Fortuna Audaces Juvat, @JimBridenstine
Keith’s note: During the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) era after the loss of Columbia NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe created an Exploration Directorate separate from the directorate that operated the space shuttle and ISS – on purpose. He wanted the new stuff to not be bound by the status quo. Adm. Craig Steidle was recruited to run the show. Whatever commercial things NASA does now had their seeds in what Steidle and O’Keefe did. This all came apart when O’Keefe left, and Mike Griffin came in and threw everything new and innovative out to do his “Apollo on steroids thing”. President Obama later gutted that only to bring it partially back. NASA now deals with the remnants of these roller coaster decisions.
Keith’s update: To be clear about how this all happened, NASA Deputy Administrator Fred Gregory was actually the prime mover behind the creation of a separate exploration entity within NASA focused on (you guessed it) exploration. He created a group looking into how to facilitate exploration thinking, hired Adm. Craig Steidle, and then pitched a plan to Sean O’Keefe. Fred also found and recruited Gen. Michael Kostelnik to become the program director of human space flight with the hope of breaking down the field center sand piles and to pull Space Station and Space Shuttle programs closer together. This was an enlightened series of steps taken by Fred and would be well worth revisiting today since the stovepipes within NASA human spaceflight were quickly reassembled.
During that time when the VSE was seen as a refreshing recommitment to exploration post-Columbia – there was a momentary alliance between all factions. People thought bold adventurous thoughts again. Back to the Moon and then on to Mars. Craig was looking to do some branding and meme generation. He hit on one thing that was really ballsy. He read a lot of Greek classics as military people are want to do. And he found his catch phrase. He created a motto – for a patch and logo that Mike Okuda (who worked on Star Trek) created. (Larger image) The motto was “Fortuna Audaces Juvat“ which is usually translated as a variant of “Fortune favors the bold” – a latin proverb most prominently repeated in Virgil’s “Aeneid” at 10.284. You have no doubt seen this phrase before. Its common in the military – for good reasons. It has a Star Trek vibe to it. Craig Steidel drew a line in the sand and provided a motto to wear on one’s shoulders as the agency set forth back into space. I thought it was a master stroke. Too bad NASA doesn’t do things like this any more.
In the course of writing my next book I came to reference this phrase and thought I’d see if my antique book collection could help me find an old reference. In this case I found one in a 1792 publication – translated as “fortune assists the brave”. Close enough. (larger image)
Jim Bridenstine often ends many official statements with “Ad Astra” (“to the stars”) which is taken from another Latin phrase common in exploration and military history “Per aspera ad astra/ ad astra per aspera“ (“through hardships to the stars”). Alas, NASA is now going to try and do some exciting stuff in space again by going “Forward to the Moon” to quote Bridenstine’s official favorite phrase.
Ugh. That’s certainly underwhelming. Why not “Back To The Moon and then Beyond?” or “Go boldly where no(one) has gone before”? you know – something a little more inspiring?
The patch itself manifests the VSE phrase: Moon, Mars, & Beyond. While I’m okay with removing Mars from the place immediately following the Moon (since other destinations & activities might be a better choice before Mars), it sure does flow nice as an encapsulating expression.
But on a broader philosophical note, is it still possible for a government agency to be bold, given what it takes to make anything happen in the Federal govt? Changing Administrations, Congress & its turnovers, the bureaucracy… I would like to think so but I have serious doubts. How, indeed, would it be possible? What, really, would it take? A good inspiring rallying cry is a start, but…then what? How?
Perhaps more people should remember another old phrase and its origins. “Turning a blind eye” was originally about something Nelson did when he was a ship’s captain at the Battle of Copenhagen. The short version is that he was in the process of turning a modest military victory into a really substantial one when an Admiral’s order basically said, “we’ve done enough, everyone disengage.” Nelson decided to ignore that order.
If you want government agencies and officials to be bold, you might want the sort of person who is blind in one eye, holds a telescope up to his blind eye, and says, “I do not see any flag signals ordering us to disengage.”
Funnily, for all his own daring-do, as a senior Admiral, Nelson was famously contemptuous of Cpt (later Adm) Sydney Smith’s actions in against Napoleon, which would have won allies with Nappy’s generals and created a civil war in France, possibly leading to his overthrow. Do as I say, not as I do.
Nelson was a complicated enough character that I don’t even want to debate his good and bad points. I was just pointing out a famous example of blatantly ignoring stupid orders.
I suspect Administrator Bridenstine is using that to counter President Obama’s infamous remark about the Moon – “been there, done that” and to remind folks that we have been stuck in LEO so long that for most Americans returning to the Moon is actually a step forward. But perhaps a new slogan and phrase would be good as you suggest. The problem is given past history what ever it is will likely be discarded when another Administration takes office and hits the “reset button” again. That is why in all honesty I hope the focus will be on creating an improved regulatory environment for private space activities and keeping NASA support of them low key so they will have a chance of surviving the next Administration space vision photo-op.
A phrase he didn’t actually use. As you’ve been told dozens of times.
Yes, he was even more superficial. He said “Buzz already did that.”
Nope, he didn’t say that either.
However, looking at the Apollo-redux Constellation, then yes, Buzz literally had done that. In spite of the promises of “moon bases” and “lunar polar resources” (and polar telescopes), Constellation had been so reduced in scope that it added nothing and could never add anything. Indeed, it wasn’t capable of being performed at all for the funding Congress was willing to offer.
Could a different moon-plan have worked? Maybe. Was NASA capable of doing it internally, no. Would Congress have allowed a commercial plan? Of course not.
Obama’s mistake was in thinking that he could negotiate something that was actually good for NASA, good for the US space program. (Focused on expanding tech development, commercial LEO, and restoring science funding.) He thought that Congress (including members of his own party, like Nelson) were genuine in their claims. He found out differently and had to later play a different game in order to get even basic changes at NASA like Commercial Crew. Similarly the USAF did an end-run around Congress to get a new engine program, helping fund Raptor, BE-4 and AR-1.
This endlessly regurgitated meme, as spouted by you and Matula, is an example of the dishonesty of the Constellation crowd.
What does NASA need today? Tech development. New, better launchers, not recycled Shuttle tech. Commercial HSF. And more funding.
What did Obama propose in 2010? Tech development (starting with a new generation hydrocarbon HLV engine). A new HLV, not recycled STS hardware. Commercial HSF. And more funding.
So what’s with all the butthurt whining?
Nice try, but after his photo-op all President Obama did was to cut spaceflight NASA budgets except for Earth Observation. (Yes, he found money to launch Goresat).
Commercial Crew was an extension of the COTS program and was promoted heavily by Lori Graver. President Obama only supported it because it gave him a fig leaf to use to kill Constellation in Congress without looking like he was completely killing any hope of NASA being able to send astronauts to the ISS without relying on the Soyuz.
Another viewpoint by Marsha Freeman
https://21sci-tech.com/Arti…
Obama Proposes To Kill Science, Space Exploration, and Your Future
by Marsha Freeman
What viewpoint? We know what his actual words were. We know what he actually proposed.
Why would I care about the dishonest whinge of the Constellation-apologists?
Marsha Freeman is considered by many a space policy expert with numerous articles and books. And your publications are?
Also she shows his words didn’t match his actions towards NASA.
Shills gotta shill.
If you’re a true believer that anything that Al Gore thought of must be wrong/addleheaded/unnecessary, please ignore the rest of this comment. Triana, which passed scientific rational muster with the NAS, was mothballed rather than launched totally as a result of politics. Since its resurrection, refit, and launch as DSCOVR, it has been providing not only unique earth science data but serving as a replacement for the aged solar wind instrumentation on the ACE spacecraft, for the last almost three years: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/p… .
The refurbishment, test, and reintegration of the space weather instruments and the launch were provided by NOAA and USAF, respectively. I guess they think those data are worthwhile.
The science community was not that thrilled that a Vice-President pushed a spacecraft on NASA, ignoring the normal review process for selecting proposals just because he had a dream about it. Sure, NASA had little choice but to find a justification for it since it was something the Vice President wanted.
https://www.airspacemag.com…
Al Gore’s Satellite
It’s almost ready for launch—even if no one wants to take credit for its resurrection.
“But the administration didn’t need Congress’ approval to start work on the satellite; it shifted money allocated to other Earth and space science missions. With the vice president’s name attached to it, the Triana concept moved through NASA at the bureaucratic equivalent of warp speed.”
and
“A few months later, the inspector general came back with a stinging evaluation of Triana, painting it as a fiscally out-of-control rush job of dubious scientific merit. The decision to include Scripps’ climate instrument suite increased the mission budget from $50 million to $77 million. While those science instrument proposals were sufficiently peer-reviewed, the overarching Triana concept—largely inspirational—never was, the auditor complained.”
You start with “the science community,” but end with the IG. Putting aside the fact that the NASA IG’s office has shown time and again that they know nothing about science, however good they are as auditors, I know several scientists who were very happy about Triana. It’s the big shots who saw it in a zero-sum way, assuming that it deprived them of opportunities to be selected for PI-led investigations, that were unhappy. The NAS’s operating arm, the National Research Council, convened a task group of scientists, some of whom could be viewed as potential competitors for the kinds of investigation on the spacecraft, to assess the mission’s technical feasibility and scientific value. That group of scientists, at least, found the scientific justification to be OK: https://www.nap.edu/catalog… .
I consider it as the classic example of making lemonade out of a lemon you were given. The Vice President was inspired in a dream that a continual image of the Earth would promote environmentalism and told NASA to do it, so NASA, having no choice, took advantage of it and added additional instruments so it wouldn’t be a total waste, which is what the IG pointed out.
But tell me, if President Trump had a dream and demanded a lunar lander that streamed a continual picture of an American flag on the Moon with the Earth in the background would you be as chartible? Even if lunar scientists loaded the lander down with useful instruments so it wouldn’t be a waste of resources?
Or would you claim President Trump was breaking the law using NASA to further his personal agenda?
If the science was good, certainly.
Scientists have been prostitutes at least since the days of Kepler (who had to cast horoscopes to keep from starving). We don’t really have much choice when we want to do science we can’t afford on an Uber driver’s earnings.
Actually, Galileo would be a better example. Kepler may actually have had some faith in horoscopes. Galileo’s introduction to Sidereus Nuncius is classic. He not only named the moons of Jupiter the “ Medicean Stars”, because he was applying for a job from Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, he also named the four of them after Cosimo and his three brothers. And then cast a horoscope for Medici which showed Jupiter as a very prominent and important influence.
But we all recognize that as a scam. A good one, but still a scam. And we never really used the name “Medicean Stars.” Taking advantage of an opportunity to fit in good science is one thing. Praising a case where good science displaced excellent science is very different.
The American flag can, and has, been used on planetary missions as a calibration target. It’s quite useful to have two or three known colors and brightnesses in an image, to make sure those really are true color images. But we normally slip things like that in because they fit, not as the justification for the camera.
That simply demonstrates a flaw in the way the National Academies do things. They got together a panel of experts. But, as it happens, the experts are the ones most interested in the measurements and the opportunity to get those particular observations. Of course they were all for it. You can even look at some of the implementation. The solar wind instruments exceeded several requirements by an order of magnitude. It was very clearly using solar wind monitoring as a foot in the door, for people who really wanted to study things like plasma turbulence. (Not that that’s a bad thing to study, but it’s a dishonest way to accomplish that science.)
With respect, I believe you don’t realize how big shots in the field operate. There’s a lot of axe grinding and pooh-poohing of anyone else’s capabilities and qualifications. To have such a group actually find a mission concept scientifically useful meant they either didn’t see it as a zero-sum game (that is, not breaking their rice bowls), or were genuinely impressed with the science — or both.
With respect, I know very well how these things happen. I frequently disagree with or disapprove of how some of those big shots operate, but I understand it very well.
In this case, when push comes to shove, a solar wind expert will be in favor of an instrument to measure the solar wind. If it were a my instrument versus yours issue, things would be different. But the people on a NAS panel can’t be direct competitors. They could be hostile to other people who build similar instruments. That isn’t what I get out of the names on that report. Energetic particle, electrostatic analyzer and magnetometer people aren’t in direct competition and they do want those other people’s measurements to be available. Theorists aren’t in direct competition with hardware builders and definitely want to see the measurements.
Now, what do you think the NAS report would have said if they had asked Mars photogeologists or cosmochemists? Would they have said that DSCOVR wasn’t where NASA should be putting $100 million?
Well, that’s the bind, isn’t it? If you rule out competitors, your rule out people with the level of scientific and technical expertise to make a sensible judgment. And one such person was definitely on the panel. Disclaimer: I have no knowledge of the backgrounds of the earth science people who were on it.
I don’t know the earth science people involved either. But yes, there’s always a problem with all the competent reviewers being on a conflicting proposal. And the common practice of adding a long list of co-investigators doesn’t help. I’m not sure how common it is for entire missions, but down at the instrument and data analysis level, mail in reviews can help. They can be from people who are legally conflicted, since the actual review panel can use or ignore their input. I even saw one case where two people proposed to do essentially identical work and were asked to do mail in reviews on each other’s proposals. (Although I’ve always suspected the person running that review was just sneaking in an psychological experiment…)
Anyway, I’ve been tempted to suggest that the next planetary Decadal Survey have people with their feet on the ground. Asking a terrestrial geologist about how we’re doing planetary geology would be interesting. But, more importantly, they might bring in less biased opinions. They wouldn’t have their own pet projects to promote.
That’s always valuable — especially of the other people on the panel are able to judge that the “outside” people are really conflict-free.
Also have to correct you a bit on the history: there was little or no solar wind instrumentation on Triana as originally proposed. Then SOHO got broken and the Goddard Explorer office and the SOHO science team proposed a sunward-looking (mounted on the “back” of the spacecraft) instrument suite that could do yada-yada percent of the SOHO scientific mission at a few percent of the cost to develop SOHO (practicable with engineering model spares which ESA, unlike NASA, was still requiring in those days). SOHO was “rescued” before the Triana selection came out, but the agency was wise enough to keep the solar wind package. It was never a matter of requirements, but of a proposed scientific investigation.
If the DSCOVR solar wind package exceeds some notional NOAA “requirements,” all that means is that more new science can get done with the data than with a copy of of the ACE instrumentation, which had severe limitations in measuring extreme space weather events, among other things.
The NAS report you referenced was about a spacecraft which would do solar wind monitoring. So the fact that Mr. Gore’s original idea didn’t include that is a bit irrelevant.
Having an operating solar wind monitor at L1 is a long standing concern, and SOHO wasn’t really about that. It did (and does) the job, but it’s primarily a solar telescope, not an in situ solar wind monitor. It and DSCOVR are part of the continuing struggle to keep a monitor in place, but I really don’t see what your point was.
As far as the requirements, I’d say time resolution under one second is excessive when the requirement calls for at least one minute resolution. That’s not slipping in a little extra science. The goal of solar wind monitoring, not the overblown capability, could have been done for a fraction of the cost. Perhaps not $10 million, but far less than $100 million.
Also, I believe the scientific community as a whole simply shrugged its collective shoulders at Triana; the reaction I recall was nowhere near as severe as was the case when Sam Ting pitched his Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to Dan Goldin in an elevator — and Smilin’ Dan thought it was good enough to fund. Congress had to back it, of course, and a Nobel laureate at a high-profile university is a lot easier to get bipartisan support for in Congress that a Vice President — but it took crafted legislation to get the AMS-02 a ride. And I can tell you that the outrage in the astrophysics community, the quality of the potential science notwithstanding, was severe when the original (AMS-01) “selection” without peer review was announced. And believe me, the eventual, $2B price tag for AMS-02 did not endear it to the astrophysics community in the US. (Of course, they have this little issue with JWST now.)
We may just be hearing different things from different parts of the scientific community. Other than generating the infamous “elevator speech” term, I don’t think many planetary or heliophysical scientists even noticed that Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. But I can see how it would upset astrophysicists. In the same way, perhaps the astrophysicists didn’t see Triana/DSCOVR the same was planetary scientists did. Many of us were appalled. The shrugging was about being able to do anything about it, not about not thinking it was stupid.
Believe me, both “selections” upset a number of heliophysics people. A lot. But the reaction to AMS was more pronounced, and on average much more severe. Must be that “billions” thing.
I did see a lot more zero-sum thinking about mission costs among my astrophysics colleagues than among the heliophysics ones (some of whom, to be fair, thought not in terms of cost but in terms of “whose turn” it was for major missions, and got heartburn when a NASA division director said, “The same as it’s always been: the people with the most scientifically compelling proposal”). Not certain why, other than the larger raw number of people with good ideas pursuing a smaller per-capita number of dollars. All of which became irrelevant after the final HST repair/reboost and JWST devoured nearly everything else.
The “science community” reacted badly to this project, which was never about science. Mr. Gore was rightly raising the visibility of climate change.
Perhaps, but I still don’t like it on esthetic grounds. The images of the Earth are always seen from noon and over the equator. I used to have a screen saver and background on my computer called xearth. It did simulated views of the Earth as seen from space. Options allowed views from orbits of you choice and updated every few minutes. I found eccentric, inclined and non-synchronus orbits to be vastly more interesting. That provided day-night variations, views from high and low altitudes and from different distances. I think Mr. Gore’s idea of providing real images of the Earth would have been better and more popular if they provided that sort of variety.
Everyone’s a critic! 🙂
I suspect you put more thought into these images than would our average citizen, Dr. Crary. And I also think that you, and your similarly-scientific ilk, are far from the intended audience.
Mr. Gore might have been grasping at straws here but he did it brilliantly, showing the technology could be usefully harnessed, that tech isn’t necessarily the enemy; that the average citizen could be part of the solution, even at the broadest and highest levels; I could go on.
The scientific community and our friends on the right took it far too seriously, although Mr. Gore could have prepared a better explanation.
I guess the way it was handled bothers me more than the idea itself. Other than criticizing the camera angle and the fact that it axed a private effort to do something similar (and one that wasn’t really going anywhere), I think live images of the Earth from space is a fine thing for NASA to provide. But it ought to have come out of the outreach and education budget. Using science as window dressing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
We didn’t have to do that with Apollo. It was very open and clear that it wasn’t about science and no one pretended otherwise. If and when Mr. Musk eventually gets people to Mars, I expect there will be some scientific measurements made along the way, but no one’s going to say they were the goal. Some things are worth doing just for the hell of it, and I’d rather not have to invent justifications. (Especially when the justification comes at the expense of something else, which pretending GoreSat was a science mission may have done.)
“I think live images of the Earth from space is a fine thing for NASA to provide. But it ought to have come out of the outreach and education budget. Using science as window dressing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
Here I find myself disagreeing with you. Yes, science funding requires perpetual, persistent protection.
But I will be more direct: reading between the lines at the end of the passage I quoted, the objection appears at least partly informed by a sense that somehow the science would have been sullied by the peculiarities of this particular project, something I very much doubt. We will never know.
Unfortunately, that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the Triana/DSCOVR. When it comes to flight missions, you’re in an environment where there are dozens of good ideas for ever mission that actually gets funded, built and flown. If the reviewers unanimously agree that a mission proposal is “very good” (four on a scale of one to five), that’s a death sentence.
The fact that DSCOVR “passed scientific rational muster with the NAS” after it was already approved is insufficient. Is it better than all the other things NASA (or NOAA) could have done with the same money? We’ll never know, because Mr. Gore short circuited the process. That’s also why some people are critical of the Europa Lander concept; it’s not bad science, and I don’t think anyone has said so. But it was inserted at the whim of one congressman and there are other planetary science missions that might be a higher priority.
I’ll happily admit the process NASA is supposed to follow isn’t perfect. I’m also fine with science funded at the whim of some rich person, and if they’re paying, they get to pick the mission. But if it’s the government and taxpayer’s money, individual whims shouldn’t be involved.
Apologies for slightly mis-remembering/rephrasing. Here is a direct quote from President Obama’s April 15, 2010 address/presentation, with Cdr Aldrin present:
“Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before. Buzz has been there.”
I heard this in real-time, and his dismissive condescension seemed quite evident in his tone. One can even discern this tone in his ‘just have to say’ choice of words.
Here’s a link to the entire address.
https://www.nasa.gov/news/m…
In its entirety it suggests a naive misunderstanding of (or a conscious decision to ignore) the original well-considered rationale underlying the VSE, i.e., to use the Moon as a stepping-stone toward access to everywhere else. The wording in this quote and in the remainder of the speech gives the false impression that the VSE was solely about setting down on the lunar surface and only that. It is THIS with which I have always taken issue with in this address specifically and in the Obama Admin’s space policy generally.
Be that as it may, please do NOT consider me a Constellation apologist. VSE had a chance because it was grounded in solid thinking & bold intentions; Griffin’s ‘A on S’ take on it crippled our nation’s space program for…well, we’ll have to wait for years to see just how long.
Except that Ares/Orion under Griffin had nothing to do with Bush’s original VSE proposals under O’Keefe.
It was Griffin’s monstrosity that Obama was referring to, the mentality that he was trying to steer NASA away from.
Once Ares/Orion had been forced onto NASA, Obama’s advisors believed that moon aspect of VSE was not recoverable. So they tried to substitute an asteroid mission in the role that the moon served under VSE, in order to try to remove the influence of VSE’s corruptors. However, the same people did the same thing to the asteroid proposal as they had done to the moon proposal.
When you regurgitate those dumb Obama-killed-the-space-program memes, you are not defending VSE, you are aiding and abetting the people who corrupted VSE. You are, in reality, defending Constellation/Ares, you are defending SLS/Orion. You are defending the bad guys.
How is quoting P Obama directly ‘regurgitating a meme’? And how exactly do you know that he was referring specifically to Griffin’s Constellation & not more generally to ‘a return to the surface of the Moon’, as his actual words say? The very fact that he and his advisors could not see a path back to the wisdom of the original VSE but instead sought to bypass same by pursuing ‘a destination too far’ (which created its own crippling problems for NASA, btw) suggests the latter, not the former.
I suppose I’ll just have to leave you to chew your old plots, then. Have a grand day.
In April 2010 I was completely engaged in an effort ultimately fruitless: that of saving the jobs of my team, a group of people and families that were my responsibility.
I failed. I saved about 50% of exactly one job: my own. I made other mistakes. I failed to properly order the issues before me. I should have dissolved the firm at least a year earlier; this conclusion from hindsight, yes, but even contemporaneously, the American economy had years of struggle ahead.
Instead, month after month I covered salaries, and for what? In the end I nearly lost my house; and employees lost opportunities.
Mr. Obama’s comments that day were beyond thoughtless, and this coming from a famously thoughtful man (even more conservative Americans yield on that point).
I’m never eager to assign motivation in the absence of obviousness. But in this case, I’d allow Mr. Obama some slack, presuming preoccupation, as well as clarity on the relative importance of matters in front of him.
Not sure why you’d say “beyond thoughtless”. His tone was less inspiring and more forceful (almost angry) than one might have hoped, but as you say he may have had other things on his mind. From the standpoint of exploration for exploration’s sake, not returning to the moon’s surface if your goal is elsewhere doesn’t seem illogical or thoughtless.
Point taken; you are correct. I meant this: he needlessly deprecated a very important subject, driven as he was by immediate needs.
Exactly. The text of the speech at the NASA website.
https://www.nasa.gov/news/m…
“Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before. Buzz has been there.”
But go ahead, keep splitting hairs trying to spin that President Obama was somehow interested in space beyond simply using it as a photo-op.
BTW this was also in his speech.
“Although, I have to say, during a meeting right before I came out on stage somebody said, you know, it’s more than just Tang — and I had to point out I actually really like Tang. (Laughter.) I thought that was very cool.”
Yes, he actually praised Tang as a spinoff… And also…
“And unlike the previous program, we are setting a course with specific and achievable milestones.
Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit. (Applause.) And by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space. (Applause.) So we’ll start — we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. (Applause.)”
Yes, Congress had a role, but the SLS, Orion, Gateway are the legacies of his “space vision”… Billions and Billions wasted.
You focussed on the Tang remark? I guess you don’t appreciate Obama’s sense of humor… The context for “We’ve been there before. Buzz has been there.” was that Buzz was in the audience. Additionally, Obama’s speech was on April 10, 2010. Earlier, on Feb. 1, 2010, Buzz had put out a press release in which said “As an Apollo astronaut, I know the importance of always pushing new frontiers as we explore space. The truth is, that we have already been to the Moon – some 40 years ago.”
Yea, a great sense of humor, promises NASA more money then repeatedly cuts the budget… Gives NASA a goal of going to an asteroid, except there are none suitable to go to. Then the Obama Vision proposed bringing an asteroid to the astronauts (ARM), but Again NASA couldn’t find any that would work, so at the end it was just bringing a big rock for the astronauts to go to, but NASA was still having trouble finding one before President Trump put an end to the joke that was ARM. So no, I don’t understand his sense of humor.
President Kennedy at least took the time to check with NASA if his plan was feasible first. President Obama doesn’t appeared to have bothered.
Heh, you have an odd idea of what humor is… If I recall correctly, the 2010 budget was an increase. I believe the next year funding fell due to the takeover of the house by republicans. Don’t think you can blame Obama for that. Well you can, but then you have to give him credit for commercial space. It seems unlikely that Obama came up with the idea of ARM, but if he did, he must have had more interest in space then you seem to credit him with.
It was just a one time increase as part of a general stimulus bill. ARM seem to just emerge after NASA determined it was not feasible to actually send astronauts to an asteroid as he envisioned in his speech. Lori Graver is the one who deserves the real credit for commercial crew as she push for it and protected it during the first critical years as NASA Associate Administrator.
Matula knows all that. He isn’t speaking out of ignorance, his deceit is deliberate and premeditated.
[edit: Just as in his answer to you, he knows that Obama’s asteroid proposal was premised on the idea of tech development. There were “none suitable” with SLS, which wasn’t part of Obama’s 2010 proposal.]
You are the one that is trying to rewrite history. Candidate Obama’s very first space policy proposal in 2009 was to transfer billions from Project Constellation to education. He only changed his tune when he figured out he might lose Florida with that policy. Only then did he become a “believer” in NASA. His 2010 speech was nothing more than to show those in Florida he “cared” about space for the 2012 election.
The money he promised NASA for development of tech and better propulsion systems never arrived which is why the SLS is using rebuilt Shuttle engines and modifications of the1960’s designed RL-10. It’s how President Obama’s Heavy Lift became the SLS and he never raised one finger to stop it, because he didn’t care about NASA. It is also why SLS/Orion could never reach a NEO and is barely able to reach the orbit for the Gateway.
His 2010 budget request is part of the public record. It requested $6b extra funding over 5 years in addition to the money freed up from cancelling Constellation, at a time when existing legislation would have required a budget cut. NASA was specifically singled out for an exemption to the cuts.
Congress ignored it and not only inserted SLS without additional funding, but required that NASA use STS technology wherever possible. NASA didn’t use Shuttle tech because they didn’t have enough money, they used them because that’s what Congress demanded.
This stuff is in the public record. The Obama budget request and what was in it, the House and Senate responses, and the final Congress budget and what was in that.
Yeah, what usually happens is that he posts something that seems unlikely. I do a quick google, and find that it is indeed misinformation of mischaracterization. I usually let it pass, but sometimes I just like to post a correction for others, and sometimes I’m just curious to see just how far down the rabbit hole he’ll go…
I posted the text of his speech. How is that misinformation? And he did pretty much forget NASA afterward, with constant cuts to its budget, especially for planetary science.
“But go ahead, keep splitting hairs trying to spin that President Obama was somehow interested in space beyond simply using it as a photo-op.”
Can you name a US President who viewed it as anything else? NASA is whatever the current administration wants to use it for, and always has been. Sometimes, as with the Clinton administration, they just didn’t want to be bothered for several years — until they did.
Its a rare administration that’s (1) willing to stick with an expensive, daring program that constantly overruns cost estimates and (2) actually has a plan. The last one I remember was elected in 1960.
Not even him. JFK was reported to be disturbed by the cost and was using the newfound relationship with Khrushchev to push a joint mission to save money. After his death, Khrushchev distrusted LBJ, and Brezhnev wanted nothing to do with it.
Technically, only LBJ meets your criteria, if that’s who you meant by “elected in 1960”. But then we’re talking “sticking with someone else’s expensive program”, and that covers every President through STS (Nixon to Bushjr) and ISS.(Reagan to theoneafternext)
Well, the Nixon administration cancelled at least two more Apollo moon missions (some claim it was three, but one of those was a Saturn V switched to Skylab), and tried to cancel 16 and 17 as well.
I guess Brezhnev later changed his mind, at least as far as Apollo-Soyuz goes.
Oops, I should have written Ford to Clinton, who all kept Nixon’s expensive/daring/overbudget STS program going, as LBJ kept Kennedy’s Apollo. (Ditto ISS is BushSr to theoneafterTrump,)
Other than President Johnson who help create NASA when he was in the Senate there have been none, and President Obama was no different despite what Paul451 is try to claim. After he saw the reaction to his original proposal as a candidate he just did damage control so he could carry Florida. That is all his 2010 speech was, a photo op and something he could point too, and followers like Paul451 could point to, to “prove” that he was a space “visionary” when his own vision was to downsize NASA as much as Congress would allow him.
At the 19:55 level of the speech is where he says it. I’m still mad at him, but it’s not my taxpayer money and I’m not an American voter: https://youtu.be/1w63sz3dBE…
Minor pedantry:
I don’t speak Latin, but I believe the phrase as used by Virgil is “Audaces Fortuna Juvat”. Similarly the Marine motto is “Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat” (Fortune Favours The Strong). “This Object, the Subject Verbs”.
(I guess Fortuna Audaces Juvat would be closer to Boldness Favours the Fortunate, which is probably more true, if we’re honest.)
There are many versions of the adage, but maybe the best caution about its use (according to Wikipedia) is:
Pliny the Younger quotes his uncle, Pliny the Elder, as using the phrase when deciding to take his fleet and investigate the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, in the hope of helping his friend Pomponianus: “‘Fortes’ inquit ‘fortuna iuvat: Pomponianum pete.'” (“‘Fortune’, he said, ‘favours the brave: head for Pomponianus.'”) The expedition cost the elder Pliny his life.
The early bird gets the worm, but fools rush in where angles fear to tread when the blind lead the blind.
Latin has no specified word order. The part of speech is indicated by the conjugation (verb) or declension (noun). It could be written iuvat fortuna audaces, or fortuna audaces iuvat.
(and printed/carved Latin often has no word breaks, you are just supposed to know – at least the spelling is moderately consistent).
Virgil was a poet. I’m too lazy to look up which word order he used, but he almost certainly selected the one which fit the meter of the Aeneid. That’s one virtue of Latin.
It’s been sometime since I earned my Classics degree, but I do recall a couple of things. You are mostly correct about the whole conjugation/declension/word order thing: it is the essential feature manipulated by Latin poets, and it is what gives Latin poetry a strength very difficult to render in other languages.
By and large, except for reasons
orof meter, words are introduced in decreasing order of importance.And if you think Latin is a rough hill to climb, I invite you to observe the real magic of poetry found in Classical Greek…
Russian is also like that. It’s highly declined, and the order of the words is often used for emphasis, not identifying which noun is the subject or object. But languages like Latin do have a poetic disadvantage over English. English is a messy conglomeration of half a dozen languages, so it’s full of different words meaning the same thing and similar sounding words meaning different things. That allows puns, plays on words and double entendres that can’t even be spoken in Latin. On the other hand, it also makes it easier to be ambiguous or outrightly lie in English.
Another poetry lover, I see. I had great difficulty in school transferring from the English department, where my interest was primarily the Romantic Movement, and into a career equally rewarding but with the possibility of an actual job on graduation.
(It turned out that was another poor decision; but finally, after 4 years of grad school, I had the rewarding career, and a great future. Live and learn, as they say).
One thing that Keith will hopefully cover in his book, if it’s about President Obama’s space policy, is why Lori Graver left the space policy field so suddenly in 2013. Her entire professional life had been dedicated to space starting with her job working for Senator Glenn and then suddenly she just left NASA to work for the airline pilots association. That always struck me as odd and it’s sad when a field like space policy loses someone with her great talent and knowledge.
Didn’t she run the Yahoo group space outreach for Gore on Yahoo in 1999-2000?
Didn’t she do something like try to reform a large, entrenched bureaucracy? Unless you’ve got a golden parachute, doing that sort of thing is a real career risk.
I wondered about that as well, thinking that the country lost a terrific civil servant; and I’ve not seen anything explanatory yet.
In my view, her leaving NASA for the FAA job was a calculated move on her part. Except in very rare circumstances (ever?) NASA does not get it’s administrator from within the ranks, or at least the current ranks. It is always from the outside.
So, with the Obama administration coming to an end, it was only natural for her to leave NASA in preparation for the next administration. In addition, she gets to show her versatility by leading something that is not NASA (NASA’s involvement in aviation notwithstanding). However, since she has associated herself with the Democratic side of things, I don’t know if she ever made it on to any of the Trump administration’s lists of possible administrators. I do feel that if Hillary Clinton had won the election, there is a good chance Ms. Garver would be the administrator today.
Please do not take what I said above to be a criticism of Ms. Garver. On the contrary I think it shows a high level of intelligence and shrewdness on her part in navigating the treacherous waters of DC politics. It really is a shame that capable people can be separated from jobs where they can be effective and useful all in the name of partisan politics.
Yes, I agree with the last part. The problem with your analysis is the as far as I saw Lori Garver basically stayed out of the election, not even acting as a space advisor to Senator Clinton as she did in 2008. You would have thought she would have been more active if that was her goal.
One reason I can think of is that she knew that she would likely have to face a Republican majority Senate to get confirmed. By staying out of the election activities, she minimizes any antagonistic feelings that may be generated just by being associated with, and perceived as close to, such a controversial figure as Ms. Clinton.
Since I am “speculating on my speculation”, I won’t take this any further.
What’s the history behind these patches, anyway? The patches are charming, sure; I wonder where it all started?
As a kid growing up on Schofield Baracks we were all crazy to collect medals. Maybe there’s a relationship?