What Is Ahead For NASA In Congress?
Q&A: Key legislator disses White House science office, Science
“[Rep. John] Culberson whose House of Representatives subcommittee oversees the budgets for NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has never been a fan of John Holdren, Obama’s science adviser. And his latest comments are likely to further heighten anxiety among scientific leaders about how the U.S. research enterprise will fare under President-elect Donald Trump.”
“Q: Some have suggested reviving the National Space Council. Would that be useful?
A: I’d have to see what the new administration proposes. But I think there are too many layers of government and advisory committees. A simplified and unified chain of command at NASA that is less political would help the agency immensely. And I will continue to try to make the NASA administrator more like the FBI director [in serving a 10-year term], so it can focus on its mission and worry less about changes in administration. The agency needs stability and certainty and adequate funding to accomplish everything on its plate.
Q: There’s been talk of moving earth sciences out of NASA.
A: At this point that is very speculative. There’s strong support in Congress for keeping a close eye on planet Earth and understanding our complex planet. And the future level of funding and who’s responsible for earth science will be an ongoing debate with the new administration and the incoming Congress. I’m quite confident there will continue to be strong support for the earth sciences as well as planetary sciences and the human space flight program throughout Congress and in the new administration.”
Less bureaucracy and more stability for NASA? That’s got some potential.
Stability is complacency and stagnation. NASA needs less stability, not more.
Even Chinese run their programs with five year plans, with small course corrections mid way, and they are making steady progress and advances. As technology development accelerates across the board, they’ll probably move into shorter planning cycles.
NASA flagship developments seem to get longer and longer though. JWST for instance has been in development since 1999. SLS and Orion have been in development since what .. 2005 effectively. That’s quite some stability
“it saddens me”… that Congress does not outline holistic plans and
… fails to see the accomplishments in the short time since tech dev was decimated in the 2000s, and fail to understand the history.
…would target Earth Science, deny climate change to limit liability, cut regulations for short term gain at tremendous long term expense, or how anyone would create all this false news that cc is not ‘real’
…that costs have not been addressed for decades yet blame ‘others’ for cancelling CxP/ ‘lunar’ when their LV could not get off the ground.
…that CXP Congress has not addressed a shortage of missions and tech demos to reduce costs to explore: LV$ to payloads.
…rails on JWST, set a cap, but have no clue on SLS/Orion costs.
… abandoned depot centric for SLS/Orion– 3B/yr and no missions when the US/IPs have excess capacity with manipulated data
.. abandoned VSE goal of reuse. Wrote but did not read-all lip service.
… that Congress does not recognize that Nixon added solids, “a major mistake” does not listen NASA nor committees because they present facts, not beliefs. Supports Wall building: LV apartheid for BEO.
… that Congress would add the phrase “Establishes as policy that the US should maintain an uninterrupted capability for HSF BEO once such a capability is demonstrated” does avoid manipulated data if ‘in law’
… gives lip service to Mars. Will let a ‘special team’ or advisor require an Apollo 8 flyby, and retain SLS for decades more. Very convenient.
… that Congress has failed to follow 1958 NASA law for decades.
(1) The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space
— a few folks actually spent a yr in space after two decades of ISS
(2) The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aero/and space vehicles;
— The expendable 70s shuttle derived hardware with solids added by Nixon that lost out to Titan unless if flew 28x per year that costs billions more than other alternatives
(3) The development & operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies & living organisms *through space*
–NASA plans on investing on hardware that may be reused to explore BEO….LOL…so much for the VSE.
4) The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aero/space activities for peaceful & scientific purposes.
-60day study created decades long 3B/yr procurement w/ 0 missions
ARES – “Together, these two vehicles combine to provide America a practical, affordable, and achievable means to realize missions to the Moon and Mars.”
https://web.archive.org/web…
“that SLS is the most practical approach to reaching the Moon, Mars, and beyond” *affordable achievable* apparently scrubbed Orion could not reach an asteroid, nor Mars.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/p…
“When NASA proposed on-orbit fuel depots in this Administration’s original plan for human space exploration, they said this game-changing technology could make the difference between exploring space and falling short. Then the depots dropped out of the conversation” 57B cheaper
http://www.spaceref.com/new…
“The shuttle concept that would fit the budget was nowhere in sight…The analysis showed that at the lowest level of activity, averaging 28 flights per year, the Shuttle would barely compete with the Titan III”
http://www.nss.org/resource…
“The mistake we made on the solid rockets, it was a major mistake” Max Faget, shuttle designer, Added by Nixon
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/his…
“We started shutting down the shuttle four years ago. That horse has left the barn”
https://blogs.nasa.gov/wayn…
“For future, sustainable exploration programs, NASA requires cost-effective vehicles that may be reused, have systems that could be applied to more than one destination, and are highly reliable and need only small ground crews” 2005 VSE
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55…
“The mission uses essentially all expendable rocket and vehicle components, and does not leave any useful components in low Mars orbit or Earth orbit for use by the next mission. Thus, there is no advancement in safety or capability from one mission to the next. The architecture would require the design, development, and construction of at least 10 different types of expendable vehicles during the decade before the first mission”
http://www.thespacereview.c…
“The U.S. House of Representatives on May 10 approved a 2013 NASA budget of $17.45 billion that would force an immediate restructuring of the agency’s Com Crew Program”
http://spacenews.com/commer…
“NASA and the White House had originally planned to put off a decision on a heavy launch capability until 2015 or so – and then fully compete the selection process based on an architecture that would define what was needed and when. But Congress – specifically the Senate, decided to mandate (in the NASA Authorization Act) what the solution would be before the problem or need was defined.”
http://www.spaceref.com/new…
1992: “not even $175M could be found to develop cost effective LVs”
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/f…
“right in the middle of flaming SRB debris”
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
You are right, in so far as you point out the negative arguments. And while I agree with your arguments in the main I was thinking about other places in government where professionals are hired to do a job.
I’m thinking of county managers as at least one example. In Collier County FL as around the country a manager is hired to, well, run the county. It’s true that his is essentially filling the role of an executive.
But in Collier, at least, there’s one huge advantage: the Board of Country Commissioners is not allowed to interact with the manager’s staff, which means all county staff excepting Board staff.
The Board can fire the manager, of course, and the Board sets policy, budget, and direction. To that extent citizens can agree or disagree. They can (and do) throw the bums out. But there’s little disfunction.
The beaches are kept clean.
Once again, when you actually drill down into the specific policies of those who say how they will “move” Earth-science out of NASA, none of them, not a single one, actually intends to “move” a single program from NASA to another agency. They intend to cut NASA’s Earth-science budget. That’s it. When they say “move”, they are lying.
I know I’m a broken record on this, but the lie needs to be challenged. And none of the supposed journalists are willing to challenge it.
However, Culberson’s answer was very non-committal. “At this point that is very speculative… who’s responsible for earth science will be an ongoing debate with the new administration and the incoming Congress.” I believe he’s expressed less ambiguous views in the past.
History has shown the opposite including a 250M cut by the chairman to Earth “not pure” Sciences , who is also a cc denier and supports Europa missions *only* if they fly on SLS at Bs more than alternatives.
Will these folks ever realize their tremendous damage to the environment and lack of HSF advancement?
http://appropriations.house…
“Caps total life-cycle costs for programs that have a record of poor performance, including weather satellites and the James Webb Space Telescope” but not SLS/Orion… no costs ever given.
http://www.sciencemag.org/n…
“The report confirmed speculation that NASA’s Earth science division would suffer significant cuts to accommodate increases elsewhere in the agency”
http://spacenews.com/house-…
Culberson “said repeatedly in recent weeks that the earth sciences don’t meet his definition of “the pure sciences.” “We’ve seen a disproportionate increase in the amount of federal funds going to the earth sciences program at the expense of funding for exploration and space operations, planetary sciences, heliophysics, and astrophysics, which I believe are all rooted in exploration and should be central to NASA’s core mission,” “We need to get back to the hard sciences, to manned space exploration, and to the innovation that has been integral to NASA.” “And we will need the heavy lift capability of the [Space Launch System] rocket for all of those missions.”
Climate Change denier…
https://www.ofa.us/climate-…
I did write, “I believe he’s expressed less ambiguous views in the past.”
Believe, feel: weasel words. “As a political candidate, I’ll go with what people feel” Gingrich
‘feel’ or ‘believe’ rather than the actual facts. Worse: those who spread false news to change what folks believe. ..rather than outworking and out thinking the rest of the world. In God we Trust, *all* others bring data.
http://www.forbes.com/sites…
“Most people believe what their gut instinct and the sources they trust tell them, rather than getting an expert’s evaluation of all the data available. The facts do not change because of how we interpret.”
“1. The full suite of facts doesn’t say what you want it to say, so you pick out the few facts that support your non-factual position and talk about them.
2. The average American doesn’t think that the facts says what they actually say…
3. What people feel about an issue is more important than what the actual facts behind the issue are.”
Excellent points. In China most universities have a required course for all freshmen. It is referred to as “philosophy” but it is not about Plato, Kant, or Mao. It is a course in critical thinking, how to consider an issue seriously from both (or multiple) sides, and even question one’s own point of view, rather than just choosing one answer and sticking to it. Maybe the closest equivalent at most US schools is the debate club, where each contestant has to be able to argue either side of an issue.
This is embarrassing. I was about to correct you, and say that at least some American universities had a critical thinking requirement. Then I checked the two I’m most familiar with. According to a quick web search, Berkeley doesn’t, although I could swear they did when I was there as an undergraduate. The University of Colorado, Boulder used to, but apparently they dropped the requirement in 2010.
I will say I’ve never seen such a requirement as a specific course. I remember it being more like a requirement to take one or two classes from a list. The courses on the list were supposed to teach critical thinking (among other things) but could be from almost any department. So it could be a physics course (using data to test a hypothesis), a history course (covering events from both the winner’s _and_ the looser’s perspective), etc.
It looks like CU dropped the critical thinking requirement because it was too expensive. (At least that’s the claim in an archived story from the local paper.) The courses had been small (under 25 students per class) and taught by a professor rather than a lecturer. The 100-plus student courses, which are all too common, aren’t a good forum for back-and-forth discussion. They are better suited to a one-way communication of information.
Interesting. My Chinese friend offered to teach the course at an American university where he now works. He was turned down.
I think they are still unsure of themselves. This is the time to make our voices heard, if we are ever going to.
This was going to be my observation too.
Earth Sciences will simply cease to exist at NASA, then other agencies as well.
So many lies, so little time.
I agree. The statement I got from Mr. Posey’s office was that the US “already” has agencies tasked with studying climate, and that the current NASA funding for climate science could be transferred to human spaceflight.
The ten year term for the NASA administrator also seems political. In an age when (unlike the FBI) Congress controls funding for every major NASA project, it would hardly make the agency independent.
I look at it this way, the idea has been most heavily proposed since Mike Griffin got the boot, because Mike Griffin got the boot.
So those advocating 10 year terms aren’t looking at de-politicising the role, they just want to better protect their own ability to politicise it.
I’ll agree that a county might be simpler, not in the number or complexity of decisions, but in the implications of the decisions to be taken.
And I cannot argue that any governmental agency be separated from politics, the courts aside; politics, as we use the terms derisively, is is in fact US running our country.
Separating government agencies from politics is a problem. Or more properly, separating them from congressional oversight and executive control is a problem. I’d be quite happy with the impossible goal of eliminating internal politics (e.g. centers fighting over who gets which slice of the pie.)
I think an ideal (and probably impossible) solution to many of NASA’s problems would be for the President and Congress to do what senior managers really ought to do. That is, set goals and policies for the agency, be consistent about them, and stay out of implementation. When Kennedy said NASA should send someone to the Moon, he specified a target and a deadline. He didn’t get into Earth versus Lunar orbit rendezvous. He didn’t say how much work should be done at the Cape versus Langley versus Marshal. (Although his vice president had something to say about Houston; I did say this suggestion was probably impossible…)
I’m compelled to challenge this point. Politics and oversight are simply the mechanisms that we use – collectively, if you will forgive the term – mechanisms we use to fight over what we want to happen when other citizens disagree. To press our opinions, one may say.
It’s messy to be sure, but in the main equitable, and it is open to everyone. It is subject to votes, and aside from the appalling hijacking of the House via gerrymandering, is constitutional and well-understood.