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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.
All we need to do is say that Al Quaida has set up a training camp on Mars and see the money flow after that!
We'll be on mars in no time!
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
You do realize that the plans were unworkable, the designs flawed, and the very engineers for them introduced alternative designs which could be produced sooner/faster/cheaper. Look up "Ares V Base Heating Issue" sometime.
The management at NASA and the special interests behind key areas kept pushing for Constellation due to it's huge R&D budget, despite the laws of physics which stated that it would never work with the designs as/is. And Obama pulled the plug on the dead-man-walking. It was obvious 5 years ago that this would happen, which is why NASA's engineers "moonlighted" and introduced the DIRECT launch design.
Here is what they proposed. It could be ready from approval to launch within 36 months, as it is based on existing technologies *and* it has already passed PDR. If it looks familiar to you space nuts, you might remember it as the Regan-era National Launch System. Now it is called Jupiter.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Nuff said
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esCGYkVhhnY&feature=channel
Watch the Senate Hearing yourself, a lot more interesting stuff happened.
How we know is more important than what we know.
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?
Its probably a more well thought out overall plan he had in mind. While the many successes achieved by groups like NASA are well worth celebrating, I share the dismay no doubt many people hold at recent and ongoing setbacks in the development of the future goals of space exploration. The central issuing facing Space groups, as I see it, is a lack of a single unified plan, a step by step global strategy to move mankind into space which takes account of commercial, economic, resource based and political realities, which is achievable within a reasonable timeframe. The piecemeal method of pushing progress forward is effective only insofar as there is public and governmental momentum in the area - something which has been falling off of late. In the face of such an environment, piecemeal efforts might not be as effective as otherwise.
What I would propose for the future, therefore, is the formulation of such a strategy, clearly laid out and with recognisable milestones, goals, estimated returns on investment, and timelines. I think that the provision of such a structure will remove the dependence space exploration has on fragmented projects and provide a key benefit that has so far been absent - direction, in cooperation with other national space agencies.
In addition to the points mentioned above, an official strategy group could talk to politicians and businesspeople in a language they can understand. One of the first goals after the strategy would be agreed upon would be to confirm its legitimacy at the international level, in the USA, EU, UN and other international forums. The next step would be to get an international fund set up in order to secure a set percentage of GDP of each nation (possibly only developed nations) to be put towards space exploration. Even if one thosandth of national GDP was set aside by each nation, that would come to some $60 billion annually, or several times the budget of the combined existing space agencies.
This would be similar to foreign aid funds, although probably of a lesser amount, and would instantly multiply the budget available to space exploration groups by a fairly serious amount. Legislation would also be needed in order to provide international tax incentives for corporations and governments to focus their efforts on areas that would be conducive to space exploration and resource realisation, even tangentially. Legislation for the open sharing of relevant information within existing intellectual property laws would also be needed to further coopeation between private and public organisations, plus and this a vital part of the effort, the standardisation of equipment and systems to make them interchangeable.
A few further points:
Why would my nation wish to contribute to this effort?
In addition to the well known issues of potentially life threatening hazards on earth, whether environmental, asteroid strikes, or contagion, and it is not a question of if but when they will recur - they have already happened many times previously - there is the question of the vast resources available in space. By contributing on an annual basis according to its means, each nation and its citizens has a legitimate claim on the unfathomable amount of raw material which can be accessed by a properly run space programme.
What would this Global Space Initiative involve?
This group and strategy would have several purposes.
1. To create a master strategy for the human colonisation of space, taking into account the many different social and economic factors that would be involved.
2. To identify key early technologies that would be needed to realise the strategy, provide funding to create these technologies, and pressure governments to provide legislative and taxation benefits to groups developing them. There are a wide array of scientific and engineering feats that must be overcome before the reality of space exploration is commonly available. These would include things like semi autonomous robotics in order to take advantage of
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
I can't believe the grandstanding coming out of the US government nowadays. From berating car company executives for flying in their jets (no, they should buy multi-million dollar jets and just let them rot), to coming down on Toyoda as if he were the embodiment of all evil (yeah, US manufacturers NEVER had recalls. I have yet to see the Toyota equivalent of the Ford Pinto), and now NASA.
Oh we took away all your funding and tied you up in red tape, but now we will complain that you lack vision and have not made any progress! It's NASA's fault for literally not delivering the moon, on a budget that would be barely noticed by an average defense contractor. Because it's ok to pour $65 billion into F-22's, the 140+ million dollar planes that always seem to be in the shop (68% readiness you know if I paid $140 million I want the damned thing to work), but no additional funding is required to move forwards in space exploration (the NASA budget has been fairly constant at all time lows since 1993).
It's the politicians in the US that need fixing. They didn't listen when the public said "no" to more war. They didn't listen when the public said "no" to the bailouts. They didn't listen when the public said "no" to the stimulus. There's a pattern here. "Voting" isn't going to change anything... real democracy died a long time ago, victim to the two party system set up by special interests.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The Apollo program cost about $145 billion in 2008 dollars (Wikipedia), and quite a lot more if you factor in the orbital programs (Mercury, Gemini) which led up to Apollo. That's not exactly peanuts. They only get about $18 billion a year right now.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
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.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
For me it's as simple as survival. As long as humanity is confined to a single planet, we're vulnerable to being wiped out by a planetary scale disaster. Move some of us to a self-sufficient base on Mars, and even if Earth turns back into molten slag, humanity will continue to exist.
Exploring the bottom of our oceans doesn't accomplish that goal. I do agree it's a worthy goal, but if we are to decide where to expend limited resources, they should go towards the goal of ensuring the survival of the species.
Once we inhabit other planets in the solar system, the very next goal needs to be interstellar colonization to guard against a solar system level catastrophe. Even if that means pursuing the use of generational ships to do it.
This is a completely backwards way of thinking. New propulsion systems are vastly more valuable than any specific space mission. Advanced propulsion systems could take the most difficult mission we might attempt today and turn it into a routine trip.
We need a willingness to develop new technologies that might take more than a few years to pay off, and even try things that might not work at all. We should tie this work to a specific goal in order to provide focus and to justify the price, but the real prize is the technology itself. Reducing fuel mass or cost to orbit by a factor of ten would open up the solar system to us.
Why do so many people think that if there isn't a NASA plan to put a couple NASA astronauts on a NASA rocket and launch them to a specific NASA-picked destination by a specific time that we've somehow abandoned human spaceflight? How short-sighted can people be? We already did that 40 years ago, and where did it get us? The huge expense caused the cancellation of any real followup missions and damaged human spaceflight aspirations to this day. We're still seeing the effects, since apparently no one in congress (or much of the public, apparently) can imagine anyone except NASA putting people into space.
It just pisses me off to no end. We need a space program that opens access to space for EVERYONE. Not just the few lucky NASA picked government employees. Do you want to go into space at some point? I certainly do, and constellation had zero chance of ever letting me do that. Maybe you think constellation would have opened access to space and expanded the possibilities for the rest of us, but I think you are wrong. So, so wrong. The current plan for NASA has the best chance of anything NASA has done since its creation of truly opening access to space. New technologies, reducing cost, encouraging multiple options for access to orbit. That's what NASA's goal should be and needs to be. Not a repeat of Apollo. Not another huge expense for flags, footprints, and some neat video that ends up getting 5 minutes on the evening news. So there's my rant. Take it or leave it.
Which *works* and is orders of magnitude cheaper to run that the shuttle program.
Ok so you feel that you need to throw away a working system and start from scratch then? DIRECT leverages existing infrastructure and existing designs.
your idea is the same as Ford deciding to release a new F150 pickup truck but abandoning using Steel and internal combustion engines as well as wheels.
It's really dumb to redesign it all with fancy new pie in the sky technology. Use what works and get it in place fast. Why set your self up for a 2 year delay because of a problem that needs to be corrected? The SRB's and current tech works and works well no problems to have to design out. ALL DONE.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
Forget planets. Space based colonization is where it's at. Let's capture a high metal asteroid and park it at L4 or L5 and start building large habitats and solar concentrators.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Out of curiosity, why is the survival of the human race so important?
Why is the survival of life so important? Because as far as we know, humanity is the one and only chance for some of the earths biodiversity to ultimately survive. It took maybe more than half of the earths history for sentient life to arise, if it gets wiped out what are the odds it will happen again? Stewards indeed. On the other hand if you are content to see all life as we know it wiped out, theres not much more that can be said.
Are we that important to the galaxy or the universe that the survival of the human race is of such paramount importance? Seems like a bit of hubris to me.
The galaxy and earth in general are pretty hostile places. Why should we care what they think?
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
No, I think it's actually an enlarged Apollo module and maybe a cargo module on top of a Shuttle fuel tank, with Shuttle main engines on the bottom of it, and Shuttle boosters strapped to the sides.
Apollo's F1 engines used kerosene, whereas the Shuttle's main engines use LOX and liquid H2, IIRC, so the two aren't really compatible, plus it's unlikely they'd go back to kerosene after already having the infrastructure in place for the newer fuels. Finally, the SSMEs (Space Shuttle Main Engines) are already developed and tested, so it's not hard to simply make more, or reuse the ones they already have. Building more F1 Apollo engines would probably be a big challenge since they haven't made any in decades and the plans are probably lost in a file cabinet somewhere, and all the fixtures and such are gone.
It's a perfectly sensible design, unlike an entirely-new design like the Ares. It reuses components that already exist and are highly tested and perfected, and simply jettisons the Orbiter and replaces it with a new capsule on top. It should be cheap and easy to build, unlike the Ares, and shouldn't have any problems except maybe for the capsule part, since that's the only new part.
Of course, this won't happen at all. And these agencies are supposed to be filled with the smart people? Yeah, well i can walk on water and summon plagues out of my ass.
NASA is filled with smart people. The problem is that it works with a budget and mandates from Congress, which is full of mediocre-intelligence people who really don't care that much about accomplishing anything great, only about their own personal power and wealth. And these Congresspeople are elected by people who are mostly complete morons.
NASA: "Hey, look what we can do!"
Senate: "F*@$! Look how much money that costs! Stop that!"
NASA: "Um, well, we can do this too..."
Congress: "That's too &%$*!#@ dangerous! Shut it down! Shut it down!"
NASA: "Well, maybe we could try this... it doesn't cost quite so much, and it's safer. Is that okay?"
Senate: "I guess so. And take your sister with you."
NASA: "All right. Here goes..."
Congress: "That's TOO LOUD! Knock it off, and go to your room!"
NASA: *SULK*
Senate: "Why doesn't NASA DO anything? They have no ambition, and lack vision. Where did they go wrong?"
For those of you who've watched the Senate hearing video that QuantumG linked to, there's this rather bizarre part where Sen. Vitter (R-La) made some insinuations that Bolden wasn't actually involved in the planning, but it was all supposedly done by his deputy Lori Garver. The Orlando Sentinel has some follow-up on this, with sources reporting that ATK (one of the primary contractors on the Ares I rocket) had put up the Senator to make those attacks:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2010/02/senators-attack-on-nasa-deputy-chief-lori-garver-backfires.html
The attacks on NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver spearheaded by Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter during a hearing on Wednesday on the 2011 NASA budget have badly backfired, according to a range of sources.
Vitter accused Garver -- who was not present at the hearing -- of orchestrating the cancellation of Constellation. He also seemed to suggest that Garver was running the agency, and not Administrator Charlie Bolden. Bolden later called Vitter's comment "unfair."
Not only were administration outraged by Vitter's remarks but several female civil servants and women executives in aerospace companies who have known Garver for years felt compelled to send their complaints to senate staff Wednesday afternoon.
Several sources on the Hill, in industry and inside the Obama administration blame rocket maker ATK, the developer of the Ares I rocket first stage, for putting Vitter up to the attack. Sources say that complaints have been sent to ATK and so far there has been no response.
In the meantime, members of the Senate and the House said they were going to refrain from any further personal attacks as they move against the White House's proposed 2011 budget for the space agency.
well, since you brought it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms
under bush #1, national debt grew by ~12% (in one term!)
under bush #2, national debt grew by ~12%
under clinton, national debt was *reduced* by ~7%
next time keep your mouth shut. that will do more to further your cause.