NASA Advisory Council Members Think Political Spin Is More Important Than Truth About Artemis
Keith’s note: Several people are live tweeting a NASA Advisory Council HEO committee meeting – a public, on-the-record, official advisory body of the federal government chartered under FACA. Wayne Hale, who is departing from NAC service, offered a candid, thoughtful, and accurate assessment of the nature of the Artemis program and how it is not suited for anything like the “space race” that Bill Nelson et al love to claim that it is. So … what do members of this FACA committee say? Comments that can be summarized as: So what Wayne. That may be true but we need to spin it as a “race” so as to garner and maintain political support. These FACA committee members are openly approving a dishonest approach by the NAC – and NASA – to steer public discussion of a taxpayer-funded activity for political reasons – not transparent and accurate ones. Do these NAC committee Einsteins understand that this is a public meeting? One has to wonder if the OGC and OIG are listening to this meeting.
2 responses to “NASA Advisory Council Members Think Political Spin Is More Important Than Truth About Artemis”
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I think the real space race is so far being won by the Space X StarShip that just launched for the second time. If StarShip works, men, women md big cargo can go to the Moon, hopefully at somewhat reduced expense. Without StarShip there is no US capability. With StarShip NASA can get by without Gateway, Orion, or SLS. Without StarShip there is no capability at all. Gateway is probably most important as a way to keep some international partners engaged. But the first couple landings happen without it. StarShip is also hopefully reusable which makes it sustainable. If ot continies to take 2 years between Orion/SLS flights, then the race is lost.
Artemis and SLS/Orion were always dishonest with tweets about launch milestones that are known to be false. From 2016 on we heard of the coming of the first SLS and Orion mission just over the horizon in 2018, then 2019, oops ,2020, nope make that 2021 or was it 2022. Blowing sunshine about on time, on budget and sustainable has been the mode of NASA public affairs for about a decade. Congress laps it up cause it just means money is flowing to the right lobbies and the public is apathetic because it doesn’t affect their lives. Spin is all they have. How is a $4B once a year at best SLS and Orion sustainable or anything close to a permenant presence. The whole program is smoke and mirrors to get the commercial sector to boot strap a lunar economy that NASA will use for 30 days by a crew of 2-4.