Comments on: Kerry and the space vision

By: Harold LaValley

Harold LaValley — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 19:27:29 +0000

Sorry Jeff: I only made mention of it since it will have a baring on the future wages for the converted Nasa sites.
It seems like every time the minimum wage has been raised. Lower wages for a given job title the employer is willing to pay is the result.

By: Jeff Foust

Jeff Foust — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 18:53:03 +0000

A reminder to Mr. LaValley and other participants that this weblog is focused on space policy issues alone. Please be sure to direct your comments to those topics relevant to space policy, and not to more general Presidential campaign issues.

By: Harold LaValley

Harold LaValley — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 18:00:12 +0000

Ok so this is not exactually a space related post but it is a Kerry related one that effects those at the bottom of the wage scale.

Kerry Proposes Raising Minimum Wage

http://galvestondailynews.com/wire.lasso?report=/dynamic/stories/K/KERRY?SITE=TXGAL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=blank.html

“Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Friday proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $7 an hour by 2007, which he contended would benefit working women more than any other group.
Kerry’s proposal, which calls for phasing in the $1.85 increase, mirrors Democratic-sponsored plans proposed in the House and Senate. President Bush has supported a federal minimum wage increase, provided that states could opt out and choose not to raise it.”

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 06:33:42 +0000

“WHAT will fly? A test module that remains 4-5 years away from the first crewed flight.”

Who knows? Whatever it is, it won’t fly in 2008 if Kerry is elected, so your post is nonsense.

“WHAT is CEV? Other than some Boeing drawings do we have a clue?”

Of course not, but whatever it is, it will be more than Boeing (or other companies’) drawings, or it won’t fly in 2008, and if it doesn’t, it reduces the probability of it going up with crew in the next decade. I don’t know why you persist in this ignorant and illogical Bush bashing and pseudo-support for Kerry.

“Next question. Are there any assurances the external tank foam insulation issue gets settled?”

Who cares?

By: Bill White

Bill White — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 05:32:42 +0000

Rand writes:

“After all orbiter return to flight and ISS completion is ALL that really happens between now and 2008 even under the Bush vision.”

Really? Then how does CEV have its first flight in that year? Under a Kerry administration, that won’t happen.”

WHAT will fly? A test module that remains 4-5 years away from the first crewed flight.

WHAT is CEV? Other than some Boeing drawings do we have a clue?

Next question. Are there any assurances the external tank foam insulation issue gets settled? What else will develop between now and orbiter return to flight?

Even if Ralph Nader or Lyndon LaRouche get elected in 2004, Congress will not allow shuttle orbiter to be re-certified indefinitely and Congress will not allow America to lose all capability to put people in space.

By: Perry A. Noriega

Perry A. Noriega — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 04:20:00 +0000

Duayne, I hope you and everyone else does not think we are enemies, or even opponents. We are both members of the space community, and although we may disagree on some things, we have much in common and a common goal in helping to create a spacefaring civilization. I have learned a lot from your books, and look forward to further postings where we both can learn from each other, and to work together as much as practicable to make spacefaring for the common people of the spacefaring nations possible. Best Regards.

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 03:23:58 +0000

What’s particularly amusing about Mr. LaValley’s cut and pasting with my responses is that it shows how dumb his comments are on two sites instead of just one.

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 03:21:48 +0000

“After all orbiter return to flight and ISS completion is ALL that really happens between now and 2008 even under the Bush vision.”

Really? Then how does CEV have its first flight in that year? Under a Kerry administration, that won’t happen.

By: Dwayne A. Day

Dwayne A. Day — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 22:58:19 +0000

Mr. Noriega wrote:
“Many of the employees at NASA who worked during the Clinton Era remarked that their response to Faster, Better, Cheaper, was that you could have any two of the three, but you could not have all three at the same time.”

And those who said this would be wrong.

NASA’s faster better cheaper approach should be counted as one of the agency’s major accomplishments during the 1990s, particularly when one considers that it met with opposition from many at NASA.

Compare the number of robotic planetary exploration missions launched during the 1970s or 1980s with the number launched during the 1990s or the first part of this decade. The simple fact that NASA had no Mars missions for 17 years, then suffered the failure of Mars Observer clearly indicated that something was seriously wrong at the agency. In the past ten years NASA has launched seven Mars missions, losing two (Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Spirit, Opportunity and the failed Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter).

Now “faster” and “cheaper” are relatively easy to quantify. “Better” is harder to quantify and this is where people can claim that these missions may be faster and cheaper, but not better. But the problem with that claim is that there are a lot of ways to define better. One of them is simply the decrease in time for data return from a mission.

Critics might claim that these smaller vehicles carry fewer instruments than the previous monster spacecraft, but NASA is no longer waiting over a decade and a half to get one of these instruments at Mars and get data back from it. That data return is not only good for the scientific discipline (no longer driving people out of the field because they have to wait 17 years for new data) but is good for planning. It allows data to be evaluated and then used to redefine future missions. In fact, this was one of the lessons learned from the MCO and MPL failures–that NASA was launching too quickly and was unable to incorporate both scientific data and engineering lessons into future missions. The MCO and MPL failures should not be viewed as proof that faster cheaper better failed, but as important calibration lessons on just how fast and cheap these missions can be accomplished.

And even if we look at missions other than Mars the results are impressive. Before the adoption of faster better cheaper nobody would have expected the plethora of planetary exploration missions that have been flown in the past decade.

(A minor suggestion–use line breaks to separate your paragraphs. The last comment was quite difficult to read without them.)

By: Perry A. Noriega

Perry A. Noriega — Wed, 16 Jun 2004 21:23:14 +0000

Many of the employees at NASA who worked during the Clinton Era remarked that their response to Faster, Better, Cheaper, was that you could have any two of the three, but you could not have all three at the same time. I acknowledge the success of all the spacecraft mentioned by Dwayne. And for the record, I would rather work to make a better, converged, cooperative future in space for every different type and set of users than argue about what we could or should have done in space in the past. But we need to change our ways, use new means, and invent what we don’t have to do so effectively, in terms of not only technology, but advertising, marketing, sales, and promotion of space to the general public, not just the narrow confines of the space community.
I perceive that politics as we practice it currently, and almost all politicians of every major and minor party as they are, have little or no interest in space settlement/development as the space community envisions it. We need to transform not only NASA, but the space community as well, and change our ways, experiment to find what works to do new things in space for a plurality of users, and do so affordably and for all space advocates present and future. And we need to either incorporate politics into space development/settlement, or bypass politics in creating a spacefaring civilization. What we have now does not work to do this at all well, and it clearly needs to be changed.
Dwayne, lets work on Networked Means to work together to do real work to make progress in advancing our ability to keep people in space for longer and longer periods of time. Lets work together to make space happen for us. Let’s find ways we can network to fill in the gaps in Bush’s plan, make sure no matter who is President, that a long range, converged framework for moving beyond low earth orbit to every destination, for as many different reasons as there are people who want to go into space for personal reasons that seem good to them, comes to pass. Lets find or invent new financial means and mechanisms to fund space development and settlement, since what we have now via conventional means does not work very well, nor does it allow an individual to add value to any investment they might make in space development, like War Bonds did during World War II.
We need to make space something the common man and woman knows they have a chance to be a part of in a real, not a vicarious way. And the chance to involve the private sector in space development and make money from their investments in as many ways as is possible is something John Kerry has not answered to my, or anyone else’s satisfaction. Neither has Bush, nor any politician, investment advisor, NASA manager, or anyone in the space or investment communities. But Bush has at least addressed in large part, the convergence problem that has bedeviled the space community over goals, objectives, means, etc, over the last three decades. If we in the space community had been converged and worked together from then to now, we would be on Mars, would have never left the moon, and would now be able to deflect potentially hazardous asteroids instead of just talking about all this.
The public beyond the space community does not really care about science done in space beyond a narrow, generic focus. They do care about getting more bang for their buck, particularly in this budget constrained, energy limited, reigned in era we are now in. And an enthusiastic minority of people who are growing in numbers are excited by the prospect of they themselves having the chance to fly into space. That is why, in my and other’s opinions in the space activist community, that space settlement, not exploration, not science, not applications, has the best chance to do the most to bring about a spacefaring civilization. And commercial space development has the best chance to generate a near term return on investment from the massive amounts of capital needed to do almost anything in space. Every area of human endeavor is being torn apart and redefined by what I see as a changing of the Ages as is, so why not take what is already happening and turn it to the space community’s advantage, and redirect it as we are able? Let’s be more creative and find, adapt existing ways, or invent new ways of selling space settlement to the common man and woman. Lets find ways to expand beyond the skeletal framework for space infrastructure development that Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration would give us if it is funded. And lets start the work to do this now.