Gingrich calls for ‘bold’ space program, opens Orlando campaign office, Orlando Sentinel
“Gingrich said NASA must be “more realistic about risk taking,” both for itself and in encouraging the private space industry, including offering large cash prizes to entrepreneurs willing to invest in new space technology, including a private space station, moon colonization and a trip to Mars. “People take risks to climb Mt. Everest. People take risks to hang-glide. People take risks to do lots of things,” Gingrich said. “If you offer a more open-ended system, you say, ‘Here’s the prize to get there but we understand it’s risky,’ I think you’ll see a lot more people investing and taking risks.”
He has my vote ! For his position on space, and interest in it, and also for the rest of his credentials.
Gingrich is becoming less and less relevant because of the blowback from the Romney/Bain accusations, many of which don’t pass muster. Gallup is also showing a solid majority of conservatives find Romney acceptable.
There are no presidential candidates that give a fig for space. The reasons differ and are irrelevant.
The issues for space are to find a common ground for relevance such that it can have a genuine political base of support. Unfortunately, space cadets fall in love with their favorite rocket/scheme/theories/prophets/whatever, then battle to the death over them – cart way before the horse.
They are their own worst enemy.
If you can’t agree on a rationale for HSF that aggregates support … in the way that putting a man on the moon in the 60s did … all you’ll get is chaos, and the primes/special interests whipsawing things back and forth. Like they currently do.
Rocket science takes incredible smarts, but space advocates often are among the most ignorant, condescending, self-absorbed crowd … which doesn’t help them find traction in the political side.
Gingrich is grandstanding with his X-prize fantasy … because it is a simplistic approach that a certain crowd who won’t be patient for rocket science can appreciate.
He’s right we need to change motivations. But having seen those who’ve achieved the most in HSF … money wasn’t what they were after. It’s also why cost plus is a nightmare due to misuse.
What they were after was to do something for America that had never been done before. They worked their a$$es off because they loved it.
That mattered most. This culture has lost sight of that. And appreciation.
While Gingrich’s campaign may be in doubt his interest in space should not be. He was a founding member of the congressional space caucus when he was first elected in 1978 and has continued in his space interest over the years. He is the only high ranking congress person that I recall meeting with ProSpace in the 1990’s and gave his support to the Zero G Zero Tax legislation.
Say what you will about Gingrich, his heart is in the right place for space and after all of the debacles at NASA it is time that other approaches be tried and if a big prize is one of them, then it will be a lot of fun to be in aerospace!
His heart is as changeable as a weather vane – I have heard him back-off of space (and other things) when pushed. Don’t believe it to be more than a fashion with him that he currently likes.
Space advocates are too desperate for any attention that they cling to just about anything that comes along. Unwise. They get easily seduced and discarded. It’s also like trying to run your economy off casinos, lottery tickets, … instead of industrial capacity. Pray for a miracle … or work to improve. If you’re desperate, you don’t believe that work is enough.
Get used to disappointment.
Dennis,
Funding a handful of X-prizes instead of NASA’s traditional budget will result in a handful of Fobos Grunt like misses and nothing more. Russian planetary probes are already exploring the Gingrich metaphor of a sort. I prefer the MER/MSL approach hands down.
American’s are about “execution” not fantasy games.And you should understand more than most here that American success in HSF is irrelevant to this. With Apollo, we had our short pulled over our heads repeatedly by the Soviets, so we got relentless and driven to do the impossible and did so.
American greatness is in the pursuit of doing great things because “noone” else can do them. Not by trolling a $20 bill through an aerospace trailer park to see who runs the fastest for it.
You perfectly illustrate my point of space advocates. I can tell you why no dreams will come true that way
But so can you.
Funding a handful of X-prizes instead of NASA’s traditional budget will result in a handful of Fobos Grunt like misses and nothing more. Russian planetary probes are already exploring the Gingrich metaphor of a sort. I prefer the MER/MSL approach hands down.
By your definition AMSAT would have never flown the more than 50 successful spacecraft that have been flown over the past 50 years, with this year being the half century anniversary of the OSCAR-1.
The prizes have to be focused on areas that should they be successful will open up new markets and capabilities. To follow your logic a little farther, the first prize for advanced tech was in the 1820’s for a railroad locomotive in England. ALL locomotives used even today are fundamentally based upon the design that won that competition.
I personally witnessed the change in systems engineering design driven by OSCAR-14-18 in 1990. The USAF would not allow surface mount chips on boards for space as they claimed the thermal gradients would break soldier joints (false). The mil specs of the era banned advanced microprocessors and the store and forward OSCAR’s completely killed that notion. The DoD would not allow DRAM to fly as it was considered to prone to radiation damage, another falsehood shot down by AMSAT and later proven by Pete Worden’s Clementine around the Moon.
We don’t live in the 1960’s anymore. The system has become so conservative that no good idea goes unpunished anymore. I can tell you that if we had a real investigative arm that some contractors working on JWST would be behind bars due to their conduct in milking money from the taxpayer.
Prizes are a means whereby new ideas can be brought into the system that otherwise would lie fallow. Some won’t work, maybe 90% of them, but the ones that do, will change the world.
Funding a handful of X-prizes instead of NASA’s traditional budget will result in a handful of Fobos Grunt like misses and nothing more. Russian planetary probes are already exploring the Gingrich metaphor of a sort. I prefer the MER/MSL approach hands down.
By your definition AMSAT would have never flown the more than 50 successful spacecraft that have been flown over the past 50 years, with this year being the half century anniversary of the OSCAR-1.
The prizes have to be focused on areas that should they be successful will open up new markets and capabilities. To follow your logic a little farther, the first prize for advanced tech was in the 1820’s for a railroad locomotive in England. ALL locomotives used even today are fundamentally based upon the design that won that competition.
I personally witnessed the change in systems engineering design driven by OSCAR-14-18 in 1990. The USAF would not allow surface mount chips on boards for space as they claimed the thermal gradients would break soldier joints (false). The mil specs of the era banned advanced microprocessors and the store and forward OSCAR’s completely killed that notion. The DoD would not allow DRAM to fly as it was considered to prone to radiation damage, another falsehood shot down by AMSAT and later proven by Pete Worden’s Clementine around the Moon.
AMSAT also proved that the class S parts screening method was no longer an adequate measure of the survivability of integrated circuits and that through the use of proper localized shielding class D parts (COTS) could be used in even the most demanding radiation environments. NASA and DoD still refuse to accept this and it is costing the agency and DoD dearly in lost capabilities.
We don’t live in the 1960’s anymore. The system has become so conservative that no good idea goes unpunished anymore. I can tell you that if we had a real investigative arm that some contractors working on JWST would be behind bars due to their conduct in milking money from the taxpayer.
Prizes are a means whereby new ideas can be brought into the system that otherwise would lie fallow. Some won’t work, maybe 90% of them, but the ones that do, will change the world.
Gingrich is the only candidate who gives a hoot about space. You know what you get from the Democrats. Watch the Dec 10th Republican debate where Romney openly mocks Gingrich and elicits laughter from the audience. At best to the Republicans, space is not about space travel, it’s about warfighting, and nothing else. While the Democrats did eviscerate Bush’s program that even he ignored, at least they are paving the way for commercial space. Let’s face it, Gingrich is not going to be the Republican candidate. It’s going to be a man who thinks capitalism is selling out the shop to overseas interests and openly laughs at space as a viable arena of economic development. If space is what drives your politics, go Gingrich. Otherwise you’re facing a Republican hostile to your ideas, who made his living selling the shop, and is aligned with the Congressional Republican leadership hostile to developing the commercial option.
NASA could solve a lot of their problems if they build a real big spaceship. So big, they can send all the politicians on a one way mission into deep space.
Imagine, a smart politician telling space fans that he is for space, and saying a lot of space ideas. I seem to remember GWB doing the same thing, and then not lifting a finger to promote his Apollo on steroids(food stamps) program.
Don’t be a chump. Whose taxes is Gingrich going to raise to pay for his space program? Nobdoy’s, Ain’t gonna happen
Steve