I watched some of this initially but turned it off because I had much better things to do than waste my time hearing talking heads saying the same things I’ve heard for the past couple of decades. Yet more talk and no action, why will it be any different this time around? Would love to be proven wrong. I’ve pretty much given up hope of seeing astronauts on Mars in my lifetime. It’s all pretty pathetic because I was only 10 when Apollo 11 and 12 landed on the Moon back oh sooo very long ago…
I’m pretty concerned with what I watched. It seems as though we are going to continue on a path of expensive mediocrity. What’s lacking is a visionary. Coordination is all fine but that’s not what makes America great. And maintaining multi-billion dollar programs and adding another one isn’t going to give us a high bang for our buck.
Rather, what I wish that I had heard was of a cost-effective, “Lunar COTS” type of programs at human lander scale. Instead, we’ve got the ISS, SLS, Orion, and now DSG. The end result is very tight budgets and no clear direction for the near-term, cost-effective development of the Moon.
why some of us have moved on or back to DOD. It is difficult to see an end game in my work lifetime that is led by the government. The optimist wants to believe but the pessimist says “haven’t you learned your lesson” , the un-annealed truth. I personally applaud the VP for engaging because that is a step in the right direction, but the challenge is to see real action. Personally, the most alarming issues in space (NASA close your ears) is the discussed concerns in Mil Space, PNT, assured access, Comm, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised after they start working on the report that the HSF part will be interesting, but the DOD component will be where the priority goes because of some REAL issues.
I suggest holding back on the knee jerk cynicism – unless you naively expected that Pence would announce the termination of all of NASA’s current programs (except for COTS and Commercial Crew of course) and then announces that SpaceX will get half of NASA’s budget to commercially colonize Mars while the other half will go to Bezos to commercialize the moon, this was a pretty good start. We still need to see if OMB will cough up any more money (nice to see the OMB Director here) and if this will extend beyond one fiscal years but for a kick off event showing the Administration cares about space, this really was promising.
unless you naively expected that Pence would announce the termination of all of NASA’s current programs (except for COTS and Commercial Crew of course) and then announces that SpaceX will get half of NASA’s budget to commercially colonize Mars while the other half will go to Bezos to commercialize the moon
Is that strawman of the rest of us an example of you holding back knee jerk cynicism?
To just about everyone except Pence, having 2 robot explorers on Mars makes our space program great. I wish that someone would have been impolite and tell him we are great right now. Stand up for or space program, NASA and America.Also him and Trump saying they will make our country great again(meaning we were great once, not great now). H e is the first for anyone to say that. No politician would ever say that. I have never read or heard of any President ever saying this, It is false and unpatriotic. It encourages our enemies. America,America from sea to shining sea. Trump runs America like a business some say though. He should say why we don’t have a great program. It sounds like he just has a feeling. I wonder if he knows of all the great NASA programs right now, not in the past. If it is Shuttle, SpaceX is building Shuttle-2. No vertical fin, but flaps and wing. Will dissipate 99% of the energy with air, like the Shuttle did, but land on tail for the needed spot landing. Did he see the test of the tank? That should cheer him up. He can watch it being built next year. NASA said they did did not need a new Shuttle to go to Mars, Musk said that is the way to go. Griffin said USAF needs their on launcher. He must mean NGL. Solids like missiles to stand by and bring that spy sat out of storage and launch to replace the ones that our enemies destroy.
Salty?
I watched some of this initially but turned it off because I had much better things to do than waste my time hearing talking heads saying the same things I’ve heard for the past couple of decades. Yet more talk and no action, why will it be any different this time around? Would love to be proven wrong. I’ve pretty much given up hope of seeing astronauts on Mars in my lifetime. It’s all pretty pathetic because I was only 10 when Apollo 11 and 12 landed on the Moon back oh sooo very long ago…
Yes.
I’m pretty concerned with what I watched. It seems as though we are going to continue on a path of expensive mediocrity. What’s lacking is a visionary. Coordination is all fine but that’s not what makes America great. And maintaining multi-billion dollar programs and adding another one isn’t going to give us a high bang for our buck.
Rather, what I wish that I had heard was of a cost-effective, “Lunar COTS” type of programs at human lander scale. Instead, we’ve got the ISS, SLS, Orion, and now DSG. The end result is very tight budgets and no clear direction for the near-term, cost-effective development of the Moon.
DevelopSpace.info
why some of us have moved on or back to DOD. It is difficult to see an end game in my work lifetime that is led by the government. The optimist wants to believe but the pessimist says “haven’t you learned your lesson” , the un-annealed truth. I personally applaud the VP for engaging because that is a step in the right direction, but the challenge is to see real action. Personally, the most alarming issues in space (NASA close your ears) is the discussed concerns in Mil Space, PNT, assured access, Comm, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised after they start working on the report that the HSF part will be interesting, but the DOD component will be where the priority goes because of some REAL issues.
I suggest holding back on the knee jerk cynicism – unless you naively expected that Pence would announce the termination of all of NASA’s current programs (except for COTS and Commercial Crew of course) and then announces that SpaceX will get half of NASA’s budget to commercially colonize Mars while the other half will go to Bezos to commercialize the moon, this was a pretty good start. We still need to see if OMB will cough up any more money (nice to see the OMB Director here) and if this will extend beyond one fiscal years but for a kick off event showing the Administration cares about space, this really was promising.
Is that strawman of the rest of us an example of you holding back knee jerk cynicism?
To just about everyone except Pence, having 2 robot explorers on Mars makes our space program great. I wish that someone would have been impolite and tell him we are great right now. Stand up for or space program, NASA and America.Also him and Trump saying they will make our country great again(meaning we were great once, not great now). H e is the first for anyone to say that. No politician would ever say that. I have never read or heard of any President ever saying this, It is false and unpatriotic. It encourages our enemies. America,America from sea to shining sea. Trump runs America like a business some say though. He should say why we don’t have a great program. It sounds like he just has a feeling. I wonder if he knows of all the great NASA programs right now, not in the past. If it is Shuttle, SpaceX is building Shuttle-2. No vertical fin, but flaps and wing. Will dissipate 99% of the energy with air, like the Shuttle did, but land on tail for the needed spot landing. Did he see the test of the tank? That should cheer him up. He can watch it being built next year. NASA said they did did not need a new Shuttle to go to Mars, Musk said that is the way to go.
Griffin said USAF needs their on launcher. He must mean NGL. Solids like missiles to stand by and bring that spy sat out of storage and launch to replace the ones that our enemies destroy.
As Mr. Obs points out below: it was very heartening to see so many heavy weights at this conference.