Senators Blast NASA For Lacking Vision

An anonymous reader writes "A Senate science subcommittee clashed with NASA's chief on Wednesday, saying the agency and the White House lacked a clear vision and goal for the program. Skeptical senators told the space agency that it should not just talk about plans, but set out to do something specific. Lawmakers expressed a bipartisan opposition to the agency's plans and the initiatives of the Obama White House." Updated 23:13 GMT by timothy: Reader Trent Waddington contributes this video link to the hearing, if you want to come to your own conclusions.

Comments

Playing to the votors

[mikefocke]

NASA has spread around the work to the maximum number of congressional districts to maximize their political support. But ask those same congressmen what they are willing to give up...ask them how important it is to balance the budget and even ...gasp..to begin paying off some debts..and they go quiet about what they want to give up...except to demand that the budget be balanced (but let someone else's district pay for it).

Obama puts a freeze on some agencies spending and already the constituencies are whining.

Where are politicians with guts who care more about the future of the country than getting elected with phony promises and posturing?

Re:Playing to the votors

[Red Flayer]

Where are politicians with guts who care more about the future of the country than getting elected with phony promises and posturing?

Where are the purple flying unicorns?

A politician cannot get elected to the highest offices unless they prioritize getting (re-)elected over achieving meaningful progress. This is why there are no politicians with the fortitude to do what must be done. And if one somehow manages to claw his way to the top and get elected to Congress, he is quickly marginalized by the deadbeat politicians who dominate the system. He'll slowly be brought into the system, as he willingly trades away his ideals in order to get something done, one small step at a time.

Our culture disembowels those who wish to maintain principles while in office. But we put them there... we vote on 15-second sound-bites. We vote on who has better hair, who we'd rather our daughter date, who we'd like to imagine our fathers and grandfathers would look like if they weren't drunken whoring bastards (never mind the fact that many of those we elect ARE drunken whoring bastards -- they just don't look like it because they have an army of PR staff).

And the worst part of it -- for me -- those who do appear to have principles, who have a spine, too often are mired in a religious conservatism that I believe has no place in national politics. But I digress...

NASA si long term, senate is six years

[fermion]

The problem is that a NASA project is long term, while a Senator only sees mid term. The space shuttle development ran from the late 60's to the first launch in 1981. Even Apollo was a seven year program, one year longer than the term of a senator. This means that most are looking for the pork they can send home this year and in the next few years, while NASA needs to be funded long term. The problem with Constellation is that it was funded in 2005, and years after Columbia disintegrated. If it would have funded fully in 2004, with a deadline of 2013, maybe we could have done it. Or else had some vision that STS was ending, and funded it in 2000 with the installation of the conservative government that apparently is so dedicated to space exploration.

Then, of course, there is the pork. Representative Olsen, not of the senate, has voting against the economic stimulus package, which consensus seems to indicate that it has stopped the hemorrhaging of jobs, and now he is complaining that a few thousand government employees are going to lose their jobs. What is it Pete? Do we want to balance the budget or keep support a federal jobs program where the average salary is over 70K a year? Sure the NASA jobs are great, but the budget is the budget. These jobs and ancillary costs could save over a billion a year. I know that Clear Lake is the probably the most federally subsidized place in America, but we really need real jobs based on capitalism, not socialism.

Best vision in years

[CompressedAir]

Disclaimer: I work for the space program, but I'm not high enough to make these decisions.

Some people will never be happy. All the dreams of the last 50 years are about to come true, and all people can do is bitch!

Look, chemical powered rockets have not changed much since the development of the SSME. So why are we only now getting private space launch? Because there was nowhere reasonable to go! ISS cargo is an easy enough mission for non-cutting edge rocketry, and since it is manned there is a long term need for supply flights that won't go away.

The future looks like this:
1. NASA guarantees it be buy x flights at y price from now until 2020.
2. Multiple vendors (currently SpaceX, Orbital, Lockheed, Boeing, and others) use this promise to secure capital to develop launchers.
3. Several years of regular supply flights gives ample qualification of the new boosters.
4. Once confidence is gained, NASA transitions from buying human flights from Russians to buying flights from Americans. Lots of politicians get reelected.
5. All the tech for better than chemical rocket launch now has a concrete mission to design for. Someone perfects laser ablative launch of cargo to ISS and does it much cheaper. Someone else gets an even cheaper launch option going.
6. NASA works on designs for solar system manned exploration craft. Design is steady and largely free from political pressure.
7. Private cargo launch matures, and one day both it and the NASA designs are ready.
8. ISS, which is now a largely private operation, is sold off or deorbited at its end of life.
9. NASA (and hell, maybe even private spacecraft) launch on commercial boosters and usher in a new era.

Look, promises smomishes. Unfunded mandates scmuded fandates. This is the ONLY way to get beyond LEO in a sustained manner by the 2050s ( when I will retire). You all should be overjoyed.