Space and Politics During Alabama Campaign Stops
Vice President Pence to Visit NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
“Vice President Mike Pence will visit NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on Monday, Sept. 25. The Vice President will tour Marshall to get an update on the progress of the Space Launch System rocket and International Space Station science operations as the agency prepares for missions to deep space, around the Moon and ultimately to Mars.”
Keith’s note: Just to be clear the reason why VP Pence is visiting MSFC is because he was already going to be in Alabama to stump for Luther Strange – not the other way around. NASA TV seems to be uninterested in this event – no coverage is being shown on the schedule. But you can see what other people are saying about this on Twitter. Oddly NASA made a big deal about televising Pence’s visit to KSC in July. Maybe they are afraid that Pence will touch some space hardware again.
Keith’s update: A last minute chat with the ISS crew – on NASA TV – has just been announced.
– Deciphering The Core Space Message From Mike Pence, earlier post
– Vice President Mike Pence to Visit KSC Today (which was webcast live), earlier post
Heading to Alabama later this afternoon to visit @NASA_Marshall, meet @NASA employees & tour the center. Follow along using #VPinAL. pic.twitter.com/IoUI6Tvy4T
— Vice President Pence (@VP) September 25, 2017
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o Common LV configurations lower certification costs
o LVs that carry cargo and crew provide demonstrated reliability
to find that ‘unknown unknown’
o Higher annual flight rate spreads fixed costs lowering $/kg
o Solids increase LAS mass because they do not shutdown
– Ares I could not get off the ground with the complete Orion
o 80% of NASA’s BEO mission mass is dirt cheap, Class D propellant
enables future LV changes and pursuit of resuse
o The world has excess launch capacity; nothing close to 100mT
o NASA payload mass provides multiple smaller LVs launch rates
– lowers the costs to DOD and other payloads
o No one would launch a 1B+, 10mT capsule on a 1B+, 100mT LV
o Asteroids brought all the resources to Earth and the moon
most of those that are reachable are Mars and beyond.
o The sole focus on the moon gave NASA CxP and SLS/Orion
the incredibly expendable architectureand $3B/yr+ required
Bush appointed O-Keefe who selected depot centric on data. Oops.
Bush appointed Griffin who ‘believed’ 12 times shuttle derived was safesimplesoon. Cheaper and Faster Alternatives than SLS.
If you want to explore, climate change will cost trillions, leaving few, if any billions for exploration. Encourage folks to change those light bulbs and reduce air leaks ASAP. Point out that energy is a national security issue-DOD will build on-site distributed generation and smart grids, and the renewable energy demands will open markets.
BP says ~ 50 yrs of oil left. Perhaps its time to build auto EVs in the US as battery manufacturing facilities ramp up in Nevada and Alabama (this is surprising, since some folks will not work on anything supported by Al Bore). Scientists say no coal power production by 2030 because global warming does not ‘magically shut down.
Considering kneeling with hand over your chest at the next national anthem to show that you support national interests.
Good luck with the rocket and capsule to nowhere for Apollo mooning, but note that significantly challenging work to place a ding in the universe lies beyond the Earth’s moon and LEO.
So are you saying we should transfer the money being spent on SLS and space exploration to fight global warming?
More concisely, SLS/Orion at ~3B/yr since it requires plus ups for mission hardware, a ~0 ROI. IOW: zero missions.
A more interesting question would be a new architecture based on reuse..vs global warming. Is this your Q?
For the ‘Science and Competition’ Committee: a plumber cannot make a living in a rural community because too few yearly customers .. how does ‘competition’ help?
For competition and too few customers, that’s a solvable problem. If you can reduce the launch and hardware costs, you will get enough customers to support competition.
CubeSats are an example of that. Because the costs are low enough for many customers to afford, you have competitive (and rapidly improving) vendors like Blue Canyon or Clyde Space.
Don’t think of it as a plumber in a small community. Think of it as a plumber in a large community where hardly anyone has indoor plumbing. Make it affordable and you’ll find a big market.
So you are trying to basically turn this into another thread on global warming rather than discuss MSFC and Vice President’s Pence’s visit to it…
This is a garbled mess. Including funding to combat climate change in this is off topic IMHO because that’s not how government funding works. Cancelling a NASA program does not mean that money can easily be transferred to a completely different part of government.
I agree SLS is the most wasteful, useless, program at NASA right now. With companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Orbital ATK introducing real competition in the US commercial launch market, NASA should be leveraging that asset, not competing against it because of some dubious requirement to launch large payloads.
To your point, propellant is easily divided into many launches, so that’s not a justification for SLS. Besides lots of propellant, the only planned payloads NASA will be launching in the near term are Orion and lunar gateway components, which are ISS component sized (or smaller). These can all go up on commercial HLVs. There is zero need for SLS.
A significant amount of data is required to post the ‘garbled mess’ of facts cast aside for decades. Having the NASA community at work/home conserve energy helps deficit, cc, national defense–on topic ;).
Competition means duplication. Consolidation follows if inadequate supply or higher costs with excess capacity.
Lost with stall/delay, but {wink, wink} still on the table?!
A significant, challenging BMO future lies ahead. If blocked, *transfer* 3B/yr to the cc footprint as it will return $Ts funding the next gen. of Explorers, not relocating cities, migrations, and hence immigration.
The next generation of Explorers could warrant double the 3B/yr plus up as well { wink, wink }. Speak up.
Jeff2Space – when you see a post that is so non-grammatical, so garbled, so out of touch it is best to ignore it.
Space exploitation funding is controversial because too many folks think they have to have their hands directly I the pie for the pie to be important enough for the cost. This makes direct advocacy of space risky for politicians who don’t have a significant and relevant benefitting constituency. Alabama senators and other elected officials in the state have that, Vice Presidents don’t. He was there to stump for Strange, not touch more of NASA’s stuff. đŸ˜‰ His remarks, IMO, were peripheral to his main purpose of getting Strange elected.
I would have guessed the other way around— visiting a space-related facility would pay for the official airplane.
Similar to something Obama (and other presidents before him) would do which was to pay an official visit in some city which conveniently was close to a fund raising event.
A small correction. It is Luther Strange, not Nathan Strange.
Just keep Pence away from equipment.