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NASA Attempts To Cut Back Constellation
FleaPlus writes "In a surprise move in the battle between NASA and certain members of Congress over NASA's future direction, NASA has told its contractors to cut back nearly $1 billion on this year's Ares/Constellation program, stating that the cutback is necessary to remain in compliance with federal spending laws requiring contractors to withhold contract termination costs. While complying with budgeting laws (and in line with NASA's desire to cancel Constellation), this move is also potentially in violation of a 2010 appropriations amendment by Sen. Shelby (R-AL) and Sen. Bennett (R-UT) which prohibits NASA from terminating any Constellation contracts. If NASA's move goes through, the biggest liability is $500M for ATK, the contractor who is/was responsible for the first stage of the Ares I medium-lift rocket."
Orion left holding pants up with no belt
It pisses me off to no end that we can afford to spend trillions of dollars killing each other, but we can't afford a few billion dollars exploring the universe around us.
What the fuck, people.
Living With a Nerd
This has been over a month coming. The irony is that at least for Orion they are using some jobs stimulus money that was given to keep working. At least through June. So what was important enough for stimulus money one day goes on the chopping block the next. Makes sense. My understanding is there is some verbage attached to an Afghanistan funding bill (something guaranteed to pass) that addresses the termination fee coverage issue.
I do not care whether it's Ares V, which doesn't really quite exist yet, the even more vaporware "new heavy lifter" that president Obama spoke of, or some weird hybrid that the nerds down in propulsion dynamics wrote up on the back of a napkin 2 or 3 years ago and havn't told you about yet...
But will you PLEASE get our monkey asses to Mars before I die?
I'd love to see the beginings of a manned Mars base (even, dare I dream, a colony?!), but at this point I'll take Neil Armstrong's grandson standing there holding a flag with 50 (or even 52) stars on it.
Pick a heavy lifter that can get the job done, put some intelligent technial people in charge of it, give them the money and resources to get it done, and LEAVE THEM ALONE for the next decade. Also, if it's absolutely necessary to get the job done again, I'm ok with you telling them that the russians (or maybe the chinese, the're more likely to believe that nowadays) are going to take over the world (scratch that, the galaxy) if they don't succeed.
That is all.
Obama requested to cancel it after his special task force said that it was over cost and that either Obama needed to start paying for space travel, or not doing it at all, and the half measure that was in place wasn't working. However, before that, congress passed a law saying that Constellation could only be cancelled by congress (nice, eh?). On top of that, Obama only gets to sign the budget, congress still gets to write the budget, and they get to put in whatever they want.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
Too bad this is happening because I've always been a fan of private industry gaining more experience in the space exploration industry. It seems, not only was NASA inefficient and bureaucratic when it came to building space vehicles, they're impotent when charged with the simple task of doling out cash to competent private companies who are better equipped to handle the job. Yet another example of how large government is broken. I've worked in both the private and public sector and know from experience the problem lies with accountability. There is a serious disconnect between reality (i.e. what works vs. doesn't) and politics. Policies in private industry are based on getting the job done quickly, efficiently and competitively whereas there is no such incentive in the government sector.
The decades of Nazi's Ageing in Southern Anonymity seems to be over.
You would think they would have passed on the 'how to keep your projects funded' secrets as well as engineering, medical and other useful data.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
(Not understand quite how the American government works here)
So I get you need checks and balances and that you therefore need the president and congress to be on the same page when it comes to policy, but if you can have the situation above how come you don't get it more often where the right hand ties up the left hand from doing anything?
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
This I agree with. I think NASA should be used as a governing body to be in charge of overall space operations (for now), but the private industry should be funded enough to do the research and build the vehicles. NASA shouldn't be gutted (on the contrary, I think its budget should still be increased), but its role needs to be looked at.
Not sure why you were modded down. Companies like Orbital (formally Fairchild) already build most of NASA's hardware anyway. Might as well make it official, know what I mean?
Living With a Nerd
Screw you guys! I'm gonna build my own space launcher, with blackjack and hookers! In fact, forget the blackjack!
with the successful launch of the falcon 9 recently, its a nail in the coffin of these really quite bad launch vehicles.
Wow, Dude, nice rant! But why do all antagonists have penis envy?
The first cut should have been to the military. Then he wouldn't have to fight everyone about how to pay for everything.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
yeah and I thought Pluto was a planet. Times they are a changin'
Would have bought us two more SpaceX's and four more new rockets, based on what SpaceX has spent in their 8 years or so of existance.
NASA's Constellation program is a massive budget boondoggle.
Stick a fork in it....
Necron69
This is a great example of how NASA is trying to cut a wasteful program but is having its hands tied by Republican senators with solely their own selfish interests in mind and not caring about the usefulness of the end output. I can't remember the exact number but something like over 90% of the NASA budget is mandated of where it is spent by congress and the NASA administrator has no control over it. NASA has no choice but to be inefficient when saddled with restrictions like that.
NASA would be far more effective if it wasn't mandated by law to keep current contracts in place. Constellation was mandated by Bush, is completely unrealistic and unsustainable, and they are trying to terminate it which is what any fiscally responsible organization, public or private would do. However senators are passing stupid laws to prevent them from taking the right path. ,
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Money is not a physical good. Money is basically created out of nothing. If this conjured money doesn't in turn create real wealth, it disappears back to nothing by means of inflation. Space exploration does not create wealth by itself. It is only a combination of heavily-subsidized unfocused research and technological stunts done for national prestige.
Basic economics lessons here. Money just like anything else is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. A currency like the Dollar or Euro has considerable value as a result even though it is "created out of nothing". Maybe these currencies and the dependent economics will collapse. It's not a big stretch for that to happen. But you ignore here that it hasn't happened yet. And just because money (here, a fiat currency) isn't a hard asset doesn't mean that an economy, dependent on money as a medium of exchange, is destined for failure.
Second, the US economy doesn't consist of just money. It also consists of 330 or so million people, real estate, infrastructure (physical, legal, cultural, etc), and a variety of other extremely valuable assets. So yes, the US can afford a lot of trillion dollar (using the current dollar as a measure of value) expenditures. Maybe manned space exploration would be a bad idea as you say, but it remains a feasible use of the resources.
NASA engineers never understand this. They don't study economics, and they don't understand economics.
Physician, heal thyself.
Space-cadets love to talk about the need to venture beyond the moon in order to save humanity from a soon-to-be dying Earth.
They talk about other reasons as well, such as increased access to valuable resources, expanding exploration and even tourism of interesting and exotic locations, solving "hard" problems that make current hard problems seem pretty mundane, making a cooler future (queue the classic Star Trek theme song), expanding humanity's economy, etc. I don't necessarily agree with all of these reasons, but why obsess over habitat diversification even though it is what I consider a good reason? Further, why do you insist on misportraying habitat diversification as some sort of destructive fantasy? It's worth noting here that most such "space cadets" do not have the fantasy of a destroyed Earth, making your argument a strawman fallacy (link provided in case you are as ignorant of rational argument as you are of economics).
But it's worth noting that we do have several thousand nuclear weapons, can make more, and have a reasonable expectation that a full blown nuclear war would mess up the Earth globally, just due to fallout and the "nuclear winter" effect. There are several other scenarios for global disaster either by man or nature. I present the nuclear winter scenario merely as an existence proof, if you will, that humanity can adversely and rather easily affect the entire Earth in a very short period of time. Hence, it makes sense to discuss some sort of insurance against global devastation by human action. A human presence in space would have some value (in addition to other things) from this alone.
They confuse rockets with penises and hydrogen bombs with testicles.
I doubt you can find a space cadet anywhere who somehow manages to make this confusion and has even a shred of responsibility (much less finds their way out of a padded cell). I would instead classify this as a bullshit argument by someone who ran out of even remotely plausible arguments to support their beliefs.
We live in a different age now. This is the era of limits.
I'll cut off your nonsense at this point. You obviously don't have a clue what those limits are. Nor does anyone else automatically understand those limits. There's only one way to figure out what the limits are. And that is by "pushing the envelop" in aerospeak. It's foolish to delineate limits based on profound ignorance and then claim that we'll somehow become wealthy by respecting these artificial limits.
" I think NASA should be used as a governing body to be in charge of overall space operations (for now), but the private industry should be funded enough to do the research and build the vehicles."
I think NASA should be abolished. It was a creature of it's time... the US-Soviet space race, and it served its purpose as a cradle of US space exploration. It's time we left the cradle and let the children grow up and move out on their own. Abolish NASA, and farm out its responsibilities to existing agencies. Traditional aerospace research... the "Right Stuff" kind of flight testing, etc... should be given to DARPA. A new, smaller agency should be created that does nothing but manage space exploration and astronomy-based sciences. They'd do things like manage observatories, coordinate space research with universities, and manage space and planetary probes. Call it the US Space Institute or something similar if you like. Last, as much launch activity as possible should be turned over to the private sector. Perhaps the Commerce Department should have a bureau that manages these activities. Create more "Spaceports" like Mojave. There are plenty of retired Air Force bases and Army Air Corps fields in the southwest that could be converted to this kind of use.
Regardless, NASA in its current form has outlived its usefulness, and its duties are too varied and scattershot. Break it up and merge it into smaller units with distinctive missions.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The filibuster DDoS attack against the constitutional function of the senate brings you much of todays PORK spending. These senators have corps in their state that want our tax money. Deals must be made for EACH senator's pet project when they decide they are in the best position to abuse procedures. (filibuster is not written into the system and some voting thresholds are which clearly imply a majority rule is the expected norm.)
State government needs to get back some of their power to pick senators. We changed it due to corruption; but it has become corrupt either way while state representation has fallen down to the point where the federal government has become too powerful. Power corrupts and must be distributed even in some cases where it is not ideal. Just as the right to due process applies to everybody without exception (drawing lines only leads to abuse so this must be severely limited.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
This is not such a different age. When did people go to the moon? During the Vietnam War! The space program wasn't born in some rosy age of good times and free money which is somehow different from today. We did it then and we can still accomplish great things if we put a little effort towards doing so. The money required to fund a space program may be astronomical compared to our own personal budgets but it is nothing compared to the GNP or the national debt. We will always have war, we will always have debt, diseases to cure, pollution and all sorts of other problems. History proves we can still go new places, accomplish new things in spite of this.
I for one am not a crazy Dr. Strangelove type wanting to see the Earth blown up. I think a nuclear war or environmental disaster making Earth unlivable for humans is possible. But that doesn't mean I think it definitely will happen (at least in the next billion years) and it certainly doesn't mean I want it to happen. Neither is it the reason I want us to have a strong space program.
I for one am not proud of my labor generating tax dollars being used for the Iraq war and bankers' golden parachutes. I'm a bit more optimistic that the Afghan war will result in something better than before but that doesn't make up for the other two. I would be proud to see that money being used to expand mankind's reach to other worlds. I realize the other three things will take the majority of my tax dollars whether I like it or not but it is never too late to set a little of the money aside for something good.
You wrote: 'The trillions of dollars that space enthusiasts believe could and should be spent on the glorious future in space and its endless possibilities for the betterment of humanity don't exist anymore.'
I don't think anyone is asking for Trillions of dollars for the space program. It doesn't require Trillions of dollars to achieve progress there. Trillions of dollars are what the wars and the bankers are getting. Financing a strong space program would not remove a noticeable amount of money from these misadventures.
You also wrote: 'Space-cadets love to talk about the need to venture beyond the moon in order to save humanity from a soon-to-be dying Earth.'
Maybe. Life as we know it on Earth certainly could end soon and quickly due to nuclear bombs. We don't know for sure just how far climate change can/will go, that might be able to end it too albeit slower. That isn't really the point though. Even if we have a billion years to go before the Earth ends (when the sun engulfs it) we still want to venture out. It's just the next place to go. What's left driving progress on Earth? It's not making bigger or more cities, that just screws with the environment. It's not exploring new continents.. We've been to all of them and populated the ones worth doing so.
By nuclear war or by environmental disaster the public has been told the sky is falling since the 50s. We are all used to hearing that, space exploration friend/foe alike. While protecting the species is one reason to go into space I don't think it's the real main reason most space proponents talk about the end of the world. It's just an easy reason to explain to a public which is really only interested in their own personal little worlds and the sexual escapades of their favorite celebrities. What we really want is to see some sort of progress but try explaining that one...
Finally, you wrote: 'We live in a different age now. This is the era of limits. Understand this and we will all prosper in new and unexpected ways.'
I think I've already written enough about those 'limits'. How about the prospering? What do you even mean by that? Are you just talking about food to eat and roofs over our heads? I think that is about as far as most can see who support canceling the space program. My family will have that. I will do whatever it takes to ensure it whether it means working extra jobs or heading for the hills to grow
You are correct except for your knee-jerk desire to place blame on a single party. BOTH parties pull as much pork money into their states as possible, and in this case as many of the NASA contracts are in states that tend to vote republican, it happens to be republican senators pushing this particular issue... but do some reading on the subject and you'll find that there are plenty of democrats in the same situation with NASA contracts in their states as well.
Polictics is politics. No matter what team you're on, you play the same game. Political parties matter about as much as uniform colors. You root for the burgandy and gold team, I root for the yellow and black team.
FTS:
While complying with budgeting laws (and in line with NASA's desire to cancel Constellation), this move is also potentially in violation of a 2010 appropriations amendment by Sen. Shelby (R-AL) and Sen. Bennett (R-UT) which prohibits NASA from terminating any Constellation contracts.
The mind boggles. I've never seen politicians in other countries actively sabotaging current policy like this.
Although I agree with your assessment that the filibuster is bottleneck completely controlled by the corporate/wealthy, I don't think going back to states appointing Senators will help. I have a simpler idea: we have a problem with the filibuster, the solution is to address/eliminate the problem. Kill or weaken the filibuster and (gasp!) we'll have a more democratic government!
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
"NASAs desire to cancel Constellation"? Is this the Obama-led NASA, as I was under the impression that NASA wanted to continue with the programme?
My web domain.
Problem is that an alien occupation would probably be incredibly devastating for us, somewhere along the lines of the Spanish conquest of South America, I think.
I can't remember the exact number but something like over 90% of the NASA budget is mandated of where it is spent by congress and the NASA administrator has no control over it. NASA has no choice but to be inefficient when saddled with restrictions like that.
I'm shocked. Shocked! You say that spending within a government agency is driven by... AGHAST... politics?
If you want to take some of the politics out, then with their scientists, R&D and launch facilities the NASA centers would be very competitive as FFRDCs. Look at NASA's JPL which is overseen by Caltech and see how successful they have been with the robotic missions: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf05306/#Topic5
Why aren't all the NASA centers run like that? Focus on the missions.
how come you don't get it more often where the right hand ties up the left hand from doing anything?
That actually happens quite frequently, typically whenever the president's party is different from the party that controls Congress. RIght now Democrats are in charge of both, so it's less likely to happen.
Why aren't all the NASA centers run like that?
Because as I said, the vast majority of the money is mandated to go to specific projects instead of where it makes sense.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
After Challenger, Congress (in the form of the appropriations committees) mandated a new Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM). NASA indicated that the Redesigned Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) and the changes suggested by the Rodgers commission were more than adequate.
Still, ASRM was funded. Why? Congress said so.
For years, we as taxpayers footed the bill to build a new plant in Iuka Mississippi, and to develop a new monolithic beast that even NASA thought was infeasable.
Why? Because Congress said so.
Then, after spending billions a new congress came in and said "If NASA says they don't need it, why are we funding it?"
And thus, the ASRM died.
The moral of the story: If Congress Says so, you have to do it.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"