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Obama Team Considers Cancellation of Ares, Orion
HanzoSpam sends us this story from Space News, which begins:
"US President-elect Barack Obama's NASA transition team is asking US space agency officials to quantify how much money could be saved by canceling the Ares 1 rocket and scaling back the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle next year. ... The questionnaire, 'NASA Presidential Transition Team Requests for Information,' asks agency officials to provide the latest information on Ares 1, Orion and the planned Ares 5 heavy-lift cargo launcher, and to calculate the near-term close-out costs and longer-term savings associated with canceling those programs. The questionnaire also contemplates a scenario where Ares 1 would be canceled but development of the Ares 5 would continue. While the questionnaire, a copy of which was obtained by Space News, also asks NASA to provide a cost estimate for accelerating the first operational flight of Ares 1 and Orion from the current target date of March 2015 to as soon as 2013, NASA was not asked to study the cost implications of canceling any of its other programs, including the significantly overbudget 2009 Mars Science Laboratory or the James Webb Space Telescope."
Obama's presidency is going to be very FDRish. Lots of big 'public works' projects to keep the voting masses coming back, but in terms of actual forward thinking, very little. Well, actually, if you are into the government getting bigger, you won't be disappointed.
(Man, I'm gonna get modded into oblivion for this!)
--sig fault--
The Obama team may be exercising due diligence in looking across the board for cost savings. I hope that this is the case, and that they are not focusing on cutting investment in space exploration. That would be egregiously short sighted. I would recommend looking strongly at assessing the real mission needs for high cost "bleeding-edge" defense programs such as the Future Combat System (FCS), F-22, and F-35, in favor of re-capitalizing with incremental improvements to exiting proven systems. Attacking inefficiencies is the a better first approach over cutting back on science as well as basic research investments in our future.
Even if the incoming administration eliminated NASA they wouldn't recover enough to pay for the various giveaways (e.g., bailouts, economic, stimulus checks, etc.). NASA's budget for 2009 was only 17.6 billion (http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/feb/HQ_08034_FY2009_budget.html). Certainly Obama and company can find better places to trim in this day of multi-trillion dollar giveaways. Let's start by scrapping the economic stimulus packages ($175-500 billion) which have thus far done next to nothing in stimulating anything except perhaps the re-election chances of those that allowed this mess to develop in the first place (yes Congress, that's you).
This might actually be a good thing. I have a friend working at Cape Canaveral who tells me that most of his managers at NASA consider Project Orion a disgrace to the space program. The design is a kludge... it's less elegant than Apollo of 30 years ago, using multiple Ares rockets to handle what Saturn V did on its own. The design's fundamentally flawed, the rocket's so slender it "wants" to fly backwards... the control system has to fight its natural flight mechanics the entire way up to keep it straight. The launch vibrations were large enough to kill the astronauts, leading them to add shock absorbers, because the project's been so rushed and it's too late in the game to instead eliminate vibrations altogether. The whole capsule design is antiquated and relies on an incredibly tough heat shield for reentry, when reentry speeds themselves should be lowered (using a lifting fuselage, like the X-33 and SS1), vastly reducing reentry heating and eliminating burnup almost entirely as a failure mode (Columbia).
I won't try to just blame Bush, but this hasn't been a methodical, thought-out advance of manned exploration. Mike Griffin's in the wrong here too as the project cheerleader. The project's a mess, with so much modern materials science and computational flight dynamics being thrown at a design that was only good for the 1960s, but completely outclassed today by research since then. If Obama cancels BOTH Ares and Orion, maybe we can have a real successor to the SSTO (PLEASE be the X-33 with composite fuel tanks).
Obama is inheriting an UNBELIEVABLE debt/deficit. There will need to be cuts EVERYWHERE. It almost isn't fair to put this article up on /. Of course all of us geeks don't want to see the space program cut.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH:
http://perotcharts.com/category/challenges-charts/page/14
The tumorous growth of entitlements grows unabated.
http://www.pensiontsunami.com/
Here is a crowning look at doom:
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/supercycle
So, we're all kind of baked.
Cheers,
Smitty
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
What most people, including the parent of this thread, don't understand is that NASA and other federal R&D facilities do is fuel our economy.
/. work in the IT field. Well you can thank NASA for the Beowulf Cluster. NASA also worked with industry to make cordless drills, CAT Scans, digital thermometers, welder's goggles and thousands of other products.
Many people here on
Don't take my word for it.
http://www.beowulf.org/overview/history.html
http://space.about.com/od/toolsequipment/ss/apollospinoffs.htm
http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/spinoff.html
Engage brain before moving mouth.
Overrated, Troll, and Flamebait mod points are not to be used towards posts you disagree with. That IS censorship.
The only way to make the army cheaper is to lessen the value of the human soldiers in it. China's army is twice the size of the USA's. FCS and all those high tech devices are designed to allow the military to do more with less overall resources. The F-22 and F-35 are designed to use the same support systems, and similar components to allow faster and ultimately less expensive in field repairs.
While the whole land warrior system has been stripped back, squad leaders are still carrying the communication systems and real time mapping aspects to allow them to better coordinate forces. As it stands the US military is one of the most efficient militaries in the world(an oxymoron if there ever was one). While realistic assessments of the tech, and future upgrades to the systems themselves are required it can be doen more easily as the basics of the design has been completed.
The F-22 was the R&D test bed for the F-35 While the per unit cost of the F-22 is high because of this the per unit cost of the F-35 is far far smaller.
You can't make the army cheaper unless your willing to kill more of your own soldiers to do it.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
This is an incredibly pro-space piece of news out of the Obama team, but what gets the focus is the potential termination of the boondoggle Ares program.
This article is far more interesting due to the last paragraph:
"Obama's NASA transition team also appears to be interested in a number of specific projects that have more or less languished in recent years. Among those projects are: the Deep Space Climate Observatory, a mothballed Earth-observing satellite formerly known as Triana; agency efforts to catalog asteroids and comets that could threaten Earth; and the harnessing of space-based solar power for use on Earth."
The article also alludes to a potential expansion of the COTS commercial space program, potential uses for EELV launchers, etc.
If the Obama team is serious about these projects (especially space solar power) it would mean a revolution in space funding and a committment to space development that would make Ares pale in comparison. SSP would mean a real orbital infrastructure that would enable a huge number of possibilities, such as real lunar bases and mars missions, not plant a flag crap which is where Ares is headed.
I agree with you in principle; Obama should definitely validate the actual need for existing programs (military and domestic), and kill those we can live without. I disagree, though, that the F-35 is "bleeding edge" (its focus has always been on affordability as an export fighter set to compete with the French Rafale, the Swedish Gripen, and the multi-national Eurofighter rather than "performance at any cost"), or that it can be replaced by "incremental upgrades" to the existing fleet.
The F-35 has strong international support from US allies who have helped fund and execute the program (including the United Kingdom, Italy, Netherlands, Canada, Turkey, Australia, Norway, Denmark, Israel, and Singapore). It is the only potential replacement for the badly aging AV-8B Harrier II, and will also replace the F-16, A-10, EA-6B, and F/A-18 (except the Super Hornet model, for which it serves as a stealth-capable adjunct).
in favor of re-capitalizing with incremental improvements to exiting proven systems
This argument just doesn't work well for the F-35. While we could arguably replace existing F-16 inventories with the F-16 Block 60, and just buy more F-18 E/F Super Hornets for the Navy, we'd be left with two problems that make your suggestion impractical.
"Incremental improvements" to the Harrier II would be cost-prohibitive, and likely wouldn't solve the major supportability issues it faces. Remember, a STOVL aircraft lives or dies on weight. Cutting weight is hard. Adding weight in a mid-life upgrade is easy. Cost-wise, an "incremental improvement" to the Harrier II is equivalent to a re-design - and we've already paid for a redesign in the F-35. (Same basic problem in the long run with the A-10, though we have more time in that aircraft's instance.)
Second problem is more severe - you can't "incrementally upgrade" an existing aircraft to stealth. Other than the (expensive and non-exportable) F-22, the F-35 is the only fifth generation stealth fighter available to the allied military. The value of stealth has been proven thoroughly and repeatedly; GIYF.
Just as you have to eventually forsake upgrading your beloved IBM XT and buy a new freaking machine, it's time to replace Harrier II's and their generational cohorts with a new platform for the next 50 years - which explains the strong international support behind the F-35.
The F-35 is already in low-rate production after 12 years of competition and detailed design work, and is only 4 years from initial deployment in the USA and UK. Killing it now would be incredibly foolish - and I don't think Obama is foolish in the least.
(All of the F-35 info above I pulled from Wikipedia, of course.)
Defense? Against what? The US has, BY FAR, the largest military budget in the world. It is larger than the next 46 largest combined. And most of those are strong US allies. So, who poses a threat? Who do you have to defend yourself against that you need such a large military budget?
The US could cut its military budget in half and still be the largest, most powerful military on the planet.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The parent poster and editor did a poor job describing the article. The obvious thing was the questions about cutting Ares 1. As mentioned, they also asked about Ares 5. What's missing, Obama's office also asked about:
What it sounds like to me is they're doing due diligence with the intention of possibly increasing NASA's budget; but, they want to spend the money as wisely as possible.
For once, I with people would read the damn article before jumping to conclusions, even here, on /.
What gives you the right to tell the rest of us what government is "supposed" to do?
Libertarians and their totalitarian fantasies can fuck right off. If people want the government to give everyone rainbows and blowjobs, you have no business telling them it shouldn't.
Those estimates are disingenuous. The Saturn V only cost 2.4-3.5 billion a launch when you take the money spent (adjusted for inflation) on the entire Saturn program (including R/D) then divide it by the number of launches. 500-600 million for launch is the actual cost of a single shuttle launch. Cost on the shuttle program in toto is around 150 billion total. Saturn was a much better deal considering the larger amount it could get to LEO and GTO. Considering that the shuttle isn't even capable of a transit orbit makes Saturn a bargain by comparison.
Why would you cut back on the one thing that the government is suppose to do? Provide for the common defense is the JOB of government. Not supplying bail-outs to companies that were mis-managed. The estimated cost of just the damm bail outs is over 6 trillion dollars that the US government is on the hook for. What needs to be cut, how about farm subsidies? Read a story that a family bought a house and the realitor said that they would get money from the government, farm subsidiy, because they were in the right area. The house wasn't even in a farming area. That's where the government needs to fix it's self.
You can be replaced by a very small shell script.
I second this. IMO, the only way to significantly put a dent in the budget would be to cut back on defense spending.
Then you have no actual knowledge of the Federal budget. Defense spending has decreased as a percentage of discretionary spending every year for the past 42 years, while entitlement programs have ballooned to make up the vast majority of the federal budget. Cutting more defense spending would be cutting a small chunk off of a small chunk.
Now I'm not saying we couldn't/shouldn't cut back on defense spending, but to imply or state that it would be the *only* effective measure in reducing the deficit is just not factual.
http://perotcharts.com/category/federal-budget-charts/page/9/
2007 Defense spending is approx 20% of federal spending as a whole, so even a 25% cut in defense spending would only have a net effect of a 5% reduction in spending. Not nearly enough to put a 'significant dent' in the budget.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
"supposed to be doing" according to who?
if the majority of Americans want public research into space exploration, medical research, and fundamental research, then it is the government's duty to carry out these wishes. the only hard rule about what a government ought to be doing is protecting the interests of its constituency. even in a world without military conflict (and thus with no need for "common defense") government will still be a necessity, just not in its present form.
believe it or not, not everyone is paranoid about a Soviet/German/Chinese invasion or terrorist attack. defense is far from the only common interest shared by a society. certain things like road systems, public education, communications networks, power grids, and other vital public infrastructure cannot be built by a lone individual. they require the collective efforts & resources of a community to develop.
likewise, law enforcement, emergency services, courts, etc. are all public services that a modern society needs to function. because most people don't want to live in a dog eat dog world where might makes right, we establish social institutions to ensure law and order and promote social justice. these institutions do far more for public safety on a day to day basis than a ridiculously expensive military.
and because most people have the foresight to see that fundamental research, space exploration, ecological conservation, and the arts all serve the long-term interests of a society, the government also has the responsibility of funding these admittedly loftier endeavors. if you want to live in a country whose government is only interested in military defense, then move to a nation under military dictatorship. you don't need a democratic government that protects free speech, free press, ensures due process, regulates health standards, and ensures their nation is at the forefront of science & technology, etc. to have an armed forces.
A recent report by the Washington Post reports that over $49 Million in farm subsidies has gone to people who make more than cut off $2.5 Million per year. I've never been a fan of subsidies to begin with, I bet you can imagine how I feel when anyone making millions a year gets a check for free money
Link
Maybe the problem there is that the problem there is *not* a military problem, but a political one---like pretty much everyone was telling the US before *both* invasions...
Currency has never had 'intrinsic' value. What would you do with Gold that is valuable? Currency has whatever value we all agree it has. Gold would be no different and it's physical nature would not stop this effect from happening - you'd just see massive inflation of the value of Gold which would make it impossible to use in any technology or science or art.
It's much better to base currency on work units directly rather than some arbitrary physical medium which is scarce until it's not... or abundant until someone decides to hoard it all.
I do some work, I get paid for it. Who cares what the medium used to record the work is... whether it be a printed piece of paper with a unique serial number or a metal coin with a unique serial number... or a digital notation on a computer attached to my unique SSN.
I then take that work unit I was paid with and use it to buy someone else's labor, the same way the company I did the work for paid for my labor.
Personally I don't even have cash.. I rarely use it, except to pay for gas at stations that charge for ATM use (usually the cheapest prices though).
I'd rather keep my work units in a money market account so that they can earn decent interest while I'm not using them (aka I loan them to other people for use in trading on the stock markets). If I've collected enough work units I put them in a CD so others can borrow them more long term - which gives me a better return. Sometimes I loan them out to companies for a very long term - by purchasing stock - with an even better return potential.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Environmental studies are important, and swamps are there for a reason (protect the non-swamp areas against hurricanes, act as habitat for species that we use (directly or indirectly), etc.). The government is now spending even more money to fix swamps that they fucked up 50 years ago because they didn't do the environmental studies in the first place!
Line-item vetos are dumb anyway. If that's what you want, then just encourage the President to veto the whole thing, all the time, until Congress gives him a version without the line items! You don't need a special new power for it; you just need the President to grow a pair!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Since 1967, the federal government has appropriated the excess monies paid into the Social Security system into the rest of federal spending because after just 4 years of the Great Society, politicians realized it was already bankrupting us. In return, Congress gave Social Security an IOU, promising to return the money when Social Security needed it.
That is, Social Security money goes into the general fund and is spent as fast as it comes in. It isn't invested and it isn't saved for the day Social Security starts paying out more than it takes in (projected to be 2017). So, yes, Social Security is as much a part of the federal budget as national defense spening.
The fun will be, come 2017, when Social Security becomes insolvent. Benefits will have to be cut for the baby boomers (pissing off an entire generation), taxes will have to be raised extraordinarily on the working age people (pissing off multiple generations) or we're going to have to deficit spend until there is no tomorrow, obliterating the value of the dollar. We've been playing games and sticking our head in the sand hoping that the day will never come, but it will... if it isn't 2017, it'll just be pushed back another couple years. The best part is, the people who are responsible for the decades of wasteful spending, appropriating Social Security money for federal spending, refusing to reform Social Security, etc will be dead and gone, having left us with trillions of dollars in debt while they lived it up at our expense.
Stop Koolaid Politics
That's definitely not the only way. We have a 3 trillion dollar budget, and to say defense is the only place to cut money in a budget that big is laughable.
Personally, I would like to see us first cut spending by stopping all these ridiculous bailouts. It's been one right after another, to the point where our national deficit next year will likely be 1 TRILLION DOLLARS this year. All these companies and individuals weren't socializing their profits a couple years ago when they were raking in money hand over fist, so why should we socialize their losses?
Next we could start cutting social programs. Welfare could be cut back (rather than increased like the Democratic congress just did), Medicare should be reformed and scaled back, and Social Security should be restructured in a way that will phase it out. The ballooning costs of those programs will absolutely destroy our budget within a decade or two, and that's assuming we continue to have good economic growth. We should be working to phase them out now while we still have time to do it gradually, because the alternative is a massive, sudden slashing of benefits.
After those, you could start whacking a lot of the unconstitutional things the feds are involved with, such as the department of education. We already spend more money per capita on our students than anyone else, with not very good results. However, some states have been having success, so lets just turn the entire job back over to the states and let them experiment and try 50 different systems. And may the best one win and be adopted.
Following this, you could start whacking subsidies that we hand out to everything that moves. The farmers have had subsidies for almost 30 years, so it's time for them to find a way to become profitable or get out. And all the "green" subsidies should go away too. Market pressures will force them to become cost efficient, or they will be knocked out in favor of better technologies. Government subsidies don't provide incentives to drive out inefficiencies.
Next, let's start hammering away at pork barrel earmarks. Barack Obama says they "only" amount to 18 billion, but so what? Let's clean that up. When Minnesota's I-35 bridge collapsed last year, they asked the congress for an emergency 255 million for rebuilding, and the congress responded by passing the massive 8+ billion dollar Minnesota bridge repair bill. Minnesota only wanted 255 million, and they packed it with pork for a butterfly garden in North Dakota, a sports stadium somewhere else and all kinds of other junk. And of course you get garbage like the bridge to nowhere coming out of these earmarks.
Follow this up by cuts to foreign aid. Should we really be giving tons of money away when we can't even keep our government in the black at home? That's a recipe for disaster. Plus we keep giving money to failed terrorist states/entities, like the Palestinians, numerous African and Middle Eastern nations and Pakistan.
And for everything else in the budget, cut it by 10% but demand they provide the same level of service. I GUARANTEE you that could be done. In the private sector, companies are always having to drive out costs to remain competitive and profitable, especially in down times like this when their revenues drop. Why do we buy the line all these government workers give us when they say, "We can't have a budget cut! We'll have to close down! Reduce services!" Bull. The private sector goes through revenue reduction all the time. The problem we have is that government NEVER has a recession and NEVER takes a budget cut like all the rest of is. This means waste and inefficiencies aren't forced out of the system. After decades of nothing but budget increases, there has to be at least 10% waste in every single agency, and they will need a good sharp pay cut to have the incentive to get it under control.
That would be
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.