Sorry Folks – NASA And Space Force Agree: Space Is Hard
From the #SpaceSymposium, Administrator @SenBillNelson highlights our #Artemis missions which will send astronauts, including the first woman and first person of color, to explore more of the Moon than ever before. What we learn there will prepare us to send humans to Mars: pic.twitter.com/b4IFI1Cvso
— NASA (@NASA) August 24, 2021
Keith’s note: The opening speakers at today’s Space Symposium session were General Jay Raymond, Chief of Space Operations, U.S. Space Force and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Raymond said nothing new and just repeated his agency’s talking points and had a bunch of people stand up in the audience for recognition. But he also said “space is hard” three times in his remarks – as if to instill a meme of caution and lowered expectations. He showed a short video that included Bill Nelson saying “space is hard”. Then when Nelson spoke in person he said “space is hard” again. That’s 5 “space is hard” citations in a matter of a few minutes by the top two space leaders in America. Its almost as if they are working together to try and set the stage for failure, lowered expectations, or for things not working as hoped. Thanks for cheering us up guys.
Nelson opened his remarks with the tired old spinoff excuse for what NASA does (cellphones and ski goggles) but did not really address what matters most to the 300 million taxpayers in America right now: the pandemic, political strife, and a shaky economy – other than to talk about jobs that he claims were created and/or supported by NASA. Yes, jobs are good but NASA never bothers to explain exactly how the jobs it cites are created by what NASA does. NASA just throws numbers out and then moves on. He also mentioned a new NASA app to let people see what NASA Earth satellites do but there is no mention of it at NASA.gov. Oh well.
To be certain, Nelson did lift his hopes upward momentarily and said “We can do hard things. We are a can-do people. … for America to lead in space and continue to do so on Earth it will take all of us working together … we are all in this together as citizens of this planet”. But since this was a presentation to a crowd composed of the usual suspects in an echo chamber engaged in choir practice what else was he going to say, right? NASA did tell 48,000,000 Twitter followers at the last minute via Twitter that they could/watch listen to Nelson. But NASA passed on a chance to aim for the cheap seats with some relevancy to the real world and focused instead on the talking points that worked best with the select audience in attendance in Colorado.
Meanwhile we have yet to see anything emerge from the Biden Administration’s National Space Council or its Users Advisory Group or OSTP with regard to space. Apparently Space Policy Is Hard too.
There are some new NASA videos featuring Drew Barrymore. Here is one of them. I have been a space enthusiast for more than 60 years so I do not need the sales pitch. Neither do space people. But saying that we’re going to spend billions to go to another world to learn how to live there while our own world is burning from climate change and torn apart by civil strife flies in the face of what regular folks are inclined to support. NASA needs to explain itself better than simply saying that we are going to do these hard, expensive things in space because it makes sense – to NASA.
NASA did post a What does NASA do for you? feature at NASA.gov but it is mostly one sentence talking points, large pictures, and a few report links. Again, NASA passed on a chance to recognize what the nation and the world are going through – and missed yet another chance to “make the sale” with regard to the benefits of space to actual people living on the real world. Someday maybe NASA will learn to both listen to – and talk to – real people – and not just the person in the next NASA cubicle.
Is NASA too entangled in the binary of US politics and the reality of funding inertia to be overtly consequential? Should the messaging now be that of playing the “we are in the ideal position to enable awe inspiring activities with industrial partners” card?
Drew Barrymore was a good move. I still remember her acting start in Close Encounters of a Third Kind.
Careful with spin-offs, Keith. The SpaceX Dragon capsule, scheduled to orbit four non-professional astronauts the middle of this month, is a spin-off. NASA is deliberately interweaving big spin-offs like that into the LOP-G/Artemis effort on purpose to deliver to our grandchildren the human spaceflight that you and I thought we would grow up with.
Before he died, my son had an ancient O2 concentrator in his room the size of a hotel mini-bar that kept the neighbors awake at night. When I brought him to church or elsewhere we brought several 3 foot tall, metal O2 bottles along with us. I was talking with a friend of mine in church the other day who carried a battery operated O2 concentrator from a shoulder strap like a purse. I didn’t tell him it was a NASA spin-off, but I should have. You and many of the folks here see the science of spaceflight. I do too, but not like you. Senators might only see votes from NASA projects. Lockheed workers might only see paychecks. My friend in church might only see the mobility that his portable O2 unit affords him. Science is for the folks in this room to get excited about…but spin-offs are a way for everybody to have a bit of space tech tied to their feet or hanging from their shoulder…but only if they know it’s there.
Only us space enthusiasts have the knowledge to tell them.
“this was a presentation to a crowd composed of the usual suspects in an echo chamber engaged in choir practice” … brilliant prose !
It sounds like NASA is still supposed to work towards a 2024 Lunar landing, when we see that the needed systems are not going to make it. That makes us wonder when NASA will admit that they need a later goal and how will they announce that?
in 2023 they’ll announce 2026,
in 2025 they’ll announce 2028,
hopefully that’ll be it (I have more confidence that SpaceX will “git ‘er done” by then)..
It would be nice if SpaceX would provide some more concrete lunar lander concepts, since they are now getting paid to actually build one. It’s also not clear if the NASA is committed to continuous long term operation of a manned lunar base or if it will be only episodic, as the once yearly launch tempo of SLS implies.
I couldn’t help but lock in on this particular remark in Keith’s comments on Nelson’s speech: “….did not really address what matters most to the 300 million taxpayers in America right now: the pandemic,…”. Taking my space guy hat off and putting on my ‘one of the 300 million taxpayers’ hat, I can tell you that the last thing I want to hear from NASA is anything related to the pandemic. Being inundated daily by Covid fear info from every other direction, I’d much rather hear positive and motivating things from NASA relevant to what NASA does, very much like the video linked to the commentary. However relevant to our times they may be, we can hear about the pandemic and political strife from a thousand other far more relevant sources. I won’t seek commentary on the Artemis program from the CDC and won’t look to NASA for commentary on viruses.
I have not heard Musk or Bezos say space is hard. Over 30 years ago at the final Solar Power Satellite conference I was listening to Clark Covington. He said “People keep asking when we will send humans to Jupiter and do all sorts of other things that are ‘hard’. The answer is that we will do it when we have the technology to make it easy.”