Lobbying, White House

Impatient for change

The sense of many in the space community this year has been one of impatience, bordering on frustration: with a new administration in place, they had been hoping for change in national space policy, or at least a confirmation of existing policy. Yet earlier this year people waited for months before the White House nominated a NASA administrator, Charles Bolden; now they’re waiting for weeks, perhaps months, for a decision on which option, if any, contained in the Augustine committee report to implement.

That waiting is wearing thin with some, such as Space Foundation CEO Elliot Pulham, who likens the situation to the famous Samuel Beckett play “Waiting for Godot”. “[W]hen it comes to space policy and programs, this administration has done nothing remarkable during the first 25 percent of its term,” Pulham writes (rounding up a bit, as the administration is only a little over nine months into its four-year term.) He cites not just the Bolden nomination and Augustine committee decision delays, but other issues such as a lack of progress on export control reform and a large number of unfilled political positions within the Pentagon. The former issue, at least, is something largely beyond the direct control of the White House, although progress is being made: HR 2410, a State Department authorization bill that includes some ITAR reform elements, passed the House in June and is awaiting action in the Senate.

Left out is a key point: many other people, in a wide range of other policy areas, don’t believe the White House is moving fast enough on the issues they care about. In the cover story in this week’s Newsweek, Anna Quindlen observes that President Obama takes a far more incremental approach than people thought he would during last year’s campaign. “He is methodical, thoughtful, cerebral, a believer in consensus and process,” she writes. “In an incremental system, Barack Obama is an incremental man.” And that, she believes, isn’t a bad thing. “[C]ampaigns are bad crucibles in which to forge the future. They speak to great aspirations; government amounts to the dripping of water on stone.”

So those who have great aspirations for space policy might want to practice their patience. Pulham acknowledges that the president is facing a number of other major policy issues, from Afghanistan to health care to the economy, but still wants space to get a bigger share of attention: “I would argue that nothing is more important to national security and economic security, and nothing is a better investment in economic vitality and national economic stimulus, than the exploration, development, and utilization of space.” If the space community did a more effective job communicating that importance to policymakers and the general public alike, perhaps the White House would be paying more attention, and sooner, to space—although there’s still no guarantee that they’d like the outcome of those policy deliberations.

37 comments to Impatient for change

  • Doug Lassiter

    “[W]hen it comes to space policy and programs, this administration has done nothing remarkable during the first 25 percent of its term”

    Whether you agree or not with what Obama has done in other arenas, he’s certainly done a lot. I would say that a revisit to the whole Constellation system, and a rethink of the path for human spaceflight, as chartered to the Augustine committee, is a pretty huge step in space policy and programs. Again, whether you agree with it or not.

    Pullam is distressed that “there has been no White House response” to the Augustine report. Well, the report was just released a few weeks ago, and it is understood that the administration is cranking hard on the FY11 budget. That budget will constitute a measured and formal response, which Pulham reluctantly admits.

    Sounds to me like Elliott Pulham is full of hot air. Your commentary, Jeff, about the importance of patience, is right on.

  • Dave Huntsman

    ….The former issue (ITAR), at least, is something largely beyond the direct control of the White House,

    Jeff, I disagree with you here. I know of only one ITAR-related issue that is unambiguously Congress-only’s responsibility: the designation of satellites as essentially in the same category as weapons. However, in efforts to develop true space commerce in other areas than spacecom (where competitive commerce already exists), most of the problems that fall under the ‘ITAR’ heading tend to be related more to things purely within the Executive Branch’s purview; i.e., dealing with the vast majority of things to be regulated, which agency does what, what are the general policies, etc. etc.

    In short, most of the ‘ITAR problems” – problems that have been a national security disaster for the United States, and for space-related jobs here – really are at the doorstep of the Executive Branch.

    That is why, in 2007, I communicated to Mike Griffin that NASA help lead the charge for internal-to-the-Executive Branch ITAR reform, since it was hurting American space companies, American space employment – and the costs NASA had to pay for its own internal missions. I suggested to him that this charge be nominally led by his Deputy Administrator, Shana Dale; who had significant experience both in the Congress and in another parts of the Executive Branch. Also, as a Republican, she would be a little more immune from the ‘weak-on-national-security’ political argument. I also cc’d Shana on the email; and volunteered to work under the Deputy Administrator full-time for a couple of years to do all the real footwork for it.

    Mike was, to put it mildly, underwhelmed; he responded to my email with an angry tone – removing his own Deputy from the cc: list – and made it clear to me that having an export control expert at HQ sit on panels was all that was needed.

    I feel the years in the last Administration were an opportunity wasted for such ITAR reform. By not using his own Deputy in that (and a few other) matters where her own political knowledge and connections would have been invaluable, we missed a ‘zero-cost- way of possibly helping the domestic space industry simply by doing the footwork when Republicans were in charge. It was an example of bad management; i.e., not making use of the resources available to you – whether you liked their presence or not – to get truly useful things done.

    I also wish the current Administration would move faster; but compared to the last one – including the last Administration’s Administrators – Obama is moving at warp speed on the subject, and will probably have Republicans who did nothing sniping at him the entire way. It didn’t have to be that way.

  • Well, somethings going to happen!

    My hope is that the Obama administration will not throw more good money after bad at the Ares 1/V architecture which is exorbitantly expensive and takes way too long to develop.

    1. Raise the NASA budget by $3 billion.
    2. Keep the Shuttles going until the next manned space architecture is ready to fly
    3. Choose the Sidemount because it is the cheapest and most reliable basic heavy lift architecture that we currently have for potentially placing the Orion and Altair vehicles into lunar orbit.
    4. Start fully funding Altair lunar lander development next year so that we can begin putting humans and habitat modules on the lunar surface long before the year 2020.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    My suspicion is that whatever the Obama administration decides, it will likely anger and disappoint space supporters. Why do I come to this conclusion? Basically by asking why space policy should be any different from anything else the administration is mismanaging.

  • David Davenport

    … the space community …

    No such thing exists,at least in the singular case.

    As far as what His Presidency likes, space flight and space technology ain’t what oppressed folks in the inner cities be needin’.

    Or maybe ACORN can get some NASA contracts.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ November 1st, 2009 at 11:34 am

    Basically by asking why space policy should be any different from anything else the administration is mismanaging….

    considering you were head over heels in love with The Bush administration (the last one) the charge of “mismanaging” is like the pot remarking about the kettles color. from Ossama who still lives, to Iraq which everyone with half a brain wonders why, to Afland ditto, to a failed economic policy, to a Republican party bordering on the ash heap of history…the last administration couldnt even manage well its exit from office. And you kept cheerleading for them all the way.

    I’ve read your blog and when you compare taking some time to figure out where to go in messes left by the last administration, like Afland, to the clarity Pearl Harbor dictated (and even with that there was some sort of grand strategy that evolved after some “thinking”) then you take yourself out of the realm of serious thinkers and move into the mud throwing opposition.

    with that in mind

    “My suspicion is that whatever the Obama administration decides, it will likely anger and disappoint space supporters.”

    to my mind what needs to happen is a lot of “space supporters” need to be disappointed and given a sharp rap on the head and have some clarity brought into their lives and thought process.

    That includes the people who see the Chinese racing us to the Moon or see that humans are the only way to do exploration or think naively that we are on the brink of humans moving off the Earth or even making serious use of off earth resources…

    What we seriously need is a space policy that makes “space” just like everything else the federal government does, or should do, which is to enable the joys of the free enterprise system…and provide proper regulation so that the greed of capitalism does not over whelm its virtues.

    It is clear the GOP has failed at that mix; the fact that Bush put forth his vision and then turned it over to folks whose competency was only mildly above “heck of a job Brownie” or “Pay for itself Wolfowitz” or “we know where the WMD is Rummy” and they floundered for the rest of his term illustrates the floor of bad decision making.

    I do not know what Obama (or his mid level people) are going to think through, but at the very least they seem to be putting some thought into it whereas the last administration didnt even have a clue what thought was.

    This is a time for serious people. The Republic is in serious trouble thanks to the troglodytes which took a successful economy, world peace and surplus and ran them and The Republic into the ditch. The people who supported them should at least have the courage to admit that the folks who they supported were wrong. Until they do, their advice and suggestions are just mud throwing.

    You got everything wrong about “the vision”. I have the post from 04 to prove it. I got everything correct.

    live with it

    Robert G. Oler

  • Anon

    The problem with promising change is that people want it now. But it takes a while to get the ship of state moving in a new direction. And by the time you do there is a new election and a new course setting.

    I will be surprise to see any major decision on space until work begins on the 2011 budget. And then its future will depend on who wins in 2012.

  • CharlesHouston

    Responses here have included the requisite slams from the pro-and-anti-Obama camps, and almost certainly my response will be lumped with the anti. Sigh. In my defense I am not automatically anti-Obama but am not happy with the way that the current Administration is going.

    Anyway, the current Administration did move “fast” on the “stimulus” bill and that shows its values and priorities. Space is no where on that list (unless you count the leftovers that space got). We have to admit that government space is not on the Administration’s priority list. So where do we go from there?

    NASA managers have repeatedly hammered the fact that if we want to have the option to continue the Shuttle they need to be informed. Nothing has been heard. Facilities continue to be retired, dedicated people continue to be laid off. It would be quite cheap and easy to direct NASA to keep it’s options open – little would be wasted if the decision went either way (retire Shuttle or extend operations). So the decision of the (often criticized here) Bush Administration has been accepted.

    NASA managers have repeatedly hammered the fact that if we want to pursue the current plan and deploy the Ares launch vehicle, our funding is inadequate. Nothing has been heard from the Administration – in spite of the titanic size of the stimulus bill. Again the Obama Administration accepts the decision of the oft criticized Bush Administration.

    The idea that it takes YEARS to decide on a plan and commit funding to it has some merit, but the idea that an interested Administration, staffed with veterans, could not give indications of it’s direction, and allow it’s handpicked managers to proceed – is ludicrous.

    The only conclusion that I can reach is that government space will be allowed to drift for the next couple of years. Decisions will be made by not deciding.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “NASA managers have repeatedly hammered the fact that if we want to pursue the current plan and deploy the Ares launch vehicle, our funding is inadequate. Nothing has been heard from the Administration – in spite of the titanic size of the stimulus bill.”

    Excuse me? Which administration are you talking about?

    Nothing has been heard from this administration because, well, if the previous administration (also staffed with veterans) wasn’t going to adequately fund a program it started and claimed to be interested in, why in the world should this one do that reflexively? It would make no sense at all for this administration not to pull back on the reins and say, whoa! we need to take a closer look at this. For many years, NASA managers repeatedly hammered the fact that their funding WAS adequate, as long as Shuttle and ISS were done away with, and the science program was pillaged. In fact, because of the undercosting on Ares I, those NASA managers should have been hammering away on their own misjudgement of the required funds. Given all this, it is remarkable that $400M of stimulus funds were, in fact, handed over to NASA’s human space flight program.

  • NASA Fan

    The only reason why the Augustine Commission exists is because the Columbia Disaster created the aura of a problem the government must solve, i.e. what to do with manned space flight. Hence the Vision, hence the problems implementing the Vision, hence Augustine, hence the wait for Obama.

    Had Columbia not been destroyed, we would not be having this discussion. Governments do not put up traffic lights till there is an accident, not before hand during the communities warnings of an impending accident.

    Governments react. They don’t lead.

    The bigger the ‘crisis’ the quicker the government reaction.

    NASA’s problems with implementing the VSE do not rise to the level of a quick reaction by the government. Hence a wait for Obama decision that is commensurate with the gravity of the problem.

    Question for Robert: Had Columbia not been destroyed, where would NASA be right now? I understand Bush had begun a review of ‘manned space flight’ prior to Columbia, but I can only guess what they would have recommended absent Columbia. Any guesses?

  • CharlesHouston

    Doug Lassiter replied and I wanted to make sure that I had been clear – the Obama Administration put money into their priorities. Things like starting a multi-year project to put high speed rail between San Fran and LA, etc. They borrowed and spent 787 BILLION dollars. Look at that stimulus bill and their priorities are clear. Maybe government space got 400 million, that is roundoff errors on a spending bill of 787 billion.

    Essentially zero. When they sat down to divide up the colossal pie that they were borrowing – they sent money to LOTS of things that the previous Administration had not funded. In fact, they sent money to almost everything conceivable that previous Administrations did not fund.

    A few things stand out that did NOT get this copious flood of borrowed money. Government space was one of them. Did the Administration sit down and carefully examine each of the Stimulus bill destinations? NO. They must have funded everything except things that they did NOT value.

    That is why we should look at what did NOT get funded (what, did their pens just run out of ink?) and that stuff must be tainted, must be distasteful. That is all that I can conclude. When you are handing out 787 billion dollars, what is a few extra billion?

    This Administration did not take a closer look, or even a first close look, at anything. They did not take the time.

    That is why I conclude that space will not get additional attention – or hardly any attention. We are gonna drift along like a raft in a current.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Lets be precise. The stimulus bill gave $400M to Exploration at NASA. That’s about 10% of their total budget. The stimulus bill was, in total, about 20% of the federal budget. So human space flight didn’t exactly get the 20% that the other federal expenditures averaged, but it sure didn’t get “essentially zero”.

    Well, maybe it got “essentially zero” in that human space flight, as a whole, gets “essentially zero” of the federal budget. 0.5%, right? So 10% of “essentially zero” is pretty much essentially zero as well. Is that what you meant? Now, stimulus-wise, the previous administration gave human space flight precisely zero! So I guess Obama gave human space flight infinitely more than the previous administration did. Ain’t numbers fun?

    No, it’s not going to drift like a raft in a current. It’ll drift like a flyspeck in a current. Every administration puts their money into priorities, and human space flight has not been a big one for a long long time. Get used to it.

  • red

    Mark: “My suspicion is that whatever the Obama administration decides, it will likely anger and disappoint space supporters.”

    My suspicion is that whatever the Obama administration decides, it will likely anger and disappoint Mark.

    CharlesHouston: “NASA managers have repeatedly hammered the fact that if we want to have the option to continue the Shuttle they need to be informed. Nothing has been heard.”

    You could go on a limb and interpret that as a decision that the Shuttle won’t be continued much beyond the current plan. As Wayne Hale said in his blog in August 2008, “We started shutting down the shuttle four years ago. That horse has left the barn.”

    blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog/posts/post_1219932905350.html

    CharlesHouston: “NASA managers have repeatedly hammered the fact that if we want to pursue the current plan and deploy the Ares launch vehicle, our funding is inadequate.”

    You could interpret that as a decision that the Ares launch vehicles won’t be deployed, at least in their current form. Given Obama administration priorities, it’s possible that if NASA does get increased funding, it wouldn’t go to NASA HSF at all, but rather to things like aeronautics and Earth observations. If NASA HSF does get a budget increase, it’s possible the boost will go to things like ISS use, non-ISS HSF R&D&demo, a modest Shuttle retirement delay (on the order of months), commercial ISS support, and robotics in support of HSF (eg: precursors, Flexible Path style telerobotics and satellite servicing preparation), rather than increasing Ares rocket budgets.

    Jeff: “So those who have great aspirations for space policy might want to practice their patience.”

    I agree with this … but I can’t help but sympathize with those that want to see certain decisions made. In cases where we’re going down a path that will change, every day we spend on that path is wasting time and resources, and setting the presumably undesirable path in stone all the more. In cases where we’re going down a path that will not change, but where that’s not obvious now, other potentially useful decisions cannot be made based on that path.

    Still, I’d rather wait a bit more than get a bunch of rushed decisions that don’t make sense. It didn’t take Dr. Griffin long to set the current exploration plan into motion, but look how that turned out. A lot was torn down in the blink of an eye, but not a lot of Ares/Orion hardware was built in its place in the following years.

    I’m fairly optimistic that what follows the current wait will be, if not ideal, considerably better than the status quo, funding boost or not. I was not at all impressed with the early Obama campaign (eg: education/NASA mistake that didn’t apply NASA to education, bad showing at the 2008 ISDC debate), but they fixed that problem during the later parts of the campaign and now seem to have a solid space team that is moving in the right direction, slowly but surely.

  • Anon

    Yea, there was some kind of study I believed, but it don’t it recall it having any earth shaking goals. I am sure one of the policy geeks here will dredge it up.

    But without Columbia the OSP on the EELV would have move forward and would probably be flying now, or at least be close to flying. But there would have also been no required cut-off for the Shuttle and there were plans to fly it until the ISS was deorbited in 2015, or perhaps even longer. Its hard to see the VSE having been declared as a goal and it would not have been missed. O’Keefe would probably have not left NASA so Griffin would not have been able to steer it off the cliff.

    Yes without Columbia the government would have not noticed the ‘”space problem” it needed to fix and so it wouldn’t have created the space mess we have now as a result of it “fixing” the problem.

  • NavyFlyBoy

    adoration of the space community and NASA notwithstanding, get real folks.

    the current administration is in a fight every day for it’s political existence and the success of far more immediate and pressing concerns than HSF; to criticize it for not swiftly establishing a new course not only displays complete ignorance for the legislative processes involved, it arrogantly presumes NASA is of greater priority than two wars, of more value than fixing a broken health care system, of higher consequence than resuscitating a catatonic economy.

    constructive advice, creativity and hard work are whats needed from our community now. the best thing any of us can do is write to our local papers, our congressmen, reach out to the media and public wherever possible to build public support. help lay the grounds for business investment. explain the relationship between space and national security, as well as human health and the environment (spinoffs too!). a lackluster and uninspiring HSF program will be the sole result of continued infighting between members of the space community.

    i can’t help but ask the question – during times of crisis and war, how many active members of the armed forces do you see publicly questioning their leaders, their commander in chief? follow your chain of command, and trust in the process. offer advice, but know your place. be humble folks.

  • Robert G. Oler

    NASA Fan wrote @ November 1st, 2009 at 8:34 pm

    Question for Robert: Had Columbia not been destroyed, where would NASA be right now? I understand Bush had begun a review of ‘manned space flight’ prior to Columbia, but I can only guess what they would have recommended absent Columbia. Any guesses?…………………………………………..

    my guess (and it is only that based on my understanding of how The Bush administration worked) is that had Columbia not gone bang, then we would be 1) finishing the space station, 2) debating what came next after the shuttle and 3) planning on flying the shuttle after the station is finished…until something else came along…because with out the shuttles upmass the station cannot long endure as a fully functional system.

    It is possible that as the administration ground along that at some point they might have done what they tried to do in almost every other venue, and that is resurrect some cold war approach to space…ie the Moon thing..every foreign policy problem was viewed as a throwback to the cold war (a bunch of guerillas attack the US and we start invading one country after another!!!).

    Of course as things ahve turned out, except for spending 9 billion dollars on Ares and 600 million on this test flight, they have done nothing much but plan

    Robert G. Oler

  • Rhyolite

    “a spending bill of 787 billion”

    Actually, 40% of that value was tax cuts. The spending portion came to less than $500 billion.

    “Maybe government space got 400 million”

    NASA as a whole got $1 billion. Of that 400 million was for exploration.

    “Lets be precise. The stimulus bill gave $400M to Exploration at NASA. That’s about 10% of their total budget. The stimulus bill was, in total, about 20% of the federal budget. So human space flight didn’t exactly get the 20% that the other federal expenditures averaged”

    You make a good point, but let me recompute your values based on the actual portion of the stimulus bill that was spending: Using a budget value of $3100 billion for 2009 and a stimulus spending of 500 billion, the stimulus bill was 16.1% of the federal budget. The NASA budget for new manned spacecraft was $3.5 billion in 2009 so $400 million extra is 11.4%, so exploration actually did better then your back of the envelope estimate would suggest.

    An 11.4% increase for exploration versus a 16.1% average increase across the federal budget? It looks to me like exploration came pretty close to getting its fair share of the stimulus spending. That’s pretty good since exploration isn’t exactly the first place I would think of to spend money when trying to give the economy a short term jolt.

  • Daniel Carrera

    CharlesHouston wrote:

    “Anyway, the current Administration did move “fast” on the “stimulus” bill and that shows its values and priorities. Space is no where on that list (unless you count the leftovers that space got). We have to admit that government space is not on the Administration’s priority list. So where do we go from there?”

    You make it sound like it’s wrong. I am a space enthusiast, but honestly, if the economy is in the middle of a financial crisis and the worst recession since the great depression and there is no recovery in sight (ie. back in March), the human space program should NOT be the top priority of the administration. The top priority (back in March) is to deal with the financial crisis.

    The review of human spaceflight was announced back in May 7. At that point the U.S.A. was still deep in the recession, but there were signs of recovery, and it was 4 months after Obama took office. That doesn’t sound like an inordinate delay to me. It sound reasonable given the situation that the country was in at the time.

  • Daniel Carrera

    CharlesHouston wrote:

    the Obama Administration put money into their priorities. Things like starting a multi-year project to put high speed rail between San Fran and LA, etc. They borrowed and spent 787 BILLION dollars…

    [NASA got] Essentially zero. When they sat down to divide up the colossal pie that they were borrowing …

    A few things stand out that did NOT get this copious flood of borrowed money. Government space was one of them. Did the Administration sit down and carefully examine each of the Stimulus bill destinations? NO. They must have funded everything except things that they did NOT value.

    You are stretching logic a bit far. It is easy to make a long stream of plausible deductions and end up with a completely absurd result.

    In very rough terms, the objectives of the stimulus were to (1) prevent the collapse of some major companies, and the associated consequences, (2) boost consumer spending, and (3) promote job creation to partly compensate for job loses elsewhere.

    Investing in NASA does not boost near term consumer spending, and it does not create a lot of new jobs in the near term. Car subsidies boost spending and investing in infrastructure projects that are labour intensive (highways, trains, power grids) creates jobs. Infrastructure also sets the stage for sustained recovery in the medium term.

    Naturally we can’t have an in-depth discussion about the stimulus package in just a few forum posts. The point is that we should not look at things that didn’t get funded in the middle of a financial crisis as an indication of long term policy. These are entirely unrelated things. Back in March the administration was dealing with the deepest recession since the great depression. It is reasonable that they did not give a lot of thought to long term space exploration.

    4 months into the administration, when there were signs of recovery, but before the crisis was over, the administration set up a panel of experts to figure out what to do with NASA. All in all, this looks reasonable to me. Let’s just wait and see what the administration does with the report. Until then, I’ll withhold my judgment.

  • Daniel Carrera

    red wrote:

    I’m fairly optimistic that what follows the current wait will be, if not ideal, considerably better than the status quo, funding boost or not.

    I feel similar. I think that the Augustine Commission laid out a lot of good alternatives. I’m sure I won’t get everything I want, but I do expect to get some of the things I want: Extension of the ISS, Flexible Path, replacing the Ares I and Ares V by something else.

    The different alternatives to the Ares I + V have various pros and cons. Although I do have my preferences, I would be happy with any of them.

  • Robert G. Oler

    CharlesHouston wrote @ November 1st, 2009 at 9:17 pm

    . Did the Administration sit down and carefully examine each of the Stimulus bill destinations? NO. They must have funded everything except things that they did NOT value. ..

    A guess is if the Administration would have any “take backs” it was the stimulus bill that they signed on to in the opening days of their administration. I bet you they wish they had that back.

    One of the hallmarks of the last administration was to create a crisis atmosphere, almost out of whole cloth and then demand immediate action on whatever they were proposing because if not “it could be disastrous”.

    Almost everything that they did was in Andy Card’s words “rolled out” and presented as the onlything saving The Republic from oblivion. Hence a year after 9/11 we are confronted with the “new threat” from Saddam and we all have to make up our minds fast really fast or “dangers gather near our shores”.

    Same with the TARP and stimulus bill. One day The REpublic is fine and the next day all the jerks in this administration are up preaching great depression unless we spend billions to bailout all the folks who got us into this mess.

    Then the Dems mostly cook up this stimulus bill and learning from the Bush administration rush it through to “save our jobs”.

    Everything since that time has found this administration trying to think things out, come up with some doctrine or over arching strategery and then trying to implement it.

    The TARP was a whole bunch of spending on GOP cronies and the Stim bill was a whole lot of spending on Dem things that had languished for the past 8 years…and I dont think either was well done.

    These things need a little thought. Only the self proclaimed military experts like the right wing can stand up and say “we have a strategery” in Afland and rush more troops in. Obama needs to think it through; what is our goal, how many lives is it worth, how much money

    Same with HSF although on a much much less urgent effort. Obama and his folks need to think through where we are going, what the cost is and what near and long term success are defined as. This includes coming up with someething that (gasp) for the first time helps Americans not just pork spending (at least one hopes).

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Anon wrote @ November 1st, 2009 at 6:44 pm

    The idea that it takes YEARS to decide on a plan and commit funding to it has some merit, but the idea that an interested Administration, staffed with veterans, could not give indications of it’s direction, and allow it’s handpicked managers to proceed – is ludicrous. ..

    I am not so sure. It is an easy choice if all one wants to do is make what was happening happen.

    If you want to go in any other direction then it needs a little thought.

    Robert G. Oler

  • R.U. Kidding

    Um is anyone else offended that Eliot infers that the space industry is like Vladimir and Estragon? Those two are complete idiots in the play.

    Also Eliot is best served to:
    1) Actually read a book instead of citing wikipedia;
    2) Do a little historical digging on the issuance dates of previous national space policies. Each President took longer than a year, from date of inauguration, to issue a space policy. There is one exception and the is GHW Bush who put one out in 10-months (November) after his election. But the GHW Bush policy was put out so quickly because it mainly reaffirmed the principles of the Reagan policy and also because there was some continuity between the presidencies; and
    3) Buy a calendar. While it has almost been a year since Obama was elected it’s only been nine-months since he took office and only 6-months since he issued PSD-3.

    /rant over

    PS – I’m a republican and a Bush fan (it’s not troll bait Oler so stand down) but you’ve got to cut Obama a break here. Writing a national space policy isn’t like punching in numbers at a vending machine and ordering a coke- it’s a complex thing and if you get it wrong in an effort to get it out quickly then what have you really solved? (The old, ‘you want it bad, you’ll get it bad’ model)

  • Robert G. Oler

    R.U. Kidding wrote @ November 2nd, 2009 at 12:14 pm

    PS – I’m a republican and a Bush fan (it’s not troll bait Oler so stand down) .

    max brake, speed brakes up….reverser in full…

    OK I’m stopped

    grin

    Robert G. Oler

  • R.U. Kidding

    See, we can sometimes agree on things. Space, when done correctly, transcends political boundaries. (e.g., I think Obama’s space policy person at the NSC is actually a republican.)

  • I disagree with both Robert and Doug on many aspects of space policy, but in the wider politics that spaceflight exists in, they’ve both got it right, as does R U Kidding. In fact, I am really, really happy to read R U Kidding’s comments. Until the space communities come up with something they can agree on, there will be no progress, and it is great to see a Republican cutting a Democrat some slack on this issue.

    However:

    Spaceflight is indeed a dot in the river of national policy, and no politician who reaches the pinical of national power is likely to see it as anything else. I don’t disagree that human spaceflight is not a high priority for this Administration (as it wasn’t for the prior one before Columbia), but what we forget is that it is a much bigger dot than it was in the past. When was the last time in individual close to achieving the Presidency was against all human spaceflight? (Yes, Mr. Obama probably started out that way; somebody in his campaign said “Florida” and he isn’t today (although a friend pointed out that, since Florida’s space coast voted for the Republics anyway, he owes them nothing now).) Remember not all that long ago when all or most national politicians were opposed to all human spaceflight? Things really have changed, and to a truly remarkable degree.

    Mr. Obama seems to be seriously considering a dramatic expansion of commercial spaceflight. Why do Republicans like Mark find it so hard to say “yes” when presented with the possibility of exactly what they claim to be for (even though “their” Administration in reality largely opposed it)? By being so relentlessly negative before the policy is even out, they increase the risk that commercial spaceflight will not be a major part of whatever plan we end up with. How does that benefit the Republic?

    Fight Mr. Obama on healthcare, if you must, but when he does what we want, please say “yes.” You might even consider saying “Thank you.”

    And, thank you R U Kidding. This “San Francisco liberal” requests that you hand around our discussion and continue to contribute. . . .

    — Donald

  • Oops, that should be “hang around”!

    — Donald

  • Robert G. Oler

    Donald.

    Two points about your post.

    The first is that human spaceflight is I agree something very small in our national politics and will remain thatway until it is “infiltrated” in our national politics by becoming a serious part of it. Human spaceflight should be like the roads or aviation or whatever…infrastructure related and seen as that. Right now it is seen as pork for a few congressional districts with no real value past the federal dollars spent…ie it is not seen by politicians as a “job creator” much past the jobs that the dollars create.

    Outside the house in Santa Fe they are busily improving highway 646, turning it into a major road from a sleepy two laner. The jobs there take home a paycheck just as NASA jobs do, but I’ll bet you soup to donuts that ten years from now the spending is still creating jobs and wealth (at least we hope so we have been buying some land along the road!)

    This cannot be said about any HSF spending yet…it is very concievable that every badly spent dime that the space station cost, if Obama or someone does the policy right; The Republic gets back later rather then sooner (and this is from someone who argued hard to kill the darn thing). And that is what I think is important about Obama and his group taking sometime to think this out.

    The second point is your comment about Mark W and others.

    I dont recall who said it on the Sunday talk shows but someone noticed that the Congress is heading more and more to a Parlimentary system where only the extremes of the party control the base. And I would add that this means groups who cannot on their own muster enough horsepower to control American political thought, do so in their own little pond.

    The right and left wing of the country have gone so far off track it no longer matters what the other side does, they just oppose it because it is the other side. Frequently the arguments even change sides. IE when Bush the last was POTUS the right wing was all gung ho over the war deficit spending, but now that Obama is President deficit spending in all forms is bad. While the left that abhorred deficit spending on the war is all hooked up over another stimulus package even though it would drive the debt through any roof. The arguments are the same; on the right it was the war would pay for itself then when that didnt work it was eventually the spending will be worth it…Krugman is up with an op ed saying how we have to deficit spend for “the young people to have jobs” even though they are the ones who at my age will find their government crippled by it.

    its nuts…but it is a function of where both parties have been going…and I predict that it wont last much longer. Either one party will find the center driven there by coalitions and a leader like Reagan who/which will completly redefine the party (and no Sarah Palin is not it) and rule for a bit or we will find some strange coalitions start to form from the center, that bring in a center type effort. I find the later unlikely, the last time it happened was slavery bringing together what is now the GOP (although the GOP has gone so nutty I doubt Lincoln would recognize it)…

    but it is conceivable that the issue is going to be a federal government and its spending that has just gotten out of the realm of the two parties to control…that neither or both is able to break themselves from writing checks that some other generation has to pay.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert: Human spaceflight should be like the roads or aviation or whatever

    Well, I would kill to have HSF become “like roads,” at least as they were when the Highway and Freeway projects got started — projects that had no economic justification whatsoever at the time, but resulted from a vision (however simplistic it proved in retrospect) of a dramatic future.

    Unfortunately, I find your last paragraph all too likely. We would not be the first society to spiral to ruin and eventual dark ages because we’d rather squabble over ideology and social irrelevancies than address our very real economic and technical problems — or, to use my earlier example, say “yes” to the opposition even when they are doing exactly what you want!

    — Donald

  • Ferris Valyn

    Robert (at the risk of going off into a non-space political issue)

    its nuts…but it is a function of where both parties have been going…and I predict that it wont last much longer. Either one party will find the center driven there by coalitions and a leader like Reagan who/which will completly redefine the party (and no Sarah Palin is not it) and rule for a bit or we will find some strange coalitions start to form from the center, that bring in a center type effort. I find the later unlikely, the last time it happened was slavery bringing together what is now the GOP (although the GOP has gone so nutty I doubt Lincoln would recognize it)…

    The problem is that, I don’t believe anyone in this country can agree on what the center is. I further submit that this has been true, for a while, but it really only became clear during the Bush administration. Due to a number of reasons, the political establishment, on both sides, started believing that this country is fairly right of center, when that wasn’t necessarily ever the case, and this allowed the idealogues to take over.

    As for someone creating a coallition of the center – I’d argue that Obama may be trying to do that, given some of his stances (he is hardly a Bernie Sanders when it comes to a variety of policies), but this is made much more difficult because of the current state of the Republican party.

  • Ferris, I agree with your final paragraph. I would be much happier if Mr. Obama were to attempt a cleaner break with Mr. Bush’s policies, but I believe he is trying to do exactly what you suggest.

    However, it is hard to argue that the Republican party has moved, whatever has happened to the center, though I wouldn’t necessarily call it “to the right.” No one in Mr. Nixon’s party, let alone Mr. Lincoln’s, would recognize today’s Republicans obsessed with divisive social and religious issues and ideologically incapable of compromise, while today’s Democrats have compromised themselves further to the right than Democrats after FDR but otherwise are fairly straightforward ideological descendents of the “New Deal.”

    While I do not like some of the resulting policies, I wish Mr. Obama every success in his attempts to re-find the center, but have very low expectations of success. Brining this discussion back to the issues at hand, I think this is an attitude we in the space community need to adapt. For example, while I think a human lunar base is essential to our future as a spacefaring species (as I argued last month in Space News), if my argument loses and the Administration selects “Flexible Path,” I would not fight that, only try to adapt parts of it to meet the deep space trade and commerce end-goals I think we should be working toward. Likewise, any of the other options, even “staying the course” with Dr. Griffin’s implementation of Constellation. If, every time a direction is chosen, we circle the wagons and shoot in, nothing whatsoever will be accomplished.

    — Donald

  • Hmm, let me re-think that about Lincoln, at least in regards to social issues!

    — Donald

  • Robert G. Oler

    Ferris Valyn

    “The problem is that, I don’t believe anyone in this country can agree on what the center is”

    Well most people think that, John McCain’s campaign staff did at least…but I disagree. I think that the center is fairly well understood; if one looks for it.

    The problem is that one has to not look at a set of issues, but AT A MINDSET.

    What is the journey of the American people is twofold 1)”We the people” is extended to more and more of the population (ie the people who have “rights” which we think of as baseline… gets extended more and more with each generation and 2) The American people expect more and more that “life” throughout America looks about the same everywhere.

    If one can grasp those concepts then the “center” of American politics is easy to find. It takes awhile for the American people to come to a head on an issue, but at some point on almost every issue there is a consensus and it generally evolves around the two items I mention up front.

    The problem in American politics today is that both parties are captives of their base that is small but active and is captive of litmus test issues which really mean little outside of the base. For instance the Dem base is sour on Iraq because they dont like Bush; they cannot remotly see the danger in a precipitous withdrawl (I dont like that we got there but we are there) they just are furious at how we got there. The GOP base is hung up on the social issues that fewer and fewer Americans agree with them…and the fact that they hate big government even while they embrace it.

    An example of this is human spaceflight. The right wing which claims to love “industry” is also the biggest cheerleader for a government run program.

    Of course a similar notion in health care is ghastly.

    I agree that Obama is trying to govern from “the center” and we will see how that works out. Reagan moved as fast as he could to the center and was a successful President. Bush stayed on the right wing..and left hated by almost all Americans.

    There is however a center in American politics.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ferris Valyn

    Robert,

    I am sorry, but the idea of there being a center, and has been a center, is an out moded idea. Those 2 questions might define a philosophic point of view, as it relates to certain aspects of politics, but it does not, nor can it define all issues that need consideration.

    What we are in desperate need of is to acknowledge that we live in a multi-polar country, and have a political class that represents this fact.

    How to get it is an entirely different question

  • Robert G. Oler

    Ferris Valyn wrote @ November 2nd, 2009 at 9:15 pm

    What we are in desperate need of is to acknowledge that we live in a multi-polar country, and have a political class that represents this fact. ..

    We have always live din a multi polar country since the founding of The Republic.

    My two test do define the issues…the trick is to figure out where the issue is on the sliding scale.

    For instance the right wing is losing the gay marriage debate…they just are. Over 55 people are oppossed to gay marriage, below that down to the 20’s the scale shifts dramatically. The right was once oppossed to equal rights for minorities…the scale shifts.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ferris Valyn

    Robert – we have always lived in a multi-polar country, but our political class has never been multi-polar – its always been bi-polar, and that has been part of our country’s political breakdown.

    Which brings me to where your questions really break down – the issue of foreign policy. Foreign policy and foreign policy issues, goes against the grain with those 2 questions.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Ferris…I dont agree.

    our political class has been multipolar…in our history the multipolar came from the various regions where the differences in viewpoints were stark.

    Forieng policy. American foreign policy is ALMOST non partisan…at least it was until Bush the last came into power.

    Most Americans differ in “tone” or “in accent” but not in theory from a middle viewpoint on foreign policy. Carter might have been some different from Ford but Carter didnt run into trouble until his foreign policy ideas had seemed to collapse.

    Bush the last is a special case. Where his administration completly came unzipped is that he violated the two cardinal rules of foreign policy.

    Shoot reasonable straight with the American people…and be fairly competent. Those rules bend sometimes but if you violate one you are in trouble and two you are toast.

    Call it lying or exaggeration or whatever, it is clear that what was being claimed about Saddam and stated about Iraq’s future were “wrong”. Most Americans have come to a judgment that they were so wrong that a prudent person should ahve known that. And that is why Bush was booed at Obama’s inagural. The American people were just finished with him…he had left the center of American politics.

    Robert G. Oler

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