While it’s largely of academic interest only, Dennis Kucinich has reiterated his desire to have NASA focus on alternative energy research in an interview with the technology blog TechCrunch:
National Aeronautical [sic] Space Administration has always been involved as an incubator of technology. I want to task NASA with moving particularly in the area of energy technology, to create at the alpha stage technologies which private businesses and individuals could take to the beta stage and use it to grow the economy.
In a development with a little more relevance, Rudy Giuliani will pay a visit to Florida’s Space Coast on Wednesday, including a meeting with the editorial board of Florida Today. The newspaper is actively soliciting questions for their hour-long meeting with Giuliani: “If you’d like to ask him a question, send it editorial page editor John J. Glisch at: jglisch@floridatoday.com. The board will ask him as many reader questions as possible during the hour interview.” Certainly there should be a space policy question or two in that mix…
No one can criticize Kucinich of not being a free thinker. On this issue, I think he makes some good points. He certainly has some interesting ideas regarding the role of NASA in the arena of alternative energy. I also find it interesting that many at NASA feel the same way. For instance, NASA Ames has initiated a collaboration with Google and several west coast universities to pursue work in biofuels and other forms of advanced energy. NASA Glenn has established joint activities with universities and industry on solar, wind, biomass and other technologies. These centers’ directors, Pete Worden and Woodrow Whitlow, are shrewd enough to recognize the inevitable shifts in the political landscape, and the upcoming national emphasis on renewable energy.
The only glitch in NASA vectoring toward energy is that the field is well established. What role would NASA actually have in this environment. Just as we don’t live in the Cold War years of Apollo, we aren’t in the Oil Crunch years either. Things have changed dramatically since NASA Lewis pioneered wind turbines, etc. during the 70’s and early 80’s. Since the early 90’s, DOE has had the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) spearheading work in these technologies. I doubt that DOE would want yet another set of mouths to feed.
“Reader: …NASA Ames has initiated a collaboration with Google and several west coast universities to pursue work in biofuels and other forms of advanced energy. NASA Glenn has established joint activities with universities and industry on solar, wind, biomass and other technologies.”
The Cleveland Plain Dealer published a lengthy article along these lines on December 30.
http://www.cleveland.com/news/esullivan/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1198920749280260.xml&coll=2
The efforts of Ames and Glenn are much more extensive than what you’ve stated. Google is funding the salaries of about 10 Ames folks, and plans to increase this in the future. Ames has also initiated a series of forums involving high-powered researchers in this area. Glenn has also participated in these and appears to be establishing a strong relationship with Ames. It’s only a matter of time before other NASA centers get on the band wagon, but by then it may be too late. From a national standpoint, the train has already left the station.
It’s only a matter of time before other NASA centers get on the band wagon…
Other centers see this coming, but are unable to act because of the push to develop Ares and Constellation systems. What’s frustrating is that these efforts have little likelihood of seeing the light of day, while energy is the challenge for this century.
Can someone explain to me (not Kucinich) why this is NASA’s job, and not DoE’s?
Rand – It’s not. But then you knew that.
“Can someone explain to me (not Kucinich) why this is NASA’s job, and not DoE’s?”
True. However, Kucinich’s suggestion may be particularly prescient, especially if the new Administration decides to s*#t-can VSE and shift resources from NASA to new national priorities. After all, this is becoming more and more likely given the recent rhetoric from other candidates and the gathering Obama firestorm.
Whether you agree or not, the Nation still views NASA as an producer and incubator of new technologies. Why not apply this resource to something more aligned with national priorities?
If gas and oil becomes to expensive someone working in their garage will come up with a way to burn potatoe peelings and make a buck at it. Shortage drives innovation and new capital formations, always has, always will. All the government should do is offer tax policy to help that capital formation and not hinder it.
Vladislaw, in theory I agree with you. However, somebody has already invented that and, in a small way, we are doing it here in the San Francisco region. You are ignoring the fact that our government now provides vast financial and political incentives to use, and to continue using, fossil fuels. The construction and continued maintenance of the highway and freeway systems, at astronomical expense, the deliborate destruction of far cheaper inter-urban rail to make sure there was no competition, and expensively (in every sense) propping up unsavory regimes like Saudi Arabia, are only the beginnings of it. I would be very happy if the government stepped out of the picture and let the chips fall where they may. However, Mike Fazah, unfortunately, is wrong: it should be clear by now that cheap and easy spaceflight around the Solar System is a far easier task than instituting significant change in government policies toward energy use.
— Donald
SIMBERG: Can someone explain to me (not Kucinich) why this is NASA’s job, and not DoE’s?
Rand,
NASA Glenn (which Kucinich represents) invests in much higher efficiency solar cells, and high efficiency electric propulsion (e.g, ion & hall effect thruster technology).
If our nation decided that we wanted to develop solar-electric orbital transfer vehicle capabilities — which could be 20 times (or greater) in efficiency than current chemical propulsion systems — it could have a huge impact on our Moon/Mars exploration strategy.
By eliminating a great deal of the need for launching huge amounts of mass from Earth to orbit, such a capability could make our plans for human exploration beyond Earth orbit much more sustainable and affordable.
If this is at least one part of the goal, it would be NASA’s job. The rest could be “spin offs”. (Yeah, I hate those two words too.)
This technology also works well with reusable spaceplanes, and would also support/enable other national security and commercial space applications.
– Nemo2
I have no problem with NASA developing energy technologies for space applications, but that doesn’t seem to be what Kucinich is asking for.
woo hoo. tempest in a teapot, candidate said half a sentence about space !
“Rand Simberg: I have no problem with NASA developing energy technologies for space applications, but that doesn’t seem to be what Kucinich is asking for.”
That seemed pretty clear from Kucinich’s original statement. He’s talking about shifting NASA’s (Glenn in particular) emphasis away from space and onto alternative energy for terrestrial applications. This is actually what happened after the end of Apollo. In fact at one time in the mid to late-70’s over half of Lewis’ annual budget came from DOE’s predecessor, ERDA. The Center Director at that time, Bruce London, wanted to bring Lewis into DOE’s national laboratory orbit.
As Reader pointed out earlier, it would be difficult to do that now with NREL in the picture.
This is actually what happened after the end of Apollo… with very little to show for it at the time. Space technology development can take some credit for early work on photovoltaics and fuel cells — but driven in both cases by needs specific to space rather than “let’s pursue cutting-edge energy technologies.”
As a general rule, mass constraints, vacuum, free fall, radiation, etc. quickly “canalize” technologies for use in space into highly specific forms rather than a broad-front exploration of their potential. Kucinich is far from the only one to have swallowed 40+ years of NASA PR about spin-offs, and to think of it as an omnicompetent “futures” shop, but that doesn’t make it true.
MONTE: Kucinich is far from the only one to have swallowed 40+ years of NASA PR about spin-offs, and to think of it as an omnicompetent “futures†shop, but that doesn’t make it true.
Monte,
While you are absolutely right, given that most of the American electorate has swallowed this story, and given that NASA has institutional interest to keep promoting this story, this story is really hard to correct.
Also, since the “energy technology investment” is politically correct, this is a smart political proposal from the elected representative from Glenn Research Center. (It may be bad policy, but it is good politics.) As the elected representative from Glenn, I think he may be on to something.
I am not used to smart political proposals from Kucinich. I give the guy credit for that.
– Al
“Politics is not rocket science, which is why rocket scientists don’t understand politics.”
Dammit, Al, I hate it when you see my cynicism and raise me like that….
Seriously, though: issues of perception and spin aside, my real objection to anyone (inside or outside NASA) treating it as an omnicompetent futures shop is that it spreads them too thin. We all have our own lists of promising technologies specific to space and advanced aeronautics (“advanced” meaning here “too far out for Boeing et al to do on their own dime”) that aren’t going to be pushed anywhere else.
Alternative energy technologies, by contrast, are being pushed at lots of other places, by broader and deeper R&D teams at least as good as any at NASA, and on (collectively) much larger budgets. So is robotics. So are a variety of technologies that are multi-use, not specific to space or aeronautics, that I keep seeing in NASA press releases… and I keep asking myself “why?”
If Kucinich wants Glenn to get more money/jobs for something genuinely relevant to NASA’s core goals and core competences, more power to him. But to do it by stretching the goals and competence out of all recognition… that’s short-range smart, but long-range stupid.
Obama on Space
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=26647
“Obama on Space
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=26647”
Even if you despise the candidates, a space cadet has gotta love the specificity of the Clinton and Obama campaigns on civil space issues (and military space issues in the case of Obama). Unprecedented.
That said, the explicit endorsement of Ares I/Orion will come back to haunt an Obama White House. The program is still suffering a performance/mass mismatch ranging between 2,000 and 6,000 pounds, among numerous other technical problems:
rocketsandsuch.blogspot.com/2008/01/thats-heavy-man.html
It would have been wiser for the Obama campaign to follow Clinton’s lead and endorse the need for one or more new human space flight vehicles, while remaining agnostic on the technical solution.
FWIW…
Sorry but I don’t love it and I don’t see why anyone should. Well actually that’s not entirely true as there is something good: the mere mentioning of space. The more of that goes on the higher the chances of some real issues surfacing (or at least I hope so).
But beyond that it is far too anorexic. I don’t blame the candidate for this and I’m sure just about every voter will have other issues that trumps this or that space issue but the stuff given out so far from any of the candidates just doesn’t impress. It lacks substance.
There’s no specific mention of the previous funding re-allocations but somehow they now talk about minimizing the gap. Why? Have they or haven’t they abandoned it? The new statement is thus contradictory and leaves everybody guessing about what’s going on with their space policy vs. their education policy. My guess is some of the Obama staff needs to talk.
There’s some various proposals but not much detail on how they would be implemented. Where would the funding come from? What priority does the various proposals have in relation to everything else? Why do they think this is better than that and so on.
There’s a rundown on just about every general topic filled with meaningless platitudes and generalities (and yes everybody does that) but here as well there is no prioritizing going on (sadly that’s business as usual too for everyone).
Ok, so they mention Orion and Ares. I’m no ESAS fan but if that means they’ve actually thought things through and figured out that this is the right choice in their opinion then that’s great! Why? Because it means they actually took a stand on something. It doesn’t mean they can’t change their mind if/when they realize there are actually huge issues at stake. However the very fact that they don’t seem to even know about the controversies implies to me that the mentioning of Ares and Orion is more fluff than anything significant.
No I really don’t love it, and pardon the comparison but stuff like this is all foreplay and no action >_