Over at The Space Review I have an article about a talk on Saturday by Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of the members of the President’s Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond (aka the Aldridge Commission). Tyson offered several interesting tidbits about the commission and its work, and he hinted that he also played a small role in shaping the policy itself by helping Sean O’Keefe draft a presentation for the president on the proposed policy. During his talk Tyson stressed the need for the new initiative to be as bipartisan as possible, because “space initiatives have longer baselines than political cycles.” He also noted that the commission considered inviting Sen. John Kerry to testify at a public hearing, but dropped those plans out of concerns that the remaining Democratic candidates might demand equal time. Still, he said the commission is planning to have some “powerful Democrats” appear at the commission’s final public hearing in New York in early May.
Tyson gets my support. Spot on about the need for a bi-partisan vision.
Frankly, I believe a more important test for the “Bush space vision” will be the election of 2008, not the election of 2004. After all, very little actually happens under the Bush vision between 2004 and 2008 except the implementation of CAIB; sending up a handful of ISS components; and spending some seed money on CEV/OSP.
Jeff’s article includes this paragraph:
>> To further illustrate his point, Tyson displayed the famous “layer cake” chart that shows the proposed budgets for major NASA programs through 2020, illustrating how the wedge for the exploration program grows as other programs, notably the space shuttle and space station, are phased out. He admitted, though, that there is a risk that as the shuttle and station programs end, those funds might get moved out of NASA entirely. “My nightmare is that we have a next President who does not want any part of this vision,” he said, “but still allows the space shuttle to cancel itself out, does not top off the budget, and everything washes down the drain.” He said that the commission is “sensitive” to such a possibility, and will try to offer strategies to minimize that possibility.
= = =
This is exactly why I favor using shuttle C to help finish ISS. If shuttle C is actually flying before January 2009, both to help finish ISS and as in *integral part* of the next steps aimed at the Moon and Mars, it will be harder for the next President to kill and walk away from that program.
Employees in Florida and Michoud will rally to maintain the program as well.
Suppose 2010 or 2011 comes and STS ends – – even if CEV is on schedule, man-rating of CEV is not expected until 2014.
Therefore grabbing all those STS budget savings will be tempting. Since the elimination of Project Constellation would not be cutting an existing program with an operational craft but the cutting a future as of yet unfinished program, it will be far easier to do.
Jeff – thanks for that summary – I was really hoping to be there, but had family commitments and couldn’t make it.
Was there much commentary from the group at Tyson’s talk? How big a crowd did they get?
By the way, on the subject of sustainability…
I’ve been floating the idea of a “National Space Board”, to oversee NASA and other government-funded civilian space efforts – the idea is this would work like the National Science Board that governs the National Science Foundation, and offers general advice to the president and congress on science funding policy.
The idea is to have an independent board that reviews all the proposals for “missions” or “projects” – including space enabling legislation or other efforts that may not actually cost the government anything. Projects would have time and cost estimates from NASA or the other agencies, and the board would prioritize and select items for funding (given continuing funding at about current levels) for something like 5 years at a time.
The intention is to provide stability and an extra non-political insulation layer for national space efforts. The board would be intended to be representative of all the nation’s space-interest constituencies: aerospace companies large and small, astronomy and planetary geology or other science, grassroots space activists, educators, and existing commercial users of space assets (communications satellites etc.).
Any comments on this idea?
Arthur,
I don’t have an exact head count for the Tyson meeting, but it looked like something on the order of 50 people or so in attendance. Since I normally don’t attend NSS NYC meetings (I live in DC, after all!) I don’t know if this attendance was typical or not.
Tyson spoke for about one hour, then took questions for another 45 minutes, stopping only because the event reached its scheduled end at 6 pm. He did stay around and talk with people for at least another 15 minutes or so.
That was a great article! It’s clear that Neil Tyson is being very proactive in seeking out which views are useful to the Aldridge Commission.
As someone who is trying to enter the dying field of propulsion research, I was intrigued by this quote: “We might say that you’re not spending enough on propulsion, but we’re not going to say to use this propulsion over that.” Yes, I would say that! From where I’m sitting, it’s obvious that money isn’t reaching the people who can create the next-generation propulsion systems. I thought that this was the best-kept secret until the quote above.