No, the real problem with Congress has been that it seems the party leadership decided to start campaigning for 2008 immediately upon winning in 2006. Cooperation has been almost nonexistant ever since, except in a few cases where both sides wanted enormous amounts of pork — such as the Farm Bill.

It’s convenient to blame the Republican’s for everything even when they’re in a minority, but not always accurate. Besides, just look at them, they’re in total disarray. They know they’re going to get whacked in the Fall, and yet can’t come up with anything to save themselves.

At any rate, if you think the Democrat Trifecta, with veto-proof majorities all around and a Dem in the White House, will be a good thing then you’re forgetting history. Power corrupts. Republicans in 94 made Clinton a moderate, and in conjunction gave us a nice end to that decade. Then, they got absolute power. They don’t resemble themselves from 94 *at all*. Give Democrats 2-4 years of absolute power and they won’t resemble their former selves either. Ultimately, the seesaw will come back to the Republicans — before again moving back to the Dems. If you think any group of politicians are somehow different, somehow better humans, you’d be wrong.

It’s important to note that far too many people think that the simple majority the Democrats gained in the last election would actually do anything to fix the gridlock in Congress. The Democrats have a simple majority in the Senate of 51, but it takes a vote of *60* (not 51) to override a Presidential veto, and President Bush has vetoed almost every piece of legislation the Congress has sent him sinse “the Democrats took over”. The Democrats do NOT have enough votes in Congress to override – period. Their hands are still tied.

The country put the Democrats into Congress with a simple majority, but NOT ENOUGH OF THEM TO FIX ANYTHING! Simple majority buys nothing. It must be a 2/3 majority or nothing changes. Without the number of votes needed to override the Presidents consistant veto, there can be no difference from before. Do you want to see the change? Put enough Democrats in there to override a Presidential veto. That’s 60 Senators and 290 Representatives. Neither number was achieved in the new Congress. The Republicans still rule.

Not to mention the costs in pollution with larger SRB’s, I am sure the democrats who are promising green policies, are going to love them.

Where has Obama stated that he “wants to end” human space exploration or commercial initiatives in human space flight?

“it won’t matter what rocket designs are used… or what kind of engineering is involved”

It matters immensely, in terms of program performance and in terms of locking in program budgets.

No White House (Obama’s or otherwise) likes to put more taxpayer dollars into programs that are plagued by multiple, potentially insurmountable, technical problems, that can’t deliver in a timely fashion, that threaten large budget overruns, and that pose unnecessary threats to human life. Politicians may not care about technical details like mass margins, vibration environments, fault tolerance, and landing modes, but they do care whether a vehicle can fly safely, on schedule, and within budget. There’s little indication that Ares I/Orion can do so anymore.

There’s also no incentive for a White House (Obama’s or otherwise) to start spending new development projects (like Ares V, EDS, and Altair) to meet the promises of the previous White House. It’s one thing if those projects are already started, a lot of money has already been sunk, and jobs and votes are tied up in their budgets. But when a project hasn’t gotten started, no money is sunk, and no jobs and votes are on the line, it’s much, much easier to just defer or never start the new development.

“though downsizing the Moon program to two people strikes me as a parrticularly dumb idea”

Right now, the lunar architecture doesn’t close without resorting to six-segment SRB with composite casings on the Ares V, destroying much of the commonality with Ares I, which will drive up costs immensely while driving down reliability greatly. Why would a smaller crew size be dumb if it allows the architecture to close reliably and efficiently?

And even if the architecture did close, why would a smaller crew size be dumb if it allows a smaller, more affordable lunar architecture to fly sooner and more often, with a greater number of astronauts on the lunar surface per year and/or over the life of the program?

“The only way to avoid a politically inspired shut down of the exploration program… is to be better politicians.”

So instead of pursuing exploration elements whose development can be cemented within a political cycle and whose operational costs can withstand changes in budgets and priorities, we should just keep hoping for “better politicians”? When in the history of humanity have politicians ever gotten “better”?

“Sadly, so far, a lot of people posting their bright ideas on the Internet don’t seem to be inclined to learn that lesson.”

If the lesson is that program formulation and execution choices don’t matter and that the only thing we can do is hope that better politicians run for and win office in the next election cycle, well, that’s a very unrealistic policy and program management lesson.

FWIW…

Neither has today’s NASA. It’s been some 47 years, nearly half a century, since NASA last undertook the development of a human space exploration architecture. The individuals are not the same, and NASA is not the same organization. The argument that an organization named NASA has done it once, so an organization named NASA can or should do it again, just doesn’t hold water over such long time periods and under so many changes.

Moreover, even if NASA was the exact same organization, the goals, environment, and constraints that NASA is working under today are all very different from Apollo. The overarching goal of today’s VSE is not to beat the Soviets to the Moon, but to establish a sustainable human space exploration effort. The space industry is much more mature and capable than it was in the 1960s, and there are many more technologies and vehicles available today. And the total NASA budget, while comparable to some Apollo-era budgets, is not rising at the same rate. When creating an executable program, the devil is in the details. Appeals to long-gone, Apollo-era authority are not enough, not by long-shot. In fact, they may lead one to incorrect conclusions, and create programs that cannot be successful in the current environment.

“Do we question Nasa’s [sic] vision of getting out into the solar system? Stephen Hawkings [sic] doesn’t and he’s done more in less time than everyone of us.”

Two points:

1) Hawking actually opposed human space flight in general, and the VSE specifically, as recently as 2005. See (add http://):

news.cnet.com/2100-11395-5946857.html?tag=tb

2) Even with his recent conversion, Hawking’s “vision” is substantively different from, and more aggressive than, the VSE. Hawking’s goal is survival of the human species/society, not science-driven exploration. Hawking emphasizes permanent colonization and development, not missions or temporary bases, and on an accelerated timeline. (Mars by 2025, not 2030-40.) And Hawking’s timeline and reach extend into the next few centuries and to the settlement of exoplanets. If NASA was actually pursuing Hawking’s goals, it would be a very different set of programs than what NASA is pursuing today. (In fact, it probably wouldn’t be NASA pursuing these goals.)

“Do we question the hardware? Many who do, never did what those in 1969 did.”

Again, the individuals working on Ares I/Orion (or any alternative to it) are not the same individuals who worked on Apollo. The argument has no basis in fact.

“You either push your elected representative to get out of LEO using the best plan available(ESAS)”

What’s the evidence that ESAS is the “best plan available”? The 5-year gap? The fact that NASA’s confidence in meeting the 2015 Ares I/Orion IOC has dropped from 66% to 33%? The almost year-long slip in Constellation PDRs? The pending multi-month slip in the Ares I-X schedule? The 10,000+ lbs. that Ares I is overweight? The 1,000+ lbs. that Orion is overweight? The loss of two-fault tolerance in Orion and Ares I’s upper stage? The fact that we still don’t know what system(s) will be used to mitigate Ares I lower-stage thrust oscillation issue? The fact that we still don’t know Orion’s nominal and off-nominal landing modes? The fact that Ares V isn’t powerful enough to close the lunar architecture without eliminating commonality with Ares I?

“If the model rocket builders heralding the next coming of Werner Von Braun”

Huh?

“or you elect endless debate, endless argument and wait till your pet project comes along, which is never… would join with those that are agnostic on the means”

One can be agnostic on the alternatives to ESAS/Constellation/Ares I/Orion while still acknowledging how much trouble the current program is in.

“but passionate about the goals, we would move closer to the moon and beyond.”

A few space cadets (myself included) expressing passion about human space exploration goals in the comments section of a blog isn’t going to create a critical mass of support for any approach, and it’s certainly not going to fix the myriad safety, technical, schedule, and budget problems with ESAS/Constellation/Ares I/Orion. That takes cold, hard analysis and tough management and political decisions.

FWIW…

But, this is exactly what has happened. AvWeek has story after story about the various DoD projects for ORS and hypersonics research. Admittedly, the latter is not directly aimed at launch vehicles, but success would be more-or-less directly applicable to, at least, spaceplanes. The complaint appears to be that NASA is not spending money in this realm. I’m not sure they should: greater expertese probably is available at the DoD while NASA has demonstrated the techniques to create large structures — the market end. Hopefully, these two trends — DoD hypesonics research and the creation and expansion of markets by NASA (and Mr. Biglow) — will come together someday to create both a market and the technology to supply it at something like the same time.

They should NOT be flying a shuttle.

Agreed, at least at this point in time. After 2010, hopefully, they won’t be. That said, I would drop the LEO requirement from Ares-1 and focus on the moon — which is where NASA’s skills lie.

because no one is willing to challenge flawed initial assumptions

In this, I agree, but I suspect we differ in the assumption no one will challenge. That assumption, in my view, is that a significant investment in cheaper transportation to orbit, either by the government or private investors without personal fortunes to waste, is likely in the absense of an existing market already earning tons of money for somebody — which is why my focus on markets, markets, markets.

Vladislaw: BDBs have the same problem. Why will pay for cheaply placing 100t or more into orbit without somebody already making lots of money in orbit?

— Donald

I would have to disagree, if the USA had 5-6 companies that were launching 120 ton BDB ( big dumb boosters) and we were staying in LEO THEN I would agree. The ONLY time the USA left LEO was WHEN we had a truely BDB. If america had multiple launch companies able to put 100+ tons up per launch we might see a different story. It is the chicken and the egg story though, no one will build them without customers and customers will not build space components that big without the launchers in place first.

A big dumb booster is what got us OUT of LEO, they never trapped us.

Donald,

I respectfully disagree. I think it’s actually #4 – that we’ve never seriously attempted to address the LEO problem. NASA serves at the whim of the President, and at the largesse of Congress. They had a shot at building an RLV in the early 70s, but by the time the politicians finished with it (and they finished “fixing” the numbers to make the politicians believe it was worth it) we ended up with the monstrously over-budget and useless Shuttle.

NASA should hand over the ownership and operation of any RLV to the DoD, who could actually manage to procure, fly, shake-out, and operate the many dozens of such craft that would be needed to start achieving the kinds of economics that you find in aircraft. NASA’s role should be in R&D, developing the TPS, powerplants, etc. They should NOT be flying a shuttle.

Until the “debate” deals with the mistakes made over the past 40 years, we will be saddled with exactly the sort of “Groundhog Day” behavior we’ve seen – a deja-vu nightmare of aborted programs (X-33, X-34, X-37 anyone?) that constantly attempt to “address” the problem but wildly miss the mark because no one is willing to challenge flawed initial assumptions.

— Donald