Bush announced the new space initiative for NASA and the nation this afternoon. Not too many surprises for those who have been following the discussion over the last six days. Read it and weep (or cheer). Discuss…
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It’s officialBush announced the new space initiative for NASA and the nation this afternoon. Not too many surprises for those who have been following the discussion over the last six days. Read it and weep (or cheer). Discuss… 18 comments to It’s official |
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I think the plan is as good as any of us could have ever realistically hoped for, all of our grand plans, visions and impossible wishes aside. Of course “we” want more, but that’s because we’re a special interest and put a higher priority on space than anyone else. However, if any of us had been asked a year or two ago if we thought the president, any president, would call for a return to the Moon and on to Mars anytime soon or even in our lifetimes, I think we all would have answered “no”. Today is, as Mr. O’Keefe said, an historic day.
Matt
(disclaimer: I’m quite biased as I’m an on again/off again worker at KSC. I’m also thinking jobs and cash for the local economy)
Has anyone considered that this is perhaps just an election year ploy which will fall by the wayside when it is no longer needed to make the American public feel good?
Perhaps it was just me, but did it seem like Bush tried to avoid the “M Word” as much as he could? He mentioned Mars fleetingly (a total of four times), and then, only as a possibilty in the vague category of “ever more ambitious missions.” I believe he made the wrong decision in choosing to make the Moon and not Mars the centerpiece of his new space vision.
Well, I think the President’s plan is in the ball park. That is, I support keeping ISS as a staging area for the next two decades, I support shutting down Shuttle after ISS construction complete, I support going back to the Moon, and I support development of an interplanetary modular vehicle system (the Crew Exploration Vehicle). However, the whole thing is missing two vital components: the ability to access space routinely using a resuable launch vehicle (R&D should go on behind the scenes, ultimately producing a vehicle replacing the CEV-EELV combination), and the commercial aspect of space development.
People will rightly ask if this plan is worth it (despite the fact that NASA’s budget is less than one percent of the national budget). If we say it is because we must explore and related reasons, the package will not sell effectively. However, if we couch the plan as an economic development plan, there is a chance support for it will gather strength. For example, the government can say that it is “seeding” near Earth space for the purpose of creating new opportunites for generations in the future – to perpetuate the nation through innovation, employment, and entreprenuership, and so on. By setting up, say, a set of telescopes and so forth on the far side of the Moon, the government can be a client for commercial access and services for astronauts living and working at the site. The point is, it must be a government-industry initiative as well as a U.S.-international (governments and industries) initiative.
Why pay to re-fit the shuttle orbiter only to scrap it five years from now? How much will we spend for “on orbit” repair capability for example.
Isn’t this like buying new tires for a car you intend to drive to the junkyard?
Ground the orbiter today and finish the ISS with this shuttle B variant. Twice the payload at half the cost.
Here is a link – –
http://www.nsschapters.org/ny/nyc/Shuttle-Derived%20Vehicles%20Modified.pdf
Then in 2010 the US will retain the ability to throw large amounts of mass into LEO. By the way, has anyone seen specifications for the CEV?
It’s illogical to think this is just an election-year ploy. First off, Mr. Bush has never been known to emphasize grand goals and then just forget them after elections, as most politicians seem to do. He has, for better or worse (in my mind wors), followed through on the major things he’s promised in the past. In any case, there won’t be a great public groundswell of people deciding to vote for him based on this. the public is fairly split on the subject anyway. I think people who are inclined to vote for him anyway, will do so. And those who aren’t, won’t, regardless of their support for this plan. the reason is because this is a long-term plan. If we were landing a man on the moon THIS year, then you might be right that this is a political ploy. However, that event won’t happen for at least 11 years. People don’t vote today based on something that might or might not happen 11 years from now. And while we space supporters might be more or less likely to vote for someone based on his stance on space exploration, the vast majority of the American people won’t. The public has never had space as one of its criteria in national elections. Not even during the great Moon race. Even then space wasn’t an issue. If it was, Nixon wouldn’t have been elected.
I should add that the first budget supporting the new plan is the FY 2005 budget, for the fiscal year that begins in October. That’s too late for it to have any practical political effect in the 2004 elections.
The efforts to define a vision for NASA began in 2001 to early 2002, far in advance of any thought of political strategy for 2004. And had it not been for Columbia, this plan would likely have been proposed last year. There simply was no “conspiracy” to come up with an election year issue for the president. The facts and timeline of the process as it played out simply do not support such a cynical suspicion. True, this will factor into the election and the president will use it as an issue hopefully to his advantage, but that’s more of a seideffect of the coincidence that it’s 2004 than it is the result of a 2 year-long plot involving most of the Cabinet, industry experts, consultants and others in order to get Bush re-elected (that was the prescription drug plan). Keith cowing and Frank Sietzen are writing a 3-part story on how the plan came about, starting in November of 2001. For those who think Bush is being purely political, it would be educational to read the article.
I realize many people want to think that everything the president does is for purely political purposes and he couldn’t possibly actually care about space. I think that’s a backlash from past presidents, for whom most actions were purely symbolic, ineffectual and for political posture. It’s sad we’ve become so cynical. But I’ll say this much, whatever the motivations of the new policy and vision, it IS the new policy and vision and now it’s up to the American people (you and me) to put the pressure on to see it comes true.
I agree with Matthew. President Bush did not want to make the same mistake his father did during the infamous Mars speech. Besides which, it could be argued that making an announcement to go to the Moon and Mars is not politically astute given the skitishness people are feeling with government spending on Iraq, tax refunds, and so forth.
It should be noted that a new space policy was being worked on well before the Columbia accident, but the loss of that vehicle spurred aggressive action.
After sleeping on it, however, I’m convinced the plan will not work. It should have been a National Space Economic Development Plan. A plan like this implies sustainability, since the plan announced by the President is largely dependent on annual budget cycles and the whims of elected officials. Indeed, another terrorist attack would derail the space effort entirely to the point of being unable to recover in a cost effective way and we’ll be back to square one (or Planet One…). Sustainability is the key, and this can only be achieved through free market systems or imperial power. Since we don’t have and don’t want the latter, the free market system wins out.
Seems to me Cheney with his Haliburton outfit would like this approach.
I think it’s pretty obvious that one of the key reasons Bush has decided to push this issue is because of the 2004 elections. It allows him to appeaer to have “the vision thing” which he has often seemed to lack, and which likely cost his father the 1992 election.
But if it’s a ploy, so what? I disagree with the President on nearly every issue, and up until a few weeks ago, I was certain to vote for whomever the Democrats end up nominating. Now, I am certain to vote for President Bush in November.
One has to face facts: the entire cause of space exploration now lies in Bush’s reelection. The Democrats cannot support this program, if for no other reason than that it is Bush’s program. On the other hand, they can’t categorically oppose it, either, because that will allow the Republicans to brand them as cynics and short-term thinkers who have no vision. The Democrats will end up maintaining the same position on space exploration they have always held, which is no position at all. They’ll try to pretend the issue doesn’t exist.
Imagine if Bush loses this November. Having gone down to defeat after having attempted the boldest space initiative since the Apollo program, the political strategists in both parties will see it as a critical lesson. The result will be that we will have NO major space initiative for at least a generation, if ever.
While it is true that announcing a new space policy can make the President appear to have a bold new vision for our future, the political gamble is too great to simply dismiss it as a campaign ploy. I imagine campaign advisors would have nixed such an announcement until his second term. In any event, the space policy work began awhile ago, well before the 2004 campaign.
On another note, while I applaud Bush’s space plan as at least a step forward, I will not vote for him in 2004. As important as space is to me, I am not a single issue voter. Bush is not a deep man, and he does not seem to have a curiosity about anything. He may be honorable and decent, but that’s not enough. His cadre of deep thinkers is also responsible for fouling up our nation’s international reputation. I want something more in my President, and so far no one fits the bill (and no one has, actually, since I started voting in 1988).
Besides, Bush’s space plan will almost certainly fail anyway. I remind readers that the right step (in my opinion, of course) is a space economic development plan.
Perhaps the purpose of the Moon/Mars announcement is to draw attention away from the growing body of evidence suggesting that the war in Iraq was predicated on lies and innuendo and was more or less a done deal shortly after GW took office. Surely that would be more problematic for Bush to deal with than this Moon/Mars plan.
The whys of it don’t matter. Whatever is necessary in order to reinvigorate the space program must be done. Nothing in politics is ever simple or pretty.
One detyail often being overlooked: in the mess that was the Republican-controlled redistricting of the Texas congressional districts, House Majority Leader Tom Delay’s district now includes the Johnson Space Center. This means that the most powerful member of the House of Representatives has a vested interest in an expanded space program. While I am far from a fan of Delay, this cannot help but be a good thing for NASA.
“Whatever is necessary in order to reinvigorate the space program must be done.”
Although people are often fond of making these sorts of anything goes type statements, I don’t think you really mean this. Certainly you would recognize *some* limits on what is allowable in pursuit of reinvigorating the space program, would you not?
“He that makes a profession of goodness in everything must, of necessity, come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, in order for a prince to maintain his position, he must learn how to do evil, and to use that knowledge or not, depending on the circumstances.”
Machiavelli wrote that nearly five hundred years ago, but it remains as true in today’s politics as it was then. He didn’t see anything particularly moral or immoral about this- it was simply reality.
Space exploration has gone nowhere in the last thirty years largely because there was never a political reason to do more than maintain the status quo. There has never been a pro-space political force with either the strength or the willpower to push its agenda. Politicians listen to groups like the NRA, the AARP, the Christian Coalition and so forth precisely because those groups are willing to do what it takes to get politicians to support their points of view.
Of course, the President would have done much to further the cause of space exploration had he actually bothered to MENTION space exploration in the State of the Union!
Just as a point of clarification so that I am sure before I say anything further, Anaxagoras, you are indeed seriously suggesting that there ought to be no limits on what it is acceptable to do in order to reinvigorate the space program? I didn’t see a clear yes or no, but that is how I read your comments where you quote Machiavelli.
A historical analogy is in order:
Wernher von Braun sold his soul to the Nazis in order to receive the support he needed to build his rockets, which he always wanted to use for spaceflight. The rockets were constructed with slave labor under conditions which cost untold numbers of lives. Von Braun’s work was then turned into a weapon of indiscriminate slaughter, targeting defenseless civilians and killing tens of thousands.
Obviously, this is morally out of the question today (as it should have been then) and no decent human being would even remotely consider going to such lengths in order to further the cause of space exploration.
So, no: obviously, there must be certain limits to what should be done to further the cause of space exploration. At the same time, the realities of political life require compromises to be made in order to achieve one’s objectives.
Now a hypothetical is in order:
Suppose a member of Congress is asked to vote a certain way on the question of abortion (and to avoid starting an off-the-subject debate, I’m not going to say what my position is). At the same time, he or she is trying to push through a major space exploration initiative. This Congressman is told that he will get the support he needs to push through his initiative, but in exchange he will have to vote a certain way on the abortion bill, namely, the opposite of what he himself feels is morally correct.
Machivelli would advise this person to get over his own personal feelings on the subjec of abortion, seeing as space exploration is his true object. Therefore, he must do something which he feels is evil if he is going to accomplish his objective.
Every such situation which arises will be unique and will always have to be judged separately. However, if people seriously want to start pushing space exploration in a major way, they may have to take actions that they might otherwise never consider.
Ths is true of any political issue, of course, but I have always felt that the main reason why space exploration has gone nowhere in thirty years was because there was never an organized political force with the strength and willpower to push it through the muck that is the American political system.
My, my, isn’t that a solid case for space exploration- sure we may have to steal from or kill some people in the process, but the important thing to remember is that space exploration is the true object so there’s no need to worry about the appropriateness or consequences of our actions.
With Machiavelli as a role model, I’m sure you have a bright future in politics ahead of you.
I don’t recall saying anything about stealing from or killing people. I was discussing political compromise.
As for Machiavelli, if you can find me a successful politician who did not follow the lessons of Machiavelli, I’d be very impressed. He was not advocating what should or should not be done- he was simply discribing political reality as he saw it, and he saw it more clearly than anyone else, before or since.