Comments Made by President Trump On NASA and Commercial Space
President Trump's full comments on NASA, commercial space: "It's really amazing what's happening in regards to space and our country." pic.twitter.com/ygHmtEVJzS
— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) March 8, 2018
Keith’s note: The following comments were made this morning by President Trump:
“Before me are some rocket ships [there were rocket models in front of him on the table]. You haven’t seen that for this country in a long time…Many of the jobs we’re doing are privately financed. We’re letting them use the Kennedy Space Center for a fee and, you know, rich guys, you know, they love rocket ships. That’s good. That’s better than us paying for them. And I noticed the prices of the last one they say cost $80 million. If the government did it, the same thing would have cost probably 40- or 50-times that amount of money…I’m so used to hearing different numbers with NASA.”
“But NASA is making tremendous strides and we’re using a lot of private money, a lot of people that love rockets and they’re rich. So they’re going to be a little less rich probably, but a lot of rockets are going up. And we’re really at the forefront — nobody’s doing what we’re doing. And I don’t know if you saw last — with Elon — with the rocket booster where they’re coming back down. To me, that was more amazing than watching the rocket go up, because I’ve never seen that before. Nobody’s seen that before, where they’re saving the boosters, and they came back without wings, without anything. They landed so beautifully. So we’re really at the forefront and we’re doing it in a very private manner.”
“At the same time NASA is very much involved and doing their own projects, but we’re bringing that whole space flight back. We’ll be sending something very beautiful to Mars in the very near future, and we’re going to areas that nobody thought possible, certainly not this quickly. So we’re very proud.”
It looks like he is starting to notice the cost difference between the SLS/Orion and SpaceX. Senator Nelson should be trying to keep the President happy so he gets to keep the pork rocket instead of making him made by blocking his NASA Administrator selection.
Why blame Nelson (maybe because he’s a Dem?), when if all of the Repubs backed Bridenstein, he’d get confirmed. Do the math.
Nelson has one vote. The Dems have fewer votes than the Republicans who can approve Bridenstine without a single democratic vote. Stay tuned. Things are moving in a positive direction now.
Awesome to hear you say this Kieth. Some big things are about to happen, planned behind the scenes with a much larger picture in mind, that will make us all very happy. Think Bezo’s could use a tax break? Your about see massive bucks for Buck Rogers that is all going to come from the private sector. Think about how the internet was built and pioneered with the promise of no sales tax..
Do you have news sources or other sources that can verify these “big things” that are about to happen?
Sure. That’s what they said in Kansas. And Oklahoma.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Hopefully a vote happens before April 1 when Thad Cochran’s resignation takes effect. The special election to replace him won’t happen until November.
Read the Art of the Deal and you will know that he is all about doing things as efficiently as possible, and that’s why the Trough hates him.
Trump did not write “Art of the Deal”. A ghost writer wrote it for him.
A pretty common practice in both politics and business. And the Ghost Writer got credit, and royalties, as co-author.
http://dereklewis.com/famou…
I highly doubt trump is starting to notice. More likely is that Musk pointed out the prices a year ago when he was on his tech committee.
Seriously?
“I’m so used to hearing different numbers with NASA.” This sounds like NASA is on his mind as much as it is on my mind, or perhaps yours. It’s disingenuous at the least.
The SX/FH/ private industry story (one that you, Dr. M., reliably champion) ought to be an obvious homer for the President. I wonder why he’s not crowing about how great private industry is; rarely has there been such a clear case for comparison (not exactly apples/apples, but close).
inspiring !? …
warms the cockles of your heart.
Notice how skillfully Keith didn’t even have to make any editorial comments on that one?!
It’s hard for me to read that and maintain a cohesive thought.
GrokLaw.net didn’t have to editorialize, either; Just publishing some of the court documents (and Judge’s opinions), despite how serious they were trying to be, had a _lot_ of folks laughing.
The more seriously you take yourself, the funnier you are. (Campbell’s corollary to Romanchek’s Sixth Rule)
(flashback to SpaceBalls, Dark Helmet with his Toys)
POTUS after VPOTUS pops through the door: “Did you see anything?”
VPOTUS: “No, sir, I didn’t see you playing with your toy spaceships!”
Articulate as always … he knows good words ..
Only the BEST words!
Thanks for the catch, glad I didn’t use quotation marks..
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
He’s so articulate, lol.
That being said, his word-salad does have a glimmer of content in it, as Thomas pointed out. He’s not as dumb as he sounds , although I think everyone here would concede he doesn’t know very much about space. I think his instincts will benefit the commercial sector more, and (if approved) his Administrator will be a boon to NASA overall, so I think even if you otherwise hate Trumps policies that we can give him a bit of hopeful optimism on the NASA front even though (like Obama) it doesn’t look like he’s going to have or invest the political capital to solve most of its long term problems such as long term funding and some independence of planning that is not so totally dependent on the current Administration in the WH.
My brain hurts just reading that. Ugh.
I skim it, short exposure while painful is barrable gist is he sees sls is expensive and f9 isn’t, if he acts on it by killing sls it will be strange to cheer for him, but i don’t know how that would happen
I think the Falcon Heavy demo broke his brain a little more than it already was
>if he acts on it by killing sls
Will be interesting to see how Shelby will respond.
Save yourself the headache and just read the word cloud.
I hate word clouds because I’m never sure if they took into account qualifiers like “not” or “never” before a word. Just because a word like “affordable” appears in a word cloud doesn’t mean that the actual sentences used indicated that the thing being talked about was affordable.
Oh, you actually want to make sense out of it? That’s not what it’s for. Actually there is no purpose here. It’s just a jumble. Appreciate it like one might appreciate bad performance art.
I like how large the model is for the congressional boondoggle. It should be twice as wide as the Falcon 9 with the dragon II .
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Oh that’s easy its a subliminal message for Trump for what should be focused on…. Maybe not so subliminal as its physically closer to him too
hopefully it is out of sight out of mind …
If some can manage to get over their TDS maybe they will notice this moment was the massive shift they’ve been screaming about for years.
The massive shift has been going on quietly for years, but the real question will be what happens with the major programs including SLS, ISS, Exploration, Space Technology, etc.
For planetary science, I expect the language in the next Discovery AO will tell us something. In the past, proposals were not allowed to specify a launch vehicle. They had to show their requirements were with the capabilities of low to mid-range EELVs; if it was towards the low end of the range, the proposal got bonus points and a slightly higher cost cap; if it was towards the high end, some penalty points and a lower cost cap. But this was always phrased in terms of low, medium and high performance, not cost. Falcon Heavy is high performance but low cost launch vehicle. I wonder how that will be considered in the next AO (due out in draft form late this fall.) Falcon 9 is, by the way, medium-range performance and very low cost by these standards.
Thank you Jack, the rampant TDS spoils these boards for me. Quietly, many @ NASA agree with my assertion, going back to before the election, that Trump & Pence would and will prove to be the best thing that NASA has seen in a long time.
My dog, Tanner, as pictured here, has more logical and sensible articulation and locution than the mind-numbing pontification I just read.
Let’s try to be positive. The quote from President Trump isn’t exactly a brilliant eloquence. (Actually, I thought President Bush Jr.’s speeches would make Cicero turn over in his grave, and by comparison to Trump, Bush is a great orator.) But it is positive and enthusiastic about the space related issues. Not perfectly or terribly accurate about the details, but positive and enthusiastic. Those quotes are more-or-less what I might imagine an excited sixth grade student saying. But that’s actually the best presidential support we’ve seen for anything space-related in a long time.
Dammit…That’s a really good point. Makes me so cross 😉