science at the federal level, and for the first two it was mostly applied science. Maybe its time to reconsider the pre-WWII model when science was able to be free of political issues.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            That would certainly be consistent with the redistribution of our country’s wealth that we are seeing.

          • fcrary says:
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            Restoring the pre-WWII model you describe would require two things.

            First, rich individuals and groups would have to be convinced they should provide funding. We now have seven decades of history which make people think research is something the federal government funds. Changing that status quo would not be easy.

            Second, the cost of the research would have to go down. Finding private funding for a $4 billion dollar planetary mission would be difficult. Finding enough money for a high-end supercomputing center (like the Ames Pleiades cluster) would be difficult. But this may not be as difficult as it used to be. The costs of flight missions have gone down, to the level of rich individuals. Technically, the Al-Amal Mars mission is funded by the UAE, but if he wished to, emir of Dubai could underwrite it out of his own bank account. For high-end computational work (like global climate models), the cost of computer time and power has decreased dramatically. I think it’s at the level where rich patrons could support high-quality work. If you could convince them to do so.

            Of course, this would not eliminate politics in science. It would just replace one view (the bias of the majority in Congress funding the work) with many views (the biases of all the different patrons.) But that would be a nice way to make sure all sides of the story are investigated.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Yes, the first is a problem, but projects like the Paul Allen Array shows it is possible to break the mindset of having Uncle Sam pay for it.

            The other is reducing costs by focusing on the basics again. I recall as a graduate student putting a NSF grant proposal together to study public attitudes towards hazardous waste. The actual research survey itself would be $10,500. But after faculty release time, department overhead, and university overhead was added in it came to around $38,000. I expect that is the case with most government grants.

          • fcrary says:
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            That’s a cost multiplier of 3.6 (dollars billed for the project divided by salary paid for the work.) That sounds pretty high, especially for a university. Proposals out of industry tend to have a cost multiplier over three, but I’ve mostly seen universities in the 2-2.5 range. But it does include some very reasonable things, in addition to what you mention (health care, benefits, soso security, etc.) I think more of the problem is in the base charges; lots of time and effort spent on things that aren’t really necessary or productive.

      • Michael Spencer says:
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        The term is ‘Democratic’, when referring to the party; capital ‘D’, and ‘-ic’ at the end.

  4. JadedObs says:
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    Don’t forget that Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was one of Trump’s earliest supporters during the primaries and is now an advisor – and very possibly could wind up in the Trump Administration. Rep. Aderholt, also from Huntsville and on the House Appropriations Committee, was also a strong supporter. The idea that SLS and Orion are going to be aTrump target is a fantasy – in fact, adding more to the program, in order to enable a higher mission rate, – possibly out of cuts to Earth Science – is far more likely to occur. There are few more visible symbols of making America Great again than launching a 40 story rocket with crews on board – and that can happen in the first Trump term.

  5. John Thomas says:
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    I think the transition team problem was more being short staffed. I saw one report where it was mentioned they had a good or excellent transition team but when more people were needed for campaigning, many were pulled from the transition team.

    For now, space is low on their list.

    • anwatkins says:
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      Actually John,

      I think that happened with most of their transition teams. More people were needed for the campaign so transition work was essentially stopped. Why do it if you were going to lose? I do not think that space is necessarily low on the list (though why wouldn’t it be considering how small NASA’s budget is in relation to the overall budget). Transition itself was low on the list.

  6. spacechampion says:
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    Blue states could form an interstate climate org to continue funding.

    • kcowing says:
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      Huh?

      • spacechampion says:
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        The environment and climate change is dead federally. If the states don’t pick up the slack, who will? And of those states, the red ones won’t.

        Interstate organizations exist, where not all 50 states participate in initiatives.

        • kcowing says:
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          That is not how things are done in the U.S.

          • fcrary says:
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            There isn’t any law against individual states sponsoring scientific research, any more than there is against privately funded research. I’m also unaware of any legal obstacles to several states collaborating on such a venture. That’s not the current practice, but it would certainly be legal.

            Individual state governments do, to a limited degree, support scientific research. I’m fairly sure there are multi-state programs floating around (essentially collaborations between departments at various universities) although these tend to focus on local or regional issues. In atmospheric science, there is UCAR (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research), whose web page says “The National Center for Atmospheric Research and UCAR Community Programs are operated by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. UCAR is a nonprofit consortium of North American member universities,”

            So the infrastructure for a subset of the states (or state universities) having their own scientific research program exists, and the idea isn’t unprecedented. The funding is another matter. It would be difficult to convince many state legislatures to spend their limited funds on something “the federal government ought to be doing.”

          • kcowing says:
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            States do not directly fund NOAA, NASA research.

          • Colin Seftor says:
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            Huh? This reply almost seems like a non sequitur. fcrary wasn’t talking about states directly funding NASA (or NOAA), he’s talking about states having to pick up the slack for federal programs that may get gutted. Yes, it would be unprecedented, but we’re talking about unprecedented, dire times.

          • fcrary says:
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            I’m not sure if it would be unprecedented. The _scale_ would be, but individual states and groups of states do support scientific research. It’s usually focused, regional issues (e.g. New York doesn’t fund research into water use and hydrology in the Colorado river basin, but California does.) But the idea of state, rather than federal, funding for research isn’t totally novel.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            There is another more relevant example, California’s Prop. 71, passed in 2004 after the federal government withdrew funding for stem cell research.

            https://www.cirm.ca.gov/abo

            Perhaps climate researchers in states like California will push for a similar Proposition for funding climate research.

          • kcowing says:
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            OK – you can go organize this whole thing. Given the way that budget priorities are going to be set states will likely be dealing with far more pressing things of more immediate value to voters.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Why would I waste my time when I have no interest in space science that won’t contribute to the economic development of space?

            What I am merely pointing out is there is a precedent, so if climate scientists are as passionate about continuing their work as stem cell researchers were when their funding was cut there is an alternative. But they would need to move out of their comfort zone of just applying for federal grants and make a case direct to the public of states like California for continual funding.

            Funny thing about California. The state is always broke but if there something the public supports it seems to gets funded. Given the large vocal environmental community in California, climate change research would fall into this category especially with Silicon Valley and insurance firms showing an interest. In any case it would be better than just giving up and complaining about how unfair it is.

          • fcrary says:
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            I missed this the first time I read it, but… You’re saying that the California’s government funds anything the public supports, that California’s government is always broke, and this is surprising? Isn’t funding everything a good way to end up broke? I’m missing the “funny thing” part.

          • kcowing says:
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            Duh I get that. It is not going to happen. If it made sense to do so it would have already been done.

          • Colin Seftor says:
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            It doesn’t make sense for the states to do so IF the federal government takes responsibility for doing so. That’s why it hasn’t been done in the past. But the federal government may abdicate its responsibilities in terms of earth science research (among many other things I shudder to think about). If that does happen, then what didn’t make sense before may make sense now. I truly believe we are moving into dire times, where the federal government will no longer take rational action based on facts and reason.

            What makes sense anymore? While I actually don’t think it will happen either, you would hope that some entity (a consortium of states, a consortium of companies) would act. Hey, Elon Musk: instead of dreaming about going to Mars, how about coming back to Earth and helping save THIS planet?

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Why? Up until now the feds were carrying the ball, so states didn’t need to deal with it except to encourage smarter consumption.

          • Colin Seftor says:
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            As I said, three words, Governor Jerry Brown:

            http://www.sacbee.com/news/

          • fcrary says:
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            Keith, I know who funds NOAA and NASA. That’s not the point.

            A large amount of modeling and data analysis side of climate research isn’t done by NOAA or NASA. They simply grants to researchers at universities. Then those researchers do the actual work. If the federal government decides not to issue grants for global climate modeling, some state like California could decides to do so on their own. The researchers would be both willing and able to do this work on grants from a state rather than a federal agency.

            Similarly, a fair fraction of the flight instruments used for climate research are developed and built by universities and private companies, on contracts from NASA and NOAA. A state could, in theory, issue their own contracts and fly the instruments as a hosted payload on a communications satellite.

            If more than one state wished to do this sort of thing, there is nothing illegal about them getting together and coordinating.

            The real obstacle is, ironically, what you are saying: This isn’t the way things are currently done. There are no technical or legal obstacles. But because it is unconventional, convincing state legislatures to pay for this sort of thing would be virtually impossible.

          • kcowing says:
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            It is not going to happen. If it made sense it already would have happened. It hasn’t.

          • Robert van de Walle says:
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            How do we help this to happen?

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Vote for Democrats?

            Sorry. I know that’s on the edge of Keith’s policy. But if you care about the environment that’s what you do; you find th party that matches what you care about.

            Oddly it was Mr. Nixon who signed the EPA into existence.

          • Robert van de Walle says:
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            Heh – it got through. 😉

          • fcrary says:
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            Well, first of all, hope it doesn’t need to happen. Unless funding for climate research gets cut heavily, there is no need to find alternative funding. I am not certain how many of Mr. Trump’s campaign promises he will keep.

            If the funding is cut, well, you’d need to get state legislatures to step up. That’s voting, writing letters to state representatives, and (unlike the US congress, where access is limited) maybe actually talking to your representatives. But I’m not optimistic. In states where people are sympathetic, the legislature would still wonder, “Why should we pay for this when it effects the whole country?” I could see some limited funding from the west coast states, but not all that much.

          • Robert van de Walle says:
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            Climate change affects human civilization, forever – that’s pretty compelling to cause action even when others don’t. I am beginning to hope that a Trump presidency is going to be a good thing, in that we’ve all been part of the system and the establishment for too long and it’s time for a massive re-invention.

          • ThomasLMatula says:
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            Look to stem cell researchers for advice. As I noted above when the feds cut their money they got voters in California to past a proposition to fund a $3 billion stem cell research institute.

          • Robert van de Walle says:
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            This article explains who can really address climate change

            http://www.huffingtonpost.c

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Don’t forget that most state houses are in the hands of the republicans; governors as well.

          • Colin Seftor says:
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            Three words, Governor Jerry Brown:

            http://www.sacbee.com/news/

          • Colin Seftor says:
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            That’s not a particularly compelling statement, given that way the US does things (hint: electoral college) led to President Trump.

            Plus, setting up a consortium of states to pick up the pieces after the destruction of NASA’s earth science component sounds a lot more plausible than Trump getting elected (and we all know what happened there).

            It’s time we start looking for different ways to do things.

            I was thinking (dreaming, more likely) of a consortium of companies. Earth observation has immediate benefits to a lot of industries (transportation and logistics ones come to mind, but there are many others). A couple of billion dollars per year put up by a group of companies would probably pay for itself. (Yeah, I know, dreaming.)

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. Margaret Meade

            More: we DID change the world in the 60’s and 70’s: the War, Equal Rights, Fair Housing, the list goes on. Washington had nothing to do with it.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Not sure you are correct, Keith…many states, particularly California, are quite proactive.

    • Paul451 says:
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      There are still Blue states?

    • Robert van de Walle says:
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      That’s an interesting idea. Would it be in the form of higher state income taxes? I hate taxes, but now I’m thinking of how states could legally balkanize, economically, to do the things that have to be done.

  7. numbers_guy101 says:
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    That’s a scenario I’d say is top of any short list. Republican backing to kill science related to climate research, throwing the red meat over to the base in Alabama (SLS) and Texas (Orion). The climate change deniers and the anti-science crowd would have their pound of flesh.

  8. Paul451 says:
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    actually regain focus

    In 1958, the first enabling act for NASA listed as the very first task for NASA, expanding human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere of Earth.

    Then of phenomena in space.

    Then everything else.

    With human spaceflight not even appearing on the list (except bundled in with the catchall “living organisms”).

    Pretending you are “going back to” a more pure NASA is a nonsense. It’s an attack on climate research by people who think climate science is a conspiracy. They will defund any similar effort at NOAA with equal enthusiasm.

  9. tutiger87 says:
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    A moron? Stop watching Fox.

  10. mfwright says:
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    Some of my thoughts on this issue, I hope keep discussion civil (sorry if getting to the edge later in this post). It is all but certain climate research (Earth resources) will be defunded. As many others pointed out SLS is here to stay, discussion should be how will it be used.

    Then there is funding of commercial space, though owners of these companies have lots of money they still need assistance in both funding and infrastructure support. I wonder about LC39A, story I heard this pad was designated to SpaceX because Musk helped Obama in 2012. Will new administration set new plans that may disrupt Falcon Heavy plans?

    I was surprised to find some notable space advocates are climate change deniers. I’ve seen some comments that say commercial space is a dead end. Obviously others say the same for Orion/SLS. As pointed out, SLS is here to stay so if NASA dollars is a zero sum game would that mean commercial space will be in for tough funding times like before when congress did not fully fund Obama’s requests?

    Then we have ISS, and now a new president on more friendly terms with Putin. How will this impact both astronauts and the many more others working in each other’s country for mission support?

  11. fcrary says:
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    Huge is one of my concerns. I’m worried that smaller science programs, which aren’t, well, big, may suffer. A multi-billion dollar (unmanned) mission designed to land the biggest payload ever on Mars seems impressive. I think it might not be as valuable as a few dozen, $100 million missions. But if we are going to follow the theme of Mr. Trump’s campaign, being big, in and of itself, may become a virtue. The future of Earth-observing CubeSats may be bleak.

  12. ThomasLMatula says:
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    The world won’t be seeing it like a cynical space advocate, they will be seeing it as doing something great again. They aren’t aware of how the last two administrations messed up space policy.

  13. Michael Spencer says:
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    Which ones? I never saw a map anywhere that predicted a win by the Republicans.