I won’t quibble with that assessment. I was quibbling with assessments such as:

“years of falling… funding”
“years of falling… Nasa budgets”

Again, simply because it’s not true that NASA’s budget was falling in all of the Clinton years.

But you are right that NASA’s budget ended up lower than when it started during the Clinton years.

FWIW…

I agree. It’s worth noting that NASA fought tourist flights to the Space Station tooth and nail at the highest level, and was effectively out-voted by the Russians. (Oh, the irony!) When you internationalize a project, you give up some control and all sorts of interesting things can happen.

— Donald

Donald: Far from being “distasteful,” I think a Clinton Administration would be likely to strongly support this. The latter is the principle reason Clinton 1 saved the Space Station project.

Sorry; by “they” I had in mind the NASA managers, who have at different times resisted this kind of change over the decades. Right now the main ESAS architecture is “commercial and international free” (with small exceptions like XCOR), but changing this might be a sacrifice they have to make – because their boss in the White House says so, because the budget and politics aren’t working out, etc. It all depends on the details, and certainly there are pitfalls that are tough to avoid when joining with commercial and/or international efforts, but to my mind it’s likely that making such a change would work out for the better for all involved.

Far from being “distasteful,” I think a Clinton Administration would be likely to strongly support this. The latter is the principle reason Clinton 1 saved the Space Station project.

Anonymous: For example, I would not support a candidate that extended Shuttle beyond 2010 or did not allow a new NASA Administrator to restructure Constellation’s technical content to be more technically viable, affordable, and sustainable.

I fully agree with the first statement, and, with somewhat less enthusiasm, the second one as well.

Technically not true. NASA’s budget did rise modestly under some (but certainly not all) of the Clinton I White House years.

Let us not forget that Mr. Clinton’s Administration did this while actually moving the Federal budget toward balance, rather than just (cheaply) talking about it.

We desperately need faster, more affordable, more achievable, more easily sustained, and more cost-effective civil human space flight programs.

So long as it doesn’t devolve into open-ended technological playpens that achieve far less than the Space Station ever will (NASP, X-33, et al), I agree with this. Again, COTS is the answer, and, when allocating our support, we need to follow her statements on that very closely.

Richardb: To kill the stick, she’ll have to fight serious congressional wars, so that will be fun to watch. Given her past behavior in the WH, I think she’ll have a very adversarial role with Congress, so the stick might survive despite her intent.

Very interesting thought. It does seem to me that at least the LEO parts of ESAS have a great deal of political momentum at this point, momentum that will be politically hard to reverse.

Clinton I did no favors for Nasa. Where was her influence during Clinton I? As her campaign promises roll out she will be faced with serious dilemma’s. For one, she will have continuing large war on terror costs. She will have a health care plan of unknown cost, but safe to say, huge. Its still 1 year from the election so more promises are on the way.
Poor little Nasa will have to give it up again and again.

Unless I’m going blind, again, that’s not technically true by the numbers posted. By those Wikipedia numbers, NASA goes up in FY95-96, FY 96-97, and FY98-99.

I’m sorry to quibble, but the commonly accepted myth that NASA’s budget went down consistently during Clinton I was never true.

“Its clear to me, Clinton II will not support the VSE”

Based on the New York Times’ excerpt in Mr. Foust’s latest posting, that appears to be the case, at least for the human lunar elements of the VSE. It was something I’ve obviously long been anticipating regardless of who took the White House, but I had hoped for better.

“Will she cancel the stick? Reopen the architecture for alternatives?”

I hope this at least happens. Even setting aside Ares I/Orion’s technical problems and expensive duplication of other national capabilities, if we’re not going to build Ares V, then Ares I makes absolutely no sense. We should not go through the enormous expense of developing that 5-segment booster and new upper stage if they’re not going to be used elsewhere. Ares I’s ISS flight rate and operational costs cannot justify it.

“Keep the shuttle instead?”

Gawd, I hope not.

“To kill the stick, she’ll have to fight serious congressional wars, so that will be fun to watch.”

I dunno. With a five-year post-Shuttle gap, high costs, and falling safety, even congressmen representing NASA human space flight centers may appreciate alternatives to Ares I/Orion. A lot may depend on schedule — how much longer the current month-to-month slips last, whether exploration gets flatlined again in FY08 due to continuing resolutions, how soon a new NASA Administrator gets on board, and when the four-segment boilerplate flight test actually occurs. The longer Griffin & Co. keep screwing around with the Ares I/Orion performance/mass mismatch, the more likely a replacement becomes.

FWIW…

Its clear to me, Clinton II will not support the VSE and will look for savings from Nasa so similar budget trends in Clinton II shouldn’t surprise us. Will she cancel the stick? Reopen the architecture for alternatives? Keep the shuttle instead?
To kill the stick, she’ll have to fight serious congressional wars, so that will be fun to watch. Given her past behavior in the WH, I think she’ll have a very adversarial role with Congress, so the stick might survive despite her intent.

Current 1996
Year $ adjusted
billions
1993 14.305 15.301 0.9349
1994 13.695 14.351 0.9543
1995 13.377 13.692 0.977
1996 13.882 13.882 1.00
1997 14.358 14.067 1.0207
1998 13.638 13.193 1.0337
1999 13.665 12.999 1.0512
2000 13.600 12.618 1.0779

Another good point from Mr. Sterling.

But again, I would add a little caution. This amendment has to be examined within the context of what’s happening with all the appropriations bills right now. Since Bush has promised to veto all the appropriations bills, they’re really not worth the paper they’re being printed on, and all sorts of crazy spending is being proposed right now. It’s a cheap way for a congressman from either side of the aisle to show support and score political points for a cause, special interest, or parochial interest back home without having to do any heavy lifting or make any real commitments.

It will be more telling to track Clinton’s voting record when fiscal reality sets in after the veto and hard choices have to be made. (It’s also possible that FY08 will devolve into another set of continuing resolutions like FY07 did, and the hard choices will be made by rote.) It might also be more telling to track Clinton’s record on NASA appropriations bills over the course of her Senate career, especially if she explained why she did or did not vote for certain bills.

“As to the speech itself (thanks for copying it here, Anonymous), frankly, I’m impressed. My respect for Ms. Clinton, which has not been terribly high, is much higher now than it was before I read this speech. She comes across as thoughtful, and surprisingly knowledgeable about my favorite subject. Of course, it would have been nice if she endorsed returning to the moon or some other grand project, but that probably wasn’t in the cards, and, at this point in time, I’ll gladly settle for this. . . .”

I too would prefer a couple scraps of meat on the bones of the civil space priorities Clinton has laid out. Between the lack of explicit VSE or human space exploration endorsement beyond an “ambitious agenda in space exploration” and the lack of any specifics on Shuttle retirement and replacement beyond “robust human space flight”, too many 800 lb. human space flight gorillas have been left standing in the room for me to give Clinton my “endorsement” (for what little that’s worth) on civil space issues yet. (Not that any other candidate has earned it or will earn it, either.) For example, I would not support a candidate that extended Shuttle beyond 2010 or did not allow a new NASA Administrator to restructure Constellation’s technical content to be more technically viable, affordable, and sustainable.

That said, I agree with Mr. Robertson that Clinton is arguably the most promising candidate from a space cadet’s point-of-view after today’s press release, speech, and vote. Although I hate the word “balance”, Clinton is right to move resources back into NASA’s better performing and arguably higher priority programs. And although Clinton’s talk and press release lacked key human space flight specifics, NASA’s Apollo-era human space flight achievements have arguably had more of a personal impact on Clinton than any other Presidential candidate in history. If someone held a gun to my head today and said pick a President based on civil space issues, I’d have to go with Clinton at this point — and hope that Richardson would agree to serve another Clinton as Veep. (Of course, I would never vote based on such a narrow set of criteria, but if forced to today…)

“With a bit of luck, some of the other candidates will be embarrassed enough to respond and we’ll get a debate going!”

I wouldn’t bet on it, but we can always hope.

“Her husband’s Nasa oversight saw years of falling or flat funding”

Technically not true. NASA’s budget did rise modestly under some (but certainly not all) of the Clinton I White House years.

“plus of course the absurdly expensive ISS”

Before we throw too many daggers at the Clinton I White House over absurd ISS costs, let’s again remember that they inherited an even more absurdly expensive Space Station Freedom from NASA under the Bush I Administration.

“(is it possible the stick could ever equal its costs?).”

Ares I alone, no. ISS development costs are typically quoted at approximately $60 billion or $100 billion, depending on whether the costs of the associated Shuttle assembly flights are counted. That’s half to a full order of magnitude greater than Ares I development costs at about $10 billion.

But the entire human lunar return effort, through the first human lunar landing mission, will be something on the order of $100 billion.

I’d argue that one of the key reforms, maybe even the central one, that any new White House should undertake with respect to NASA human space flight is to end the cycles of these barely sustainable, technically compromised, $100 billion, multi-decadal programs (STS, ISS, Constellation) whose costs are way out of whack with their benefits. We desperately need faster, more affordable, more achieveable, more easily sustained, and more cost-effective civil human space flight programs.

FWIW…

Her husband’s Nasa oversight saw years of falling or flat funding plus of course the absurdly expensive ISS(is it possible the stick could ever equal its costs?). Obviously if she is elected, she’ll have her own ideas, but so far nothing here spells out her plans outside of a few areas of earth research to appease her base.

Personally I wouldn’t mind if all the ESAS funds were directed to NASA Earth science (using satellites and suborbital commercial vehicles), aeronautics (again including use of commercial suborbital vehicles), and other areas (lunar and planetary robotics, lots more COTS for ISS transport if not more, using Bigelow modules, Centennial Challenges, and small “New Millenium” style technology demos like refueling, tugs, sat technologies, etc). All of these strike me as higher priorities than human lunar missions anyway, and it’s so much money that every one of them could be made healthy with those funds.

To be gentle to the Shuttle workforce, I’d just suggest holding off on most or all of Ares I/Orion, or whatever else they’d do (Direct, something to get Shuttle ops going quicker like Shuttle cargo-only, or whatever) until Shuttle retirement. This would actually give them a healthy, more manageable budget. It might encourage them to include commercial and international components in their architecture, which they may find distasteful, but which might nevertheless be better. It might also encourage them to relax requirements – not safety requirements, but requirements like number of crew and mass of cargo per launch. They might also find this distasteful, but it may result in an architecture that is safer and cheaper to develop and operate, and would reduce the “drunk elephant in a china shop” effect we’re seeing now with Shuttle/ESAS and the rest of NASA.