Obama Is In Space Legacy Mode
Blue Planet/Red Planet Politics: Obama’s Giant Leap for Legacy, Scientific American
“Yet whether Mars will truly be part of the president’s space legacy remains to be seen, says Marcia Smith, founder and editor of SpacePolicyOnline.com. “I think Obama’s civil space legacy will be his embrace of commercial partnerships, not humans to Mars,” she says. Ultimately Obama’s legacy depends in large part on what the next administration does, Smith says. If it continues the Mars exploration program he set up, Obama will likely receive kudos, whether or not it is deserved, she says.”
– Obama Takes A Space Policy Victory Lap, earlier post
– That Time Obama Killed A Return To The Moon, earlier post
– President Obama Has Some Ideas About Mars, earlier post
I definitely think he’ll be remembered more for the commercial space stuff versus Journey-to-Mars. J2M probably won’t survive the next presidential administration, especially if the Europeans, Russians, and eventually Chinese are on board for a Moon Base. It’d be cheaper than doing a Mars mission on our own, and avoid the pesky Planetary Protection issues that have only become stronger with Mars rover research (and if ExoMars finds anything really interesting in the soil . . .).
From the interview I guess Obama must have been convinced by Bolden that someone was really going to fly to Mars-it is not likely using an Orion capsule, and nothing else is on the horizon. It is really kind of funny that Obama thinks he initiated and supported something, and its funny that Bolden is delusional enough to think they can do even a flyby in 25 years, at the rate he and NASA are going. Maybe Musk can do it. Musk is today’s leader in human space flight.NASA has been wandering aimlessly.
It’s a bit ironic: Mr. Obama’s Democratic Party would have been seen to be hostile to anything but Big Government programs, paraphrasing my friends on the right; while a very conservative Senator piles government money into an ill-conceived and too expensive project that continues to inefficiently move forward.
His Legacy,
He failed to reverse the Bush Administration decision to retire the Space Shuttle making NASA 100% dependent on the Russians for ISS access. Russia responded by raising the price for Soyuz rides.
Killed the VSE and failed to stop the Senate replacing it with the rocket to nowhere.
Replaced the VSE with a plan to grab a boulder from an asteroid to place in orbit around the Moon so the rocket to nowhere has a nowhere destination to go to.
Failed to accelerate spending on the Bush Administration’s COTS program and dragged on funding for CCP delaying it entering service until after his Administration leaves office.
On the other hand he did sign the Space Resources Act Congress passed, which his Administration will get credit for although they did not initiate it.
But overall its a record of neglect and lack interest in space, thereby letting Congress have its way with space.
I agree with most of that except the part about rescuing the Shuttle — it was already too far gone by the time Obama took office to be saved.
This post is intriguing. Let’s take a closer look.
The tactic has been to accuse others for one’s own actions.
Reverse shuttle? Did not meet goals on cost, had serious safety concerns/No BEO ability, product lines were terminated. Nixon added solids. Lost out to Titan unless 28 flights/yr.
Killed VSE? 2000s Congress created and did not read VSE.
“reuse” “common hardware elements” Instead they retained shuttle derived and the incredibly expendable architecture.
Senate mandated 70 and 130mT in 2011 to retain shuttle derived and allocated zero/3B yr required for missions. Simply shifting SLS/Orion $$ to payload/R&D enables Exploration.
Imagine the shock when Orion could not return from Mars nor even an asteroid due to its heat shield. So the rock had to be retrieved for the rocket and capsule to nowhere. The 2005 Ares was supposed to “provide a practical and affordable means to the Moon and Mars”. Asteroids have been a stepping stone mission for decades to test the deep space hardware. Recall further that JWST servicing at L2 was abandoned by 2000s congress because of the lunar only focus as well..a lost HSF opportunity.
The US House of Representatives approved a bill that would restructure C. Crew. The administration requested $830 million for commercial crew in 2013. The House appropriated $500 million and ordered NASA to pick a single provider.
The White House threatened to veto the House bill even before floor debate started May 8.
Currently, its “the media/voting booths” that are rigged, deflecting away from gerrymandered rigged districts and citizens united. Fund Oil/corn subsidies, deny climate change. Medicare D costs 70B yet blame ACA. See a pattern?
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Links:
ARES – “Together, these two vehicles combine to provide America a practical, affordable, and achievable means to realize missions to the Moon and Mars.”
https://web.archive.org/web…
“The shuttle concept that would fit the budget was nowhere in sight…The analysis showed that at the lowest level of activity, averaging 28 flights per year, the Shuttle would barely compete with the Titan III”
http://www.nss.org/resource…
“The mistake we made on the solid rockets, it was a major mistake” Max Faget, shuttle designer
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/his…
“We started shutting down the shuttle four years ago. That horse has left the barn”
https://blogs.nasa.gov/wayn…
“For future, sustainable exploration programs, NASA requires cost-effective vehicles that may be reused, have systems that could be applied to more than one destination, and are highly reliable and need only small ground crews” 2005 VSE
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/555…
“The mission uses essentially all expendable rocket and vehicle components, and does not leave any useful components in low Mars orbit or Earth orbit for use by the next mission. Thus, there is no advancement in safety or capability from one mission to the next. The architecture would require the design, development, and construction of at least 10 different types of expendable vehicles during the decade before the first mission” http://www.thespacereview.c…
“The U.S. House of Representatives on May 10 approved a 2013 NASA budget of $17.45 billion that would force an immediate restructuring of the agency’s Com Crew Program”
http://spacenews.com/commer…
“NASA and the White House had originally planned to put off a decision on a heavy launch capability until 2015 or so – and then fully compete the selection process based on an architecture that would define what was needed and when. But Congress – specifically the Senate, decided to mandate (in the NASA Authorization Act) what the solution would be before the problem or need was defined.”
http://www.spaceref.com/new…
Google: George Carlin American Dream.
So you agree he was so uninterested in space and NASA he just left it to Congress to provide leadership?
Wayne Hale wrote that the space shuttle was DEAD when Obama took office and it would take just as many years to revive it as to just replace it and would cost billions that instead could be used for modern systems.
Griffin killed the VSE when he put his thumb on scale with the ESAS and made all the false claims about the EELV’s and a SIMPLE capsule design to ride on them.
The republicans pledged that they would vote no on EVERYTHING President Obama proposed, even if they agreed with the proposal and were in favor of it, they would still vote no.
They were determined to NOT give THIS President a single success because, as the minority leader Mitch McConnell stated the number one priority of the Republican party was to insure Obama had a failed first term and would not be reelected.
And exactly which modern systems was it used for? The SLS/Orion?
It was supposed to go towards the Commercial Crew.