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A Congressman and an Astronaut Propose a New Plan For NASA
MarkWhittington writes "Reflecting a rising discontent with the state of the U.S. space program in the wake of the last space shuttle mission, Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas, and Apollo astronaut Walt Cunningham have proposed a new space plan that addresses space exploration, the role of commercial space, and reform of NASA."
FTFA: "Instead, NASA was directed to pursue a riskier course, diverting billions of dollars to a group of companies– most devoid of experience in manned space vehicles"
Ah, Republicans, all for market solutions, as long as the money goes to the your preferred part of the market.
(Even better, they're blaming Obama for wasting $9b on the ridiculous Constellation.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
So, he ran on a platform of slashing nearly all government programs, eliminating many agencies entirely, and halving the budgets of others--- because private-sector alternatives are always superior, whether it's private schools, private healthcare, or corporate research labs.
Oh, except NASA, which is a vitally important public service that can't be replicated in the private sector. Coincidentally, he represents a district in southeastern Houston, and NASA is one of the largest employers in that district.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Only a call to create a plan. The article is wrongfully disdainful of private rocket companies. Nine years ago, SpaceX started developing their launch systems. They started from scratch. They Spent maybe 10% of the equivalent NASA budget for Constellation. And they have something to show for it - several successful launches, a space capsule that has successfully returned form orbit and is being fitted for a manned launch, and a heavy launch vehicle in the works. NASA, in the mean time, was creating a *derived* system and yet ran into technological problems and have yet to produce a single piece of hardware that can do anything. Obama is diverting funds from a slow-moving, conservative, wasteful government agency and cancelled an under-performing, over-budget, technologically conservative (and yet riddled with problems) program. The money was diverted to the free market. And yet, all the space-loving republicans who touted the free market's ability to compete with NASA are now howling and complaining. Why? cause it's OBAMA, that's why.
You will, who else?
> In coming weeks we, with others committed to the HSF program, will offer a more detailed plan to return to flight.
So... what? Do they have a plan already, and the just aren't ready to tell us? Or are they still thinking about it? What's the point of even making an announcement like this if all you've got to say is a few extremely general talking points?
Basically, we have a TX congressman who wants to get the pork flowing back to his deep-pocket-donor pals in the military/industrial complex. [yawn]
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same Olson who never met a program he didn't want to cut, or a tax expenditure (ie. loophole) for the oil industry he didn't want to protect? It's natural for a Congressional Rep to protect local industry, so I'm not surprised he's looking to replace his pork funding stream.
The days when a noticeable fraction of the US GDP goes into NASA are long over. Unless someone discovers an asteroid that shits tax breaks, private industry is going to stick with shooting sats into orbit. It's been a nice ride, but US man-in-space is basically over for the rest of my lifetime. I'll be interested to see how far the Chinese and Indians go before they hit their own limits.
The snarky title refers to Rep. Olson's largest campaign contributor, and I think it safe to say that the Kochs' could give a rat's behind about space flight.
Luke, help me take this mask off
No, but it did use a lot of shuttle pieces & parts (like SRB's) which would keep certain contractors flush with money.
I agree with the GP (Michael_gr) that it's nice to see SpaceX showing us how it should be done. The authors of this article are either ignorant of SpaceX or deliberately disregarding it. Notice that they published this piece in Politico, where many non-geek readers are likely to be unaware of SpaceX's success.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
To be honest, I prefer Obama's "let the private sector do it" approach to manned space travel than the Texas Republican's "only big government can do it" manifesto. (I hope the irony is not lost on anyone.) In general, we need do de-emphasize human missions. These are largely vanity projects and don't generate anywhere near as much science as things like Wmap and the Mars rovers. The first question that any NASA proposal should begin with is: What do we want to learn about space? And what's the safest and most cost-effective way to learn it? These guys are still stuck in the old "wouldn't it be cool if we launched a guy to ...?"
and the bartender says: "hey! no deadbeats allowed, getoutta here ya bums"
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
In 1979, during a similar dick-waving exercise as today, the US didn't pay some (tiny fraction of) T-bills in a timely manner, technically defaulting on them. The result was that the US had to pay a higher interest rate on all its debt for many years afterwards. Quickest link I could find, plenty more out there.
with the huge debt republican leadership gave to Obama, the guy has little choice.
I hate to break it to you but both sides are responsible for the current problem, and Obama has done his fair share of spending:
In 2007, before the recession, federal expenditures reached $2.73 trillion. By 2009 expenditures had climbed to $3.52 trillion. In 2009 alone, overall federal spending rose 18%, or $536 billion. Throw in a $65 billion reduction in debt service costs due to low interest rates, and the overall spending increase was 22%.
That is from the WSJ
Oh, except NASA, which is a vitally important public service that can't be replicated in the private sector.
How is NASA "vitally important"? We could close NASA tomorrow, and still could launch all of our rockets at USAF facilities such as Vandenberg AFB. The only thing NASA gave us that the Air Force couldn't do was Space Shuttle facilities, and we've retired that program anyway.
I'm all for retiring NASA... and all of our Cold War military, intelligence, and technology institutions born from it... and starting over with an eye on future needs. We'll need an Army and Navy of some kind (with air capabilities), but everything else should be put to this question: "What do we need, and what's the best way to do it allowable under the Constitution?".
Space launch shouldn't be a monopoly anyway, and for decades, that's essentially what NASA was. Let's put the science part in a "United States Science Institute" that helps coordinate research between universities, foundations, and companies, and then let the military and private sector do rocket launches.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
From scratch means SpaceX had developed their own rocket engines and systems to go along with them. Sure, they are using existing launch systems, why not?
The Falcon 1 rocket will earn them money by launching commercial satellites. The Falcon 9 along with the Dragon capsule will become the system to re-supply the ISS and ferry astronauts to and from the ISS. The upcoming Falcon 9 heavy has about half the weight lifting ability of the Saturn-V rocket. It uses a new concept of staging where the strap on tank-boosters transfer fuel back into the core during initial flight so when the boosters separate the core is still fully fueled. Also since the boosters are separated at a lower altitude and speed they should be re-usable. The Falcon 9 heavy is the result of a lot of new thinking, and will out perform existing Titan and Atlas based heavy lift systems. It will also provide the lowest cost to orbit per lb of ANY rocket system yet.
You do realize that the bank deregulation that resulted in the market crash was instituted under Clinton, right? The bank problems were caused in the 90's. Sure Bush had the chance to push through regulation to fix the problem, but he did not create it. He just failed to recognize the problem and fix it. And look back at the Great Depression. You can't prop the economy up with government spending. They tried all those public works projects to end the depression and it just kept chugging along.
"Ironically, it seems those that live in cities seem to hate them most even though none are more dependent upon them then those same people"
Maybe it's BECAUSE they are dependent on corporations and know how well they serve the people (their customers)? Perhaps it's because corporations, in order to maximize profit, must minimize delivery? Competition, too, is minimized, by co-opting or eliminating competitors - that's the nature of the beast. Face it, corporations are not the ideal delivery mechanism for all things that citizens depend upon, despite republican and libertarian dogma to the contrary.
"We've all heard the horror stories of no-bid contracts, cost plus contracts, and just straight up cronyism as it regards these things"
And corporations are immune, of course. Wait. Stop. That IS corporate delivery of goods and services, doing what is natural to the corporation: minimizing competition as it interferes with profit. Maybe with more regulation the libertarian/republican model might be able to serve though...
"I question whether those that are against it do so because they don't believe it will be made a reality or whether they're just reflexively anti corporate"
ROFL - so people either believe the battle-cry to deliver space services for profit is a trick (possible, the current level of commercial technology cannot do the job), or they just hate commercial delivery of service for no reason at all? I put it to you that _premature_ commercial support of the space program is just as reflexive to those people that have dogmatic corporatist beliefs. You can't just 'have faith' in corporations; without proper regulation they are worse than government - and the libertarian/republican axis will never permit regulations as they want government to serve corporations, rather than have corporations serve the people.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
There's 2 problems with this argument that really really bad.
1. Bush signed the 2009 budget right before he left office. I still hold congress accountable for budget descisions, but it was in no way Obama who made any spending choices until 2010, whereupon republicans stonewalled any budget bill until halfway through the year. Obama has had no unopposed budget proposals. It very much smells of hypocricy.
2. 2009's budget in particular included about 800 billion in immediate spending that has no impact on the long term budget deficit. It was the much-hated "TARP" program that bought semi-liquid assetts with government money to add liquidity to the market. Almost all of that money has already been repaid. That's a huge chunk of the "Obama spending" that people complain about.
The real drivers of the post 2009 deficit are basically the same things that got us into the mess in the first plac.e
1. Historically low revenues driven by
a. Bush tax cuts being continued(approximately 500 billion per year minimum estimate)
b. Weak economy(around 300 billion per year)
2. 2 wars and providing equipment and funding to other NATO nations in Libya.
ALL other spending has stayed well within the bounds of inflation. The only point I really see being legitimately true here is that the stimulus attempts did not work as intended, which means there was a catastrophic waste of money involved.
Snark all you like, but I posit that whoever successfully colonizes space first, will be the first to begin its dominance over Humanity a century later, and will achieve it 150-200 years on.
It's already happened in history, where roughly a century after the US was officially founded (1786, when the US Constitution was ratified), it began stretching its power base, and within 50-60 years of that, became a global superpower. two centuries on, it became the world's strongest power (economic/military/influence). Further back, the UK did the exact same thing within 150 years of its mercantile/colonization push. Spain did so before that.
Now you can certainly quibble over whether or not that power will be held on to, and for how long, but the facts remain.
Unlike undiscovered continents and (relatively) primitive peoples, space is going to be a toughie to conquer. However, once someone finagles a way to begin mining/manufacturing on a mass scale out there, and figures down a way to build self-sustaining colonies, the sheer power that one can wield over the rest of humanity (economic, military, or any other valid metric) will be staggering.
Anyone who gets left behind will become like the rest of the previous world empires: a subject nation living on past glories and a crumbling sense of future, as the best and brightest among their populations abandon them for the adventure and opportunities to be had among the powerful.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Yah - and the Republican answer is to gut Social Security; effectively defaulting on THOSE treasury bonds so that we can continue spending AND pay off on the Treasury bonds we sold to the Chinese. Bottom line: to the Republicans, Chinese investors are more important than US citizens in need.
Your basis for saying that the Republicans plan is to "gut Social Security" is based on what? What exactly is the Democratic Party plan? Oh yeah, that's right, keep on spending until no one will lend us any money anymore. The last plan a Democrat presented was the budget that Obama sent to Congress in April. That budget called for increasing deficits as far as the eye could see.
Social Security is going to run out of money. The only thing that is debated is when. When it does, the Federal government is going to have to borrow money to make payments on it. At current spending rates, where is that money going to come from? Current projections indicate that the U.S. government will be spending somewhere on the order of 50% of the world's GDP by the middle of this century unless something changes.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison