Vice President Pence's National Space Council Comments
Remarks By Vice President Pence at The Sixth Meeting Of The National Space Council
“But as we gather here today, we do so recognizing that it’s been 47 years since the last American set foot on the moon. In fact, our great shuttle program, including the space shuttle Discovery behind me, was grounded nearly a decade ago. And the truth is, as all of you know, for too long America was content with low-Earth orbit, and missions focused on the Earth instead of aiming for the stars. But I’m proud to report that under President Trump’s leadership, all of that is changing. As the President said in his Inaugural Address, “We stand at the birth of a new millennium, ready to unlock the mysteries of space…” And that’s exactly what we’re doing. (Applause.) It’s true. After two and a half years under the President’s leadership, America is leading in space once again. This President recognizes what the American people have known for more than a half a century, and that is that our security, our prosperity, and our very way of life, depend on American leadership and American leadership in space. Now, we acknowledge that low-Earth orbit is not our final destination, but rather it is a training ground for the infinite frontier of space. And I can assure you the American people are ready for the next chapter in our nation’s history in space.”
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Why does “Applause” show up so bodly in these. Are they asking for it?
It is inserted in the prepared remarks – I leave it in when I generate the word cloud since it shows some insight into what they expect to be worthy of applause.
Ahh yes, Copy that.
That’s an interesting touch. Would it be possible to do a similar analysis on the actual transcripts of speeches? Not by you, since it would take time and funding you probably don’t have. But I’d like to see statistics on how often applause was expected in the prepaired speaches, and how often the applause actually occurred during the speaches.
Its what the White House puts out and since they make a point of putting it in the document that is distributed – after the event – I leave it in.
That’s fine, and also interesting. I was just wondering if it was theoretically possible to do a comparison. Does anyone put together and distribute a transcript (with misspeaks and questions and answers)? If so, does it also include “(applause)” when that’s what the audience did? I have no idea. If such a thing exists, it might make a nice paper for a political science student: Pipe the prepared and actual versions through a word count, and see how they compare.
“ready to unlock the mysteries of space…”
I wonder what India’s Chandrayaan 2 rover near southpole will find next month and what mysteries it will unlock. https://spaceflightnow.com/…
From one Cessna driver to another, “will” only works if “money” is readily available and the people holding it are sold on it use. We need to find another word (probably make one up) that combines the concepts of will & ability to spend into one concept. But as words only develop as they fulfill a cultural or linguistic need I wont hold my breath.
I disagree. The government of the United States does have plenty of money for these programs. The costs are tiny compared to many DoD programs, and sometimes smaller than the cost overruns in those programs. So, as a nation, we definitely have the ability to fund a 2024 lunar landing or a human Mars mission. We, which includes the public and our democratically elected representatives, are unwilling to do so. We have the money, but we do not choose to spend it on human spaceflight. That is not a lack of money in the federal budget. It is the lack of a collective, national will to spend the available money on human spaceflight.
The money spent on NASA HSF programs are not small even comparing to DoD programs. DoD budget is huge because they have a tons of people to feed, and they have many programs.
But if you just compare the cost of a single program, on an annual basis, ISS and SLS/Orion absolutely stands out, there’re not many DoD programs that costs $4B and $3.5B per year. There’re a few big ticket DoD programs which have an annual budget above ISS and SLS/Orion (F-35, Virginia class submarine, DDG-51), but many are below them (KC-46, F/A-18E/F, B-21, Columbia class SSBN, Ford aircraft carrier, etc)
If the US had the money we wouldn’t be in debt up to our noses.
So if I try to match the speech to previous statements as well as the realities of budgets and actual political will, I guess it’s aim for the stars, talk about Mars, and make plans for going to the Moon. And in the meantime continue to operate in the training ground of LEO.
Or, to quote Dr. Strangelove, “It requires merely the _vill_ to do it.” True, but that hasn’t helped human spaceflight much. (Or overly ambitious robotic missions, for that matter.)
So far little or no money is forthcoming and no real reason why it should. NASA has not offered a plan for how or why this program is going to be sustainable or for that matter even what the long term aim is. Mainly every time they say Moon they add Mars. Are we doing anything long term on the Moon? No one is going to Mars in an Orion or for that matter in a Gateway. Mars takes speed and speed takès advanced propulsion. Where is the plan?
The Space Council today has asked NASA for a plan so you were on the right track.
I wish Mars wasn’t mentioned so many times because NASA is putting essentially zero money towards crewed missions to Mars. Little to none of the moon hardware will work on Mars anyway, except for some of the bits inside the pressure vessels.
There is little difference between cis-Lunar tech and trans-Mars/Phobos/Mars orbit tech…and getting there and back alive is half the battle. Except that Mars tech has to be well enough tested to function without external support for a year or more.
Living space is a much bigger deal on the way to Mars. A few cubic meters per person would be fine for a few day trip to the Moon, but not for a nine month trip to Mars. The optimal degree of closure in the life support system might also be different. And you could probably do without a solar storm shelter.
Only if you want to orbit the moon or Mars. I’m talking about crewed surface missions.
Mars thin atmosphere and significantly higher gravity means lander designs for the moon’s hard vacuum and lower gravity simply won’t work on Mars. Spacesuits are similar in that a lunar suit can mass much more and still have the same weight as a Mars suit. Because a moon suit has a higher mass budget, it’s easier to build (but would be too heavy to wear on Mars for extended EVAs).
On top of that, the long lunar night (approximately half a *month*) makes solar a hard sell for any mission that’s not at a pole and has access to 24/7 solar power. Mars can work with solar, if you take into account dust storms, which *don’t* happen on the moon.
Even in-situ resources are different. On Mars, you can extract CO2 from the atmosphere (one component needed to make methane/LOX propellant) simply by pumping it into your processor, through a filter. On the moon, it’s a tad more difficult to obtain and process carbon.
Things that are different, just aren’t the same.
What lunar carbon? Glancing over a table of the lunar surface composition, I don’t see any carbon. (Or nitrogen, or a number of other things you’d probably want…) So I’m not sure how you’d use in situ resources to make a methane and oxygen propellent mix on the Moon. Lunar oxygen and hydrogen could limit the necessary imports to carbon, but I think that’s about as good as it gets. I did, however, notice aluminum, iron and magnesium oxides at about ten or fifteen percent abundance in the lunar regolith. I think you could manufacture solid rockets from that. But, as you point out, that would require digging, refining, chemical processing and manufacturing.
As a carbon based life form, the moon’s lack of carbon makes it a nice place to visit, but I’m not sure it would ever be a great place to try to build a self sustaining colony. I think using it for its resources is still a good thing and it would be a great place to put a lot of industry. But, Mars looks to be a better place to colonize, IMHO.
What do you mean? Dr. Who uses the same red space suit design with the big bulky leg pockets everywhere. 😉
I so enjoy these word clouds you generate, Keith. Yes, I know not to make too much out of them, but they are fascinating nonetheless. Still, I’m not sure how to put this data to work.
Are they an unintended doorway in which the speaker somehow reveals true thoughts? I’m certainly not qualified for that sort of analysis!
And I wonder what others make of them? What proper conclusions can be drawn, by which I mean conclusions with some measure of accuracy? As a writer I am persuaded that word relationships (sentences!) actually matter.
Or, are we simply having fun — which is in itself sufficient?
One thing it does is draw your attention to an emphasis that you might not otherwise have noticed. Does it mean anything or prove anything, no not in itself, but again it might help you notice a pattern or emphasis that you didn’t realize on first reading was there.
Some things are perhaps obvious but still interesting to notice, for example with Pence being subservient to the president, as expected you see the word President being used much more often than Trump, meaning that he said “The President” more often than he said “President Trump”. Of course that could also be due to brevity, but I think more likely it is a sign of respect or deference. Others may have different theories on that, but again it’s the word count that brings it to your attention in the first place.
Something else I noticed is that “Congress” apparently didn’t get much mention.
I think it’s helpful because the speech writers (hint:in this context it is probably someone different from the speaker) really do count keywords based on what they are told the agency/politician wants to emphasize. A word cloud reverse compiles that, looks past the cattle droppings in between, and tells us what the agency/politician wants to highlight.
Blah, blah, blah…
It feels like they are going to take until 2024 to come up with a concrete plan.