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Shuttle Extension & Heavy Launcher Bill Proposed
FleaPlus writes "In light of Congressional resistance to the new plans for NASA (criticized as 'radical') proposed by NASA head Charles Bolden, Sen. Hutchinson (R-TX and ranking member of the Senate committee dealing with NASA) has proposed a compromise bill. Hutchinson's bill calls for postponing the Space Shuttle's retirement until 2015, and instead of wholly canceling Constellation/Ares, it would adapt the more effective portions to a 'government-operated space transportation system,' largely inspired by the DIRECT proposal. NASA would also pursue commercial crew and cargo launches to orbit, although the bill leaves out Charles Bolden's proposal for R&D of 'game-changing' technologies for sustainable and cost-effective space exploration."
I work for a lab which is deeply involved in both the Constellation and COTS programs. Yes, Constellation might have been cool, but Obama has the right idea. He understands that building rockets is economically feasible and therefore should be done by commercial entities. NASA is slow and bureaucratic with this because they have done it before. NASA is MOST effective when they are doing something without precedent. Then NASA is developing something new which no one else might have done, and which may not have economically rational given the risk of failure. This is a much better role for NASA than just replicating rocket technology over and over again.
I have watched this first hand.
Health care?! Are you putting your own well-being above new, expensive, and fantastic technology? You must be new here...
Last night I was visiting with a friend who has worked at NASA for 11 years. He is concerned for his job, etc. Among the things we discussed was astronaut photography. Sometimes an astronaut comes through the program and demands an update to the cameras they're approved to bring into space. The administration is very resistant to these upgrades because of the testing that is involved to approve a new device to bring into space. Something as simple as a dslr camera requires millions of dollars in testing to ensure that the device won't cause problems in vacuum or in zero g, etc. It even goes so far that NASA produces its own battery charger for the camera instead of using the commercial charger that ships with the model.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Thanks to Nixon opening up relations with China in the 1970s, followed by NAFTA and other free trade agreements in the 1980s and 1990s, followed by the Republican craziness of the 2000s, we've seen several decades of American industry, R&D and education being severely damaged.
It's no wonder that America's space initiatives have stalled, and we're stuck using technology first developed in the early 1970s. The Shuttle is the last major innovation we've seen out of America.
Computer networking and the Internet arose in the 1960s. Computer hardware has only been incrementally improving since the 1970s (look at how early PCs are nearly identical to PCs of today in terms of the sort of hardware they use). When it comes to software, the best we have (UNIX-like technologies) date from the 1960s. OOP is a 1970s concept. Functional programming predates that by a decade.
Most of our mobile phone and smartphone technology was initially developed in Europe, by Nokia and Ericsson. The rest was developed in Japan.
Our American-made vehicles are nearly identical to what we had in the 1950s.
We haven't had any new power generation methods developed since the nuclear power pioneered in the 1950s.
Buildings and infrastructure from the 1920s boom have proven to be far more reliable and robust than anything we've built since then. Suburbia is reaching the age where the shitty 1950s homes are starting to fall apart, and homes from the 1990s are now falling apart even quicker.
Now we see Europe, Japan and China becoming the leaders in biotech, thanks to backwards Republican thinking that punished researchers who sought to investigate stem-cell-based techniques.
What's worse, the education system of America has become so pathetic that it can't be turned around. There aren't enough intelligent, qualified Americans between the ages of 20 and 60 who can teach our youth. Even if we could improve education immediately, there'd still be a 50-year gap consisting of people who were born and raised during the so-called "American Dark Ages" of the 1970s until now.
These Shuttle issues are just the tip of the massive iceberg.
In any case, the decision must be made in terms of safety and effective spending of tax money, not politics. Those people who are going to be fired, are, after all, in conservative terms, are overpaid federal bureaucrats. Now, the people most effected by this are the people of clear lake,TX. These fine people elected Pete Olson, a fine conservative. Pete Olson does not believe in socialism. Pete Olson does not believe in extending unemployment checks, as one conservative said if you feed a stray animal the just multiply. Olson voted against a bill to help keep people in thier homes, a decision which I do not disagree with. Given this, it is clear that the only right and proper thing we must do is look at the technical side, and disregard all this fear mongering about jobs. These are allegedly technical and educated people. They will be able to find or create jobs. Unemployment in Texas is 2 points below the national average, and for professionals much lower.
The thing to do is to look at what is best for the country, and what is best to reduce the tax burden of the American People,and limit the role of government. That is what the last election cycle clearly indicated was the will of the people. If a few people in Clear Lake have to find other jobs to achieve that goal, then maybe that is what needs to happen.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
So much for Republican core values of small government, free enterprise, and especially the government getting out of the way of free enterprise to do a job better, cheaper, and without the stifling bureaucracy.
At least that is what Republicans of all stripes say they stand for. In public. Officially.
Pork always wins out, tho.
(Note to Republicans who are incensed by this attack on their imploded view of reality: see the title of this post.)
Infuriate left and right
Those hypocrites in the Republican Party! This is nothing more than a jobs bill for Houston and the Southern states who all own most of the various NASA installations [Texas, Alabama, Florida] and so they will stand to lose when the admirable-but-currently-unaffordable NASA Launch Business is set to retire.
I'm sure this Republican from Texas, who is basically proposing the opposite of what President Obama has proposed, is all against government waste--except when it comes to things that benefit his district.
I love the space program. I admire most of what NASA has done. I agree with President Obama that NASA should delegate the conventional launch business to the private sector. NASA should focus on developing the technologies of the future, not ones that were invented by Goddard back in the twenties.
Though it would be cool and exciting to see the huge Ares V rocket blast off, we cannot afford it right now. Why is that so hard for people to understand? We can afford to do research on the next generation but we should not be in the Space Truck business. Let's throw a few bones to the private sector. Let them build it cheaply and we will buy seats for our people and stuff.
Obviously NASA has not provided us with anything of value!
http://www.howstuffworks.com/ten-nasa-inventions.htm
By the way. I just Googled this. Took me all of 3 seconds to find something of value that NASA has provided.
The above will prevent Congress from doing what it is doing AND will prevent an accident in a rocket from shutting down the entire space program. Nixon killed skylab because he did not fund NASA properly for building the shuttle after shutting down Apollo in 1970. Likewise, W and the 2004 Congress SEVERELY underfunded NASA after pushing a mistake like Constellation. In addition, Challenger and Columbia shut down NASA's Manned missions for several years. For us to move off this planet, we need to prevent such nightmares from happening again. The heavy lifter that NASA is pushing is not on the drawing board yet. They want to do more RD to bring up to speed on engines. THEN they want to have Private Space build 2 or more heavy lift mostly on their dollar, and have NASA focus on doing cutting edge RD as well as focused on how to build out a system that moves us out of LEO. The new plan will build up private space and help get them to the moon along with a national consortium (almost certainly all of the ISS crew and possible adding India and Brazil). The issue will be the idiots in congress that did not fund these vehicles over the last 6 years, but are now wanting to throw good money after bad ideas.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The reason is that NASA funds things like that, and then Russia, ESA, JAXA, CSA, and even Chinese use that as the approved list. The fact is, that the testing HAS to happen since it was not designed from the gitgo with space missions in mind. If an America company was smart (kodak comes to mind, but then, they are not very smart), they would follow the Fischer Pen approach and design a camera to survive in space, water, etc. and then advertise it as being rugged for space as well as water, camping, etc. That little bit of marketing helped make Fischer Space pen sell a million more than what it would have otherwise.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
She wants to slow DOWN new ones and keep the existing one going.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Look at any chart of national debt since WW II and you will find it is Republican presidents who have driven it upwards and Democratic presidents who have lowered it.
Every president from WW II until Reagan steadily lowered the national debt; Reagan cut taxes but not spending and tripled the national debt. Bush I continued the trend. Clinton lowered national debt. Bush II tripled or quadrupled national debt. Obama has only been in office a year, and has just started his first budget, so for you Republican whiners who blame all the recent debt on Obama, dream on -- it is Bush II's debt hands down.
Infuriate left and right
First, it was Kay Bailey Hutchison (no "n" in Hutchison). Second, the bill can be found here, on THOMAS. Although the text of the bill isn't up yet, the introducing language is up. It's bill S. 3068, if anyone cares.
Third, this is not a good idea. If there was ever a time to grow our spaceflight industry it's now, at the inflection point. Saying that it will lose us space is just silly: who do they think we will contract with after Soyuz? Arianne? This is exactly how you win space, by spurring private sector investment in space transportation for its own purposes. Rocketry is mature enough for the start-ups, so get NASA to do things others cannot: major spaceflight research. Look at what Bigelow is doing with inflatable modules and is planning on doing going forward. If we can get such major tech in the hands of industry and provide a guaranteed market, I think we're well on our way to owning spaceflight.
What's this? Another weblog? On transit?
The last is what happened with most nations of the USSR esp. Poland and Russia. It really was amazing to witness. Had we kept the grain embargo on USSR, then the gov COULD have pointed to the west and said that WE were responsible for denying them food. Basically, that embargo could have forced USSR's collapse to go very violent outwards. In this one regard, reagan did the right thing. In nearly all else, the man was a total idiot being ran by the likes of Cheney and Rove. It was reagan's and W's massive debt during good times that has caused America's and possible the west's economic collapse. Of course, the fact that W and so far Obama have not held China to their treaties and WTO obligation has a LOT to do with this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.