Trump Will Say Something About Outer Space Tonight (Update)
How Trump’s disciplined speech came together, Politico
“A senior administration official also said references to NASA and space travel were dropped at the last-minute due to timing. “We wanted to keep the speech to an hour,” this person said.”
Donald Trump: "American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream" #NASA @NASA #Jointsession pic.twitter.com/WiXBaNTCeX
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) March 1, 2017
|
|
Expanding human spaceflight from the low point it is at would only come at the expense of other activities IF the NASA budget is flat. But President Trump may well view that NASA,like the military, is one of the things that make America great and expand its budget.
The budgets that are likely to be cut are for the agencies that weight down the economy through excessive interference, regulation, or social programs.
I also predict that whatever he says about space will be attacked by the media.
… and doesn’t say.
Yet it was enough to get a LA Times columnist to bash President Trump on it.
http://www.latimes.com/busi…
Trump’s call for human space exploration is hugely wasteful and pointless
By Michael Hiltzik Contract Report
“Trump’s brief, offhand comment had the tone of an impulsive notion that, like so many of his other policy
pronouncements, won’t get any follow-through. Let’s hope so, because the idea of sending humans to explore distant worlds is loopy, incredibly wasteful, and likely to cripple American science rather than inspire it. And that’s assuming that Trump’s notion doesn’t have the ulterior motivation of diverting American scientists from their Job One, which is to fight climate change right here at home.”
That strikes me as a reported with a bias against human spaceflight, or planetary science in general (as studying climate change) and an axe to grind. President Trump’s one-sentence mention of spaceflight may just have been an excuse to for the reporter to reiterate his opinions on the subject.
one line… well that’s frustrating…
That’s one line more than I or most anyone else was expecting.
Well no space program announced?
Only aspirations but, most importantly, no mention of more money.
More than likely NASA will get less money.
Aspirations are fine and so are dreams. However, dreams are never enough; if Trump wants to have this, he’s going to have to provide the money.
He won’t. Increasing military spending and infrastructure spending will be higher priorities. He’s doing what most other recent presidents do, paying lip service to NASA.
First time a President speech ever left a tear in my eye. I did not hear anything about space. If the President did not like the cost of the F35 or the new Air Force One replacements, I wonder how he will react to the cost of SLS compared to others?
If Falcon Heavy has a successful test flight this year followed by successful DOD, commercial satellite, and manned lunar fly-by missions, that will put the final nail in the SLS coffin, IMHO.
Saw this in my twitter feed:
< jeff_foust> [13] Trump’s speech reportedly had more about NASA and spaceflight, but got dropped because the speech got too long:… https://t.co/W4p5VQFHwi <twitter.com i=”” web=”” status=”” 8…=””>
Other than knowing that space is somewhere on his radar, we know nothing more from this speech. We will still have to wait for anything concrete.
Keep waiting…
That one line to me sounded like a throw-away in the middle of several other throw-away lines. They were clearly part of his “talking points”, but they were also clearly not as important as other subjects that he spent quite a bit of time on.
That, in and of itself, should tell everyone the priority that “space” will be given. Worst case scenario, “ain’t nobody got time for that”, so I’d expect few fundamental changes for NASA. Well other than getting its budget cut in order to expand defense spending, which is clearly a higher priority for this administration.
Surprise….. surprise. Situation Normal…..
The president called for corporate and personal tax cuts, substantial increases in military and infrastructure spending, and no cuts in Medicare or Social Security. This could only be paid for by massive cuts in the non-military discretionary budget, a very small category that includes NASA.
Maybe he can make Mexico pay for it. Or NATO signatory nations who aren’t paying their share. I’ve seen some creative accounting, but federal budgets are the only case where the bottom line seems to be whatever you can convince people it is.
Mexico and other small countries will pay for it…by starting small space agencies that buy seats on Dragon.
So the space part of the speech was dropped last minute? I wonder if the commercial moon shot announcement had anything to do with that?
I doubt it; it just goes to show how close to the bottom NASA is in the list of political issues to discuss.
I stepped into the kitchen part way through and heard something like “trillions of dollars” and thought I missed the commercial-space-talk. So I went back after the end and replayed it. Just the one-liner reference.
Here’s the thing. We should not longer care what government thinks. Space Exploration is very, very close to being able to move on regardless of politics.