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House Outlaws Obama's NASA Intervention
TopSpin writes "NASA's Constellation Program and Ares rockets appear to have strong support in Congress. An appropriations bill passed by the House includes language that bars 'any efforts by NASA to cancel or change the current Constellation program without first seeking approval of Congress.' The Administration's appointed NASA leadership is being publicly hostile towards its traditional aerospace affiliations. As Charles Bolden put it to industry execs, 'We are going to be fighting and fussing over the coming year,' and 'Some of you are not going to like me because we are not going to do the same kind of things we've always done.'"
It's so very important not to change the carefully crafted pork that these projects tend to be once Congress gets their crusty little fingers on them.
"Our minds are made up, don't confuse us with the facts".
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I wouldn't want there to be any confusion about whether scientists or defense contractors are in charge of the direction of our space program.
The Obama administration still clings to the idea that the world is a friendly place full of pink unicorns and people who want to be all huggy-kissy with everyone else. There's no reason to develop technology more advanced than other countries'; we'll all play nice together like happy socialists are supposed to and not compete like evil capitalists.
From http://www.rules.house.gov/POP/approps_proc.htm:
NASA has always been used as a pork barrel, and the engineers who just want to fly birds have both used that shamelessly to get funded, and been victimized by it, in equal turns. It's hard to guess whether they would have created cheaper, simpler designs if feeding billions into the industrial complex (in all 50 states as often as possible) were not the more important goal than flying.
Bottom line, I find it hard to cheer for either side when these spats come up. You always want to take the side of the homies (fund NASA, fly something cool somewhere), but NASA is spending so many millions per kilogram flown that the whole thing will ALWAYS be for a lucky tiny few as long as their big-iron design philosophy is enabled by those who LIVE to spend tax dollars (in their state).
Silver lining though: Americans may have forgotten that their Congress has the power to tell the Executive branch "NO!". That the founders considered the legislature, NOT the executive, the first among three equals, because it directly represents the people on the most frequent election cycle.
Who knows, this "make the executive branch moves illegal" power, now revived for the first time in years, may one day be used to make torture, fake intelligence, and war itself less likely instead of perfectly acceptable.
Where have you been? The first salvo was fired even before Obama was sworn in. That would be when he persuaded Defense Secretary Robert Gates (who used to literally count the days until he was replaced) to stay on. I've often wondered how and why Obama did that. My best guess is that they agreed on an agenda of cost cutting and procurement reform.
When Gates announced his program, the defense special interests fought back — hard. And yet they lost. Mind-boggling, but true. Now that's change I can believe in!
I'm all for space travel, but I want to see the same thing happen at NASA. Anybody who really believes we're going to start a moon base and travel to Mars using Apollo-style space capsules is fooling themselves. The program is pure pork, USDA approved.
Damn, has NASA switched unit systems again!?
Chem rockets can't achieve the efficiency of jet engines because they carry their own fuel and oxidizer. Jets only carry fuel and thus need to propel less weight. Rockets also must generate enough thrust to support the entire vehicle weight. Jets normally fly at thrust-to-weight ratios below one, by having wings that rest on the surrounding medium (air, lift). Rockets must also propel their payloads under these conditions to ~330,000 ft. Commercial airliners reach cruising altitude at 35-40,000 ft. The climb gulps fuel, but the following cruise sips it; rockets are climbing the entire time. This is all scraped from undergrad propulsion, but I think it's right.
One solution is to combine propulsion methods, to use airbreathing propulsion for atmospheric flight and rockets beyond. This could be either a combined-cycle engine (turbine with a rocket in the spindle), or something like SpaceShipOne/White Knight, where a jet-powered platform brings a rocket-ship to altitude. Chemical rocket costs aren't just limited by rocket makers trying to maximize profits on limited launches. They're inherently less efficient than airbreathing propulsion, but aren't limited by the atmosphere.