And Today's Stupid And Untrue Space Tweet Award Goes To ….
Keith’s note: Here is the actual tweet. I am posting a picture of it since Trump tends to block a lot of people.
Keith’s note: Here is the actual tweet. I am posting a picture of it since Trump tends to block a lot of people.
Most of us know what it means when somebody has to brag about how great they are doing all the time.
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Trump is not allowed to block people. See here
He still is.
For a variety of reasons pertaining to a long list of my personal national issue preferences, I generally dislike Republican Presidential administrations less than Democrat ones…but Donald Trump really knows how to jump up and down on that scale.
I’ll acknowledge, as I already have here, that his policies and campaign adds promote space with the public more than most past POTUS’s have done. I really don’t think that that amounts to the gross overstatements in this Tweet though. I have always said, throughout the nine year hiatus of crewed launches from U.S. soil, that the U.S. NEVER relinquished its global leadership in space. The ISS flies in space and has had NASA employees on board continuously for what…20 years? Mars is the Skeleton Coast of space exploration destinations and partnership with NASA has always been critical to mission success with regard to Mars. Likewise one must always count the epic robotic missions like Hubble and New Horizons. Trump had NOTHING to do with ANY of the stuff that I just listed, knew next to nothing about space prior to his Presidency, and the very new advancements in human space launch during the past eighteen months or so were at least eight years or more in the making and if any POTUS can be credited for them it would be mostly Obama, not Trump. IF Artemis puts boots on the ground before 2026 I’ll give Trump a lot of credit for accelerating that along with the program viability that comes with that momentum.
When they finally launch the JWST he’ll probably claim credit for that too…lol…unless it fails, then he’ll blame Obama.
You make a false claim.
The current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania is not a Republican. He is a money grubbing snake oil salesman narcissist dotard. He make Dick Cheney look saintly & wise by comparison.
Nothing like any of the previous Republican POTUS and their administrations.
Well, as much as I sympathize with the “never trumpers” that lament the loss of “their” ideals and philosophy, the stark reality is that most of the Republicans in Congress have been absorbed by the collective. Trump is a Republican, because the Republicans have joined the Trump cult, thus changing what Republican means.
If that is to be fixed it is going to take a purge of epic proportions.
“because the Republicans have joined the Trump cult, “
Actually the changing of the republican party is what allowed trump to come in. He is simply the culmination of all their moves to the extreme right.
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“money grubbing snake oil salesman narcissist dotard”
That describes any career politician. So what’s your point?
Well, there are levels to the scoring. 😉
For example, sometimes a politician makes a naive promise and then smartens up once in office, or realizes that the day to win that fight has not yet arrived, or circumstances and/or public knowledge changes. Those things count against a politician in the honesty department in the eyes of some folks, but I don’t think that’s fair.
I don’t like it when the same dishonest practice gets used against one politician by other politicians are doing the exact same thing and just haven’t been adequately caught yet. That gets my dander up.
I’m not mentioning those two examples in any particular direction in this comment. I’m just saying that it probably isn’t fair to paint a large group of diverse folks with the same broad brush. I do think that the currency in Washington is power and the rest of us can explain a lot of things in Washington if we remember that.
No matter who is president in 2024 or 2026 or whenever, if Artemis puts boots on the Moon, it will be because a SpaceX taxi took off from their base, went up and met the NASA troops and took them down to the surface.
SpaceX probably can’t do that with Starship by 2024, and if they can then they’ll simply fly and land and then it won’t be “Artemis” anymore anyway.
Indeed. as marvelous as the flying silo appears, there is so much more requiring development, including the actual Starship. This isn’t meant to take anything away from SX, only that they have a long way to go.
Yes.
Crewed Starship to the Moon 2025 at the earliest.
Crewed Starship to Mars not before 2030.
Biggest technological hurdle on orbit refueling.
Indeed, but they still seem to know how to cross obstacles with speed. Manufacturing efficiency cuts cost and leadtimes together. They flew the silo last week because they need to learn to control it in a hover. That design is starting its life as a lander where traditionally such things start their lives as missiles.
Once they like how it behaves doing that, then it’ll learn to be a sky diver. That’ll be tons of fun to watch…crash or no crash.
You’re right that they still need to develop the booster, but the orbiter/lander is harder and the lessons are transferable.
Indeed there is much to learn from watching Mr. Musk.
Related: Mr. Bezos made the point that longer/ bigger rockets are easier to vertically land, citing center of gravity; that being the case, I wonder what additional issues are presented and resolved with the flying silos; SX arguably understands vertical landing.
I agree with most of your observations. I would point out that in terms of human space flight and NASA, a large part of the ISS, particularly manned modules, while designed early on by NASA were built by Europeans and Japanese. And some of the US segment never made it into orbit at all.
There was a reason there were no launches from the US for the last 9 years and that had a lot to do with NASA. And the success of Space X in launching humans this summer, while getting some ‘seed money’ from NASA, was mostly an effort totally separate from NASA.
Maybe Artemis can redeem NASA in the next few years but so far the progress of Orion and SLS would indicate it is unlikely.
The NASA human spaceflight effort is the part that is most visible and recognized by the public and a lot of it was MIA the last 9 years; so Trump’s tweet that it was closed and dead-that was exactly what much of the public saw and felt. I would not count on NASA’s effort coming back that quickly. But it is great that we can buy tickets from Space X rather than from the Russians.
It was Congress that repeatedly shorted the requested funding of Commercial Crew (and padded funding for SLS). The SLS funding was certainly squandered, IMHO, as we’ve seen zero flights so far.
But Commercial Crew has proven to be quite the success, although many years late due to Congress refusing to fund it fully. Funding two providers has given NASA dissimilar redundancy in getting crews to ISS. This is most definitely a good thing.
And, with the unfortunate state that Starliner is in, we’re seeing this pay dividends because Dragon 2 can take up (some of) the slack while Starliner is grounded. This is better than when the space shuttle was grounded (twice) and left NASA with no way to get people into space, other than to rely on the Russians in the case of the post-Columbia disaster.
SLS, on the other hand, doesn’t have a direct replacement. Considering the state that the SLS program is in (years behind schedule and a dismal anticipated build/flight rate), NASA’s only choice here is to shift as much as possible to commercial launches and use SLS only for launching Orion. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing Administrator Bridenstine doing.
The public did NOT feel that NASA was “closed” at least those people that paid attention. During that entire time we had people on ISS, we had Mars rovers running or in development, we had Hubble Space Telescope working, etc etc etc. Most people do not pay attention to any of this, even in the Apollo era they had ceased to pay attention to launches to the Moon.
Certainly we did not have launches from the US that put people in space but the public is often uninterested in them anyway. Just wait, after a few launches the public will ignore them (even as they take place routinely).
Some of my neighbors have forgotten that we have people in Afghanistan! They only pay attention to the crisis of the day.
Now our partners have built a LOT of ISS hardware but they also built a lot of Shuttle hardware – that is a huge advantage to the US.
The usual attention that NASA does get is when it does a “1st” everyone pays attention to them .. then after that it is “yawn” for the vast bulk of Americans.
And that causes some of the other inaccurate statements which have been noted on NASA Watch. Like NASA press statements about Mars 2020 being the “first” mission to look for life on Mars (while conveniently forgetting about Viking.) If people need to get public attention for their projects and talking about “firsts” is the most effective way to do so, then people get very fast and loose about the details. And claim a lot of “firsts” which really aren’t.
I don’t see any difference between your statement, “The public did NOT feel that NASA was “closed” at least those people that paid attention.” and the original comment that “Trump’s tweet that it was closed and dead-that was exactly what much of the public saw and felt.” They are, in fact, perfectly compatible if “much of the public” have not “paid attention.” And I’m afraid that’s true. Mr. Trump’s tweet was wrong, but it matched what a very large fraction of the public (and the voters) seem to believe. I’m also afraid many politicians build their careers out of saying things which aren’t true but match what the voters believe.
The question is: do you also assert that NASA was closed and dead?
My comment was directed at the facts (even though we live in a post-fact world) such as the facts about what NASA was doing over the last few years. We know that trump did NOT say that people thought NASA was closed and dead, he said that it was. Richard added the part about what “people” thought and I agree that few people pay attention to what is going on around them. But my comment was intended to state that trump was of course making this claim up. And reminded us here (the choir) of a few things that NASA has been doing.
NASA human space flight does not always get a lot of attention (except in my neighborhood where a number of astronauts live) but is very active – Richard seemed to be minimizing that.
“There was a reason there were no launches from the US for the last 9 years and that had a lot to do with NASA.”
NASA does not set policy or control funding. Congress have been the bad guys along with cost plus, fixed fee, sole source FAR development contracts designed by congress to not produce anything but just keep the contracts flowing and people in their district a part of the jobs programs.
…And now the tweet is gone. That didn’t take long.
Reminds me when the economy was a “mess” before 2016 and the unemployment statistics were supposed to be wildly undercounting the unemployed and 6 months after November it was great.
His first three NASA budgets were less than what was asked for.
Just when you thought you had seen the bottom…
There is no bottom. We’re at 159k COVID-19 deaths in the US, according to a quick Google Search. Trump’s recent response to the current daily US death rate was literally, “It is what it is”.
And we’ve become completely numb to his gross incompetence! Imagine what everyone would have said if Hillary Clinton would have said “It is what it is” as one of her answers during the Benghazi hearings!
For eight long years during President Obama’s terms the daily mantra of every right wing talking head, right wing news or blog was DEFICITS .. it was a daily tirade by the conservative republicans .. and this continued right up until the day the draft dodger took office.
Once again the republicans have proved, to them, deficits don’t matter and they never have. The only time republicans are worried about deficits is when a democrat is president.
Nothing but crickets from republicans the last 3 1/2 years about deficits.
Now when Biden wins I predict the MINUTE he is sworn in .. watch the CONservative republicans start screaming about deficits..
You watch too much TV News.
It is hard to miss all the B.S. that conservative republicans have been spewing since Reagan.
I think a lot of the public certainly thinks NASA closed down after Shuttle. There is not a lot of presence. When I was growing up I remember NASA in the classrooms at school. NASA Facts on the walls. NASA movies playing. NASA booklets whenever I wrote to one of the NASA centers. Now I teach school and there is not much about NASA anymore. Apparently the old idea of missions no longer exists. When my students write to NASA for reports there is no response. If NASA is aklive and kicking it is hard to tell.
Ames Research Center used to have many events for the general public, Yuri’s Night, launches of LADEE, Curiousity, also LCROSS impact. Visitor’s center had many exhibits and also held several presentations. There was also the education center in the old 6×6 wind tunnel. Even before covid-19 all this was eliminated as it became difficult to justify the expenses.
All this in the name of reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
People including many commenters here on NW advocate closing a Center, effectively this has been done (they haven’t figured how to move wind tunnels and arcjets) in terms of what people outside the aerospace bubble see. Moffett Field is effectively an airport for Google.
You are right about NASA in the classrooms, lots of neat stuff for free and they would mail it to you if you write to NASA. Even to children in New Zealand!
It’s a particular irony for me that despite the fact I *deeply* detest the Trump Administration, there is one thing in which I am happy, and that is the appointment of Jim Bridenstine . Many of us were very suspicious that a Congressman with no engineering or science background was a good choice for NASA, and he’s come to be an inspired choice and a very capable, decisive leader.
Of course, I give Trump no credit for that. Trump’s met him like three times ever and doesn’t understand anything about NASA or Space. But Bridenstine has an enthusaism and level of practical ambition and flexibility I haven’t seen form a NASA Administrator ever.
When Biden is elected President, I want him to clean house. Everyone who tried to play ball with Trump goes. Career ending failure. Except Bridenstine. I hope Biden offers him another 4 years. NASA could use the continuity.
From the comments here while most agree Trumps comments are an exaggeration and overstatement for effect they apparently do not feel the comments are completely untrue or stupid. If he captures peoples attention and causes some positive change I see that as ultimately a good thing.
Deliberately lying is not a good way to capture people’s attention.
In his mind it is.
That is most of what we get out of Commercial Crew. You used the words “Politically abandoned”, things related to flying people to and from orbit will no longer be Politically vulnerable. This is why Congress tried to starve out COTS and CCDev, because they knew that their ability to leverage human spaceflight would go away.
There were times when NASA was “rudderless”, but that was when the Presidency and Congress couldn’t agree on where they wanted NASA to go.
Human Space launch from U.S. soil is not all that NASA does. It is just the most visible because it excites the public the most and that is what this silly Tweet from Trump is designed to leverage. I spoke with many, MANY folks during the Obama years who thought that NASA ended with the Space Shuttle program. We here must fight that perception because all of those other things that NASA does will need to continue even after New Space fully commandeers human spaceflight sometime in the next five years or so.
It’s far too easy to assess NASA in terms of HSF. More widely, particularly in planetary science, success has been outstanding.
I’ve enjoyed getting a check from a dead organization these last 22 years.
And I have spent the past 24 years reporting on an agency that was closed 😉
I really expected a higher level of commentary when I signed on to this site. Unfortunately, I find the same kind of narrow-minded, politically-infected baloney that appears on social and news media. If this is as good as it gets–if we can’t get out of the political gutter and focus on higher ideas–I’m afraid we’re lost! Human kind seems to be driven mad with political lust and revenge. When did “political correctness” displace “right” and “wrong;” “correct thinking” is rapidly replacing reasoning, as shown by many of the comments here. When we all talk alike and think alike, then how will we decide who to persecute?
Well “Duke Wellington” you can always read other websites.