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Commercialization

Political Reaction To Dragon Splashdown

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
August 2, 2020
Filed under ,
Political Reaction To Dragon Splashdown

My Statement on the Successful Splashdown of NASA-SpaceX Dragon Endeavour, Joe Biden
“Congratulations to NASA, SpaceX, astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, and all the hardworking women and men who made possible a successful conclusion to this historic mission. The first American splashdown in 45 years was executed with precision and professionalism, just like the entirety of this awe-inspiring trip to the International Space Station. This is a victory for American innovation and persistence, and I am proud of the role President Obama and I had in fighting to ensure that commercial crew flights from American soil would become a reality. As president, I look forward to leading a bold space program that will continue to send astronaut heroes to expand our exploration and scientific frontiers through investments in research and technology to help millions of people here on Earth.”
Chairwomen Johnson and Horn Celebrate Successful Splashdown of SpaceX Demo-2
“After a momentous launch to space from American soil for the first time in nearly a decade, NASA astronauts have successfully returned home after a productive mission on the International Space Station,” said Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX). “The safe return of these two NASA astronauts is a significant milestone for America’s space program. I want to welcome Astronauts Hurley and Behnken home and congratulate all those who made their mission possible.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

21 responses to “Political Reaction To Dragon Splashdown”

  1. Richard Brezinski says:
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    Commercial Orbital Transportation Services was begun by Bush in 2006. Eventually it was expanded to include Commercial Crew, once they figured out in 2012 that Orion was not flying, Shuttle would soon be a distant memory, and the Russians would eat our lunch with their skyrocketing charges assuming they did not kick us off Soyuz completely.

    • Jeff2Space says:
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      Yes, this is a success spread across three Administrations. That, in and of itself, is a “good thing”.

      And it’s 2020 and the first flight of Orion keeps on slipping into the future.

      • tutiger87 says:
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        Now that is the truth. The CCP/CCiCap programs survived 3 administrations, Remarkable!

      • Jonna31 says:
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        I’m old enough to remember reading on this very site that we absolutely HAD to adopt DIRECT 2.0 or 3.0 because Orion + Ares I wouldn’t fly until the far off future of 2012! Er wait 2014! No make that late 2015! Regardless we’ll absolutely have the Ares V no alter than 2018! Right guys? Guys….?

        In so many ways Crew Dragon is worth the wait. It, plus the Falcon 9 that carries it, far, far surpasses any envisioned “American Soyuz” concept that was first concoted in the post-Columbia era. It runs technological circles around every peer and alternative. Even Starliner seems old when put next to it. And putting Starliner on top of a Atlas V is a big “what’s the point” of this thing moment. Starliner, if anything, is somewhat close to what we thought we’d get out of “American Soyuz” 15 years ago, more or less. And it too, seems like it’s going to be a big let down.

        It’s ridiculous how we got here. That somehow the SLS forever needs another 2 years to fly. That Orion flew on that Delta IV Heavy flight years ago now. That the James Webb Space telescope still hasn’t flown (hilariously).

  2. ThomasLMatula says:
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    I noticed you missed the tweet by the current President of the United States. BTW I don’t recall President Johnson doing a photo op with any of the Apollo Mission astronauts after he left the White House although he did view the launch with Vice President Agnew as a guest of President Nixon.

    https://twitter.com/realDon

    • Todd Austin says:
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      Obama didn’t do a photo op. That picture was taken during his administration when those astronauts were named to the Commercial Crew program.

      • ThomasLMatula says:
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        That would make more sense, but it wasn’t clear on the twitter post that it was a picture from many years ago.

      • Brian_M2525 says:
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        I believe it was when the astronauts return ed from their Shuttle mission and went to see the President for their nominal congratulatory meeting.

  3. Synthguy says:
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    “I look forward to leading a bold space program that will continue to send astronaut heroes to expand our exploration and scientific frontiers through investments in research and technology to help millions of people here on Earth.”

    Reading between the lines – and I could be misjudging his words – that suggests to me a closer focus on space activities more directly related to terrestrial issues, rather than forging exploration out to the Moon, to Mars and beyond. “Through investments in research and technology to help millions of people here on Earth” can be taken in two ways. One way would be to de-emphasize Moon, Mars and Beyond in favour of R&D into space technologies related directly to addressing climate change, poverty, etc. Artemis is put on the back burner, and its budget is whittled away, and perhaps by the late 2020s / early 2030s, we watch Chinese Taikonauts being the next humans on the lunar surface.

    The other way that could be taken is ‘lets see how we can use space resources to find new approaches to dealing with terrestrial problems. if a space-resource focus is where his mind is at, that’s a good thing because it requires a human foothold on the Moon, and access to near-Earth asteroids to extract and utilize the resources. So rather than going to Mars, the focus is on the Moon, Cislunar space and Near Earth Asteroids, and building up commercial space.

    I think much will be determined by how well a President Biden will resist pressure from the progressive left within the Democrats who would see human spaceflight as low hanging fruit for funds to address domestic challenges.

    • kcowing says:
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      We can read a lot into or not into this. It is a simple congratulatory note. Not a detailed policy statement.

  4. Todd Austin says:
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    I wouldn’t expect the Biden campaign to say Moon or Mars. The current administration has managed to politicize those goals, which makes them potentially toxic, at least during the campaign and during a pandemic. If we’re lucky, that toxicity won’t carry over after the election. With SpaceX forcing the issue, there’s hope that they’ll be able to break through the political haze.

    • mfwright says:
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      “current administration has managed to politicize those goals,”

      That’s what I was thinking. Artemis gets lots of visible support from Trump and Pence but they also made a lot of enemies along the way so others may not be so supportive of Artemis. Plus USSF is generally regarded as a Trump initiated program even though it started in Congress years ago. The politics can easily drown out interesting aspects of Dragon2.

  5. Dewey Vanderhoff says:
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    – let’s segue over to Minister of Exoatmospherics at the Kremlin – Dimitri Rogozin at Roscosmos – and ask him what he and Vlad P think of Elon’s trampoline routine , on the record…

    By the way . how’s things going at Vostochny ?

  6. Vladislaw says:
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    If Biden does get elected he will have an executive branch with the most tools in the tool box, as far as commercial options moving forward. Commercial cargo, commercial crew and a commercial destination waiting in the wings. There will also be the start of commercial options ready for funding for Luna.

  7. Brian_M2525 says:
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    Biden and the Democrats platform say they are returning to the Obama climate cha nge agree ments and agenda. There will not be any funds available for space. For space,Democrats are bad news.

    • kcowing says:
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      Really. All space money will just disappear? No more astronomy, space station, etc.? You clearly did not read the platform. Or are you just trolling?

      • Brian_M2525 says:
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        Not all, but Democrats have other priorities. Republicans are all about commerce and industry and expansion of the U.S. economy, and doing it with minimal government money. Democrats are all about big government, big government spending, and their priority is fixing things like global warming.

        • kcowing says:
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          OK then explain why the Democratic Obama Administration pushed for full funding of commercial space and the Republican led House and Senate cut those requests every year.

          • Brian_M2525 says:
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            Obama tried but failed to cancel entirely Orion and Constellation and their big budgets that supported human spaceflight and big military industrialist contractors with relatively minuscule commercial space projects. NASA and Congressional supporters were not so supportive of shutting down the big program with no reasonable alternative. This followed the prior big shut down of Shuttle. Constellation survives in the form of Orion, SLS and Artemis. NASA was also not so complete in its embrace of Commercial Crew as many saw it as a threat to the status quo. So NASA and it’s Congressional supporters pushed back on Obama’s non-plan. Obama never went near to head trying to push ‘his’ program; it wasn’t that important to him. u

            And so what you have today is a result of political half measures resulting from indecisive leadership and desire to continue funding and jobs in an already far diminished and small field.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Which in truth describes much more than NASA.

    • MarcNBarrett says:
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      You would have a difficult time backing that up with historical evidence.