Lost in space — and on Earth, David Ignatius, Washington post
“The world of 2013 is different: We don’t even attempt manned space programs anymore. They are too expensive, and what’s the point? Thank goodness for the plucky little Voyager I probe, which has just left the solar system, 36 years after it was launched, carrying sounds of Earth, including a baby crying, a whale’s song and Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
Keith’s note: Nothing is more annoying than uninformed and pontificating op eds by know-it-alls prominently displayed on the editorial pages of a large national newspaper such as the Washington Post. This quote by David Ignatius really makes that point: “The world of 2013 is different: We don’t even attempt manned space programs anymore. They are too expensive, and what’s the point?”
It would seem that Ignatius is unaware of the fact that the International Space Station, built and maintained mostly with American funds, is in orbit – with 2 Americans on board – and that there are plans to extend its lifetime well into next decade. Nor is Ignatius apparently aware of the multiple commercial firms, spurred on by heavy NASA Investments, who are looking to provide new and less expensive ways to put more Americans into orbit.
Ignatius is also clearly oblivious to America’s Orion program that is building a human-rated spacecraft that will be test launched next year or the plans already being formulated for Americans to travel to – and capture an asteroid and bring it back to near-Earth space. Of course there’s also Dennis Tito’s plan to send a human crew to Mars and back and Virgin Galactic, XCOR, and Blue Origin who seek to send an exponentially larger number of people into space for a similarly cheaper cost. Ignatius is oddly silent about these efforts as well.
If anything, people – from both government and the private sector – are more interested in going into space than at any time in the past. Not only is their space agency putting its money where citizens want it to be, but citizens are putting additional money down in terms of spaceflight deposits and propelling “Gravity” to the top of the box office for yet another week.
Doesn’t the Washington Post have a research staff to fact check these op eds before they are published? Obviously not.
“They are too expensive, and what’s the point?”
A very good question. What is the ISS doing and what might Orion do that justify the staggering costs and no return? Unmanned satellites and robots give us operational weather, climate, GPS, and astrophysics for a fraction of the cost.
If the one thing that ISS has shown effectively is that we can do the minimum required to survive off this planet. Invaluable new medical and engineering data has been gleaned that will allow astronauts of the 2020s to leave Low Earth Orbit, again. (Not forgetting either how NASA seed money has given U.S. commercial start-ups every chance of making space travel accessible to the masses.) Now whether any of it justifies the huge cost of Orion or SLS can be debated as to whether the ignorant Ignatius thinks those on the Hill could ever make America ‘exceptional’ simply by permanently closing down NASA HSF activities? I can envision what his next Op-Ed will be: Unmanned drones or Unmanned spaceprobes!
“Invaluable new medical and engineering data has been gleaned…”
Well, I stand corrected then. What’s $100+B against invaluable?
Human spaceflight has genuine value, but it also has cost. The problem is that from the start of Constellation forces within NASA, Congress and industry have pushed through a program that ignores cost. ISS cost is primarily in logistics and ISS could be shifted to a mission of earth and space observation and assembly fueling and servicing of satellites and probes.
ISS cost in logistics? It took $100+B to get it to where it is. It is in the wrong orbit for earth and space observation. Satellites and probes would have to expend a huge amount of fuel to get down to the low altitude and inclination of the ISS for fueling and servicing.
It’s a good thing no one ever said “Gee, the Atlantic ocean is just too darn big to cross cheaply. So what’s the point of even trying?”
The “Worst Generation”, the Baby Boomers, took the frankly trivial amounts that could have gotten mankind permanently living away from Earth, and redirected it to fund daycare for gang-bangers or other ‘progressive’ (read wasteful) pursuits.
Your political commentary aside, NASA funding started going down long before the Baby Boomers took charge. Hell, it started coming down not long after the Apollo launches got started.
The last time I checked. Congress isn’t and hasn’t been a one party body.
Actually, the first cuts by OMB from NASA’s requests took place in the summer of 1964, when many of the applications programs that would have sustained a presence in Space beyond Apollo were cut. By 1967 the Agency hit its funding peak, and by the time the first
Apollo mission launched NASA’s budget was already headed downhill.
NASA then made the idiotic political mistake of not listening to instructions from the WH in 1969 about limits on future planning, to stay within budget. Then briefers on that plan insulted WH operatives when they objected. Enthusiastic backing for Space in the Executive Branch then died as a result, even with a President who had backed spaceflight a lot in the Eisenhower Administration.
Tom Billings-you are right. Back in the early 70s the OMB and WH decided that for a basic R&D program that promised no immediate ROI the US could afford to spend 1/2 of 1% of the budget annually. The previous president at the time of the Vision in 2004 reaffirmed this and told NASA to figure out how to do the job on that budget.
For some reason Neil Degrasse Tyson and a host of NASA administrators and managers keep thinking that for some reason they do not need to abide by such limits. Lets just boost the NASA budget to 1% or maybe a bit more. Its not likely.
Examination of the data shows that NASA has been accomplishing less and less even though the budget has been pretty stable. Orion is an excellent example-many billions of dollars and going on a decade with essentially nothing to show for it and its not new technology-no need for a lot of new R&D. SLS might be a future example though SLS has actually proceeded pretty quickly though there is considerable realistic fear over how such a program might be supported in the future. ISS cost far too much in terms of dollars and time, but its there. Is it working efficiently?
Who’s managing the NASA HSF programs?
NASA needs an overhaul to make it function. There is plenty of capability there but it is most definitely not being managed effectively. Maybe if NASA showed real progress then more money might follow, but in the current situation I don’t think anyone believes that more money would have the needed effect.
Unfortunately, op-eds aren’t fact-checked. They’re just someone’s opinion. Op eds are chosen based on their strong stance on a topic, writing style, and relevance to the current news cycle. Each newspaper receives hundreds a day, and they select based on what will seem most interesting to readers. Opinions that are strictly factual aren’t going to catch the eye of either the editor or the audience.
A news outlet which runs an engagingly written op-ed that is totally mis-informed is going to have its advertisers looking for other investments! Op-eds are not fact checked like we hope that news stories are (many of them make big blunders too) but this one will draw a lot of chuckles. This was clearly a mistake by the Wa-Po, they should have sent it back and selected another. There have been plenty of critical op-eds, but the good ones start from more factual information than this one did.
Dunno if advertisers care, but at any rate maybe someone from this community should submit a rebuttal…
http://www.washingtonpost.c…
An important message in Ignatius’ message. If there is a point a pretty well educated, erudite, knowledgeable person (which Ignatius is) doesn’t know about it. The message is that no one is communicating the point.
A couple more op eds like Ignatius’s with significant readership and NASA won’t need to worry about furloughs anymore; there will be moves to shut it all down. NASA doesn’t get it-what they say, how they say it, and who they reach is important. They have not only been failing in the technical and dollar fields.
How has NASA failed on the technical side? You’ll note that SLS is not something they asked for. You should also keep in mind that NASA is on a very short congressional leash.
It would be great if NASA could advertise all the things they’ve accomplished (and despite what many think, there is a lot being accomplished across the fields NASA is charged with studying), but they don’t exactly have the freedom to as they wish on that point.
Having tried to do useful research at NASA it is a struggle to get even modest funding and it can disappear in an instant. Studies that are completed are often abandoned. Once in awhile something succeeds through individual dedication, like the Whitcomb winglet, but the money NASA invests in practical R&D is almost a trivial part of the budget. As to SLS/Orion, if Bolden and Garver were (properly) against it, why couldn’t they have stood up to Congress and explained that the numbers do not add up?
Garver was clearly against SLS/Orion and was always clear about the numbers not adding up. The Senate subpoena of their e-mails was all about making sure that she “properly” supported the program. She obviously finally got frustrated and left. Bolden is for whatever Nelson is for. He has never understood that he works for the President and not for the Congress. Since he would rather just be “liked” than make NASA successful, he is happy to go along with the status quo hill/contractor/bureacrats and no one in the Administration cares enough spend any political capitol to get him in line or get rid of him. Nelson has run this thing into the ground since the beginning.
You imply that Congress would have listened.
Name one or two programs NASA human space flight has succeeded in on the technical side in the last few years. Shuttle was designed and built in the 1970s. ISS was designed in the 1980s and most pieces built in the 90s. SLS, Orion, Constellation,….name an accomplishment in design and development from the last 15 years.
NASA spends hundreds of millions on communications, education, public affairs and outreach. All in the human space program is spent ineffectively and inefficiently.
Ignatius is showing just how ineffective it has been.
Good fisk Keith, I only hope Ignatius sees it.
Ignatius sure has stirred the pot on his op-ed. But he does illustrate space travel is not a national objective of this country anymore (surveillance and drone operations are). Also NASA does much more than HSF, take a look at unmanned programs and what they’ve accomplished (i.e. Kepler) but $ amounts are not as high. There are also programs under the first A of NASA, but those have declining funding as well. Again, not a national objective.
This constant argument about HSF reminds me of this article about “wartime reasoning”
http://moonandback.com/2013…
I think this was a clumsy attempt at trying to describe our national malaise:
“The world of 2013 is different: We don’t even attempt manned space programs anymore. They are too expensive, and what’s the point?”
Maybe the point Ignatius really wanted to get across was this one:
“…Our sodden political dysfunction is tuning out the cosmos.”
Well, he blew it. Then blew it again by waving the Yellow-Peril flag.
This is a poorly written, disconnected piece, probably a first draft, but that’s no excuse. If I were his editor, I’d have spiked it.
As for the man himself, Ignatius has been guilty of sloppy writing before, and once, when moderating a panel at Davos, he almost cost us friendly relations with Turkey.
What is this doing in WaPo? Are they that desperate to fill space?
If you like horrible insipid articles on space try the recent one in Popular Since titled “Why the moon should be an international Park” Written by Veronique Greenwood she expounds upon how the moon should be a UNESCO world heritage site, only much later in the article stating that oh well some mining should be allowed after a National Parks Services style environmental impact study. The enviro nuts are already spreading their ploom of stagnation to space is what I got out of this article. Next we’ll hear about the Venus environmental conservatory, or even worse the Pristine Mars collation.
I might consider myself an “enviro-nut” (though environmentalism seems normal and not nutty to me), but I’ll say the landing sites are all that need to be UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and deservedly so. If you think about it, the Moon doesn’t have all that pesky life that could be damaged by human activities, even no atmosphere to worry about. Put some parks around interesting stuff, absolutely, but not the whole body. It would stifle the spread of humanity. Yeah it would be weird to imagine if pretty much the whole moon became strip mined but we can get to something like that later when we know more since that’s a pretty far out scenario and not even imagined for Earth.
Hmmm day dreaming here – suppose increased displacement of fine moon dust due to a new mine has been found to be reducing efficiency of lunar solar plants and increasing maintenance costs. Conflict between miners and energy producers, and an environmental concern. I guess environmental concerns on the Moon will be more human oriented, whereas here on Earth we have to worry about human related effects and lots of other life! (which in the end affects humans also)
The term environmentalism, is completely hijacked, it’s one thing to enjoy a park, and try to preserve it, or to prevent biological contaminates from killing people, plants and animals. In that there’s the difference between the Original boy scout morality and honor and something new that is quite insidious and borrows the term environmentalism. Where it gets crazy is when you need to put a pipeline in or build a fusion power facility and someone decides they need to do a study on a snail for 5 years. Or worse using the environment as an excuse to tax every living Human telling them it’s for the “environment” while making huge salaries and enriching mega or micro (under the umbrella) corporations that don’t have to actually do or complete anything. A for instance is when they start collecting billions of dollars in carbon taxes while spending millions on little projects that are publicized in a manner that make them so visible that it seems like there’s a benefit or positive impact of the carbon tax. It’s somewhat like replanting all the clear cut trees along the highway, while leaving the deep forest mountains to erode into impassible canyons. The glory of said carbon tax is that it’s not easily verifiable in any independent matter that there ever was a problem or that the problem is being solved, unlike the clear cut forests which you can see either growing or eroding from the air.
If someone says they spend a billion dollars of tax revenue on re-planting and mitigation of erosion in formerly clear cut forests, I would expect if I get up in a private Cessna in Oregon I would find it very hard to find any old clear cut forests. Now if someone says I spend a billion dollars on carbon change, I have absolutely no means of verifying that the billion dollars was spent or that it factually did anything. I really disdain bureaucracy just so people can say something is being addressed, and the fact that they can lie to me and be paid for doing so.
So far as the lunar environment is concerned, said solar plants will have to have a field charge that repels the lunar dust, any large particulate will need to be removed by compressed gas into debris mitigation screens. The simple fact is that if anything lands or takes off from the moon, or even moves around it will stir up dust. Anything you wish to enshrine as a park will need a dome over it for protection.
Those who have the mind set that the human race does not have the right and everything belongs to nature should themselves return to nature and the ground we should be very wary of any concern who seeks to limit, condense, constrain or depopulate the human race.
ˍmm. After reading your comment a couple of times and re-reading the WaPo piece again and again, I don’t see any evidence at at Mr. Ignatius was talking about malaise. It’s pretty clear that this is his own opinion.
There are its of people in this country who agree with him. Let’s just see where the argument goes. Expect someone Famous to respond.