Comments on: McCain’s more detailed space policy

By: Space Politics » McCain’s “dead-end plan for NASA”

Space Politics » McCain’s “dead-end plan for NASA” — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:36:58 +0000

[...] the next-generation of spaceflight” are puzzling, since just recently the campaign issued a more detailed space policy. Among the items the policy said McCain would do as president include ensuring that “space [...]

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:46:07 +0000

Rand, you’re looking at the glass half empty. At least NASA is supporting COTS.

No, I’m looking at the glass with a few drops in the bottom. COTS is a few hundred million, at most. Orion/Ares is billions.

And the Navy/Air Force comparisons are invalid analogies. Getting people into LEO is not a national security issue, despite Senator Hutchison’s “gap” hysteria.

By: Chuck2200

Chuck2200 — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:15:42 +0000

Did you look at the references? There were at least 3 and they were nearly word-for-word lift-outs. I’m sure he didn’t write the speech himself, he used a speechwriter. Well that speechwriter obviously didn’t know the facts so he went to Wiki to get them. Ok, we can all live with that. But he didn’t have enough sense to just take the thoughts and weave them into a coherent speech. It was low quality work. It does not speak well for the quality of the staff, and that’s my point. No one can be a quality President without a high quality staff, neither McCain nor Obama – no one. No President from either party is better than their staff. So far McCain’s staff is making me nervous. They don’t know what they’re doing. Some of these guys will be senior staff at the White House if McCain is elected. Some of these guys will be determining a President McCain’s space policy and they don’t know what they’re doing.

It’s one thing to locate and use publicly available facts. That takes effort. That’s quality work. It’s quite another to locate publicly available facts and build a speech out of them Lego-block style. That doesn’t take any effort. That’s low quality work. I don’t want that kind of person advising my President on space policy. That’s where I was going with my comment.

By: spectator

spectator — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:34:59 +0000

Why the obsessive questions and doubts with McCain’s positions on Mars, Moon, Constellation, Nasa in general? His record is public and recorded going back decades. At this point he will be engaging in nuance not major policy shifts.

Obama on the other hand owes all of us much greater engagement on these public policy issues since he has negligible history in almost any topic of the day. To this day he has offered little to the community of space activists.

By the way about the Wiki debate. McCain used facts that is common knowledge. He didn’t borrow thoughts, metaphors, jokes or anything else someone might copyright. I’m sure if I gave a speech and said there was a near fatal accident during the Apollo 13 mission, someone could find that exact quote somewhere on the web. But who cares? Facts can’t be copyrighted.

By: Chuck2200

Chuck2200 — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:20:53 +0000

The upcoming Mars Society conference may supply some clarity for us all. Astronaut Walter Cunningham (Apollo-7) will be there speaking on behalf of John McCain and former NASA Associate Administrator Lori Garver (formally of the Clinton campaign) will be there speaking on behalf of Barak Obama.
http://www.marssociety.org/portal/c/Conventions/2008/space-policy-debate/

Thursday, August 14th, at 7:30 MDT. This debate should be interesting.

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:12:57 +0000

Rand, you’re looking at the glass half empty. At least NASA is supporting COTS. And, the government abandoning government-supplied access to space is not in the political cards. As long as we continue to be a global power, with global projection of force, that outcome is just about as likely as government abandoning government-supplied oil to the Navy. Yes, much of this is supplied by private companies — but the Navy maintains it’s own fleet of oilers. You may recall a slight spat between Boeing and some upstart in Europe to supply similar services to the Air Force, which service is not likely to be privatized any time soon. However many private suppliers there are, our government is not likely to, nor probably should they, give up “secure” access that they directly control.

– Donald

By: Adrian

Adrian — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:08:34 +0000

Wouldn’t it be great if the candidates were well-versed and comfortable enough talking about space to have a debate on it? Or if they could readily relate it to energy policy, national defense, and commercial spinoffs? But then, was JFK known to be any of those things? I can’t help but wonder if we as space enthusiasts are trying to hold the wrong people to account for what they do or do not know. Shouldnt we be wondering instead how the Senate candidates stack up in their voting records and policy propasals, since they control the budgets and committees?

By: Rand Simberg

Rand Simberg — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:12:18 +0000

They are addressing the issue, committing to that minimum — and both are a lot more than we would have seen in the past.

In other words, they are both committed to having NASA compete with the private sector for LEO. Great.

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:56:58 +0000

The interesting thing to me is the Earth’s moon appears nowhere in Mr. McCain’s bullet points.

It seems to me that both candidates are committing to the politically viable minimum (not abandoning the ISS and developing a new government route to get there) and making no promises on anything else. That’s probably wise for both candidates at this point and the most we should expect. It would be nice of somebody campaigned on “storming the Solar System” but it’s not very likely. Nonetheless, I see this as good news. They are addressing the issue, committing to that minimum — and both are a lot more than we would have seen in the past.

– Donald

By: Doug Lassiter

Doug Lassiter — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:02:58 +0000

Arguing about the definition of plagiarism is not so much silly, as it is beside the point. The point is that, especially with regard to space, McCain has not emitted any more than a half-hearted bleat of approval for what is already being done. If he is lifting material from other sources because he and his aides can’t come up with intelligent, or at least halfway thoughtful things to say, then that is a real pity, and not the mark of the kind of a leader that space advocates need.

Obama hasn’t come up with any fantastic ideas about space exploration either, except that he appears to have the courage to be saying, with some justification, that he’s not sure what we’re doing is right. In fact, in his metamorphosis from “use Constellation to pay for education” in December to his groveling at Titusville a few weeks ago, I think he slid right through the most defensible approach.