ANONYMOUS: This statement is totally untrue. Clinton struck 38 projects totalling $287 million from the military construction bill alone. And some (probably most) were for projects in specific districts, including a wharf in Norfolk, a Florida naval station, and projects in Georgia and South Dakota that hit Gingrich and Daschle.

Anonymous,

You got me.

Much of what I said was based on an incorrect set of facts. Thanks for the sources.

If you will permit, I want to highlight one statement from
http://www.clintonfoundation.org/legacy/101497-press-briefing-by-raines-bell-hamre-on-the-line-item-veto.htm

The next project is a $10-million project for a Military Spaceplane. It would have provided research funds for hypersonic technologies and is intended to complement a NASA program. However, the Department of Defense — this does not meet a Department of Defense requirement and, therefore, it is being cancelled by the President today.

To be more accurate, it did not meet an “OFFICIAL” DoD requirement. Congress adding $10 million for “military spaceplane technology” was an example of Congress have a different opinion about DoD requirements … it was not about pork. You have argued, pretty persuasively, that the DoD had reason to not want to get into RLVs, as they were wrapped around the axle on ALS/NLS/EELV. I will give you that, but I still think that this a little too apologetic.

We can and should invest in mainline near-term systems, while also putting some seed-corn into next generation breakthrough technologies. The DoD should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. The historical statement justifying the line-item-veto of the MSP tech line item says much about the vision of the DoD leadership (e.g. Hamre) at that time as anything else.

– Al

I’ve read speculation that Ms. Thatcher defended the Fauklands as the best logistics base should Antactica ever be opened to resource exploitation, and she didn’t want Argentina (or anyone but Britain) to have control over it (a complex mess of greed and fear!).

Regarding the Beagle, just how purely scientific was that mission? I thought the primary intent was measuring the oceans to produce better maps for the British Navy (fear).

I think truly pure science for its own sake is very rare, and the United States probably does more of it than any society before ours. But, even in the case of our own planetary missions, their budget is tiny compared to the budget for developing the transportation they use — which was developed for far less than pure reasons!

— Donald

Fair point.

“However, weren’t Lewis and Clarke government funded? And, weren’t the others using derivitives from already-developed military ships? These capabilities were not pioneered by “capitalists,” at least not by themselves; they were developed by militaries of the time and then used by capitalists.”

I’m just exploring the abstract rationales for human exploration and colonization in history. I’m not arguing models of implementation such as government versus private funding.

“And, anyway Anonymous, if you really believe that, why do you support wasting our money on all this scientific nonesense? Lets just subsidize greed and fear (like we do with, say, the oil companies) and, if they can, let those folks take us out into the Solar System. . . .”

Again, I’m not making an argument or expressing belief. Just making and testing an observation about the rationales and justifications for human exploration.

But speaking of the science missions, an historical analogy there is probably arctic exploration. I wonder to what extent human exploration of the arctic (or antarctic) was driven by fear (Nation X will beat us there) or greed (win individual fame and fortune) versus pure scientific curiousity (like the Voyage of the Beagle).

Hrmmm… it would be interesting to classify all these historical example and their rationales in a rigorous, academic paper and see if there’s not some lesson for space exploration.

The Industrial Revolution involved little organizations like the British East India Company, as well as “capitalists.” We needed both then and we need both now.

— Donald

Anonymous: Erik the Red was escaping political persecution in Norway (fear). Columbus was seeking new trade route to the Indies (greed). Most other early New World explorers sought gold (greed). The Pilgrims were escaping religious persecution in England (fear). Jefferson wanted an economic inventory from Lewis and Clarke of the Louisiana Purchase (greed).

I pretty much agree with this. Unfortunately, we aren’t there yet — except for suborbital and probably orbital tourism. And, indeed, we’re beginning to see greed (Soyuz tourist flights, Virgin Galactic, et al) have an increasingly large role. However, weren’t Lewis and Clarke government funded? And, weren’t the others using derivitives from already-developed military ships? These capabilities were not pioneered by “capitalists,” at least not by themselves; they were developed by militaries of the time and then used by capitalists.

And, anyway Anonymous, if you really believe that, why do you support wasting our money on all this scientific nonesense? Lets just subsidize greed and fear (like we do with, say, the oil companies) and, if they can, let those folks take us out into the Solar System. . . .

— Donald

To be clear, I wasn’t claiming that AAS or the Kistler contract sprang full-born from Gore’s head or the heads of any of his OVP staffers. No doubt Mr. Muncy and other folks contributed heavily to the policy brew that led to the funding of those programs/projects.

I was just pointing out that, contrary to Mr. Whittington’s claims about a hostile environment towards commercial space under Clinton/Gore, the Clinton/Gore White House actually did fund a number of commercial space initiatives, and by virtue of the White House budget process, Gore or his folks would have signed off on those initiatives.

FWIW…

Donald,

You are making my point for me.”

Actually, I wrote that post. Not Mr. Robertson.

“There were hundreds of examples of pure pork in the budget, that were expressly targeted at some members district, but Clinton did not cut any of those. Instead, Clinton line-item-vetoed two general space policy initiatives, which were NOT expressly set aside for a Members district.”

This statement is totally untrue. Clinton struck 38 projects totalling $287 million from the military construction bill alone. And some (probably most) were for projects in specific districts, including a wharf in Norfolk, a Florida naval station, and projects in Georgia and South Dakota that hit Gingrich and Daschle. See this old article:

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/10/06/line.item/

And Clinton vetoed 13 projects totalling $144 million in the bill that Clementine II was in:

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/legacy/101497-press-briefing-by-raines-bell-hamre-on-the-line-item-veto.htm

Things like an extension of the SR-71 program, something called the Gallow Center, and research into the use of off-the-shelf airguns as sonar sources were vetoed along with Clementine II in that bill.

Clementine II was not singled out, by any means. And neither was “purer” pork overlooked. Not by a long shot. Contrary to your claim, the Clinton Administration was effectively wielding the line-item veto.

“Unfortunately, since Clinton’s first use of the line-item-veto was to poke Congressional leadership in the eye — the same people who gave him the power in the first place — the leadership in Congress lost all interest in sending him a NEW VERSION of the line-item-veto authority that might be constitutional.”

The older, Republican-controlled Congress may have lost interest in the line-item veto, but it wasn’t because Clinton was poking them in the eye. Both of the links above reference the criteria that the White House used to identify veto targets in the bill:

1) The project wasn’t included in Clinton’s budget request;
2) The project was not included in future years’ defense programming (or design work was incomplete for construction projects); and
3) The project did not offer a “substantial contribution” to the welfare of U.S. troops

It’s hard to see how using such fair and level criteria could be construed as “poking” certain congressmen or Congress in general in the eye. The Republican-controlled Congress may not have liked the pain that their line-item veto inflicted on them, but they can’t claim that the Administration was picking favorites or playing politics in how it exercised the line-item veto.

Finally, I’d note that the second link does a very good job substantiating exactly why Clementine II did not meet the criteria set by the White House, particularly the second criterion, in this three paragraph rationale:

“Now, proponents of the program [Clementine II] in Congress claim benefits for asteroid research; but this is the Defense budget, not the NASA budget. We believe the main application of this technology more logically would fit within the space-based missile defense mission area. Now, obviously, there is a lot of commonality between the scientific and technological challenge of detecting, tracking and intercepting an incoming asteroid and that of detecting, tracking and intercepting an incoming missile warhead. There are differences, to be sure, but the point I want to emphasize is that the proposed asteroid intercept tests have not yet been submitted to the Pentagon’s Compliance Review Group or to lawyers in the relevant national security agencies for any assessment of the compliance of such tests with the ABM Treaty.

And equally important, our own development program within the Department of Defense for a possible national missile defense deployment option, an option which we believe could be exercised as soon as 2003, does not include space-based weapons in its architecture. Now, the Ballistic Missile Defense Office, BMDO, is carrying out some advanced R&D on possible space-based interceptor technologies involving both lasers and rockets. But that is the kind of very advanced research that is permitted under the ABM Treaty.

So, in summary, the Clementine II program is not needed; it’s not in budget, it’s not in our future budget; and, we are already conducting advanced research in some related missile defense areas.”

So we had it partly right — there were much larger issues at stake. But they weren’t issues related to the first historic use of line-item veto power. Rather, they had to do with ABM Treaty compliance and programmatic choices about pursuing ground- versus space-based missile defense. We could argue about the treaty and which missile defense architecture makes more sense. But the point is that based on the bigger White hosue decisions to stick to the ABM Treaty, avoid space-based interceptors, and pursue ground-based defense, Clementine II was a dead end. It was a rational decision.

Finally, getting back to the ASAT issue, the rest of that link is interesting because there’s also an extensive defense of a line-item veto of an ASAT development project, particularly this two-paragraph passage:

“We simply do not believe that this ASAT capability is required, at least based on the threat as it now exists and is projected to evolve over the next decade or two.

To be sure, there are potential adversaries such as North Korea or Iraq which could try to employ space-based assets against our forces in a possible war, including for communications, navigation, targeting or surveillance missions. But we are confident that alternatives exist to negate or disrupt such efforts, including destroying ground stations linked to the satellite or jamming the links themselves.”

This was written almost a decade before the Chinese ASAT test. Wild, huh?

FWIW…

I am pretty sure Mr. Muncy meant “early Spring 1996″, which is when he worked for then Chairman Rohrabacher, and when the X-33 was the hot thing of the day.

It is interesting to see how many years it takes for successful bipartisan efforts to create a real program. This memo was in early 1996. The AAS program RFP came out in early 2002. COTS, which is the son of AAS, signed two agreements in the Fall of 2006.

– Al

ROBERTSON then said: Not necessarily. For example, it might not have been Gore’s decision to begin with. The President wields the veto (line-item or otherwise), not the Veep.

Donald,

I was not in the room, so I can not say definitively what happened, but I did talk to some of those directly affected. They specifically told me that Col. Michael Hamel, who was an aide to VP Al Gore, recommended vetoing the MSP and Clementine II programs. The VP then took that recommendation to the President.

ROBERTSON: But even if we assume (and it’s not a bad assumption) that Gore or his people were part of the decision loop, it’s not obvious to me that the decision was made to prevent/stall a future space arms race.

First, the Clinton/Gore White House was pursuing RLV technology at NASA.

I re-read my original post, and I was unclear. I never meant to state or infer that pursuing RLV technology was linked to weapons-in-space. I meant to state that vetoing the Clementine II mission was linked to weapons-in-space. Clementine II was an asteroid mission that used the DoD’s version of the “faster, better, cheaper” philosophy, but it also happened to be a demonstrator of technology that was needed by the Brilliant Pebbles missile defense program.

ROBERTSON: Third, the argument ignores the much bigger picture, that this was the first time in history that any White House had been given line-item veto power. To preserve that power, the White House needed to show that it could effectively wield it, i.e., they needed to make an example of what are obviously bad (at least to average Joe) Congressional earmarks.

Donald,

You are making my point for me.

By picking this target, Clinton killed the line-item veto power (although he did not know it at the time). If he had done what you suggest, and made an example of an egregious congressional earmark (a bridge to nowhere, midnight basketball, etc.) I believe some form of line item veto would exist today.

There were hundreds of examples of pure pork in the budget, that were expressly targeted at some members district, but Clinton did not cut any of those. Instead, Clinton line-item-vetoed two general space policy initiatives, which were NOT expressly set aside for a Members district. MSP and Clementine II were political initiatives with strong support by the leadership of the Republican Congress. In the same vein, Clinton’s veto was a political policy statement. It was not about “good government” cutting of pork.

What happened next? The Supreme Court ruled THIS VERSION of the line item veto to be unconstitutional. Unfortunately, since Clinton’s first use of the line-item-veto was to poke Congressional leadership in the eye — the same people who gave him the power in the first place — the leadership in Congress lost all interest in sending him a NEW VERSION of the line-item-veto authority that might be constitutional.

And today we have a LOT more pork.

– Al

Isn’t this fear by the people in England, who sent them there?

– Al