‘Tis the season… for lobbying, that is, regardless if you’re a proponent of the current “Program of Record” or the alternative “Flexible Path” option from the Augustine committee report. Boeing Space Exploration is encouraging its employees to voice their support for the current program, establishing a web site where they can fill out a form (on personal time, it emphasizes) that will send a letter to key members of Congress.
“Contact your elected officials and let them know that NASA and its space exploration programs are on the right trajectory,” the sites states in bold, red text. “As the President and Congress weigh the options for our nation’s future space exploration policy, it’s important our elected officials know that you support the Constellation and Ares rocket programs.” (Isn’t Ares part of Constellation?)
Meanwhile, the Space Frontier Foundation is gearing up to lobby, in part, on behalf of the Flexible Path option. As you may recall, last month the Foundation said planned to revive March Storm, the annual lobbying blitz on Capitol Hill that had been canceled in 2009, only to be rebuked by ProSpace, the organization that has run March Storm for most of its history. Instead, the Foundation is calling its effort First Flight, scheduled for the week of February 7th. (The announcement does note that the training scheduled for Sunday the 7th will be done in time to watch the Super Bowl.)
The First Flight agenda includes a number of topics, including increased funding for NASA’s Centennial Challenges prize program and “full funding” for the agency’s new Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research (CRuSR) program. The agenda also backs the Flexible Path option as part of an effort to restore “NASA’s focus on research and exploration”; it also calls for the cancellation of Ares 1.
First Flight will be the beginning of a busy month of advocacy on the Hill for space organizations. The Space Exploration Alliance is planning its 2010 Legislative Blitz, similar to March Storm and First Flight, on February 21-23, while ProSpace plans to resume March Storm on February 28-March 2.
Mr. Goff has very good set of bullet points, extracted from the Augustine Committee report, about why the program of record/Constellation is not a viable option:
http://selenianboondocks.com/2009/12/why-not-just-fund-the-program-of-record/
Those bullet points would be good materials for SFF volunteers or anyone else speaking to Congressional staff.
FWIW…
And if you scroll down, Mr. Goff’s blog entry also has a good set of bullet points about the Flexible Path options.
FWIW…
http://selenianboondocks.com/2009/12/why-not-just-fund-the-program-of-record/
I took Major Tom’s suggestion and read the post.
I would recommend it for all. If you have any sort of open mind, one not clouded by political babble…this explains the situation.
it is well written
Robert G. Oler
I have thoughts on Jon’s post, and Chris Kraft’s latest insanity mislabeled “common sense.”
Arrgghh it is very sad to see my pseudo high jacked likee this even by someone like Chris Kraft. Pretty sad to read something like this from someone like him.
“vehicles being developed under the NASA-supported Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) initiatives are yet to be proven and would require significant modifications and improvements to meet the man-rating requirements of human spaceflight. “
I do not have a clue why Chris Kraft wrote what he did when he did it.
All it adds is noise.
What strikes me however is how unrealistic it is.
Rand has a good point. Kraft acts as though money is not an object in the situation and his solution to everything is to make no choices, just do everything.
My guess is that this type of reasoning never had a real toehold at the current administration and certainly does not now.
Robert G. Oler
One mission per decade?
The whole concept is a joke and a silly stealth program designed for those who still advocate a one shot manned mission to Mars! Sorry but this will never happen using chemical rockets because of the need for substantial mass shielding from solar storms and galactic radiation.
Its time for NASA to get serious and get on with the business of establishing a permanent base on the Moon– which should have been done back in the 1970s. And then NASA can focus on the real technologies that can get us to Mars: nuclear rockets or light sails.
So what does the Flexible Path mean. One mission per year. One mission every 5 years. One mission per decade?
The whole concept is a joke and a silly stealth program designed for those who still advocate a one shot manned mission to Mars! Sorry but this will never happen using chemical rockets because of the need for substantial mass shielding from solar storms and galactic radiation.
Its time for NASA to get serious and get on with the business of establishing a permanent base on the Moon– which should have been done back in the 1970s. And then NASA can focus on the real technologies that can get us to Mars: nuclear rockets or light sails.
“So what does the Flexible Path mean. One mission per year. One mission every 5 years. One mission per decade?…
With regards to the Moon, the Flexible Path options build up to two human lunar surface missions per year.
If you had bothered to read the final report of the Augustine Committee, or even just look at the pictures, you’d know this.
“Its time for NASA to get serious and get on with the business of establishing a permanent base on the Moon– which should have been done back in the 1970s.”
The Flexible Path options include long-duration human lunar surface missions.
If you had bothered to read the final report of the Augustine Committee, or even just look at the pictures, you’d know this.
“The whole concept is a joke and a silly stealth program designed for those who still advocate a one shot manned mission to Mars!”
The Flexible Path options call for a total of 15 human missions beyond LEO before embarking on a human Mars surface mission.
If you had bothered to read the final report of the Augustine Committee, or even just look at the pictures, you’d know this.
“And then NASA can focus on the real technologies that can get us to Mars…”
The Flexible Path options include multi-billion dollar investments in advanced technologies for human space exploration.
If you had bothered to read the final report of the Augustine Committee, you’d know this.
Stop making stupid and false statements out of ignorance. Educate yourself.
Oy vey…
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ December 15th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
…what a lot of people dont understand is that what makes the Moon far away is not energy or even the rocket equation…it is that there is 1) no overriding reason to go there and 2) there is no space industry to take us there.
The moon might as well be light years away
Robert G. Oler
Major Tom,
Can you send that last comment to Chris Kraft?
It’s important to stay the course and keep it to a few simple, tactical points. We talk too much about technical merit or whether one program makes the best sense in terms of ROI, as if politicians care about ROI. Here are the bullet points:
1. It is a clear and present national embarrassment that we can’t send our own astronauts to the $100B ISS without Russians. People don’t care much about space, but they don’t like Russians. NASA has shown it can not be entrusted to end this embarrassment within a reasonable budget or timeframe. Commercial providers are America’s best chance to close the gap permanently.
2. NASA has other programs which are not of immediate national need, such as the remaining Constellation architecture. They can be funded at an arbitrary level to keep certain politicians’ constituents happy. No hardware need ever fly for these programs, and no lives need ever to be lost. They will produce nothing but several thousand votes for the gentlemen from AL, TX, and FL, nice posters for schools, and a steady stream of uncritical articles in PM for at least the next 4-6 years until something else catches the public’s attention or until they, too, fulfill an urgent national need.
3. You can use #2’s program budgets in any way necessary to placate the NASA stakeholders when you take #1 away from them.
“Its time for NASA to get serious and get on with the business of establishing a permanent base on the Moon– which should have been done back in the 1970s.”
Ah yes. But first they’ll have to get serious and come up with a compelling reason why. They don’t have one now. There is NOTHING that is driving us to have a permanent base on the Moon. If anything, we now have fewer reasons to have one than we had in the 1970s. As pointed out already, there is no business case that spurs us to get in to the business of establishing one.
By “permanent base” you mean one that is continually occupied? Congress passed legislation that explicitly prohibited NASA from doing that. If you mean a hut that stays there, well sure, that’s not hard. Just drop a double-wide down there and lock the door.
Beat the Chinese as a compelling reason? Gee whiz. Let’s let them get stuck in a permanent base on the Moon and hide under rocks there while we go out and do new stuff.
@Major Tom.
Yeah I read the report and have discussed it with one of the commission members.
1. We need permanent, continuously growing, and properly shielded settlements on the lunar surface— not long duration lunar missions.
2. We are not going to Mars without proper mass shielding. And attempting to transport such huge amounts of mass using chemical rockets would be astronomically expensive.
@ Doug Lassiter
“By “permanent base†you mean one that is continually occupied? Congress passed legislation that explicitly prohibited NASA from doing that.”
I’ve never heard of any legislation banning a permanently manned facility on the lunar surface. Please give me the source.
Why would anyone want a permanent human settlements on the Moon???
1. Confining our civilization solely to our planet of evolutionary origin would probably doom our species to eventual extinction!
2. A large lunar colony would dominate the multibillion dollar a year satellite manufacturing and launching industry since its much cheaper to launch satellites from the lunar surface to Earth orbit than from the Earth’s surface
3. There are probably tens of thousands of wealthy individuals on Earth who would love to travel to the Moon. So space tourism to the Moon could potentially be a multi-hundred billion dollar a year industry.
4. A multi-billion dollar a year lunar lotto system might also bring average Janes and Joes to the lunar surface.
5. There are probably millions of people who would probably like their cremated remains buried on the Moon, another potential multi-billion dollar a year industry.
6. Meteorite prospecting on the lunar surface might be an excellent source for platinum which might be another multi-billion dollar a year industry.
7. If humans can adjust to the 1/6 hypogravity environment of the Moon then living on Mars will be a cinch.
8. There are actually scientist that think exploring the Moon using both humans and robots might be beneficial to our knowledge base.
And there are probably a lot more reasons that just the ones listed above!
“Yeah I read the report and have discussed it with one of the commission members.”
If you did, then you shouldn’t have filled your post with statements you knew to be false.
“We need permanent, continuously growing… settlements on the lunar surface…”
To achieve what policy objective? What is a lunar settlement worth the U.S. federal government going hundreds of billions of dollars further into debt and taking hundreds of billions of dollars out of the hands of future generations of U.S. taxpayers?
“We are not going to Mars without proper mass shielding. And attempting to transport such huge amounts of mass using chemical rockets would be astronomically expensive.”
Again, the Flexible Path options provide for multi-billion dollar investments in advanced technologies for human space exploration.
“I’ve never heard of any legislation banning a permanently manned facility on the lunar surface.”
Per Section 404(a) of the NASA Authorization Act of 2008:
“Establishment – As NASA works toward the establishment of a lunar outpost, NASA shall make no plans that would require a lunar outpost to be occupied to maintain its viability. Any such outpost shall be operable as a human-tended facility capable of remote or autonomous operation for extended periods.”
FWIW…
@Major Tom
1. I didn’t make any false statements!
2. NASA tiny manned space program is insignificant relative to the federal budget and the national debt. In fact, NASA creates a lot more wealth than it consumes. But even if you terminated the entire space program, it would take a thousand years for NASA’s tiny budget to pay off the national debt. But that’s only if you assume a zero rate of inflation. So it would take a lot longer.
3. Thanks for posting the NASA authorization act. While this doesn’t necessarily prohibit a permanent human presence it was clearly passed by congress in order to stop NASA from using such a facility as a justification for a permanently manned presence. This clearly contradicts NASA’s statements about returning to the Moon– to stay! That’s pretty dumb, IMO, and should be amended!
:1. We need permanent, continuously growing, and properly shielded settlements on the lunar surface— not long duration lunar missions.:
Quite so, a lunar settlement as a center of science and commerce would return economic benefits to the nation in excess of the investment needed to create it.
2. We are not going to Mars without proper mass shielding. And attempting to transport such huge amounts of mass using chemical rockets would be astronomically expensive.
Also true, though “Major Tom” assertion that “Look But Don’t Touch” would do this is questionable. Besides, Augustine envisions a technology program with Moon First as well as “Look But Don’t Touch.”
“I didn’t make any false statements!”
Yes, you did. Among other things, you wrote:
“The whole concept [Flexible Path] is a joke and a silly stealth program designed for those who still advocate a one shot [sic] manned mission to Mars!â€
Again, the Flexible Path options call for a total of 15 human missions beyond LEO before embarking on a human Mars surface mission, including lunar surface missions. The Flexible Path options are anything but a one-shot manned mission to Mars.
Don’t make false statements out of ignorance and/or spread lies.
“NASA tiny manned space program is insignificant relative to the federal budget and the national debt.”
You didn’t answer the question of what policy objective the U.S. taxpayer is putting their hard-earned dollars towards in a lunar base.
Just because some program is cheap relative to overall federal budget, that doesn’t mean that taxpayer dollars should be spent on it. I’d like the federal government to buy me a new 2010 Ford Mustang, and that’s really, really small compared the overall federal budget. But I doubt you want your tax dollars going towards my Mustang.
You have to justify “why” to policymakers and taxpayers. “Because it’s small” is not a good reason. If fact, it’s not a reason at all.
“In fact, NASA creates a lot more wealth than it consumes.”
No, just the opposite — NASA likely consumes more wealth than it creates. See:
http://www.fas.org/spp/eprint/jp_950525.htm
“While this doesn’t necessarily prohibit a permanent human presence…”
It prohibits NASA from establishing one on the Moon. It doesn’t prohibit other actors in other sectors.
FWIW…
Mark R. Whittington wrote @ December 16th, 2009 at 12:22 am
:1. We need permanent, continuously growing, and properly shielded settlements on the lunar surface— not long duration lunar missions.:
Quite so, a lunar settlement as a center of science and commerce would return economic benefits to the nation in excess of the investment needed to create it…
How would it do that Mark…? why would NASA astronauts on the Moon (which is the program you support) be any different then NASA astronauts on the space station?
bet you cannot answer that simple question.
Robert G. Oler
“… a lunar settlement as a center of science”
What research on the Moon would make it a “center of science” on par with, say, a major DOE lab, or an NIH institute, or even a top U.S. research university?
Despite ten-odd years of operation, ISS hasn’t become a “center of science”. Why in the world would a collection of human space modules on the lunar surface do any better? Because of the deeper gravity well and lunar dust?
“and commerce”
What commerce? He3 for fusion power plants that don’t exist? A water resource that requires amount of regolith 13,000 times larger to be processed and heated? Lunar cremains?
“would return economic benefits to the nation in excess of the investment needed to create it.”
Evidence? Where are the studies showing how much investment is necessary to create a permanent, self-sustaining lunar settlement? Where are the studies estimating the economic output of such a settlement? Where are the business cases showing how long it would take such a settlement to reach break even?
Or are you just making it up?
I’m all for exploring the possibilities that the Moon may possess in an logical fashion. But hyperbole about the imaginary economic benefits of undefined lunar settlements (especially when the human body likely can’t live out lifetimes and reproduce successfully in low gravity and high radiation environments) does more damage than good in advancing the argument.
“Also true, though “Major Tom†assertion that “Look But Don’t Touch†would do this is questionable.”
The Augustine Committee made it clear that Mars is the final destination for the Flexible Path options. And they set aside funding in those options for technology development. There’s no reason that technology development wouldn’t be targeted at overcoming major obstacles, propulsion or otherwise, to human Mars missions.
It’s a lot less questionable that the Flexible Path options will make the necessary investments than the program of record, which leaves little to no funding for human exploration technology development (the current path that Constellation is on).
“‘Look But Don’t Touch.'”
Stop spreading lies. The Flexible Path options include at least five human lunar surface missions, including long duration missions, before embarking on a human Mars surface mission. And human asteroid and Mars moon missions involve “touching”.
If you can’t post without lying, then don’t post.
Ugh…
What’s the purpose of the NASA human spaceflight these days? Is it defined in any way, or is it, as I suspect, just a left over from the cold war days as a propaganda tool? Maybe all this country (the US) can offer is just that propaganda (like the nowdays Irag and Afgan wars), since it can’t offer anything more tangible than that for chest beating, and we are on a sharp decline, and are a most short-lived empire in history (20 years total). We yanks really need to do some soul searching these days…
I think there is potential for lunar markets, eventually. But we’re nowhere close to where we need to be for that to become a reality, and the PoR does nothing to actually move that ball closer. Mark’s business case seems to be “Step 1. Give NASA $150B+ dollars to create an unsustainable lunar base
Step 2. …
Step 3. Profit!”
The biggest reason why I’m a fan of FlexPath is because I actually do care about the Moon, and the last thing it needs right now is another unsustainable, abortive attempt from NASA. By moving the Moon off the immediate critical path, it gives NASA both the time and the leeway to try doing the things that can actually make a return to the Moon sustainable, and eventually lower the cost of getting there enough that business ventures can have even a chance of succeeding.
~Jon
@Major Tom
Sorry to disappoint you, but NASA does have a positive impact on the economy. See:
http://thespaceadvocate.blogspot.com/2009/12/you-want-economic-impact-you-cant.html
And, of course, the government investment in space technology has dramatically changed our lives. There would be no satellite industry and no CNN, HBO, Direct TV, etc. if governments had not invented and invested in rocket boosters and satellite technology. The satellite based telecommunications industry is currently a $100 billion dollar a year world wide industry because of the initial investment in space technology by the Soviet and US governments.
And please stop arguing that terminating NASA’s tiny budget would somehow significantly reduce our debt! Money saved from terminating the manned space program would take more than 2000 years to pay down the debt!
“NASA does have a positive impact on the economy.”
That blog entry talks about the space industry, not NASA. They’re two different things.
“There would be no satellite industry and no CNN, HBO, Direct TV, etc. if governments had not invented and invested in rocket boosters and satellite technology.”
Agreed, but again, government (and private sector) actors besides NASA invented and invested in the first launchers and communications satellites.
“And please stop arguing that terminating NASA’s tiny budget would somehow significantly reduce our debt!”
I didn’t. Reread my two earlier posts. You still havn’t answered the question I posed.
FWIW…
“I’ve never heard of any legislation banning a permanently manned facility on the lunar surface. Please give me the source.”
OK, here you go. 2009 NASA Authorization bill, passed by Congress, signed by the President October 15, 2008. PL 110-422.
SEC. 404. LUNAR OUTPOST.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—As NASA works toward the establishment
of a lunar outpost, NASA shall make no plans that would require
a lunar outpost to be occupied to maintain its viability. Any such
outpost shall be operable as a human-tended facility capable of
remote or autonomous operation for extended periods.
Of course that doesn’t prohibit permanent occupation, but prohibits an outpost that has to be permanently occupied. By “doing that”, I meant establishing a base that had to be continuously occupied.
Oh, I didn’t notice that Major Tom beat me to it in quoting this Auth language.
So, you say it “should be amended!”? Well, my point was not just that it was correct, but that it was the sense of Congress. So you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you in getting it amended.
Your eight reasons for permanent lunar settlements are kind of striking. Why in the world do any of them require a permanent human lunar presence? Hey, if I want my ashes scattered on the Moon, I don’t need a permanently occupied base to do that!
Whittington’s two reasons are somewhat more compelling, except they are completely handwaving. “A lunar settlement as a center of science and commerce would return economic benefits to the nation in excess of the investment needed to create it.” That sounds like the stuff we used to hear decades ago about establishing cities deep under the ocean. That, in fact, would be far easier than putting them on the Moon!
I have no problem with continued lunar exploration of the Moon by humans, and even using those efforts to offset costs to go further, but you have to draw a line between things that are politically, fiscally, and technologically implementable (and realistic) and those that are just handwaving.
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ December 16th, 2009 at 3:19 am
And, of course, the government investment in space technology has dramatically changed our lives. There would be no satellite industry and no CNN, HBO, Direct TV, etc. if governments had not invented and invested in rocket boosters and satellite technology. ..
I see that Major Tom has addressed the major points…I would add this. (since we have talked about the Syncom/Advent experience).
What is wrong in human spaceflight right now is that there is almost no private industry involvement…that is dilatory in so many ways…but the most important of which is that there is no metering provided, since their is no private industry of what is important to private industry which is the ability to make money with technology.
The Syncom/Advent era illustrates that point.
Go back and read the records about the debate on Advent…and one of the selling points that the Army tried to use to rescue its failing program was that it would clear thepathway for private industry to “jump into” the satellite telecommunications industry.
Instead what Hughes and other companies got with Syncom was a satellite that was a nice balance between what was possible, what was affordable and what could make money. I agree that started the “work down” to Advent style communications (and even lower) but it is quite unlikely that we could have just “jumped in” at a level that was far more then just the ab initio position. That has been the technological history of money makers in the US…ie the product that eventually gathers mass appeal is not the product that started the technological money chain (see airline transportation).
With no regard for cost, with no regard for ultimate capabilities NASA has built a 100 billion dollar “science outpost” that it is quite clear almost no one, or very few outside of government can afford to get to…(transportation cost) much less use.
Jon in my view says it all in this paragraph and it is worth a lot of “we have to go back to the Moon now” or “go on to Mars” people to read and reread and do sentence diagraming on and try desperately to understand…
“The biggest reason why I’m a fan of FlexPath is because I actually do care about the Moon, and the last thing it needs right now is another unsustainable, abortive attempt from NASA. By moving the Moon off the immediate critical path, it gives NASA both the time and the leeway to try doing the things that can actually make a return to the Moon sustainable, and eventually lower the cost of getting there enough that business ventures can have even a chance of succeeding.”
You are wrong when you say that NASA money wont balance the budget. It won alone…but as I tell the kids about their allowance…” a penny here and a penny there and before long you are talking real money”.
Cancelling ill placed spending at NASA and using that as a template to cancel other bad spending in The Government…is how we get The Republic back on sound footing financially.
Robert G. Oler
The deficit is primarily caused by two major colossal expenditures: the escalating cost of the appallingly inefficient public health care programs (Medicare and Medicaid) at over $682 billion a year and rising and two foreign wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) which are funded at over $136 billion a year in 2009 although some sources say $188 billion. If you solve those problems then you solve the debt problem.
But your not going to solve it by cutting a tiny program like NASA that actually creates wealth and has been largely underfunded for nearly 40 years. If NASA had been properly funded then private industry would probably already be sending tourist into space and to the Moon with a budget dwarfing that of NASA’s tiny budget.
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ December 16th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
The deficit is primarily caused by two major colossal expenditures: the escalating cost of the appallingly inefficient public health care programs (Medicare and Medicaid) at over $682 billion a year and rising and two foreign wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) which are funded at over $136 billion a year in 2009 although some sources say $188 billion. If you solve those problems then you solve the debt problem. ..
nope that is not correct.
The deficit is caused by a multitude of factors; two of which you mentioned but solving them alone will not solve the deficit.
The deficit is caused primarily by a declining US industrial base, which is causing a decline of the middle class which is causing a decline in middle class tax revenues. As the middle class declines and more and more folks at the lower end slip out of it, they not only become non tax payers, but infact become receivers of government revenues through social safety net programs.
This coupled with poorly target tax cuts AND spending which has gotten out of control was, even when the economy was expanding (and it did that some under Bush the last) was causing deficits to increase faster then the revenue increases that the tax cuts did bring in.
How does this apply to space.
Take “the program of record”. it is consuming tax dollars to build a product which in itself creates no revenue.
As oppossed to Musk who is using his dollars (mostly) to build a product which includes people who pay taxes…and has started to generate wealth by providing a service to the folks who buy it.
If people like Musk are not encouraged (and this seems to me the oddest part of the folks who support Constellation) then space lift in this country (human and otherwise) will continue to follow the same depressing line that manufactoring is in The Republic.
Right now even the “private” providers Boeing and Lockmart provide almost no lift to commercial sources…If Musk cannot get the commercial launch industry pretty soon American launchers will launch two classes of payloads…NASA/government and military and the commercial launches will be almost all European.
That is the main symptom of our deficit.
Robert G. Oler
“If you solve those problems then you solve the debt problem. ”
Wow. So simple! Solving these problems would require quite a transformation of the US society as we can currently see that it may never happen. At least not until something catastrophic forces us to (e.g. a real depression with 30% unemployment). The US has been built since WWII around the so called militaro-political-industrial complex so it’ll take a while before any change happens.
” If NASA had been properly funded then private industry would probably already be sending tourist into space and to the Moon with a budget dwarfing that of NASA’s tiny budget.”
Unfortunately not true: One of the main reasons why private industry is not doing it is because NASA does (did?) not want it and would rather have retained their monopoly. Another reason of course is that there must be a market before any private sector tries anything. This may change soon. We’ll see.
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ December 16th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
But your not going to solve it by cutting a tiny program like NASA that actually creates wealth and has been largely underfunded for nearly 40 years…
nasa at least human spaceflight does not create a thin dime of wealth. In fact it cost wealth to maintain all the government jobs that really do nothing for The Republic.
Robert G. Oler
@ common sense
There would be no emerging private commercial space programs if it weren’t for US and Soviet government investments in space. And, fundamentally, NASA really doesn’t build any space vehicles, private industry builds them for NASA. So the idea that NASA is stopping private commercial programs around the world is simply not true (the US has no monopoly on global private enterprise).
Ending the war in Iraq and funding the Afghan army and police to protect themselves would probably save us at least $100 to $150 billion a year. Replacing Medicare and Medicaid with a Singapore type of medical savings account system (the most efficient health insurance system in the world that is now being gradually emulated in some provinces in China which is now set to expand to other provinces including Hong Kong) would probably reduce the budget another $200 billion to $300 billion a year.
@ Robert G. Oler
The declining industrial base is primarily due to an astoundingly expensive private health insurance system that makes our products a lot more expensive than our foreign competitors.
It is estimated that private health insurance and other worker benefits add $1,000 to $1,500 to the cost of manufacturing a car in America, while it only adds approximately $150 per car in Japan. GM, however, claims health care costs added between $1,500 and $2,000 to the cost of every automobile it manufactures. The Business Roundtable, which represents the largest U.S. corporations, released a study showing that for every $100 spent in the United States on health care, a group of five of our leading economic competitors (Canada, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France) spend only 63 cents. Its very difficult for US business to compete with that without outsourcing a lot of our manufacturing base to places like India and China.
In 2008, employer health insurance premiums increased by 5.0 percent – two times the rate of inflation. Rising private health insurance cost is simply killing US competitiveness around the world.
In 2007, the U.S. spent $2.26 trillion on health care, or $7,439 per person. In Singapore, which actually has a higher per capita GDP than the US along with a lower infant mortality rate and a higher rate of longevity for its citizens, they spent less than $1100 per capita. An astounding difference in health care efficiency!
“So the idea that NASA is stopping private commercial programs around the world is simply not true ”
Oh yes it is VERY true, not in the open but some of the current NASA execs were essentially opposed to it (COTS-D). I have no proof to give you so you can either dismiss my post or believe it. But this is what “I” know.
—
As to the rest of your post on health care and the wars all I am saying is that even though you may very well be RIGHT the current political and fabric of our society in the US will not let you do it UNLESS there is some catastrophic event. Status quo is MUCH easier to preserve than to opt for fundamental changes. NASA and Sen. Shelby or Sen. Nelson attitudes are good examples. Also look at what is going on with the HealthCare bill… So?
@common sense
The problem with the health care bill is that the Democrats actually think that Medicare and Medicaid are efficiently run public health care systems! But even more astonishing, the Republicans actually think that private health insurance in the US is an efficiently run system! They’re both extremely wrong!!!!
But this is more than just about politics, the extremely high cost and appalling inefficiency of both the public and private health insurance system in the US is running up our deficits and gradually crippling our ability to compete around the world.
A Singapore-like medical savings account system is the only way to save the US economy, IMO.
But no wellness campaigns or even medical breakthroughs from– out of space– are going to save us from the decimating plague of our current extremely flawed health insurance system– right here on Earth!
@Major Tom and Doug Lassiter
The language of Sec 404 does not prohibit NASA from the development or establishment of a permanent manned lunar outpost. What the amendment required was that any outpost on the Moon be mechanically autonomous so it could be maintained without human presence for extended periods of time if necessary.
“The language of Sec 404 does not prohibit NASA from the development or establishment of a permanent manned lunar outpost. What the amendment required was that any outpost on the Moon be mechanically autonomous so it could be maintained without human presence for extended periods of time if necessary.”
I guess that doesn’t sound too unreasonable.
Paul Spudis wrote an excellent column about the problems with the Flexible Path approach which has mirrored some of my own. That FP will not lead to any kind of paradigm shift or commercial development and will be largely business as usual for NASA and its contractors. Here is a link to his lastest article: Arguing about Human Space Exploration. Paul Spudis also offers some pretty strong reasons for establishing permanent lunar presence and ISRU.
I meant to include this article with above comment from Paul Spudis, Dennis Wingo, and Gordon Woodcock: Going Beyond The Status Quo In Space
“But your not going to solve it by cutting a tiny program like NASA”
Again, so what? Small size relative to the federal budget is not a reason to spend taxpayer dollars on anything.
I’d like the federal government to subsidize back massages for me. They’re only $25-100 per hour of massage. That’s very small relative to our multi-trillion dollar federal budget. But I don’t think you’ll find one voter who thinks that one red cent of his taxes should go to my back massages.
You need a real policy justification for your argument and you’re not providing one.
“that actually creates wealth”
There is no definitive proof that NASA spending creates wealth, certainly not at a rate greater than other federal R&D spending and definitely not at a rate greater than private R&D spending or tax cuts. And, in fact, there is also evidence that NASA spending destroys wealth.
For example, in a review of economic studies of civil space spending, a former NASA economist writes “[these] studies, conducted mainly in the mid-1970’s… were not sufficiently accuate or complete to be definitive for policy decisions.” See:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=942&page=265
Also from that era, there are GAO reports like “NASA Report May Overstate the Economic Benefits of Research and Development Spending”, Report of the Comptroller General of the United States, PAD-78-18.
Fast foward a couple decades, and a 1990 German econometric analysis of supposed space spin-offs found that:
“… the spin-off rate is very low in highly specialized space projects — a conclusion which coincides with the finds of other investigations. The concept of a decisive spin-off in the narrow, real sense of the term cannot therefore be validated on the result of these findings… many standard examples of spin-offs may be traced back to the first R&D boom in the Sixties… only in the rarest of cases do the spin-offs prove to be identifiable as classic cases in which the source can be associated exclusively with space technology and the diffusion be associated with a sector unrelated to space technology. In the majority of cases, both source and diffusion can be associated with multiple purposes both within and outside space technology.”
And a comprehensive review paid for by NASA (Chapman Research Group, “An Exploration of Benefits From NASA ‘Spinoff'”, June 1989) of the impact of NASA technology benefits to the commercial sector during the years 1978-1986 found that “A total of over $21 billion in sales and savings benefits were identified as resulting from NASA activities.” But the U.S. taxpayer spent $54 billion, more than twice the amount, on NASA’s budget during the same period. That’s wealth destruction, not creation.
“If NASA had been properly funded then private industry would probably already be sending tourist into space and to the Moon with a budget dwarfing that of NASA’s tiny budget.”
Simply not true. No matter how much had been spent on NASA over the past 50 years, the agency was never tasked to supporting the creation of a private space tourism industry, and certainly not to the Moon.
It’s not a question of how much we spend on NASA. It’s a question of what the agency is tasked to do and how well the agency follows that tasking.
“There would be no emerging private commercial space programs if it weren’t for US and Soviet government investments in space.”
Simply not true, in the past or today. The U.S. launch vehicle industry grew out of military, not civil, space spending. The military contracted for communications satellites before NASA did. Today, the commerial suborbital human space flight industry exists in spite, not because, of NASA. NASA had no role in emergence of the the X PRIZE, Virgin Galactic, XCOR, Blue Origin, etc.
FWIW…
“The language of Sec 404 does not prohibit NASA from the development or establishment of a permanent manned lunar outpost.”
It specifically prevents NASA from building a lunar outpost that requires continuous human presence. Congress is trying to avoid the ISS experience. With enough resources, the outpost could be manned permanently. But that’s clearly not Congress’s intent, and absent different direction from the White House, Congress controls the resources.
“Paul Spudis wrote an excellent column…”
The argument in the article is weak and contradictory. Unsustainable NASA implementation is not an issue that’s unique to the Flexible Path options. It’s been a problem on the program of record, and it’s just as likely to be a problem with the Moon First options. Dr. Spudis admits this in the comments section beneath the article.
In fact, if the real, underlying issue is unsustainable NASA implementation, then the Flexible Path options, by making a more dramatic break with Apollo, offer the greatest hope for change towards sustainability.
And specifically, if the issue of unsustainable NASA implementation revolves around heavy lift (which Dr. Spudis cites in his article), then Option 5B: Flexible Path – EELV Heritage offers the greatest hope for breaking the back of horrendously expensive, NASA-unique launchers for which the agency bears all the costs. NASA would finally divest all the Apollo overhead that Shuttle inherited and be free to develop a heavy lifter (or other launch vehicles) only if and when it’s actually needed.
“I meant to include this article with above comment from Paul Spudis, Dennis Wingo, and Gordon Woodcock”
I have great respect for Woodcock and the article is a nice summary of “how” to go about establishing a lunar outpost (or space outpost in general) differently in the future. But it’s very weak on the “why”.
The article talks about a new “economic frontier”, but spends the bulk of the article describing in detail various aspects of building an initial lunar base. It provides no path for creating or developing new markets.
It talks about today’s “major concerns”, including “energy, resources, sustainability of our civilization, and environmental quality”. But the article describes no products that would come from the Moon to address these issues beyond some vague technological spin-offs.
I agree with a lot of the article, but it’s basically another architectural discussion devoid of policy justification for why taxpayers should spend what would probably be hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars building a lunar base of the scale necessary to achieve the article’s stated self-sufficiency. Building solar arrays and structure for the base on the Moon, mining propellant and consumables, etc. are all great techniques, but they’re not a reason for public dollars to be spent on such an undertaking.
(I’d also note that, in terms of human factors, the article only addressed solar storms, which are not the biggest two or three threats to human health on Moon. But that’s another discussion.)
FWIW…
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ December 16th, 2009 at 6:45 pm ..
nope
There is a difference between US products being competitive around the world…and the federal deficit.
I concur that something needs to be done with health care in the US and I support a single payer system.
But that wont make American products more competitive around the world nor will it cure the deficit.
American products are “less” competitive around the world for some reasons, not the least of which is that we as a nation have more or less adopted a one way free trade policy. We allow virtually anything to be manufactored in “favored countries” and brought back into The Republic with little or no customs duties. And almost no other country allows that.
In addition most American companies have far higher rates of compensation then foreign companies do..because we have something most countries do not have…a middle class.
The problem with competing with foreign countries has never been a problem while our markets were essentially closed to foreign goods which meant that things sold in the US were manufactored in the US…the cycle was closed. It is not now. Today the vast majority of US consumer power goes to buy things which are not manufactored in Lima Ohio but somewhere in China…and that includes Boeing airplanes.
The salary level of the middle class is declining almost daily for those very reasons…and as long as that happens, the deficit is going to keep getting worse.
As I pointed out in the example of Ares and Falcon the trick is to get the manufactoring base restarted with products that stay in the US and are used by Americans.
Robert G. Oler
Gary. I read the article and in my view Major Tom has hit the nail on the head in analyzing it.
All the lunar advocates Spudis is one as is Wingo have one overriding flaw in their logic. It is that using lunar resources is going to be something that “happens” in a time frame that is consistent with public support and public funding.
The later seems ridiculous because I dont think that anyone has any real estimate on what the “funding” ramp is going to be to get to where lunar resources are not a drain but a plus to space operations. Major Tom has done some good (what I call back of the envelope) analysis of what it would take to make lunar water work in terms of the effort, but there is in my view no idea to figure out the cost.
Second since the cost is unknown the public support for the effort is unknown.
All this ignores the fact that to be fair we do not at this time have a really good idea of a catalog of lunar resources.
After that major flaw the rest collapses quickly not the least of which is that to even attempt to do what Spudis and company cannot quantify in terms of cost…NASA has to completly change its method of doing business, getting out of the big program mentality, and yet learning to use lunar resources is one of the biggest programs I can imagine.
Flexible path is to me the vehicle to break the big program mentality. Spudis arguments about spinning asteroids etc is nuts. Clearly we would do a lot of “remote” looking at whatever target is tried…and a one time asteroid mission is in my view just the sort of lever to change how NASA does business…
These folks are passionate about their views (as is Zubrin about his) but once one gets past their passion that is aboutall they have. Spudis runs out of gas pretty quickly in any sort of semi serious discussion.
And besides all of this is likely mote. I think the decision has already been made.
Robert G. Oler
I’m kind of torn on a lot of this. Personally, the Moon has always been more interesting than NEOs (there’s a reason why it’s called *Selenian* Boondocks). I’ve been playing numbers games and researching different options for lunar transportation and settlement since I was a teenager. That said, I can’t help but agree a bit more with Major Tom than with Paul Spudis on this one.
I think that ISRU is important, and when we are ready to go back to the Moon, it will be an important part of that venture. I’m not as pessimistic as Major Tom about the potential for lunar ISRU. We just don’t have a ton of data and experience yet, but the hints of water and organic compounds produced by LCROSS do at least show that there is something interesting going on there after all. We haven’t yet scratched the surface, and I’m still pretty convinced that in the long term, lunar ISRU is going to be an important part of any exploration effort or economic activity beyond LEO.
That said, I think that trying to do a rush to the Moon with the technology we have today would be only slightly less of a disaster for Lunar development as trying to do a mad-dash to Mars would be for Martian development. While ISRU, once it’s debugged and working (and contra Spudis and Wingo, I expect it’s going to take us a lot of time on the ground before we’ve figured out how to do Lunar ISRU in a way that’s economically useful), can lower the cost of lunar transportation a lot, I don’t think it can lower it enough to really make things sustainable without significant investments in other pieces of space infrastructure first (depots, tugs, RLVs, orbital habitats, possibly even space nuclear reactors).
I guess I just keep coming back to the absurdity that we haven’t even really tried as a country to do cryogenic propellant transfer or depots, even though 98% of the technology to implement them was available in the late 60s/early 70s. This continual mad dash to the next destination while neglecting or at best anemically funding the R&D that can truly change the game is just astounding.
ISRU is an important part of the puzzle, but we need the rest of the equation in place too. But alas, I think the odds of something sensible coming out of the DC policy sausage factory is almost nil.
We’ll get there. In my lifetime. It’ll just take far longer than it ever ought to take.
Back to the trenches.
~Jon
Jonathan Goff
just make sure your lifetime is “long enough” (grin). YOu are a smart person and a good thinker.
Robert G. Oler
“I think that ISRU is important, and when we are ready to go back to the Moon, it will be an important part of that venture. I’m not as pessimistic as Major Tom about the potential for lunar ISRU.”
Just to be clear, on this forum, I’ve been critical of the potential (or lack thereof) of lunar ice based on the amounts that have been found so far. It’s a resource that certainly warrants more investigation to see if concentrated deposits can be found. But I wouldn’t make decisions about human space flight targets and architectures based on what we know about lunar ice today. So far, it looks like a very poor resource that wouldn’t compete with shipping propellant and water from Earth.
Liberating other resources from lunar regolith depends on the resource in question, the amount needed, and the extraction technique used. I’m not critical of the potential of all lunar resources — there’s simply too many variables at play to make such a blanket statement. But I wouldn’t make decisions about human space flight targets and architectures based on lunar resources until the relevant extraction techniques have been demonstrated on the lunar surface at a level of efficiency and duration necessary to make those resources competitive with shipping the alternatives from Earth.
I would say the same thing about resources from asteroids, the Martian moons, or Mars.
“I expect it’s going to take us a lot of time on the ground before we’ve figured out how to do Lunar ISRU in a way that’s economically useful”
“[Lunar ISRU] can lower the cost of lunar transportation a lot, I don’t think it can lower it enough to really make things sustainable without significant investments in other pieces of space infrastructure first (depots, tugs, RLVs, orbital habitats, possibly even space nuclear reactors).”
“I just keep coming back to the absurdity that we haven’t even really tried as a country to do cryogenic propellant transfer or depots, even though 98% of the technology to implement them was available in the late 60s/early 70s.”
“This continual mad dash to the next destination while neglecting or at best anemically funding the R&D that can truly change the game is just astounding.”
“ISRU is an important part of the puzzle, but we need the rest of the equation in place too.”
All good points from Mr. Goff, as usual.
FWIW…