Obama's Space Plan — a Conservative Argument

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Obama's Space Plan — a Conservative Argument

Posted by timothy on Saturday February 13, 2010 @07:20AM from the who-is-this-conservative-paleface? dept.

MarkWhittington writes "The Obama space proposal, which seeks to enable a commercial space industry for transportation to and from low Earth orbit while it cancels space exploration beyond LEO, has sparked a kind of civil war among conservatives. Some conservatives hate the proposal because of the retreat from the high frontier and even go so far as to cast doubt on the commercial space aspects. Other conservatives like the commercial space part of the Obama policy and tend to gloss over the cancellation of space exploration or even denigrate the Constellation program as 'unworkable' or 'unsustainable.'"

12 of 433 comments (clear)

libertarian by TheSHAD0W · 2010-02-13 07:25 · Score: 5, Interesting

Coming from a different point than conservative or liberal - NASA has always been a huge waste of money and ought to be deprecated. Getting private industry into the act is a good thing, in my opinion, although I'm not so sanguine about government subsidies. Also, while low Earth orbit may not be as grand a vision as going to the Moon, or Mars, or the asteroid belt, it's a good starting place of all of the above; let's get some infrastructure up there and we'll be able to go wherever we want.
1. Re:libertarian by simcop2387 · 2010-02-13 07:55 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  well that's one thing where, even though I'd say I'm mostly libertarian, I'd disagree. getting infrastructure in place is one of the things that government can do easier and (if you can eliminate most of the pork and other bureaucratic shit) should be doing since it is one thing that most definitely does benefit all citizens equally, just imagine if the roads were done by private companies, there might be more that are very well maintained but something like the interstate highway system would be near impossible to create because you'd be so hard pressed to get the companies to actually cooperate in any reasonable manner. Funding NASA helps fund the research and development that allows for the possibility of creating that infrastructure we so desperately need up in space in order to do any of it. There are so few people that seem to realize that we are so incredibly far away from being able to mine the asteroid belts and things like that. And even so many years after the space program has started, there is not one company that can go into LEO to do the things NASA can do, simply because the returns aren't there in LEO to be profitable in the short or even medium term. Government does not have any business in morality but infrastructure is one place that it can really do a huge amount of good for the citizens and possibly the world (and our own economy if we get the infrastructure up there and charge others to use it)
2. Re:libertarian by astar · 2010-02-13 08:19 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  yah, the private banks do so well at giving us a future.
  to go where ever we want, we need high-energy "rockets". Otherwise serious colonization does not work. In the 70s we were ready to go with nuclear drives. Now the russians are going to finally do it. I do not see a lot of private investment in anything really different. Pooh, we now all hear about the virtues of innovation, and as far as I can tell, this is something marketing is especially good at.
  if you are a conservative type, something to consider is that India will be in LEO with men in 2012 and on rhe moon, with people, in 2020. oh, India is involved deeply with the russians on the nuclear drive.
  on a more earthly thing, China currently has 64 high speed rail projects. 1000's of miles. The usa has 64 miles of medium high speed rail. Some people talk about high speed rail in the usa as capable of causing a 15% overall productivity increase.
  and last I looked, 54 nuclear power plants were being built, almost all in asia. the usa has one, an old mothballed tva plant being brought up.
  so who has the potential for a future?
  anyway, here is a video entitled "the destruction of nasa" which is supposed to be very good
  http://larouchepac.com/lpactv?nid=13392
3. Re:libertarian by QuoteMstr · 2010-02-13 08:22 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  What private company do you expect to fund the GPL and send probes to the outer solar system? Or Hubble, for that matter?
  Yes, reasonable people can argue that LEO launches are so routine these days that they should be turned over to private industry. Fine. But there are tons of other NASA programs that have no profit potential whatsoever, yet tremendously enrich humanity culturally and scientifically. Because private industry would never fund these programs, NASA must. And we're better off for it.
4. Re:libertarian by TwoUtes · 2010-02-13 08:25 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Mod this parent up. U.S. industry is loathe to spend money on any R&D that does not have an immediate return on investment (read:shareholder gains). That is why there are not now and never will be manned private launchers entirely from the so-called 'private sector'. Too expensive for too little return. This new plan from the Obama administration doesn't change that one bit. The U.S. Treasury will still be spending the money to design and build a man-rated launcher. Instead of ATK, Lockheed, Boeing, etc. being the recipients of this largesse, it will now be SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, and others. Basically, the money has been diverted from large government contractors that have already been in the space business for a long time, to a bunch of newcomers. Same game, different players.
5. Re:libertarian by Nyeerrmm · 2010-02-13 09:25 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  You realize Boeing and ULA (a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed) are two of the primary contractors under CCDev, the precursor to a larger 'commercial' manned operation. Furthermore, SpaceX, Blue Origin, et. al. employ a large number of people who used to work at more traditional companies -- Boeing and Lockheed do not have experience, the people working for them do.
  The difference in the game isn't that the money is going to different people, its how its being managed. Before, we were operating in the same way we did in Apollo, by telling companies what we wanted built, and paying significantly more when things didn't work out as cheaply as we hoped. This made sense in the 60s, since we didn't really know what it took to complete the task. However, after we have been launching people into orbit for 50 years, we should no longer be able to claim to not be able to predict the costs. So the difference here is that instead of funding development of vehicles, NASA is instead saying they'll be a guaranteed customer, and purchase rides at a fixed price from these companies. While this may seem like a fine distinction, it changes the incentive structure significantly so that programs are more likely to stay on time and on budget, proposals are more likely to be accurate, and congress is less able to meddle.
  Costs for missions beyond LEO are harder to predict, so government directed cost-plus contracts may make sense in this regime -- however, they will be far more successful if there is a robust, reliable, multi-vendor infrastructure for getting people to and from LEO.
Out source space too... by The+Grim+Reefer2 · 2010-02-13 07:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

I guess the US will be exporting space exploration to China now as well.
Types of conservatives by Junior+J.+Junior+III · 2010-02-13 07:36 · Score: 5, Funny

Conservative: n. 1) A person who holds to conservative principles or beliefs. 2) A person who agrees with other people who call themselves Conservatives, without regard to their actions, statements, beliefs, or principles. 3) A person who opposes anything that a non-Conservative (as defined by the first two definitions) says, does, or believes in.

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You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Rational decision based on irrational constraints by robot256 · 2010-02-13 07:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

If conservatives want to have a civil war over the space program, then fine. The simple fact is that the new space program is the most rational allocation of the woefully inadequate NASA funds that politicians are willing to throw at them. Nothing more, nothing less.
As a NASA engineer, I agree that it is a shame we are shutting down all our manned launch programs for the time being, but completing the Ares project would have meant shuttering just about every other research & development effort. NASA's most valuable resource is their innovative scientists and engineers--it really is a waste to have most of NASA's budget going to routine space flight tasks.
The new budget cuts manned launches but redirects those funds to long-term research that will make future manned launches both more productive and less expensive. Extensive research into propulsion, navigation, life support, and self-sustainability will be carried out using inexpensive robotic missions and the International Space Station.
If the Republicans want someone to blame, then they should blame nearly every politician since the end of the Cold War for not pushing for more NASA funding and relevant priorities. And no, pork barrel projects don't count, only money that can be distributed based on scientific merit and technological feasibility really makes a difference.
The bottom line is the political climate makes it impossible to properly fund anything, including space travel. If you want to change that, tell your congresspeople to increase funding and support the scientific priorities--not pork projects--we need to make real and tangible progress in the quest to explore the universe
Re:Space exploration is conservative. by wizardforce · 2010-02-13 08:20 · Score: 5, Insightful

Our federal budget is 4.5 trillion this year. Why is NASA's ~20 billion so hard to pay for when we seem to have little trouble finding enough to spend about 2.5 trillion on entitlements yearly? Tell ya what; end the agricultural subsidies and we'd free up more than enough to pay for NASA. Maybe then we'd see more actual sugar used instead of that HFCS crap.

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Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Yay, mindless idealism! by copponex · 2010-02-13 09:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

Libertarians are often ignorant of the fact that they effectively lobby against civilization. In terms of GDP per capita, life expectancy, innovation, and quality of life, the middle of the road socialist countries dominate worldwide. That's because if you shackle your society with continuous relearning of generational lessons, you can never move beyond basic progress.
If you'd like to refute the massive progress introduced by the Apollo program in the sixties, go ahead and make your case for a private corporation in the same time frame spending a good portion of the US GDP for pure research. Bell Labs is the only thing that even comes close.
A world of self regulation is just as absurd as a world with complete government control of production. Use the market for easily duplicated services that are not necessary. For everything else, try and use your brain. Mindless idealism nets nothing of value.
Summarized in economic terms by Adam Smith:

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Who also believed

The legal rate... ought not be much above the lowest market rate. If the legal rate of interest in Great Britain, for example, was fixed so high as eight or ten per cent, the greater part of the money which was to be lent would be lent to prodigals and projectors [promoters of fraudulent schemes], who alone would be willing to give this high interest.A great part of the capital of the country would thus be kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it.
When the legal rate of interest, on the contrary is fixed but a very little above the lowest market rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown in the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.
(from naked capitalism)
GDP Per Capita
Life Expectancy
Quality of Life
Re:Conservatives? Who cares? by QuoteMstr · 2010-02-13 09:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

You're confusing individual liberty with social justice.
It's not possible to enjoy personal liberty when you are worked to the bone, discarded at a whim, and can't afford medical care for your children. It's not possible to appreciate persona liberty when you're not educated, and it's not possible to rise out of those circumstances when economic opportunity is inherited. Without regulation, capitalism reverts to its natural state: liberty for the very wealthy and feudalism for everyone else, and Republicans have opposed regulation of markets for over a century.
If you really care about maximizing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you'll support policies that give everyone a chance to achieve these things. In the process, you'll be amazed by how much people "contribute" in return.