Partisan Food Fight Erupts Over NASA, Commercial Space

RocketAcademy writes "Until recently, space policy has been a non-partisan issue. Even when politicians disagreed on space-policy issues, that disagreement rarely aligned with party lines. That has changed in the last few years. Now, one organization is throwing fuel on the political fire. The Space Frontier Foundation has called Republicans the Party of Big Government Space. SFF is upset about the GOP platform, which lacks specifics about space policy. According to the SFF, the GOP 'has nothing but hackneyed praise for NASA, and doesn't even mention the increasing role of the private sector.' The Obama campaign quickly echoed the statement. But NASA Watch points out that the Democratic platform is even less specific than the GOP's. Others express concerns that partisanship harms space policy."

Comments

Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[symbolset]

Every new administration we get to keep things fresh by having an entirely new space policy. The incoming administration gets to label the prior efforts a billion-dollar boondoggle and ashcan it, putting their unique stamp on a whole new paradigm that can achieve new heights of replicating prior work until it, too, is ashcanned by the next administration before too much progress is made.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[schnell]

I know you're making a joke, but there is at least one grain of serious truth to it. Given how boneheaded the last few administrations' plans for the manned spaceflight program have been, the fact that they keep getting changed has actually prevented us from spending ridiculous sums of money on the them. Can you imagine - at a time when millions of Americans are jobless and without healthcare - what the public backlash would be against the space program if we were actually spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on a manned Mars mission or (to a lesser $$$ figure) Constellation? In the meantime, that indecision and flailing has left the door open for private spaceflight projects to fill the "useful" void of reliable, cost-effective transport to LEO and GEO.

So while on one hand the political ping-pong game over NASA has resulted in billions of dollars in waste and squandered the talents of our best and brightest, on the other hand it has prevented us from spending hundreds of billions on bad ideas. Not exactly the tradeoff you want, but I'm trying to find the upside here...

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[frosty_tsm]

Hundreds of billions going to what? People's salaries, government contractors, and some natural resources. The money isn't being burnt (except maybe when a test rocket blows up ;-). One way the government can help the economy is by judicious spending (this is why a sudden cut of spending can cause a recession by itself). Just as we might spend billions on space exploration, we spend multitudes more on defense (for arguably a lesser accomplishment for mankind).

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[ganjadude]

So true, which makes the claim even funnier. From my memory, the previous admin set forth major plans which were all but stripped by this admin, and they changed the course even further with this lovely bit http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/2010/07/07/obama-tells-nasa-to-improve-muslim-relations.htm

how did we go from not being in space - to the moon - in a decade however now we cant even seem to get out of our own way? as a long time space entheusiest, I was even a part of a club that watched the jupiter collision happen live. This past 10 years have been a major disappointment on the manned flight front.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[VortexCortex]

Can you imagine - at a time when millions of Americans are jobless and without healthcare - what the public backlash would be against the space program if we were actually spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on a manned Mars mission or (to a lesser $$$ figure) Constellation?

I know, really! Imagine what the public backlash would be against actually spending TRILLIONS of dollars on a needless oil war and secret police regime...

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[MightyYar]

The Bush plan to Mars would have supposedly cost $120 billion over 15 years. Double that, because the government can never come in on-budget, and you still are talking about $16 billion / year. That's an absolute pittance by Federal government standards, and nowhere near the pitchforks-in-the-streets hundreds of billions per year you suggest. Bush's father proposed a plan that would have cost far more, but when NASA ran the numbers it was abandoned.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[Teancum]

I know, really! Imagine what the public backlash would be against actually spending TRILLIONS of dollars on a needless oil war and secret police regime...

Imagine spending tens of billions of dollars on air conditioning for those soldiers serving in scorching tropical deserts to get some respite.

In fact, more money is spent on lipstick in America than is spent on spaceflight. Go figure and try to understand what the priorities really are for the country.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[tsotha]

Bush knew his plan would never actually be implemented. Any plan for NASA that has all the costs back-loaded will never happen, and everyone ought to realize the whole point is a photo op and a few inches of news copy.

I'm no fan of Obama, but for me the one bright spot of his administration has been his stewardship of NASA, which should never have been in the business of LEO operations.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[BenJCarter]

The beauty of Commercial Space is, it doesn't cost taxpayers anything. As a matter of fact, it does the opposite of cost, it generates jobs and tax revenue. The pragmatist in me thinks commercial space corporations need to hurry up and get big enough to graft along with big boys so they can get a place at the troughs of power, and we can get space exploration moving again.

Say what you want about the East India Trading Company, it really tied the planet together...

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[symbolset]

The pragmatist in me thinks commercial space corporations need to hurry up and get big enough to graft along with big boys so they can get a place at the troughs of power, and we can get space exploration moving again.

Maybe sooner than you think. And this wallowing at the trough does cost the taxpayer. Not that I mind that. One of the key purposes of government seems to be to deplete the surplus productivity and prevent dangerous excess idleness thereby. The problem with wasting tax money on space research is that left unmolested those darned engineers will actually invent things that improve the average productivity and thereby make the idleness problem worse! Which is why it's important to reorganize them periodically to prevent them from making too much progress. Much better to have people building roads into the wilderness. Roads erode away.

But the British East India Company eventually became so powerful that it raised private armies, waged war, seized territories including most of India, and had to be shut down by the crown. Remember that successful corporate operations in space means that a commercial entity is going to be manipulating vast amounts of mass and energy directly overhead - in a manner that might exceed any terrestrial government's power to shut it down. Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[jamstar7]

Bush knew his plan would never actually be implemented. Any plan for NASA that has all the costs back-loaded will never happen, and everyone ought to realize the whole point is a photo op and a few inches of news copy.

I'm no fan of Obama, but for me the one bright spot of his administration has been his stewardship of NASA, which should never have been in the business of LEO operations.

Pretty much this. Some nice column inches, some great photo ops, and a shitpile of pork to key Congressional districts is all . Let's face it, the only job of a Congresscritter is to get re-elected, and how best to do that than grabbing all the pork he can for his district and maybe create a couple jobs?

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[symbolset]

My joke is sad but all good jokes are. We laugh because we dare not cry. Of course there's a grain of truth in it. Otherwise it wouldn't be funny. (It has somehow avoided funny moderation though. Maybe the sadness of it is leaking through).

So while on one hand the political ping-pong game over NASA has resulted in billions of dollars in waste and squandered the talents of our best and brightest, on the other hand it has prevented us from spending hundreds of billions on bad ideas.

The problem is that we've avoided almost all ideas, both good and bad from being followed through. Research might be considered wasteful sometimes, in the sense that oil exploration drills many holes - many of which are dry. But to drill all holes halfway to where the expected oil is before moving your rig to the next site is to guarantee that you'll find no profit except by accident. There's a difference between giving up on a dry hole after you've drilled it, and giving up on all holes after you've drilled them halfway.

Partisanship is great for space policy, as it makes many more space policies than can be implemented, and replication of policies is the point of policy - it is a lifeform unto itself, a parasite on the body politick. It is not so great for space exploration or discovery or science, since we go halfway to everywhere and turn back. But for policy, it's great. We've never had more laws and policies about space than we do right now, and that trend is unlikely to reverse.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[Anonymous Coward]

Hundreds of billions a year? It would never happen. Not even during the Apollo program, did NASA's budget ever get into the hundreds of billions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[Teancum]

The previous administration (aka NASA under Mike Griffin in the Bush Administration) proposed a program so horrible that an independent and non-partisan group of industry experts recommended strongly that those programs be immediately terminated. On top of that, they proposed realistic alternatives and laid out the possible directions for future spaceflight initiatives that NASA could consider.

The amazing thing here was that Obama actually listened to that independent commission. If you haven't read that report and still perpetuate the notion that shutting down those programs was a bad thing, at least try to intelligently refute these people who have presented some pretty strong arguments for the current direction of spaceflight in America.

I don't agree with almost any other program that Obama has done and I think he is incompetent as President along with a general dislike of the guy's policies or even governing philosophies. Still, of all of the things he has accomplished, one of the best was to appoint Charles Bolden as head of NASA and to support the adoption of many recommendations from this commission.

My largest gripe against Obama and space policy is that I see his commitment to that policy to be dead last in the USA. Charles Bolden was nearly the last (or may have even been the very last one) of the major departments or agencies to have a director/administrator appointed as its head. I haven't seen Obama really care much about space policy, but he also isn't hurting in this area of expertise either.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea! I wish we never went to the moon. Low orbit is so exciting to this generation in ways a landing on mars could never be! I hope I never see humans put foot on another planet! I'd much rather send 50 rovers to mars than do the same science with 1 manned mission. When do they add the instruction to the rover "explore on your own and find something of immense interest and value, then dig it out and bring it back to earth"? Oh yea...never.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[TFAFalcon]

I think it only doesn't cost taxpayers anything if things go well. If there is an accident with lots of collateral damage, then the government has to pay for it (even commercial flights are insured by the government).

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[necro81]

The beauty of Commercial Space is, it doesn't cost taxpayers anything

I understand the point you are trying to make, but have you forgotten the large development grants and contracts that NASA has been giving to these companies? SpaceX probably would have run out of operating capital it if hadn't landed the ISS supply contracts (starting with the demonstrator missions). SpaceX would also have been hard pressed to get anything off the ground if it didn't have access to Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg AFB. SpaceShipOne/Two/VirginGalactic and some of the other XPrize competitors had access to facilities at Edwards AFB and the (taxpayer subsidized) New Mexico Spaceport.

The companies are still due all credit for their technical success, and I look forward to what comes next. But you need to give props to the taxpayer, too, for fronting a lot of money, equipment, facilities, and experience.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[Anonymous Coward]

it will continue to ping pong until politicians state a good reason why we need a manned space program. The idea that it is part of the pioneering spirit of being human just does not cut it, at least not for the vast majority of people. Also, the idea that our future is in the stars is not good enough either. We have a few million years to get there, and there is no need for us to do it now.

As a side note, partisanship harms everything. Not just our space program. It is nothing more than tribal warfare.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[RocketAcademy]

If there is an accident with lots of collateral damage, then the government has to pay for it (even commercial flights are insured by the government).

No, the FAA requires commercial launch providers to purchase insurance sufficient to cover the Maximum Probable Loss. The government does indemnify certain losses beyond that, but that's sort of a moot point. There's never been an accident that exceeds Maximum Probable Loss, so the government's money has never been touched.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[whitroth]

Hundreds of billions? When or where has *anyone* in Congress, or elsewhere, advocated that?

Snap quiz:
0. What's NASA's budget, and what percentage is it of the US national budget?
1. Do the techs and engineers who work on the ships, and the companies that build the parts and materials,
              have jobs? Do their jobs count?
2. When NASA's budget is irregular, and cut, so that trained people leave, and go elsewhere for other jobs,
                when companies aren't spending on space, what does this do to the pool of trained people when we
                want to ramp up?

Bonus question: Which party tends to spend more on civilian space, when they can get the money through Congress? (Hint: the Republicans in Congress in the mid-nineties tried to kill the Station completely)

                  mark

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[lennier]

The beauty of Commercial Space is, it doesn't cost taxpayers anything.

You sure it doesn't? Someone's paying the bills for that commercial launch operation, and it's probably the guy who wants the payload launched. That might be your TV company, or your phone company, as long as it's about exploiting already well-developed markets in well-understood technologies. And you know for sure that that launch cost will be included as a surcharge in your monthly bill, which for a ubiquitous service is pretty hard to distinguish from a "tax". But for innovative stuff that might or might not work and certainly won't produce an instant payoff, but might create whole new markets several decades down the track, the client is most likely someone a bit more forward-thinking like NASA, DARPA, the National Science Foundation or DoD.

Remember who invented, built, and services GPS? Hint: it wasn't, and isn't, Google. There wasn't even an Apple or a Microsoft when the system was designed (there was an IBM). But how many dollars a year in commercial services would you say it's worth now? And don't forget the secret history of Silicon Valley. The line between "government", "science", and "private industry" isn't nearly as clear-cut as you might like to think it is; many interesting players in the last century, such as Fred Terman and Alfred Loomis, crossed easily between all three.

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[lennier]

I meant to link that. The Secret History of Silicon Valley

Re:Partisanship is GREAT for space policy

[BenJCarter]

I said it doesn't cost TAXPAYERS anything. In other words, we aren't forced to fund it. The people who do pay, do so voluntarily.

So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventures?

[cpu6502]

That's how it sounds: They are complaining that the GOP relies too much on NASA, and doesn't provide enough incentives for private space companies. (I wonder if they think the DNC is any better?)

but great for page views!

[SoupGuru]

Partisanship might not be good for the space program but it sure is good for page views!

Partisanship hurts everything.

[noobermin]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/13/13-reasons-why-this-is-the-worst-congress-ever/

You don't need to read it all, the first reason says it all. The entire point of congressional sessions is ot discuss and the whole point of discussion is to change minds. There is none of that from this congress and thus, they don't do their jobs but they get paid anyway.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you didn't even read your own fucking source fucktard. It is because of the party of "No" as to why congress isn't doing anything. Typical retardican piece of shit.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[ancientt]

(This has led to the odd sight of Republicans bringing Obama's budgets to the floor so they can say Democrats voted against them.)

Personally I think there is much the state governments should handle instead of the federal government, so I'm basically in favor of cutting the role of the federal government where reasonable responsiblities can be returned to the state. That's a lot of weasel words to say that state government spending is better than federal government spending, but not all the time.

So I'd rather see a congress locked into limited action rather than the rather abymissal results of a united one. There are exceptions where I think the federal government has a role, but over most of my lifetime, I've been continously disappointed in the "progress" when they do something "productive."

Summary: Please, please give me a "No" party to vote for. The republicans and democrats have both had plenty of examples where they voted for spending and increasing regulation when I strongly wish they had left that to the states, so I'm afraid I can't be happy to vote for either "retardicans" or "demotards" and carefully weigh each vote I make to try to figure out whether voting for somebody without a chance or voting against the slightly less terrible choice has the most impact. I can't remember the last time I was happy to vote for somebody that I thought might win.

It does strike me as slightly hilarious that you can get a situation where Democrats will vote against a Democrat budget and still call the opposition the "party of 'No'."

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you didn't even read your own fucking source fucktard. It is because of the party of "No" as to why congress isn't doing anything. Typical retardican piece of shit.

This isn't partisan at all.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[ganjadude]

the way i see it, the federal government is TO involved in peoples day to day lives. There is no need for the federal government to do 90% of the things it does, these things can be (and legally should be) handled at the state level. So when it comes to blocking the government from enacting more laws that give them even more power, I am all for the party of no, whatever party that is

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[guises]

You should read it all though, that was a good article. Thanks.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[noobermin]

I was hinting at that. Dems haven't become any more partisan than they were previously but still, I don't believe it's all because of the part of No. IDK, may be I'm just trying to be "impartial" *shrug*.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[noobermin]

I terribly disagree. Why do you care about who spends or who doesn't? Some of us don't care whether the government or the private sector spends, all that matters is that it gets us out of a recession. People who choose their favorite venue of demand (or supply) are simply singing on extraneous, philosophical things that matter for extraneous, philosophical reasons.

Let me explain with an analogy. There are some religious people who pray for healing of a sickness and perhaps would feel if they went to a doctor it would be a "lack of faith" on their part. Some of us don't care, we just want to live so we go to the doctor and do a subconcious cost-benefit analysis and conclude that they give results at least with a reliable probability so we go.

Now it's fine to believe if you want to but to go in and force your beliefs on everyone else because of their "lack of faith" is unfair.

I don't care about your small government, I don't care about your big government. All I care about is some government that works and actually does things. I know it might be hard to believe but Keynsianism and central banking usually works. It worked since the great moderation till the banking crisis so it has some history. It is costly, perhaps even more risky with the debt we have. But taking up a bill for the doctor is better than death, so be it. Take your idealism elsewhere.

I could rap on liberals too but they don't hold a majority of the house and keep things in disorder (well, Harry Reid kinda irks me but, yeah).

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[noobermin]

It is a good article. It sounds awfully partisan but I somewhat agree with the main point that the tea party holds a large stake in the blame. Still, there are two sides to every conflict so the continued blood spilling owes to dems too. I personally don't worry too much about the Presidency, well, full disclosure, I do lean towards Obama but even if Romney gets elected and shows his more moderate stance from, you know, before this whole shenanigan of moving to the right, I fear the tea party will even block him. I'm more worried about congress this coming election season.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[Stiletto]

In what ways did the federal government get involved in your "day to day" life today? Not some hypothetical situation, or something that "affects society in general", but a real, actual "Shit, I'd love to do this, but the damn Federal Government is in the way!!" intrusion into your personal life that happened today?

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[phantomfive]

Some of us don't care whether the government or the private sector spends, all that matters is that it gets us out of a recession.

Problem is, if the government spends, I am paying for it. Now, I am not against taxes, I understand they are a necessary part of civilization, but I want to make sure my money is going towards something good. If the politician is just going to spend it on whatever project suits his fancy, I'm going to say, "no, I'd rather spend that money myself."

Taxes are fine, but make sure that money is being spent on something worth it.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you see, there's this thing I wanted to build, but because it requires a certain type of wood, the EPA says I can't have it.
Also, I really wanted to pirate this game I own rather than dig through my closet to find all the installation DVDs again, but the Federal Government says it's illegal to circumvent copyright protection.
Also, I was looking forward to being able to contact my loan provider to work with me on my student loans, but they were forced to transfer the loan to Sallie Mae, so for all I know, I'll never talk to another human being that is allowed to do jack.
There was this device I wanted to make and sell on my own, but I'm not allowed to because the federal government has placed restrictions on the materials I'm allowed to use in saled goods to such an extent that it's prohibitively expensive(and would not be without those restrictions) to purchase equipment and materials to sell this product even in small numbers.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, seeing as how they take about $20 or $30 a day from me, I'd say that's pretty involved. It's about to go up since I'm moving into a higher tax bracket soon.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[IndustrialComplex]

I hear there are a bunch of people in California who have decided to ingest a plant and the Federal Government demands that they shall not ingest that plant.

caveat: I do not want to do that, so it isn't technically 'Shit, I'd love to do.' But it is an example of a specific instance where the Federal Government is involved in the personal lives of the citizenry.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[steelfood]

I wanted to keep all the money I make so that I can spend it on more unnecessary trinkets made in China, but the Federal Government keeps taking a hefty chunk of it from me to spend on things I don't need like roads and hurricane relief and pills for the elderly and poor.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[lennier]

Problem is, if the government spends, I am paying for it.

I'm not sure you realise that when the private sector spends, you're also paying for it. Or do you not pay rent, utility bills, interest and service charges where you live? What do you think a landlord is other than a tiny pocket monarch who collects taxes?

The relevant question to ask is, for any given service, which provider historically has given better quality and cheaper prices, government or private sector? Or a hybrid approach of market plus regulatory oversight? There's no one answer which is automatically "ideologically correct". But for healthcare, for instance, the government approach seems to be doing better in countries like Canada and New Zealand. Stands to reason: if Wal-Mart can get better prices by buying in bulk, why can't a whole nation? And we do; we have this thing in NZ called Pharmac where we buy prescription medicines in bulk, and save. US private drug companies are trying to lobby to make it illegal, because, um. Because customer savings makes them sad.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[ancientt]

The question of which provider historically provides the better value for spending varies greatly depending on which service or product is discussed and what the goals are. Government control can mean that large projects become affordable by virtue of economy of size but government control can also mean that large projects become far more expensive than free market options if the money goes to pay for bureaucratic overhead.

Municipal water supplies tend to be safer and less expensive than private ones so the monopoly situation is well founded in cities, but the opposite occurs in rural areas.

Phone service was more expensive when it was a government regulated monopoly, but it accomplished a valuable goal of creating an infrastructure that made it more universal than it would have been privately, so there was an an appropriate time for government spending and regulation of services and a time for that to taper off.

The relevant question to ask is, for any given service, which provider historically has given better quality and cheaper prices, government or private sector?

I'd certainly agree that it is a major consideration but public safety, infrastructure and freedom are all significant goals as well. Big organization, like Wal-Mart or government may be more effective sometimes, but bigger is not always better and sometimes bigger just means more middlemen to support and usually means less freedom.

You mentioned health care reform and health insurance reform hasn't met your criteria. Massachusetts didn't succeed by that criteria alone. "In just two years under the Massachusetts reforms, from 2005 to 2007, health care spending per capita rose an additional 23 percent." That's not to say it was a failure by every standard though, because "98 percent of all residents were insured last year. [as of 2011]". If the goal is to cost oriented alone, it has been a failure, but if the goal is to make sure those most in need of government intervention receive health insurance it has been a success.

NASA is an example of a strongly debatable expendature. Historically it has accomplished big goals that wouldn't have been accomplished in a free market, but now it is questionable if those big goals are more valuable than the less expensive free market capabilities. You could about double their budget with one percent of the military's, but you could also give a huge incentive subsidy to private companies with that same expenditure. The private companies are probably not going to be able to accomplsh the large goals, but they can accomplish a lot more small goals than NASA would, so the debate really is down to whether lots of significant small achievements are more worthy than a few large ones.

Interesting book reference by the way. I haven't spent much effort in that area of study, but it piques my interest.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[phantomfive]

But for healthcare, for instance, the government approach seems to be doing better in countries like Canada and New Zealand. Stands to reason: if Wal-Mart can get better prices by buying in bulk, why can't a whole nation?

Sure, give me your proposal for healthcare, and we'll see if it's better than what we have now. Saying, "New Zealand has it cheaper, why can't we?" Obama, for example, tries to make it cheaper by paying doctors less.

Re:Partisanship hurts everything.

[Anonymous Coward]

Drugs.

Teasing me and shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was expecting to see pictures of a huge food fight that broke out on the ISS.

Now I'm disappointed. Assholes.

Re:Teasing me and shit.

[dyingtolive]

Yeah. Next time, don't bother calling us unless you have a _REAL_ NASA food fight. With video. :(

Re:So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventur

[tresbizzare]

I'm sure we could count on the GOP to under fund a lot of great NASA projects.

Not THIS kind of food fight!

[RabidReindeer]

Dang. I was looking forward to flying Tang and freeze-dried ice cream.

Can't the idiotologues leave ANYTHING in peace?

Goodbye to Civilian Space

[Anonymous Coward]

So another Big Science project goes down.

Like so many other cases, a bunch of partisans with eyes on the budget of a big project think they can get a part of the pie by killing the project.

So long Civilian Space, it was nice while it lasted.

DNC Versus Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

But NASA Watch points out that the Democratic platform is even less specific than the GOP's.

Yeah, that blogger appears to be right about the DNC. But Obama's got specifics with a track record. What scares me is that Romney says he'll privatize as much as possible. He's quoted as saying:

“I think fundamentally there are some people—and most of them are Democrats, but not all—who really believe that the government knows how to do things better than the private sector And they happen to be wrong.”

He promises to cut non-defense spending and NASA is a non-defense expense that politicians are pushing hard to privatize.

Re:DNC Versus Obama

[AK Marc]

A "sector" doesn't know anything. You might as well argue a cow knows about making cheese and pasteurization because it's from the dairy sector.

If the problem is that the better people stay away from public service, doesn't that point to a different solution? If the problem is the wishy-washy Congress asserting control over agency internal actions, doesn't that point to a different solution?

From where I sit, it looks like the Republicans assert that the government is incompetent, while trying to get elected to guarantee that result. I wouldn't take my car to a mechanic that believed cars were bad for the environment and need to be removed from the roads one car at a time. I take my car to the mechanic who builds race cars in his spare time. He likes what he does. Republicans are running for government to sabotage it. That is their platform, and their statements are consistent with that. So why would anyone ever vote for them?

Re:DNC Versus Obama

[lennier]

the wishy-washy Congress asserting control

I don't think that word means what you think it does.

I have to go now, my lily-livered, weak-kneed, uncertain opponent, who can't make up his mind, is about to decisively crush the world in an iron fist. Or not. Maybe. Perhaps.

Re:DNC Versus Obama

[AK Marc]

Congress is wishy-washy in that the makeup of it changes biannually, leading to frequent and abrupt changes in policy, even if every individual member is consistent (and they are not). Perhaps the issue is that you don't know what it means.

And here I thought

[Anonymous Coward]

that this article would be over something amusing, like Congress being unable to agree what kind of food to send up to the ISS crew.

Oink

[Riddler Sensei]

I had been under the impression that for some time a large portion of the political bickering regarding NASA was over whose state got what pork as opposed to toeing the party line.

Re:Oink

[tsotha]

As far as Congress is concerned, NASA is there to provide jobs to their constituents. If something science-y happens in the meantime, well, that's great, but it's not the driving motivation.

What is private?

[tomhath]

If NASA is funding development then it's not private.

If private companies want to develop their own space vehicles and offer their service for hire that's fine, but it's in addition to what NASA does (that's the Republican platform). Democrat platform seems to depend on what state the day's speech is delivered in.

Re:What is private?

[Nyeerrmm]

You're right that the nomenclature is confusing. "Private" in this case means that the NASA is attempting to kickstart a competitive market by putting itself out there as a guaranteed customer -- very similarly to how the USPS helped jump-start the commercial airline industry by guaranteeing itself as a customer to use airmail. In the end, an SLS vehicle will be owned by NASA, while a Dragon capsule or Dream Chaser vehicle will be owned by their respective companies, and are free to sell rides to anyone else (admittedly the non-US-government market is unproven).

The problem with the GOP platform is that they support NASA building their own competitor to the commercial options, effectively strangling the goal of COTS/CCDEV. As the supposed party of free markets, the GOP should recognize this and be clamoring to get the government out of LEO transportation -- the SLS program is such a ridiculous example of government waste it calls into question the party's dedication to concepts of deficit reduction and free markets.

Re:What is private?

[jonwil]

Its not about "Private" vs "Public". Its about a fundamental shift in the way NASA buys things.

Under the new system (the one Obama is so fond of), NASA is paying fixed amounts of money to private companies for fixed deliverables. This gives an incentive to companies doing the work to reduce costs as much as possible, to not reinvent the wheel if they dont need to, to use as few staff as they need to use to get the job done and generally to do more with less.

The old way (which is how the space shuttle got built and very much like the way the military buys large things like aircraft or tanks) involved the government having a lot more say in exactly how things were built, where they got built, which companies got to make which bits etc. (just look at the pressure from a number of congressmen to get NASA funding bills passed that basically say "whatever NASA builds next, it MUST use the rockets made by ATK systems"). It resulted in a lot of inefficiencies that were bad for the total cost of these projects but got there because someone in congress wanted some factory or facility in their state and wanted the jobs and benefits that come with it.

Re:What is private?

[Teancum]

There is a time and a place for "cost-plus" contracts that have been traditionally used by NASA over the years (along with the Department of Defense for a great many projects). It is based upon the very successful model used for the Manhattan Project, where a bold goal was established by the government... something seen as critical perhaps even to the survival of the country itself. As to if that was true for building a nuclear bomb or flying people to the Moon could be debated, but the point is that those were set out as significant goals that simply had to be met, and how much it cost to get them accomplished was of relatively minor importance.

It is also important to note that while there were scientists who said that such endeavors were in theory possible, nobody knew at all how to actually get them accomplished. It really is exploring the frontier of human knowledge, where going to the Moon wasn't even conclusively proven to be even possible using any kind of machine on a practical level. Certainly entire new technologies had to be invented from scratch for both the Manhattan Project and the Apollo Project. If you asked even well respected contractors how much it was going to cost to build those devices, they would just give you a blank stare. Oh, they might come up with a rough estimate, but the truth is nobody knew how much it was really going to cost. It had never been done before, so there was no possible way to even remotely guess a great many of the costs. Certainly no sane contractor would ever enter into a contract with the government to produce a device or provide a service when they can't even reliably depend upon even the order of magnitude for the costs they will come into.

That is why you need to have the government take the risk of the costs for such significant endeavors, which is the "cost" part of the contracting model. The "plus" is a guaranteed profit that the company will earn simply for participating and getting involved with such a project. That makes shareholders happy, but it also allows us as citizens to receive the benefits of a company which has the skills and equipment necessary to pull off such important national endeavors.

One of the problems after the Apollo project (and the Manhattan Project in terms of DOD contracts) is that it was considered normal to use such a contracting model for everything else, even if they didn't need such a contract. Sending people into space to go and dock with the ISS is something with a long history and a great many rockets that have been developed over the years capable of such a feat. It is indeed possible to estimate fairly well how much it will cost to perform such a launch down to just a few dollars. For that reason, the cost-plus contracts really should have been abandoned a long time ago.

Going to Mars still has a whole bunch of unknowns about it, and for building the actual spacecraft or even the forward logistical supplies that need to be sent to Mars ahead of time is something that isn't really well known. There have been several spacecraft that have gone to Mars already, so there is at least some history there... it doesn't need to be purely cost-plus, but there might still be some role to play for using that model.

The SLS program is one that is using the "cost-plus" contracting model, which is one of the reasons why it will eventually die as a huge embarrassment to the good United States Senators who held advanced degrees in aeronautical engineering and designed the program through legislation in the first place. It shouldn't be all that complicated to send a big rocket into low-Earth orbit from Kennedy Space Center. Heck, the SLS won't even be the largest vehicle sent from KSC into LEO.

Not a fight over food?

[Vylen]

Seriously, the headline had me thinking it was about a fight over food supplies in space with issues regarding commercial vendors to supply NASA or something.

Greatly disappointed :(

Re:Not a fight over food?

[bananaquackmoo]

You and me both

Obama not specific??

[Anonymous Coward]

The Obama campaign quickly echoed the statement. But NASA Watch points out that the Democratic platform is even less specific than the GOP's. Others express concerns that partisanship harms space policy.

Obama is very specific. According to this story, he says:

Two years ago I set a goal of sending humans farther into space than we have ever been -- to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars in the 2030s. . . . When our Orion deep space crew vehicle takes its first test flight in 2014, it will travel farther into space than any spacecraft designed for humans has flown in the 40 years since our astronauts returned from the moon. That is progress.

I have no clue if his plan is good or not, but it's specific.

Um, yeah...

[rickb928]

Partisanship harms ALL policy. It is inevitable in our system, but for the past few cycles it has been an increasingly more violent atmosphere (blatant space lingo there) that is harming a lot more than just space policy.

The solution? Smarter and more involved voters. Politicians will not change unless we make them. We let this happen.

And while I'm a Republican, space exploration is what government does better, so far, than private industry. We should be doing a LOT more. But I would happily exchange that initiative for an Apollo-style alternative energy program to render fossil fuels largely obsolete in 10 years. A manned mission to mars would ahve impact on our science, engineering, etc, so either project is a drvier for me. But making NASA a political football makes no sense, unless you're just a partisan that needs something to argue over.

ps - Side note, blame the Republicans all you want, remembering that the other parties are not innocent of the same problem - arguing anything for the sake of it.

Re:Um, yeah...

[artor3]

ps - Side note, blame the Republicans all you want, remembering that the other parties are not innocent of the same problem - arguing anything for the sake of it.

False equivalence. The Democrats have never focused so single-mindedly on the destruction of a president. You're just telling yourself that the Dems are just as bad as a defense mechanism.

Only one party threatened to cut off unemployment benefits for millions if they didn't get a tax cut extension for the rich.

Only one party forced the country to default on its debts in order to force major budget cuts to both military and domestic program, and then even had the gall to try to renege on the military cuts.

Only one party proposed cap and trade as a capitalist alternative to environmental regulations, and then called it socialism when the other guys tried to implement it.

Only one party proposed an individual mandate as a capitalist alternative to single-payer health care, and then screamed about "death panels" when the other guys tried to implement it.

Only one party proposed giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship through military service or college, and then screamed "amnesty!" when the other guys tried to implement it.

The Republicans today are nothing like those of the 90s or 80s or 70s or any other point in time. They're nothing like this country has ever seen. They've realized that politics is just a game, and they can break the game by refusing to negotiate on anything. Our country cannot survive that sort of game-breaking exploit. If people like you don't wise up and punish them for it, we're through.

Re:Um, yeah...

[DNS-and-BIND]

Haven't I seen this exact same comment on Slashdot before?

The Democrats have never focused so single-mindedly on the destruction of a president.
Oh now you have got to be kidding. Bu$hitler, 2001-2009? Did we forget so soon?

You're just telling yourself that the Dems are just as bad as a defense mechanism.
You know, it really looks bad when this is used, over and over. Whenever an (R) does something bad, that means (R)s are uniquely and reprehensibly evil. Whenever a (D) does something bad, that means both parties are the same and there's no difference between the two.

So, which is it? Uniquely evil or the same? Because it damn sure can't be both - unless there's some sort of double standard at work.

Re:Um, yeah...

[phantomfive]

The Dems really are bad, you just don't realize it because you're so partisan.

Which president filled his staff with ex-Goldman Sachs execs? If you said Obama, you are right. If you said Bush, you are also right. If you said Clinton, you are also right.

The candidate who says, "Any bank that receives a federal bailout will be broken up. Any bank that is too big to fail is to big to exist," will have my vote. I don't care if he's republican, democrat, or independent, I'm voting for that.

Don't fall for the partisan lies that Republicans and Democrats have been feeding you.

Re:Um, yeah...

[TubeSteak]

The solution? Smarter and more involved voters. Politicians will not change unless we make them. We let this happen.

Part of the problem is the "more involved voters" who came in on the Tea Party movement.
Those Representatives have tried to bring government to a complete halt.

Our system of government was not designed to be controlled by a minority of filibusterers.

Re:Um, yeah...

[rickb928]

"False equivalence. The Democrats have never focused so single-mindedly on the destruction of a president. You're just telling yourself that the Dems are just as bad as a defense mechanism."

You wrote that? Nixon resigned. Despite being guilty, the Democratic Party focused so single-mindedly on Nixon that he left office. Rightly or not, this was the beginning of the politics of public personal destruction. Nixon was guilty. The Democrats destroyed him.

"Only one party threatened to cut off unemployment benefits for millions if they didn't get a tax cut extension for the rich."
So quickly forgotten.

"Only one party forced the country to default on its debts in order to force major budget cuts to both military and domestic program, and then even had the gall to try to renege on the military cuts."

Not that the Democrats are above the same tactic if it suits them.

"Only one party proposed cap and trade as a capitalist alternative to environmental regulations, and then called it socialism when the other guys tried to implement it."

Crony Capitalism serves both sides. The Obama Administration is engaged in it as every other Administration since, what, Reagan?

"Only one party proposed an individual mandate as a capitalist alternative to single-payer health care, and then screamed about "death panels" when the other guys tried to implement it."

No quote here. You are wrong, in that this was never a Republican Party platform plank. But the party is a big tent, and some in it have tried to compromise on this issue of healthcare. Republicans tend to compromise. Democrats tend not to. I'm not at all sure this is a good thing for Republicans to do.

"Only one party proposed giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship through military service or college, and then screamed "amnesty!" when the other guys tried to implement it."

I entered the USAF in 1972, and while in basic training I stood for a wonderful young man from Columbia who was sworn in as a citizen of the US while he was in basic training also. Gaining citizenship via military service is not new. Sadly, neither is illegal immigration into the US. But Alberto came legally. More to the point, I gather you think giving a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is ok, even as we fail to stop the flow. That's what 'changed' the Republicans stand. When they could not get Democrat agreement on taking actual measures to reduce illegal immigration. When the deal changes, do you stick with your initial agreement, or do you change your mind?

"The Republicans today are nothing like those of the 90s or 80s or 70s or any other point in time. They're nothing like this country has ever seen. They've realized that politics is just a game, and they can break the game by refusing to negotiate on anything. Our country cannot survive that sort of game-breaking exploit. If people like you don't wise up and punish them for it, we're through."

You are absolutely right. The Democrats have spent the last 40 years refusing to negotiate on anything of substance. Examples? I want to punish the Democrats also, but I can vote for only one candidate per office. Do your part.

- Reagan's budgets were declared 'dead on arrival'.
- I'm bored with any other examples. Your premise is that the Republicans are 'worse'. You are deluded.

We have one goverment, and anything other than compromise and mutual accomplishment is wrong. The Republican Party is now playing the game like the Democratic Party has been, and now it's wrong? Keep your blinders on. Much easier than dealing with the problem. Just keep focused on the other guys.

Re:Um, yeah...

[artor3]

Oh, absolutely the Dems are bad. But they're nothing like the present-day Republicans. To paraphrase Isaac Asimov:

"If you think the Republicans are good, you're wrong. If you think the Democrats are good, you're wrong. But if you think that thinking the Democrats are good is just as wrong as thinking the Republicans are good, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

That's the core concept behind false equivalency. "X is bad, Y is bad, therefore X and Y are equally bad." It's a rhetorical trick that exploits the fact that words like "bad" can have widely varying meanings.

Both parties have been bad for at least as long as I've been alive. But the Republicans have gotten much, much worse over the past four years. If we turn a blind eye to that, they'll have no incentive to get better, and the Democrats will have to adopt their tactics. I don't want this new level of badness to become the new normal.

Re:Um, yeah...

[phantomfive]

Both parties have been bad for at least as long as I've been alive. But the Republicans have gotten much, much worse over the past four years.

See? It's shit like this that shows you've been blinded by the partisan rhetoric. Seriously, you think they are worse now than during the Bush years? I'd say Iraq is a huge mess that was caused by a lot of people who've been thrown out of office now.

Seriously, compare Obama and Romney, and they have a lot more in common than they do that divides them. That's why they have to rely on attack ads to differentiate ("My opponent is racist!" "My opponent hates job creators!"). Seriously, Romney is planning on repealing Obamacare and then implementing his own national healthcare program. Woohoo, what a huge difference. It'll destroy the country etc etc (hate rage anger insult)

Re:Um, yeah...

[artor3]

What a short memory you seem to have. The Democrats crossed the aisle to pass a lot of Bush's proposals.

They passed his massive tax cuts.

They passed his unfunded Medicare expansion.

They passed No Child Left Behind.

They passed that bill designed to gut the Postal Service by forcing them to pay for decades of retirement benefits up front.

Republicans, on the other hand, have voted in lockstep against every Obama proposal, with the sole exception of the stimulus, which got (IIRC) three GOP votes. Even though many of the proposals were identical to their own ideas, they filibustered everything, because they wanted to make him at failure at any cost.

This is unique in the country's history. Never before have politicians taken such a scorched earth approach to destroying their opponent.

Can you really not follow such a simple idea through to its logical conclusion? What happens if we reinforce this behavior by rewarding the GOP for it? They'll keep doing it, of course. Which means that no Democratic congress will ever again pass a law, unless they have a supermajority.

Now, that leaves us with two possible outcomes. Either the Democratics stick to their morals (unlikely!) and we get single-party rule by the GOP. Or the Democrats adopt the same tactics, and no one on either side can pass any laws any more. That outcome would be disastrous.

No partisanship here. Simple logic. Look at what's happening. It's not hard to see where we're headed.

Re:Um, yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Go slit your fucking wrists communist, nigger loving fucktard.

- rickb928 (945187)

Re:Um, yeah...

[rickb928]

Filibusters are permitted by rules of the Senate, not Constitutional provision. The Senate can change that.

And protection or at least recognition if minorities is traditionally an American value.

Congress needs to be accountable for their actions or lack thereof. Even our President complains about congressional inaction when at times it's hid own party that it's a failing to act. Extremism is a problem for all parties.

Re:Um, yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, that leaves us with two possible outcomes. Either the Democratics stick to their morals (unlikely!) and we get single-party rule by the GOP. Or the Democrats adopt the same tactics, and no one on either side can pass any laws any more. That outcome would be disastrous.

How about an investigating the Gas and Oil Party? The GOP is clearly corrupt and when sufficient evidence is found in the investigation the GOP should be dissolved by the government with all of their assets seized. Then the government can get back on track rather than having to waste time on political rhetoric from the Gas and Oil Party.

Re:Um, yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans, on the other hand, have voted in lockstep against every Obama proposal

Citation, please

Re:Um, yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right about what they're doing, but short on history.

> This is unique in the country's history.
> Never before have politicians taken
> such a scorched earth approach to destroying their opponent.

Nope. You youngsters have just forgotten what blatant racism looks like.
Nothing he does is acceptable, because of who he is.

This is how the same people -- under either political party's name -- stayed in power for so long in the South.

Re:Um, yeah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Never before is a bit extreme...they acted like this right before the civil war too.....

Re:Um, yeah...

[phantomfive]

So what you are saying is, Republicans are bad because they act like an opposition party, and Obama can't get his stuff passed? Democrats would never act as an opposition party. Oh wait, they did.

Which means that no Democratic congress will ever again pass a law, unless they have a supermajority.

Are you really saying that no laws have been passed in the last two years? What about the repeal of don't ask don't tell?

Your problem is, you don't understand political strategy. A congressperson can only afford to oppose a bill if it doesn't have much popular support in his home district. Thus, a good president will build political support for his program before sending it to congress. Bush understood this, and as an unfortunate result got us into a war in Iraq. Clinton understood this. Obama doesn't seem to understand this, which gives the Republicans a clear opening to oppose him. This is mainly a sign of Obama incompetence.

Re:Um, yeah...

[jamstar7]

Problem is, how do you change the rules for filibustering if the rules debate is itself filibustered? The Democrats put the current rules into place, and damn, it's costing them bigtime now.

Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[Nutria]

until someone both
(a) invents a new and *highly* efficient engine that's both high-thrust and high specific impulse and
(b) and small, high-wattage, long-lasting energy source that doesn't need tons of shielding.

Until then, humans are going no further than the Moon, and even then just for short term National Pride visits.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[OzPeter]

and even then just for short term National Pride visits.

I just had a vision of a NASA pride rally.. oooh that wasn't good.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[symbolset]

Not really. You can do a lot with LH2/LO2 if you have enough of it on orbit to boost a LEO craft out beyond cislunar space. Planetary Resources has the start of a plan, big-money backing, and they're cash-flow positive. I think they've got good odds of kickstarting something interesting.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[WindBourne]

NERVA. Been there. Done it. Need to bring it back, but using thorium instead.

While It will not serve to launch here (too many idiots here), it can be used for solar system transport of humans and robots, as wells as launches on/off the moon and mars.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[RocketAcademy]

NERVA is probably impossible due to the political difficulties of launching that much nuclear fuel. At least until we start mining uranium on the Moon (not outside the realm of possibility).

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[WindBourne]

Which is why I suggested doing thorium. Plenty of it on the moon and mars as well as on asteroid. And as far as the launch issue goes, we simply take a rocket with a great history and use that. Put the fuel in solid containers and launch it, making sure that it is from a place like Florida.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[jamstar7]

NERVA is probably impossible due to the fact that it's nuclear. If you were a corporate head with interests in space, would you want to hand over enriched nuclear fuel to some bright guy in orbit who you don't have completely under your thumb? Especially if that guy's got an advanced physics degree? Didn't think so.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[RocketAcademy]

"A rocket with a great history" didn't prevent political protests over Cassini -- and the amount of nuclear fuel in Cassini's RTGs is minuscule compared to what a nuclear rocket requires. It's impossible to get a license to build a nuclear power plant in the US. What makes you think getting a license to launch a reactor will be easier?

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[WindBourne]

You mean the way that we do with naval ships, and power plants? First off, having the nuke engine be designed and built by NASA and put in space as a space tug is not a big deal. And it would be NASA that controls these, not corporations. At least for some time.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[Nutria]

Plenty of it on the moon and mars as well as on asteroid

Except that it takes 45 metric assloads of heavy industry to mine the stuff and then extract it in the quantifies needed.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[WindBourne]

Yeah, it is amazing what X-Prizes can do for you.

In the mean time, I will fill my half full glass with beer, while you are busy crying that your glass is half empty.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[Nutria]

it is amazing what X-Prizes can do for you.

Why do so many geeks think that the phrase "X Prize" is some magic incantation?

crying that your glass is half empty.

I prefer clear-eyed realism.

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[WindBourne]

Gee, I don't know why we love it.
Lets see:
1) first private human launcher to space 3 x in a month due to X-Prize.
2) first automated nut and fruit picker developed about 1 year ago, to replace the low costs of imports that use manipulated money and fixed labor costs, rather than succumb to using illegals (which would STILL leave the prices too high) due to X-Prize in California.
3) First none stop crossing over the atlantic via ortiz prize.

And that is just the first set that comes quickly to mind. So, I would say that it works when allowed to.
Now, the real question is, why are naysayers so short of realism as to avoid looking at facts?

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[Nutria]

That's 3 in 91 years. Find some more examples.

(And I haven't forgotten that SS1 cost way more to build than $10M.)

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[WindBourne]

Nobel prize comes quickly to mind.
However, let me help you.
And that leads to all sorts of cool things.
Oh, here is some more for you.
There now, was that so hard?

Even a new one that comes to mind is the Google lunar prize.
Why do unrealistic ppl have such pessimism when you ignore so many facts?

Re:Government Space Policy is meaningless...

[Anonymous Coward]

NERVA can also be improved on by using its exhaust as a preheater for a plasma thruster like VASMIR. The limiting factor in a gas-core reactor is fuel rod melting, VASMIR avoids that with magnetic containment but you can't really use that in the core of a fission reactor

Obama should...

[bmo]

...come out and endorse doubling NASA's budget.

Then the Republicans will do an about-face and claim that Obama isn't supporting private space initiatives and they will claim to double their support for Space-X and whatnot.

Republicanism is party before country and "whatever it is, I'm against it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMV44yoXZ0

--
BMO

Re:Obama should...

[DesScorp]

...come out and endorse doubling NASA's budget.

Then the Republicans will do an about-face and claim that Obama isn't supporting private space initiatives and they will claim to double their support for Space-X and whatnot.

Republicanism is party before country and "whatever it is, I'm against it."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMV44yoXZ0

--
BMO

Too bad he's never going to do that, eh? He's going to continue to spew platitudes about space. And nothing else. He's going to be "for it", without spending on it. Obama doesn't give a rat's ass about space, NASA or private sector either. Second, aren't Democrats always bitching about "investment" in the government? So backing NASA spending doesn't prove their patriotism, but, say, spending on light rail would?

Or, are you just another hypocrite on the Internet that bitches about how the other side is evil?

Re:Obama should...

[bmo]

So many straw men, so little time.

--
BMO

PS - It's not ObamaCare, it's RomneyRepublicare, but the Republicans are against because they're party before country. "Whatever it is, I'm against it."

This isn't partisan

[greg_barton]

It's trans-partisan. Obama, supposedly the most liberal human being since the big bang, has reformed The space race to rely more on the private sector. This isn't mentioned in the Democratic platform because the hard core lefties don't like it. It isn't mentioned in the Republican platform because it made the hard core righties' heads assplode.

Meanwhile a middle of the road solution was found that is working fine. Mission accomplished.

I should mod, but this deserves discussion

[WindBourne]

The republicans have continued to gut over and over the private space. In addition, they were the ones that gutted NASA back in the late 90's and stopping them from doing the original COTS program that was suggested in 1994. Worse, they have continued to fight against funding for private space while pushing multiple (3-5 Billion PER YEAR) to their key programs such as Constellation and now the god foresaken SLS.

yes, some dems have joined these dark creatures of the night, but the neo-cons that control the republican party are far more interested in helping themselves and their friends rather than the nation. Even now, I am fully aware that MY representative, Mark Coffman, takes money from a company that he KNOWS is owned by the Chinese gov. The fuck who screams patriotism would rather take money from China than help America. GD pricks.

Sadly, other than O, the dems are absolutely USELESS. They have no sense of loyalty to either nation or party. Instead, they are bunch of fuck-ups. The only reason why they do not sux worse then the neo-cons is that the neo-cons are pretty much committing treason against the nation and have been actively working to destroy unions, etc. IOW, they consider it a higher priority to destroy unions (which they could have self-destructed on their own) then to help the nation.

We need 2 answers: a third party of social moderate/fiscal conservative (nixon was the last time that a republican was a fiscal conservative), and RootStrikers to get amendments on the constitution. We need to kill off all of the dark creatures of the night within the republicans party (or simply stake them all), and re-bury the zombies in the dem party, while creating a new party.

Re:I should mod, but this deserves discussion

[ganjadude]

you do know that obama is borrowing money from china at an alarming rate rather than cut spending, so.... i guess obama is one of them GD pricks you speak of

Re:I should mod, but this deserves discussion

[WindBourne]

First off, he inherited a 3/4 T deficit from W. (the constant .5T / year deficit of W/neo-cons is what cratered our economy in the FIRST place). O cranked it up to 1.2T for the first year due the great depression that we were looking at. Then O did a 1T for the second, while the 3rd year should have been cut, but he did not (which is why I have issues with this last year).
BUT, he is the one that worked with Boehner to do cuts and then cantor came in and gutted it. Then when Cantor did his theatrics of saying that they would cut a deal with the dems, but that O was to be excluded, O simply insisted that if they failed, that automatic cuts happen THIS COMING YEAR. Well, the neo-cons FAILED (yeah, like that is new) and then blamed O for it all.

The fact is, that O has been being gutted by the neo-cons in an attempt to crater him. And THEY are the ones wasting money on building launcher that depend on using manufacturers in their areas wasting 3-5B / year, while screaming about less than 1B/year for a couple of years to get MULTIPLE cheap private space going. No doubt had McCain been in office, private space would have been gutted and the SLS would have been bumped up to 5B/year and still would not be ready until 2024.

As I said, I am not wild about O, but compared to the vampire republicans and the zombies dems, he is at least alive and mostly useful. I really hate the fact that he is pushing for cuts in our nuke warheads as well as that insane cap/trade, not dealing effectively with our lack of nuclear power (we should spend money on thorium power), and the issues with China.

However, even romney has said that the economy is MUCH better off then it was 4 years ago, which is a good sign.

Re:I should mod, but this deserves discussion

[jamstar7]

El Presidente doesn't hand Congress a budget for consideration, Congress hands him a budget for his approval. And they haven't even done that in the last three years because they want him to fall flat on his ass. Why do you think we ran into the debt ceiling in the first place? The only 'cuts' in spending and 'increases' in taxes in the last three years are ones that were put in place before Obama showed up at the table and Congress couldn't ratfuck.

Re:I should mod, but this deserves discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that the Republican controlled House HAS passed budgets for consideration in the last two years (actually before that too, but it wasn't Republican controlled), but the Democrat controlled Senate has refused to even take up any discussion about budget this year (thanks Harry!). So why do you say that the Democrats want to see the president "fall flat on his ass"?

And if you think the only increases in spending took place prior to the last three years, apparently you haven't been paying attention.

Re:I should mod, but this deserves discussion

[jamstar7]

I said cuts in spending and increases in taxes were handed to him. That's stuff that was sunsetted a few years back. Nothing current. Increases in spending were by appropriation bills that got passed because they authorised the various spending the government needed to fund, things like Social Security and defense spending, and there were ammendments to those bills to properly pass out the appropriate pork. They couldn't be flushed back to the House because people would go without their Social Security or military payroll checks. Most of those were passed at the last minute.

Oh, btw, the House starts a budget. It's been RINO for a couple years now, and they had enough votes to block anything they wanted to for about 6 years before that. And there's not a whole lot of control in the Senate when nobody can override a filibuster to shut it down. Some 'control' the Democrats have, yeah, a 'majority' in the Senate, but not enough to get anything done unless they can pry votes from the Republicans and Independents. Sending a budget that makes no sense to the Senate is a guarantee it'll get shot down, so if the House decides to spend 500 billion on donuts for the homeless while defunding things like Medicare, it's gonna get shot down, even though technically it's a 'budget'.

Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[Taco Cowboy]

It is nothing wrong to criticize anyone, including criticizing the GOP, but I do find it very strange that this so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" criticizes the GOP for "hackneyed praise for NASA" while in the meantime, where were they - and I mean, that "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a "Muslim Training Camp to outer-space " ?

If you do not know what I mean ... Obama instructed NASA's administrator Charles Bolden to turn NASA into a sort of "training camp for Muslims" via a Muslim Outreach Program in order "to ind a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/07/07/nasas_muslim_outreach_106214.html

How come we never heard from the so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a zoo ?
 

Re:Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

How come we never heard from the so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a zoo ?

Because he didn't. The idea of using NASA as form of interntaional outreach has been there for decades - NASA is a "halo" program for th US and is thus one of our best forms of PR. Reagan even made a speech where he said:

"We can find there's yet undiscovered avenues where American and Soviet citizens can cooperate fruitfully for the benefit of mankind. In science and technology we can launch new joint space ventures."

And BTW, that shit worked too. NASA's outreach programs have paid handsome dividends for America. We would never have had the Ansari X-Prize if Anousheh Ansari hadn't been inspired by NASA as a child in Iran.

Re:Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reagen had a working manned space program. The Obummer has ... yeah ... ummm ... He has a credit line with the Russians so we can hitchike to the space station. And that's it. All he got. A failing credit line.

Re:Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[Teancum]

It is, pure and simple. NASA has five year plans for the future and a central design bureau which marshals the economy to meet certain production quotas and every other trapping of frankly Soviet era Communism.

That is sort of why it sounds like socialism, because it sort of takes socialist ideals and pushes them to the next level.

Re:Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[jamstar7]

Bush 2 inherited what could be concievably be called a 'space program'. He looted it for pork, then shut the Shuttle down because it was getting unsafe. Then he got ambitious to provide yet more pork by coming up with the Aries systems. Congress was right to kill them, but wrong to replace them with SLS.

When NASA does hard science, they can't be beat. It's when they get stuck fighting over the scraps that Congress hands them after passing out the pork that they have trouble. And it doesn't help that the bosses they keep assigning are beancounters, either.

Re:Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[letherial]

I doubt you have any evidence of this, and i seriously doubt your in any position to understand what your talking about.

For a low budget agency, it does some amazing things; or do you not bother keeping up with what your tax dollars are doing?

Re:Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[symbolset]

Labelling NASA missions as pork is how we deprecate them between administrations so as to prevent them from providing too much progress. Every prior administration's NASA budget is pork. And in4-8 years this one will be too.

Re:Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[Teancum]

A multi-billion dollar agency is "low budget"? I think that speaks volumes about the size of the federal government and how it is out of control than necessarily the priority given to the federal government.

Still, look at where all of these projects within NASA are being planned? It is in a central design bureau either at Huntsville Alabama or at NASA HQ in Washington DC. Everything is being done in a top down approach. Sure, an ordinary citizen could have some suggestions in terms of what should happen (and will almost always be ignored with perhaps a polite letter in response) but it is the central planners who are making the decisions. In fact it is seen as "the space program".

Keep in mind that until very recently only government employees ever went into space. There were a couple of employees of space contractors that ended up going through the NASA astronaut training course, but until Dennis Tito (who ended up having to use a Russian Soyuz space capsule because NASA wouldn't let private passengers fly on the Space Shuttle.... oh the irony) there wasn't any way a private individual could go into space on their own. In fact until now the only way to get into space on your own dime has been to pay the Russians as somehow America forgot that free enterprise was even possible.

This is also one of the things that has been holding back the development of space, as government efforts in space have all but shut out private efforts to go into space. Even now, you need special permission from people who are very reluctant to give that permission to even try and get into space in the form of launching Earth observation satellites or doing anything else in space. Very reluctant to the point they laugh in your face if you even suggest you are going to put something into space without government money. That is changing, but too damn slow in my opinion and it is precisely because of this Soviet style central planning bureau which has been running "the space program" in America which is expected to do everything for everybody.

In the 1970's there was a group led by former original Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton (who also was the chief astronaut for NASA for a great many years) that ended up developing a rocket system called the Conestoga rocket. Pretty much they did almost exactly what SpaceX is doing today, but this was the 1970's and not the 2010's. They even sent a few spacecraft into the sky and even passed through the Kármán line more than a couple time.

What ended up killing this rocket system and this company was not the technical capabilities of those involved, but rather because bureaucrats at NASA wanted so bad to prove that the Space Shuttle was a viable concept that they ended up killing the emerging private commercial spaceflight industry before it got going. The Space Shuttle (keep in mind this was designed and operated by government employees at the time.... United Launch Alliance didn't form until the Reagan administration) was seen as the vehicle which would do everything for everybody including the U.S. Air Force and for that matter any other federal agency or even private group. As a part of that effort to prove that the Shuttle was viable, when inquiries were made about how much it would cost to put cargo on the Space Shuttle (or to even ride on the Shuttle as a passenger.... yes that did indeed happen and was promised in the 1970's) some incredibly unrealistically low prices were announced. The price was unrealistic because they were proposing that the Space Shuttle would be having weekly flights to meet this "commercial" demand and that NASA was planning on running the STS system like an airline... just owned by the government (and designed and operated by the government too I might add).

As a practical matter, all of the promises made by NASA (the big central design bureau I should note here as well) simply didn't work out. Not only were the prices unrealistically low (there wasn't r

Re:Who is behind the Space Frontier Foundation ?

[jamstar7]

Labelling NASA missions as pork is how we deprecate them between administrations so as to prevent them from providing too much progress. Every prior administration's NASA budget is pork. And in4-8 years this one will be too.

Nonono, looted FOR pork, as in, funding they could safely cut away to give to their campaign contributors, though your definitition provides the 'justification' for doing so.

16 Trillion reasons

[nevermindme]

16 Trillion reasons not to spend more than keeping life support on for NASA. When there are less than 50% of US citizens are dependent on some type of federal aid to keep above bankruptcy it might be time to go to the moon. And when college students can afford to pay tuition from the earnings of part time job and not finance the basic education until there retirement perhaps mars would be in reach of American Astronauts. We will need to go backwards for a bit to rebuild ourselves.

Re:16 Trillion reasons

[ancientt]

You make a good case. I think I'm in favor of government spending on big technology projects and NASA's 0.5% slice of spending makes me feel like we're placing our priorities in the wrong place. When you mention the debt though, and I realize my personal share is $51,147.22 as it stands today, I really want to see us reprioritize. Debt is 103% of GDP right now and that's a pretty shocking figure. When you try to figure out how to deal with a debt like that, you need a growing economy or a shrinking budget, or preferably both.

Most economic theories I hear essentially say that you have to spend government (my!) money to make the economy grow, but there are solid arguments that making business more profitible makes the economy grow. (I won't defend either too strongly but look into the Laffer curve and Hauser's Law to see some of the points.) So I can't really decide. Which is better for most people in a sluggish economy, a shrinking or a growing government spending program?

(Apologies to my economics teachers who tried really hard to make me understand this type of stuff.)

Re:16 Trillion reasons

[symbolset]

Come on. That's just funny money anyway. Nobody seriously believes that debt will ever be paid, do they? Even now we have candidates for national office crowing about how they're each going to reduce the tax burden that doesn't even come close to covering running expenses.

Re:16 Trillion reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is better for most people in a sluggish economy, a shrinking or a growing government spending program?

You're supposed to both: in a sluggish economy, you cut taxes and increase spending, running a budget deficit until it recovers. You pay for this by, in the good times, keeping taxes high and spending low, to pay down your debt.

Unfortunately, the US ran a budget deficit through the good times, too.

Re:16 Trillion reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Most economic theories I hear essentially say that you have to spend government (my!) money to make the economy grow, but there are solid arguments that making business more profitible makes the economy grow. (I won't defend either too strongly but look into the Laffer curve and Hauser's Law to see some of the points.) So I can't really decide. Which is better for most people in a sluggish economy, a shrinking or a growing government spending program?

(Apologies to my economics teachers who tried really hard to make me understand this type of stuff.)

"Most economic theories" you hear are named after John Maynard Keynes. Essentially, his idea was that the government would collect higher taxes during times of growth to generate a surplus that could then be pushed back into the economy during downturns. This theory was based upon two major assumptions: 1) A natural cycle of the economy exists in which growth is followed by recession of roughly equal magnitude, so that if you squished the resulting sine wave down by averaging it, the resulting straight line would provide a measurable, linear upward trend with respect to time. 2) Reducing the intensity of periods of growth(via increased taxing) and recession(via cash reserve-funded stimulus) would reduce the drain on the economy due to the volatility of the cycle. I like to think of it as reducing the increase in entropy.

In short, if you reduce the intensity of recessions and growth periods, you reduce the money lost due to market volatility.

  That money saved turns into additional growth. The calculations required to confirm the practical effectiveness of the application of this theory are largely concerned with whether the efficiency of tax collection and stimulus disbursement by the government(losses include administrative overhead, uneven distribution of stimulus money, government response time in adjusting for these up- and downturns and reliability of predictions relating to the length of each cycle) results in a boon greater or less than the actual benefit the economy receives through a decrease in economic entropy.

Mathematically speaking, you're trying to figure out the value of the coefficient of the function f ' ' (economic growth), that describes the economic loss due to the energy drained by the acceleration of growth.

A good analogy might be a car on a highway. Cruising, the air drag of the vehicle is not dependent upon the large weight of the vehicle(weight being the size of the economy, velocity being the rate of change of growth of the economy). When accelerating, you must expend large amounts of energy because the force required to do so is based upon that large weight rather than the small drag coefficient. Ideally, you would want to minimize the amount of energy spent on acceleration in order to spend the largest part of your available energy reserves on making forward progress.

Re:16 Trillion reasons

[ancientt]

Well said, thank you for putting it so clearly.

It does bias my opinion though. Where is all the money from our strong economic peroids? Spending like crazy during both cycles seems to be the standard for government. If you can't manage your debt because you can't stop spending whether you're in a boom or recession, then you crash, whether as an individual, a business or a government. I don't like crashing. I'm worried now that it is becoming harder and harder to avoid because, with a better understanding of Keynes theory comes a better understanding of how our government has failed to apply it.

Re:So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventur

[cpu6502]

And vice-versa: The DNC to bankrupt the country by overfunding projects. ("I want to redistribute the wealth"..... into billion-dollar tours of space tourist spots.)

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

then you should hate reagan, bush 1, and bush 2 who caused the great portion of it with deficit-creating tax breaks on the wealthy.

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[Rockoon]

Clearly those taxes would have grabbed nearly 10% of the entire countries GDP, and without those taxes we obviously created the $1.3 trillion dollar deficit. You are sooooo right that there wouldn't be any deficit without those tax cuts.

Are you picking up what I am putting down?

Re:Who gives a fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, there are lots of us. Wait until November and we shall see.

You seem to be quite happy to throw around insults, but suspiciously light in the area of facts.

Listen to me drone, do you have a job? Did you pay taxes last year? Assuming yes, did you pay the Bush rate or the higher Clinton rate? Answer truthfully drone.

It's so much fun to get you libtards ranting!

Nice try.

GOP = Space Police, Libs = Space Destroyers

[Anonymous Coward]

And where exactly is the correct solution to all of this? It sure isn't in politics.

"less fat" vs "more filling" more like it

[Alimony Pakhdan]

There maybe 1,000 abstract reasons to keep throwing humans into nowhere but its difficult to come up with one reason people can understand.

The Not So Dark Age Is Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Where progress is stymied by myopic greed and education becomes indentured servitude.
 
So sad.

Because he DIDN'T ???

[Taco Cowboy]

How come we never heard from the so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a zoo ?

Because he didn't.

Partisanship can only go so far, buddy, and when you cross the line you are telling a BIG FLAT LIE !
 
How do you explain this ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVM1ASIxwWI

Or are you saying that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is a liar ?
 
Obama has instructed Charles Bolden to " find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering "
 
As report by The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7875584/Barack-Obama-Nasa-must-try-to-make-Muslims-feel-good.html
San Francisco Examiner http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/nasa039s-muslim-outreach-al-jazeera-told-first
  and the White House itself never denied the existence of that "MUSLIM OUTREACH PROGRAM" http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2010/07/white-house-nasa-defend-comments-about-nasa-outreach-to-muslim-world-criticized-by-conservatives/
 
Sir, if you want to comment, comment away, but please, stop lying !
 

Re:Because he DIDN'T ???

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Or are you saying that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is a liar ?

I'm saying that in the context of the interview it was clear Bolden was only talking about outreach programs. Listen to what he says in the link YOU provided.

1) Re-inspire children to get into science and math
2) He wanted to expand our international relationships
3) Third and perhaps foremost he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the muslim world.

None of those items are about going to space, they are all directions for outreach programs.

That's all he's talking about -- none of this bullshit about "turning NASA into a zoo." Just direction for outreach programs, the kind of thing NASA has been doing practically from day one.

What is it with this fauxbama shit? There's tons of real policy issues to critize the guy on, why do so many people like you insist on going after fairy tales?

Re:Because he DIDN'T ???

[Teancum]

I have no doubt that after Charles Bolden was appointed by Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate, that Bolden had a serious sit down meeting in the Oval Office discussing outreach efforts on the part of NASA.

Other than the hype, I think it was a pretty good idea. There have been Muslims who have flown on the Space Shuttle (including a Saudi prince), and if there could be a way to have the children of the Middle East and other Muslim countries to have a role model which exemplifies the exploration of space and that living in the 21st Century has some benefits worth trying to examine, I think it is a pretty good thing.

I would also agree with you in terms of looking through what NASA has done over the past couple of years under the leadership of Bolden to see what exactly has accomplished that shows any sort of "selling out" or even making such outreach to Muslim countries something that impacts the other programs of the agency.

For myself, I very much like Obama's space policy and those who hate it usually are partisan hacks who can't find anything good to say about somebody they perceive as "the enemy". The real truth is that space policy over the past 40 years (since the Nixon administration) has been nearly a disaster and so screwed up (under both Democrat and Republican administrations... it was an equal opportunity screw up) that almost any change could have been better.

Obama in this case seemed to want to do something that was "not Bush". Literally NASA's policies were so screwed up under Bush that doing the exact opposite was an improvement. Bush inherited an awful program too, but then again so did Clinton.

Re:Because he DIDN'T ???

[symbolset]

As an ambivalent agnostic pantheistic solistic Christian Buddhist (exploratory Jew and Mormon) I have to still confess that Muslim nations have a considerable history of contributions to science and math. To encourage this aspect of their tradition above their current predisposition for religious extremism seems a good thing since they're proud of this heritage too and not willing to give it up even for the bomb vest.

In case you're wondering what that description of my religion is: I don't know if you exist or I do, if I'm making the universe up by myself or in concert with others, but just in case I am not: Jesus had some good lessons, but "know yourself and let go" is cool too. Keep one day a week (pick one!) to not make iPhones, and lay off the liquor and caffeine unless you're in the company of the forever forgiven incapable of sin.

Did I do that right? Did I forget somebody?

Re:Because he DIDN'T ???

[symbolset]

What is it with this fauxbama shit?

It's silly season. There's going to be a lot of this on both sides. It's unsavory, but unfortunately it does work for some fraction of the electorate, enough so that both sides must play this stupid game no matter how much they hate it. I regret it as much as you do.

Not only...

[Anonymous Coward]

Our government (no matter who might have presided in 2009) inherited a failed economy as a direct result of the financial and anti-fiduciary deregulation in the banking industry designed to facilitate an ideologically and morally bankrupt return to the days of pre-1929 hucksterism that allowed the mortgage banking system to become the piggy-bank of unscrupulous, derivative peddlers on Wall Street. This after a succession of high frequency boom and bust cycles a la Greenspanism.

If you believe anyone in the White House in 2009 had any real choice but to increase the national debt along with the federal deficit and bail out the banking system as well as the auto industry after the previous administration financed the ENTIRE cost of both wars in Afghanistan and Iraq WITHOUT including either in the budget and instead declaring them to fall into the category of emergency spending (year after year for 6 years) then you must be Rumpled Still Skin. You have to remember that the Bush Tax Cuts brought the federal revenues to well below their historical average at a time when he created DHS and staffed it with 10,000 bran spanking new UNION employees. (Yes, that's right, the Republicans created 10,000 new federal union employees under Bush.)

How or why the Republicans thought they could turn this scenario into an opportunity to lay down their responsibility to help lead and become nothing more than obstructionist whiners is completely beyond me. But after 4 years of nothing, they seem bound and determined to fall back on the same old bullshit, claiming about lowering taxes for the wealthy will result in an ether that magically issues forth jobs.

You have to remember that after the stable wealth of the middle class was assailed, during a decade of increasingly bad mortgage contracts, which were used by the big brains in CitiGroup, JPMC, Traveler's, etc., the Fortune 500 pulled the plugs on the jobs that helped those mortgage holders stay afloat. These in turn brought down the house of crap that was used to back the collateralized debt obligations that had been peddled all over Europe, China and Japan.

That's right, our own banking industry sold crap to our biggest creditors, while it destabilized the debtors they'd lined up to back that debt that was supposed to provide the revenue to pay off the bonds created by the hucksters on Wall Street who elected the politicians who gutted the legislation that was created in the 1930's after Pecora held the hearings that determined the cause of the crash. This is what had led to Glass-Steagle Act that was supposed to protect us from the risk that the investment banks had once proved was unsustainable on the backs of small investors with mortgages at the bottom of the food chain that was toppled 80 years beforehand during the Roaring 20's.

Too bad you don't like Obama, he's actually led when the Republicans wouldn't and help bring the U.S. economy back from the brink while continuing to wage the wars that Bush created and exacerbated with a foreign policy that looked so much like expansionism that even the Europeans gave up on it.

Re:Not only...

[ganjadude]

Just to be clear, I was as much against bush as I am obama, I dont think "they are the same" I think they equally are bad presidents however. Bush did a lot of stupid things, and living just outside of NYC, I have seen more than most when it comes to the federal government getting in our shit. Bush built up the government, but IMO obama took it to an entire new level. I have not seen anything that i personally find good that he has done. I think we need to shrink the federal government by around 80% and give most of the power back to the states, as was intended

Soon it won't matter.

[T-Bucket]

Seriously, none of this will matter in a few years. At the rate we're LOSING space capability we won't even be able to use a telescope by the end of the decade. 40+ years ago we could land on the moon, now we're paying the russians to send people into space for us. It's embarassing. What the hell is left to have partisan fights over?!? Where we're going to spend the money they yank from what used to be the space program budget?

Re:So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventur

[jamstar7]

The GOP is all about the big business. Boeing, Lockheed, et al would have folded if not for government cost-plus contracts that pay even when nothing is delivered, and have all those nifty cost overruns built right into them. It's The Way It's Done in the aerospace industry. If they manage to get control of both Congress and the White House, expect the 'traditional' aerospace companies to be deregulated and piled in pork while outfits like SpaceX get buried under red tape. Can't have these young upstarts changing The Way It's Done, especially with the next round of elections only a bit over 2 years away...

Re:So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventur

[AK Marc]

So you prefer deficit caused by overspending and taxing the next generation, compared to a deficit caused by overspending.and taxing the current generation. I don't see a difference. And the Republicans are fiscal conservatives like the sun is cold.

Re:Fairy Tales? Go ask "Space Frontier Foundation"

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What about the people of OTHER RELIGION? Don't they deserve any attention from NASA?

Why that specific religion and not other religion?

Is that your definition of a "zoo" now? Really? As if focusing outreach programs on a third of the world's population is really "turning NASA into a zoo."

But to answer your question, how about the fact they are probably the largest group of people with which the USA could really use an improvement in relations with? Kind of like how we had terrible relations with a certain other group of people during the 80s, you know the entire freaking soviet bloc.

Feel the burn

[SuperKendall]

Hundreds of billions going to what? People's salaries, government contractors, and some natural resources. The money isn't being burnt

Yes it is.

That is a MASSIVE opportunity cost from what private industry could have done with the same funds.

For every NASA worker private industry could probably hire two or more people. For every billion spent private industry could have created 10 billion in return for every billion spent, if it had not been taken from them.

I love NASA, NASA did thigns no-one else could have done and has a massive amount of experience on tap. But the age of large government is nearing a close, and we must move to a world where private industry takes on the role NASA once did. Only then will we start seeing real innovation in space travel again, including more actual space TRAVEL.

Re:Feel the burn

[asylumx]

For every NASA worker private industry could probably hire two or more people.

Ah, but they won't. That would cut into their profit margins -- something the gov't doesn't have to be concerned with. I have watched plenty of fortune 500, multi-billion dollar companies work with skeleton teams to accomplish their goals. If we're going to be serious about space travel, skeleton crews on the ground are not going to cut it.

So back to your statement... It's possibly true that private industry *could* hire two or more people for every one NASA employs, however it is also highly unlikely they would do that unless they were forced to.

Re:Feel the burn

[GNious]

Skeleton crews on the launch-vehicles, shuttles, spacestations - that would work, since they weigh less and store easily for transport!

what?

Re:Feel the burn

[asylumx]

skeleton crews on the ground are not going to cut it

Not sure what part of "on the ground" you missed, but most of the launch-vehicles, shuttles and space stations are intended to not be on the ground.

Re:Fairy Tales? Go ask "Space Frontier Foundation"

[Taco Cowboy]

I am responding to the "fauxbama shit", not the "zoo" thing

Can't you read?

Re:Fairy Tales? Go ask "Space Frontier Foundation"

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I am responding to the "fauxbama shit", not the "zoo" thing

Can't you read?

Ok, so you are saying that your original point is now indefensible.

Mixed/non-sensical metaphors

[wonkey_monkey]

Partisan Food Fight

What does this mean? Is "food fight" a well-known metaphor for something? This situation doesn't sound like good-natured, if creamy, horseplay.

Now, one organization is throwing fuel on the political fire.

Okay, which idiot brought fuel to a food fight?

It's about time everyone put their battleaxes back in the scabbard. They've made their cake, and now they have to lie in it.

Re:Mixed/non-sensical metaphors

[RocketAcademy]

"Food fight" is a well-known metaphor for political partisans who are acting like children.

Re:Mixed/non-sensical metaphors

[steelfood]

They've made their cake, and now they have to lie in it.

The cake is a lie.

Reduce mercury pollution by $6 million?

[sturle]

This sentence from Mitt Romney just doesn't compute:

For example, his “Utility MACT” rule is purportedly aimed at reducing mercury pollution, yet the EPA estimates that the rule will cost $10 billion to reduce mercury pollution by only $6 million (with an “m”).

How do you reduce mercury pollution by "$6 million"? Does this guy have any idea what mercury is?

Democratic platform has specific goals

[GoatCheez]

If you look at the responses to the ScienceDebate.org questionnaire, it's clear where each party stands. Romney (and the GOP) want the NASA budget to stay fixed, and want to focus on developing technology that serves for military purposes. Obama (and the Democratic party) have solid goals for space exploration that includes utilizing the private sector to achieve asteroid mining and mars exploration.

overrated

[Anonymous Coward]

overrated != i disagree with your comment, knock that shit off mods

Re:So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventur

[steelfood]

Boeing, Lockheed, et al would have folded if not for government cost-plus contracts that pay even when nothing is delivered, and have all those nifty cost overruns built right into them.

It also subsidizes the civilian arms of these companies, as well as heavily promotes aerospace research within them. Military research projects can eventually find use in civilian contexts.

Not to say that there isn't a better way, but there are benefits to the general public. My inclination is to see this money go to universities, and knowledge to go into the public domain, since it's government-funded. But government funding some research is better than none.

Of course, given the state of science and technology education in the states these days, in 20 years, these companies will have trouble finding people to do military research (which requires clearance). That, and nobody will want to build anything for fear of "IP" lawsuits, those from patent trolls being the most damaging overall.

Re:So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventur

[cpu6502]

Would rather have taxdollars funding aerospace & defense (note I said defense, not offensive war) than the Democrat methodology of funding green companies that eventually go bankrupt (Solyndra was merely the first of several dozen), or building trains that run into the middle of the California desert where nobody lives, or extending subways from the edge of Baltimore to the edge of the mountains (these new extensions average a mere 2 persons per trip). Waste, waste, and more waste. Except they do achieve their primary goal: Win votes for reelection.

Re:So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventur

[cpu6502]

>>>So you prefer deficit caused by overspending and taxing the next generation, compared to a deficit caused by overspending.and taxing the current generation.

Strawman argument.
False diochotomy (my only two choices are deficit spending or deficit spending). And just plain lame method of argument. I prefer *zero* deficit spending.

Re:So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventur

[AK Marc]

So, writing in Mickey Mouse in November?

Re:So GOP doesn't have enough private space ventur

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer *zero* deficit spending.

That seems an odd thing to claim, considering how you've also said that you will not be voting this November.

If you're not gonna vote, but you are gonna bitch about the Democrats spending, that implies at least a passive acceptance of Republican spending.