This would be an good opportunity to share insights from those many discussions on Moon colonization you say you’ve had with her. I can believe such words from her in a pie-in-the-sky context, but not in a policy planning context. I think we all believe we should eventually colonize the galaxy, but throwing some pressure vessels at a lunar polar outpost isn’t necessarily an optimal way of doing that.

SIMBERG: Wherever do you get the idea that I have that idea?

You said that you suspected that colonizing the Moon does indeed sit high in her view. I don’t.

I do. Based on nothing, of course, other than many discussions of the subject with her over the last twenty or so years.

I associate lunar outposts with colonization. Maybe you don’t. That’s where I got the idea. Perhaps you consider a lunar outpost as not fiscal and programmatic quicksand. There we simply disagree.

Apparently we do.

Once Marburger and others bought into Griffin publicly, it would have taken a lot to get them to remove Griffin — he was their guy, after all.

Yes, that could explain a lot. The administration did cop out on VSE, and didn’t stand behind their own Vision as Griffin proceeded to restate it, but they were caught in a trap of their own making. Of course without political power his removal would not have been all that difficult.
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and allow me to clean this up …

LASSITER: Wherever do you get the idea, Rand, that Lori wants to get us fiscally and programmatically stuck at a lunar outpost?

It quite likely doesn’t have a lot to do with you, but it has to do with our discussion of Lori Garver, because I said “Lori’s priorities have always been focused on science and inspiration.” I was referring to that statement. You can argue with that statement, but more generally whether science has anything to do with anything is OT, and kinda pointless anyway.

I don’t have any special insight into the selection process (candidates, criteria, etc.) that led to the Bush Administration’s nomination of Griffin for the position of NASA Administrator. O’Keefe had a large degree of autonomy in setting NASA’s agenda due to his close connections to VP Cheney and various appropriators in Congress. I can only guess that the White House in general, and maybe OSTP and Marburger in particular, wanted to appoint someone who would be more beholden to them than O’Keefe. Griffin’s lack of political power certainly fits the bill, and that may have been a factor in his selection.

But absent a major event that required White House intervention, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there was anything at the White House level that could prevent Griffin from implementing the VSE as he saw fit. Once Marburger and others bought into Griffin publicly, it would have taken a lot to get them to remove Griffin — he was their guy, after all. For example, it took a $5 billion overrun on the ISS program for the Bush Administration to remove George Abbey as JSC Center Director. For all his failings, nothing of that magnitude has happened yet due to Griffin’s tenure. Griffin made climate change comments that embarrassed Marburger and the White House and has made choices in the Constellation program that are not consistent with Marburger’s AAS speeches about the economic development of the Moon. But nothing has happened that would require the White House to intervene in the way it did with Abbey and the $5 billion ISS overrun.

If the Bush Administration was still around to witness an Ares I-X or I-Y test failure, unsustainable Constellation budget growth, or an Ares I/Orion schedule slip to 2017+, then they’d be compelled to intervene. But those kinds of events are going to fall on the Obama Administration’s watch, assuming they don’t switch tracks off Ares I early on.

I do know at the staff level that there were attempts to oppose Ares I as an unnecessary detour from the VSE given the existence of operational EELVs. But unless the political appointees like Marburger that those staff report to are compelled to intervene, there’s only so much that OMB, OSTP, and other White House staff can do.

FWIW…

You have to be kidding. Garver obtained private sponsorship, got her medical certification, and undertook astronaut training in Russia for a Soyuz trip to ISS. She’s served as civil space policy advisor to not one, not two, but now three Presidential campaigns. She rose to the position of NASA’s Associate Administrator for Policy and Plans, in the top 20 or so management position in the agency. She was Executive Director of the National Space Society, the nation’s largest space advocacy organization, for years. Garver has repeatedly committed her career and more to NASA, human space flight, and commercial space flight activities. To say that Garver only talks a good game about space is either a bald-faced lie or a totally uninformed statement. Garver’s bio is available here (add http://www.):

aiaa.org/events/insideaerospace/Garver.pdf

We may not agree with Garver’s political alignment, but that doesn’t give us an excuse to be lazy with our research or to make up lies about her background.

“has had a rather dubious record supporting it when in positions of power. Remember that abrupt flip flop on VSE when she became Kerry’s space advisor.”

This is either another intentional distortion of the actual facts or another poorly informed statement.

The Kerry campaign did not oppose the VSE. The Kerry campaign criticized the budget of and funding for the VSE, arguing that the Bush Administration was not committing enough resources to the effort. The Kerry/Edwards space policy document specifically stated:

“Unfortunately, the Bush administration has undermined America’s efforts to move forward on space and the next generation of innovative ideas. The record budget deficits created by the Bush administration over the past four years will short change NASA and other research funding. The Bush administration’s push for the Moon/Mars mission is designed as a purely political stunt, without being backed up by the necessary funding.”

The document went on to encourage greater international participation in the VSE:

“… Ensuring that space exploration is a global undertaking that unites all nations in the common quest for greater understanding. Yet the Bush administration is applying its unilateralist approach to the Moon and Mars as well as to this planet, and has excluded potential partners from its exploration planning. John Kerry will invite other countries to share in a meaningful way in both the adventure and the costs of space exploration.”

The Kerry campaign argued that the VSE needed to be properly funded and that the resulting programs needed international partnerships. And the Kerry campaign was right — the VSE has not been fully funded and the Constellation still lacks any international agreement support.

To the extent these arguments originated with Garver, then her “flip-flop” was for greater funding and support of the VSE, not less. We should give her credit for that and for being right over the long-run about VSE funding shortfalls and lack of international participation.

I apologize for the high-horse act, but in the future, please don’t add posts to this forum that intentionally contain multiple untruths, especially about individuals. This forum is a platform for space policy debate, not personal smears. And if you’re making these posts unintentionally, then please perform a minimum amount of research to ensure that the statements you’re making here have some semblance of reality. It’s a waste of everyone else’s time on the forum to have to constantly correct them. And if you can’t do either, then please take it elsewhere. It’s getting tiresome.

Thank you…

Wherever do you get the idea that I have that idea?

The first time you go to the outpost and pour some concrete, you can call it exploration and be inspired. But probably not the second time, or the twentieth. By the time you’re at twenty, BTW, you can call it colonization. And you aren’t doing a helluva lot more science by then. It is well understood that an outpost deployment offers far less science compared to sorties.

What does science have to do with anything?