Space Advocates Work Together By Not Working Together
Space Groups Planning New and Revived Advocacy Activities, Space News
“In a speech at the SpaceVision 2014 conference in November in Durham, North Carolina, Tumlinson indicated that participants in the event would be expected to come to a consensus on steps that need to be taken to address those knowledge gaps. That is going to be pushed out into the world as an agreement between people in our community, he said.”
“Despite the proximity of the Legislative Blitz to March Storm, and some overlap in participation NSS is supporting both events both Miller and Zucker said there were no plans to coordinate the two events or even combine them. Miller argued that March Storm thrived in the past on developing its own specific, coherent agenda and set of legislative priorities. “We’ve been very successful with that approach,” he said. “March Storm is kind of unique.”
Keith’s note: Tumlinson ignores the remaining (substantial) portion of the space advocacy community for his summit while Miller and Zucker and their organizations ignore each other. Yea, this is what you need to do so as to start working together.
– Move Along. This Is Not The Space Policy You’re Looking For, earlier post
– Yet Another Plan For Outer Space, earlier post
Leaving the PSN Summit entirely aside, as best I can tell there are real differences between SEA and March Storm. Last I looked, the former actively supports spending half (or more?) of NASA’s space budget on SLS/Orion, the latter, not so much. (Mind, I don’t speak for either.)
Under the circumstances, their running separate legislative operations is probably the most practical arrangement.
Divided you stand, divided you fall. Have fun with that.
If there was anything resembling a consensus on how the Federal government can best support our moving forward into space, you’d have a point.
As it is, there are real and deep differences, fundamentally opposed visions in conflict here. Speaking broadly of the wide variety of groups on my side of the divide, I actually see a great deal of practical ad-hoc unity and cooperation whenever the need arises. (Ditto, as a long-time observer, of the other side.) (Not to mention the ever-entertaining contortions of groups trying to straddle the divide.)
NASA itself has internal divides along these lines these days. Are you sure you’re not just wistful for the good old days when NASA was moving in grand unison toward, uh, well, my admittedly partial view, very expensive bureaucratic white-collar-jobs-program nowhere?
Indeed. Our country is deeply divided on lots of issues. About the only thing we agree on is being American. Democracy is a very messy business and I wouldn’t expect space advocacy to be any different.
Odd, my first reply seems to have vanished.
Short version: You’d be absolutely correct about SEA and March Storm, if not for the fact there are real and deep differences over how the Federal government should best support our expansion into space. (Differences that run to within NASA itself in recent years.)
My experience is that the groups on my side of the divide over the government’s proper role tend to cooperate just fine, when it’s clearly useful and needed. (My observation over the years is that groups on the other side tend to work together as needed also. Groups that try to straddle this divide, well, that can be pretty entertaining, in an awful sort of way.)
In sum, I don’t think the sort of monolithic unity you seem to prefer is currently practical. Further, I think we’ve made more progress in these last few years of overt disunity than we did for decades before the current split opened up. Could be that a little constructive dissent is no bad thing…
Nothing has vanished. I never said monolithic anything – you just want to think that I did.
Sure enough, there’s my morning’s response too. I’d thought the edit I did might have caused it to be eaten – I hadn’t tried that feature before. Must have just still been awaiting moderator approval when I came back this afternoon.
I don’t *want* to think anything there, mind, but if “monolithic” isn’t a reasonable guess as to your preference given your response of “Divided you stand, divided you fall. Have fun with that” to my defense of logical divisions, I’d be curious to hear what it actually is.
I do not have the time to play 20 questions with you. I have written what I have written. If that is not enough then find another blog to post on. Not going to devote energy to a personal discussion with you. Have a nice day.
Sorry, Keith. I wasn’t trying to irritate you.
It’s possible that, like the anthropologist who finds nobody at the faculty cocktail party *wants* to hear how it makes sense within local context for one tribe to occasionally scoop out and eat the brains of another, I may have been embedded with the activists too long.
Much of what they (we, sigh) do does make sense in the larger context also, but I can respect a lack of desire to get close enough to this often peculiar tribe to reliably distinguish the difference.
Keith or Marc, OT – Did you catch this new polling about space?
http://www.monmouth.edu/pol…
Made the usual special-issue polling mistake of not contrasting knowledge of the special-issue with opinion on the special-issue.
Particularly the funding issue. You don’t just ask “Should the US increase funding…”, you also ask, “What percentage of the US Federal budget is currently being spent on NASA?” and “What percentage should NASA receive?” Because previous surveys have shown that people have wildly inaccurate ideas about actual funding levels of most government programs, but especially NASA.
Also, “Would you ever change which politician you vote for based on their views on NASA and space exploration?” Because surely the only opinions on NASA and space funding we really need to care about are those of people who will actually change their vote if its an issue. Everyone else is just background noise on the issue. Politicians aren’t going to care about space advocates unless they represent a decent voting pool, otherwise aerospace lobbyists are the only people that politicians need to listen to.
I find it so interesting that when you skeedaddle around Rayburn or Hart you have certain staffers impose “their vision” of what NASA should be, space policy should be, SMD, HEO, ect.
There is no one solution. Some opine that all should be included in telecon X or conference AC but you do not have to be. Some are looked at as flame throwers who accomplish nothing. Some are viewed as weak and go with “consensus”.
Some guys are having a space conference. Hooray.