President Trump Places a Call to the ISS
Marc’s note: At 10:00 a.m. ET President Trump, Ivanka Trump and NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins will call the ISS from the White House to speak with Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Jack Fischer of NASA. Will we hear anything of substance? With This President you never know. You can watch the event LIVE on SpaceRef.
Updated: NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson Talks STEM Education with President Trump
Updated: Remarks by President Trump in Video Call with NASA Astronauts Aboard the International Space Station
President Trump Calls Space Station Crew on Record-Setting Day
Just get us off Obama’s mission to nowhere!
SLS and Orion are a mission to nowhere?
Obama gave us human commercial space transportation and the Nation will very soon dominate that sector … THAT was more important that anything else.
Hate to break the news to you but it was Mike Griffin under Bush that gave us commercial space. Griffin was the guy who selected SpaceX and Orbital. Obama merely inherited a fait accompli.
Commercial cargo .. hate to break it to you but commercial crew was not even considered … AT ALL under bush griffin.
Hate to break it to you .. commercial cargo and commercial crew are seperate
“DP Huntsman ThomasLMatula • 4 days ago
Wow, Tom, you’re off base. First off, COTS-D–the proposed (by the JSC COTS office) 4th phase of COTS which would have been crew transportation capability development – was never, ever, approved, or funded, by anyone. And no one at the COTS program office ever (seriously) were allowed to work on it. Ever.
Secondly, Lori Garver – as part of the Obama Administration- helped steer the Commercial Crew Program, operated out of KSC with new personnel, into existence; first during setting things up as part of the Obama Transition Team, and later as Deputy.”
http://nasawatch.com/archiv…
Oh look, first lady Ivaka Trump was sitting in on this meeting as also.
No, he has got his priorities exactly right. Equating military with space will get space funded. Military is a magic word to get congress to release funds for space. The word ‘science’ will not have such an effect on congress as ‘military’.
Well, fact is that the military does play a role in space exploration. It has since the start and its still a prime purchaser of launch services and space bound equipment. So keeping the bucks for the buck rodgers side of things means keeping them in mind, like it or not.
Hmmm the President mentioned the military for a grand total of 16 seconds in a 19 minute 2 second feed. Did you hear the other 18 minutes and 46 seconds?
Maybe his ideas for space exploration are rooted in a certain old TV show in which said exploration was done by a quasi military organization. 🙂
I think the call went fairly well. Trump is not a public speaker and not much of a politician so smooth and polished it wasn’t. But, it was great to see Trump and Ivanka spend as much time as they did.
If NASA were smart-and I am pretty convinced they are not and have absolutely zero strategy, they would have defined accomplishments they can make within Trump’s first four years, within an 8 year time frame (should Trump run and win a second term) and as a continuing legacy.
All President’s think about these things-some more than others and Trump was definitely thinking about it on this call. Reagan went against almost all of his advisers by approving the Space Station because, Reagan said, that would leave a legacy of something he could be proud of, rather than more wars and increased military spending which in the end would have little effect.
Its pretty obvious that Trump and especially Ivanka are interested in the significance of education as an impetus for space and vice versa, they think NASA and spaceflight can provide an impetus to education.
The NASA education budget has been in the tens of millions of dollars for the last 8 years, as compared with the billions of dollars being wasted on big programs that are further from flight today than they were 8 years ago. And so NASA, lacking any kind of wisdom or strategy, announces they will eliminate education and zero out the education funding in order to provide some tiny additional nit to the big programs that will be totally lost and make zero difference. This demonstrates the problem and lack of any semblance of wisdom or leadership in NASA.
He did ask the question, who is ready to go to mars….. a hint of the direction he is taking NASA?
We are about as likely to have NASA head to Mars under DJT as we are to have Mexico pay to build a wall along our common border. Budget evisceration is not a foundation for planetary exploration.
No, certainly not the Moon. Buzz had already been there.
Yep POTUS 44: Probably one of the stupidest comments ever made about exploration by a President.
You all just need remember the great truth: No bucks, No Buck Rogers…
Yea like when that last President asked crucial deep penetrating questions like if they drink Tang and if Robonaut 2 will do the dishes on the ISS.
Wow, deflect attention away from President Trump by bashing Obama.
Look, the Tang thing was clearly a joke since he said it with a laugh. Besides, I still drink Tang (it’s great as a mixer in a Buzz Aldrin).
The Robonaut 2 comment deserves some context:
“I understand that you guys have a new crew member, this R2 robot,” Obama said from the Oval Office. “Are you guys making him do chores up there? Washing the dishes or something? Or does he have more exciting jobs?”
Clearly Obama was keeping this whole conversation light hearted and “approachable” due to the likelihood that a lot of kids in science classes would be listening in on the conversation.
The only time Obama showed any interest in space was to kill the “Bush era Constellation program”. Outside of that there was the directive to use NASA to bolster the Muslim world’s self esteem.
Obama cancelled the failing Constellation and used the money to create a major program in space technology, which is exactly what we need to make human spaceflight something more than a stunt. But Congress forced him to restart Constellation (managed at Marshall) under a new name, but using the same 40-year-old technology, while eliminating most of Space Technology (which was largely at Langley and Glenn). Congress was never overly concerned about the destination of the spacecraft, which they could of course have legislated, only the destination of the dollars. Had Congress insisted Orion go to the Moon they might have had to produce money for landers, habitats, etc. which is still not in evidence. Human flight to the Moon, when we return, will almost certainly use one of the two, soon to be three, commercial launch vehicles availble for the purpose.
“Obama cancelled the failing Constellation and used the money to create a major program in space technology…” ???
What major program in space technology? Human crew? If I’m not mistaken, and I don’t believe I am, the “evil” Mike Griffin was waxing about that possibility long before Obama ever took office.
From 2005: Griffin stated that “Utilizing the market offered by the International Space Station’s requirements for cargo AND CREW will spur true competition in the private sector”. Griffin further noted that a competitive ISS MANNED and unmanned resupply process should be established as official space policy.
No President Obama SUGGESTED not funding it … the President submits a NON BINDING budget PROPOSAL .. sheesh .. take a basic civics course
The congress could have funded Constellation .. they REFUSED!
Obama didn’t want the SLS .. congress funded it… They could have funded Constellation .. they REFUSED
and a BI PARTISAN congress had nothing to do with it? You do not recall Senator Shelby arm twisting senators to fund constellation and the Senate REFUSED TO FUND IT!
Well, there has been some moves to create a space force in the military recently. If space gets added to the military it would get a lot more funding. DoD space budget is bigger than NASA’s even now when space is not overtly important to the military. If it becomes overtly important it will get a lot more visible and invisible funding.
There was absolutely NO WORK done on commercial crew under bush griffin… NONE it was not even considered.
“DP Huntsman ThomasLMatula • 4 days ago
Wow, Tom, you’re off base. First off, COTS-D–the proposed (by the JSC COTS office) 4th phase of COTS which would have been crew transportation capability development – was never, ever, approved, or funded, by anyone. And no one at the COTS program office ever (seriously) were allowed to work on it. Ever.
Secondly, Lori Garver – as part of the Obama Administration- helped steer the Commercial Crew Program, operated out of KSC with new personnel, into existence; first during setting things up as part of the Obama Transition Team, and later as Deputy.”
http://nasawatch.com/archiv…
He’s not a big space supporter. His proposed budget would ZERO out NASA funding for education. Getting to Mars “faster” would require “blank check” funding like NASA enjoyed during Apollo/Saturn. Again, his proposed budget doesn’t reflect his rhetoric.
Trump is all words and no action on space.
Sorta like when that last guy said he was NASA’s biggest fan? All words and no action on space indeed!
Remains to be seen far too early to make that judgement that he is all words and no action, the man is animated about it, has presented NASA in a positive light twice to the nation now in significant ways and to my judgment is learning himself how great NASA is and clearly made an effort to highlight inspiring children especially girls this time. His budget reflects that he considers NASA NOT to be a agency that needs to be chopped in an age of 20 trillion in debt. That is no small matter to consider and space education/inspiration can come from many places, not the least of which a POTUS that actually wants us to get to Mars faster as he learns more about what NASA does and it’s importance. Along with commercial efforts. But time will tell won’t it?
If he gets us to Mars then zeroing out NASA funding for education doesn’t matter as getting to Mars will fire up eagerness to get space education for generations to come. And once the students want education there is the internet ready to provide it for free.
No bucks, no Buck Rogers. Since his proposed NASA budget has no substantial funding increases in it for a manned mission to Mars, he’s already got a built-in one year delay on any such initiative.
I wonder if Trump has any idea what is in the proposed budget. I believe the zero for education came from the acting Administrator and one of his AAs, the one who has been aiming to zero education for as long as he could?
On the contrary Trump and his administration is unusually tight lipped about space policy. Trump who is usually voluble about every subject has said very, very little about space since election. His transition team and administration is tight lipped too and have not made any public comments about space policy. I don’t think they would do that without orders from Trump not to talk. Which makes me hope that he has something big planned for space.
LOL. They’re “tight lipped” because they don’t have a coherent policy that they all agree upon.
I call b.s. His proposed budget shows his real stance on space. The budget is relatively flat which means “status quo” not “speed up”.
Usually it is the second NASA budget of a president that shows his priorities. Most presidents opt for the status quo in their first budgets until they figure out what to do.
Usually, but completely zeroing out NASA Education funding seems like a pretty clear signal on priorities to me.
Congress was the one who funded SLS/Orion in response to the Obama Administration killing the abysmal Ares/CEV program which would have sucked up more money and resources than even SLS/Orion.
The Obama Administration was very supportive of commercial cargo and commercial crew, which was consistently underfunded by the Congress.
Me thinks you’re pointing your finger at the wrong party (pun intended).
I hope TrumpSpace doesn’t end up like TrumpTower. That is lots of razzle/dazzle but a lot of baggage of unpaid bills, bankruptcy, and something not-so-good. Right now I reading the tea leaves my confidence is that great. Tea leave predictions pretty much like everyone else as virtually all have to speculate future of our space program.
No the idea started in 1998 with the passing of The Commercial Space Act of 1998 that called on the US to acquire commercial cargo and commercial crew. It was the shuttle accident that finally gave the white house the ability to get it past congress. Even then in order to get commercial cargo The Vision for Space Exploration, that called for no new rockets, had to be tossed aside and TWO new rockets had to be given to congress. After the non space state congressional members REFUSED to fund constellation any longer the space state members were still able to get the SLS through in order to fund commercial crew.
even then the space state members of congress cut funding on commercial crew
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Commercial Space Act of 1998,
TITLE II–FEDERAL ACQUISITION OF SPACE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
Sec. 201. Requirement to procure commercial space transportation services.
Sec. 202. Acquisition of commercial space transportation services.
https://www.nasa.gov/office…
This is when the NASA was given the green light to acquire commercial services. Congress did not act on this until the Executive branch put for The Vision for Space Exploration. The VSE called for no new rockets; The plan was to put a capsule on a EELV. That was stopped when Senate brought in Griffin who did the 60 day study and gave us the ESAS and now suddenly the EELVs were to expensive and dangerous and now NASA was going to build TWO new rockets.
Commercial cargo was Plan B as stated repeatedly by Gerst in testimony on capital hill. When the Constellation program kept falling farther and farther behind schedule commercial cargo was moved forward and became Plan A. that is when commercial cargo got another shot of funding because as Gerst testified NASA wanted to retire more of the risk because commercial cargo had become Plan A.
There was no funding AT ALL for commercial crew and it was not even considered in the COTS office for commercial cargo. It was a NON STARTER for congress.
After the constellation program kept falling farther behind “the gap” time we would need russian launch services went from a couple years to 5 years. When President Obama did the stimulas he wanted 400 million for commercial crew. Senator Shelby had that amount axed to 50 million. In Obama’s first NASA budget he proposed 6 billion in new funding over 5 years to fully fund commercial crew .. that was another NON STARTER for congress.
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Vlad: Persistently dragging up those pesky facts can be very irritating, Vlad! 🙂
Especially if someone already has an opinion.
You saw a budget increase in Commercial Crew when Republicans who opposed it, like Bill Posey, finally realized that Commercial was at least going somewhere (i.e. LEO) and SLS/Orion might not be. They stonewalled Commercial Crew for years, now they want to take credit for its success.
Those were very small increases which barely kept up with inflation. So far, there has been little to no funding for actual additional hardware for SLS/Orion missions. So far the only thing funded was a tiny bit of money to study HAB modules. There has been zero funding for development of actual landers to land on Mars or moon.