NASA, White House

The questions of when and how much

Besides the question of what the president’s new space exploration plan might be, the next most important (or, at least, most frequently asked) questions have been when the plan will be announced and how much additional money the White House will request for NASA, at least in the FY2011 budget. We’re starting to get some hints as to what those answers might be, but they won’t necessarily be appealing to some space advocates.

Regarding when, White House senior advisor David Axelrod told the Orlando Sentinel that the plan will be released as part of the FY11 budget request, due out on February 1. “The president is going to speak to that through his budget,” Axelrod said. While some are hoping the president might reference those plans in his State of the Union address, scheduled for next Wednesday, Axelrod said Obama would not do a standalone speech, as President George W. Bush did when he announced the Vision for Space Exploration at NASA Headquarters in January 2004. Sen. Bill Nelson, the Sentinel report notes, had been pushing for a similar dedicated speech.

As for how much, Space News has some bad news today: the FY11 request won’t include a billion-dollar increase as had been previously rumored. Sources “with close ties to the administration” told the publication that NASA’s budget would increase in the FY11 request, but by a smaller, unspecified amount.

One other item to keep in mind: there’s at least one rumor going around that the FY11 budget proposal won’t include anything about a revised space exploration plan: that would be handled through a supplemental request at a later date.

44 comments to The questions of when and how much

  • NASA Fan

    “One other item to keep in mind: there’s at least one rumor going around that the FY11 budget proposal won’t include anything about a revised space exploration plan: that would be handled through a supplemental request at a later date”.

    President Obama sure knows how to punt. This lets him determine the fallout from the MA elections I suppose.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    If this is true, then people who counted on Barack Obama to match words with deeds concerning space exploration had better be prepared for bitter disappointment. The truism that every Obama promise has an expiration date will have been borne out once again.

  • Doug Lassiter

    I guess punting the football is a tactic you can be judgmental about if the football is the centerpiece of the game. With regard to budget implications, a space exploration plan is the football some wannabees are playing with out in the parking lot of the stadium. It’s just not on the radar of the American public, who have their eyes on the big game – war, heath care, economy, etc.

    While frustrating, it seems to me that the dust has yet to settle with regard to Constellation and the Augustine report. It may not be in Obama’s interest to trot out the next great multidecade plan for space exploration until that happens, and he can see a way out of the $3B problem. One might guess that we’re likely to see some “adjustments” to the budget that allow the existing goal of a human return to the Moon to float, but dispense with an unrealistic target date, and also set the stage for some bigger changes later. Say, a more ambitious technology program, structural changes in the space agency, and renewed commitment to international collaboration. Not clear those adjustments justify a vision speech.

  • Robert G. Oler

    The reality is that NASA doesnt need much more money (if any) what it needs to do is manage what it has more efficiently.

    Take Ares 1.

    Let us say that we are bound and determined to have a government run space booster program (I oppose it but for a thought experiment).

    If Musk can build from scratch the Falcon 1 and the Falcon 9 for oh lets say 2 billion dollars…why did NASA need 11 billion to get to a 1.44 minute test flight of Ares 1?

    Let’s say government is twice as inefficient…so it takes 4 billion and lets say just develop 1 rocket…not two.

    So NASA needed 4 billion dollars to build Ares 1.

    Ares huggers cannot answer how it took 11 billion and we have so far…nothing.

    want to give it a try Mark W?

    Robert G. Oler

  • space cadet

    So the result of the Augustine committee is that instead of the previous direction to ‘land on the moon’ without the funding to accomplish it, NASA will now have direction to ‘look but don’t touch’ without the funding to accomplish that. New direction, same result.

    Plus direction to “increase international cooperation” but no relief from the laws (ITAR) that obstruct that goal.

    And NASA’s primary focus is now supposed to be education. So that NASA can inspire kids to take math and science classes in their hope of one day being priviledged to be part of a space program that is going nowhere.

    Good plan. No wonder there won’t be a dedicated speech about it.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “So the result of the Augustine committee is that instead of the previous direction to ‘land on the moon’ without the funding to accomplish it, NASA will now have direction to ‘look but don’t touch’ without the funding to accomplish that. New direction, same result.”

    Except the previous direction was to land on the Moon for the seventh time, and the new one will be, at least for the early stages, to “discover and explore, but don’t get your boots dirty”. We certainly have the funding to accomplish the latter, depending on where exactly you want people to be when they don’t get their boot dirty.

    That NASA can inspire kids to take math and science classes so they can be part of a future space program is decidedly NOT a national goal. If the space program goes nowhere, there will be lots of great stuff for those young scientists and engineers to do.

    I don’t need a dedicated speech. Do you? Look what happened as a result of the last two …

  • Doug: One might guess that we’re likely to see some “adjustments” to the budget that allow the existing goal of a human return to the Moon to float, but dispense with an unrealistic target date,

    I’m increasingly coming to believe that continuing an underfunded Constellation is a likely outcome. We’ve wasted (and spent) a year funding a vehicle that may well be cancelled, and the project is supposedly somewhere near half-way complete. How far along do we need to go with the Ares-1 before the political cost of cancelling it becomes greater than the financial cost of continuing — especially with the decision being made by a president who has less political capital to spend than he did on Monday?

    — Donald

  • Robert G. Oler

    Of course Obama isnt going to pursue a tens of billion dollar exploration program and there wont be a dedicated speech for it.

    How would the speech go?

    “My Fellow Americans. I realize that a bunch of you are unemployed, in fear of losing you’re homes, and cannot get a loan, even with good credit from the banks I helped bail out. And it is a little annoying, even to me that folks like Citi corp; which would not have a pot to excrement in if I, and my predecessor who you all loved, had not opened up the federal treasury to them, are making record profits and paying record salaries to the very people who got us into this mess. BUT, I want to cheer you up with the fact that I am today proposing a multi year, tens of billions of dollar program so that we can keep 6000 shuttle workers employed in a program to take a few select astronauts (mythic heroes all) back to the Moon and, to quote the head of KSC, “get America exploring again”.

    I do this so both for “the children” and so we can have multi settlements for the human species. So just in case the Pakis (oh sorry Pakistanis) go nuts and start blowing everyone up, or something else bad happens…a few of us will survive. After all I liked Battlestar Galactica as well.

    Do not worry none of this is new taxes. The kids you have are going to get stuck with the bill after all, it is all for them. This is change you can believe in. Michelle and I wish you well. Good night and may The Creator bless America”

    gee

    Robert G. Oler

  • John Freeman

    If cancelling the BEO human exploration plans would make the slightest difference to americas debt you might have a point.

  • common sense

    People want a Space program yet they cannot read. Well look and read
    http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/396093main_HSF_Cmte_FinalReport.pdf pages 42 and 43 where there are options for lunar sorties that might occur in 10 years from start. Those sorties are not mandated for the plan to be successful hence “flexible”. Oh yeah, but what if we don’t put boots on the Moon in my lifetime??? Yes! I ask what if???

    Looks also like some people are privy to information the rest of us are not. NASA is now primarily focused on education? Well good. We won’t have to read ignorant posts again! Is that it?

    Not out of the woods just yet… Oh well…

  • R.U. Kidding

    Is anyone concerned that since this is being rolled out as part of the budget submission that the whole NASA HSF plan was based in a budget drill and not in discussion about national goals, priorities and desires?

    I’m starting to think Mike Griffin was right when he railed against OMB as actually running the show.

    Of course plans and programs need to be founded in an executable budget- but the budget discussion should occur after the President and Bolden determined what our desired goals are.

    OMB never inspired anyone and never made a scientific discovery. None of us care so passionately about this issue because we care so much about OMB- so why is this decision based upon what OMB thinks?

    I for one do not welcome our new budget overlords.

  • RUSerious: Without meaning to suggest that you are “conservative” (I have no idea what your politics are, and, since I don’t like simple black-and-white thinking, I tend not to like simple labels), your comment brings up a problem wider than the space budget, but one that affects it.

    “Conservatives” argue that we should balance the budget and even reduce our debt, yet whenever anyone actually tries to do that (e.g., President Clinton), these people immediately turn around and say we’re setting priorities by budget rather than needs or goals. In the real world, you can’t have it both ways. There are always more needs than there is budget, and if you try to live within your budget, some perceived needs are not going to get met. Since spaceflight is probably not the highest priority in the minds of a majority of voters, if we really try to live within our means, spaceflight is unlikely to be the first thing funded. If so, there will be intense, budget driven competition between various elements of our space endeavor.

    It might be worth thinking about how we get out of that bind.

    — Donald

  • common sense

    “It might be worth thinking about how we get out of that bind.”

    Augustine presented how to get out of that bind: Involve commercial companies that can do things for a fration of NASA’s budget and get NASA to focus on other things. And be flexible at it, a little like O’Keefe’s spiral approach.

  • Robert G. Oler

    John Freeman wrote @ January 21st, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    If cancelling the BEO human exploration plans would make the slightest difference to americas debt you might have a point.

    there is not one single thing that if it were cancelled would make the slightest dent in America’s debt.

    One could have built the last few F-22’s and wow the debt wouldnt be all that much higher, same for the last few C-17’s or anything else.

    The debt is a cumulative notion of 1) bad spending and 2) spending which never ever pays for itself.

    There is no point in having the F=22 if there are no enemies for it to fight…and the dollars spent going back to the Moon could HELP CREATE a launcher industry that could attract commercial payloads and generate tax revenues which you know could help pay the deficit.

    It is hard to imagine but the US launcher companies are on the verge of having a year where they launch NOT A SINGLE payload that is not paid for by the US government…

    while we have spent 11 or 18 billion on Ares (take your pick both are probably in some way valid) the Europeans and Russians have just about cornered the folks who actually pay to launch things.

    go tell me those dollars were well spent

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    R.U. Kidding wrote @ January 21st, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    Is anyone concerned that since this is being rolled out as part of the budget submission that the whole NASA HSF plan was based in a budget drill and not in discussion about national goals, priorities and desires?..

    no it doesnt surprise me, because right now there is not a single thing that human spaceflight accomplishes which is worth a single nickle.

    I think that our national “goals” in space should be 1) creating a commercial launch industry that at least competes with the “socialist” Europeans and Russians in attacting commercial launches and 2) creates an infrastructure that allows private industry to accomplish things on the space station.

    In my view that can be done for oh 4 billion tops. Add another 4 billion for a really robust uncrewed exploration program, another 1 billion for some lean mean technology experiments and that should be the NASA budget…..ok throw in 1 billion for administration.

    10 billion tops

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    “I’m increasingly coming to believe that continuing an underfunded Constellation is a likely outcome. ”

    I agree. The easiest tack is to say, yeah, we’re still going to the Moon, and do all that other good stuff from the Augustine report, but we’re going to put our arms around the internationals and do it in a measured way. As we push ahead with this, and as symbol of budgetary commitment, we’ll throw some more money at Constellation. We’ll just make some adjustments as we follow the basically sound road ahead.

  • NASA Fan

    Obama wishes to inspire the youth of our nation in Math and Science, not so they can go off and work in the Aerospace Industry or Scientific arena’s, rather to have them go off and work for OMB, where they can pretend they know what NASA, the NSF, NOAA and the FAA, and other technical oriented Agencies and Administrations are all about, and design their programs.

  • NASA Fan

    Obama is going to punt any decision on the future of HSF because he has not been able to enroll congressional stakeholders yet in some combination of what he has in mind and what congress has in mind.

    This tells me that Obama does not have a compelling vision of his own for HSF, a vision he himself is excited about; because if he did, we’d hear about by now. And this then would lead to NO speech about it.

    He will work to get a politically viable solution through the process. Whatever solution that is won’t satisfy anybody except the politicians.

    It will certainly annoy and agitate the very thoughtful posters who have communicated for nearly a year now on the various means and methods and philosophies that make sense for HSF.

    And when whatever NASA/Commerical gets to eventually do wrt HSF, with not enough money, and a few astronauts (or SpaceX-anauts) are killed in an accident, the Review Commission will have findings that state there was a lack of political leadership, politically oriented technical decision and a broken technical/engineering/scientific workforce….and the root cause of Columbia/Challenger still has not been addressed

  • Doug Lassiter

    “Obama is going to punt any decision on the future of HSF because he has not been able to enroll congressional stakeholders yet in some combination of what he has in mind and what congress has in mind.

    This tells me that Obama does not have a compelling vision of his own for HSF, a vision he himself is excited about; because if he did, we’d hear about by now. And this then would lead to NO speech about it.”

    No, what it should tell you is that Obama understands that a compelling vision for HSF is worthless if you don’t have buy-in from Congress. He reads the tea leaves properly that Congress has such a disjointed view of HSF, being weakly about technology and inspiration for some, and being fervently about district jobs for others, that developing his own compelling vision right now is like making the pass when your receivers are standing around arguing.

    The quest for political viability is indeed probably his safest option. Nudge the process in a more constructive direction in a way that is acceptable to Congress, take credit for those nudges (which might be a new focus on international collaboration and an agency-based implementation study of the Augustine report findings), and move on.

  • NASA Fan

    @ Doug L “No, what it should tell you is that Obama understands that a compelling vision for HSF is worthless if you don’t have buy-in from Congress.”

    True leaders know how to enroll others in the possibilities of their vision, and are unstoppable in achieving that enrollment and buy in; true leaders know how to create possibility in the face of no possibility. They don’t sacrifice what they are committed to, what they stand for , to get it through Congressional hoops.

    Hmm. Perhaps that is why there are no leaders in political life? Too much ‘selling of the soul’ to get the votes, to stay in office, to retain power.

    Griffin/Bush had buy in from Congress,,,and no one was inspired by the VSE enough for it to last, and to be funded.

    I expect the same from whatever shenanigans and sausage making are taking place between the WH, OMB, OSTP and Congress, and NASA and Commercial Industry.

    Sausage making does not inspire anyone, least of all the pig.

  • Bob Mahoney

    Doug: “The quest for political viability is indeed probably his safest option.”

    This is his ONLY option, and it always has been. Every item coming from this White House has been the product of political calculation right down to planting the vegetable garden, always with an eye toward enabling their professed stock-in-trade liberal agenda items. It just so happens that spaceflight ranks lower than the aforementioned garden because these Chicagoans understand that spaceflight as a political tool holds so little boost power and a potentially serious negative taint.

    If it would be viewed as being to his political advantage to have the POTUS stand up and give a clarion-call speech on space policy that endorses a robust, expanded space program, they would have him do it.

    But since it would almost be laughable for him to do so (as illustrated by Robert’s suggested POTUS address above) in light of the current economy and his and his party’s current political failings, don’t expect such a move anytime soon…or ever. [But who knows? JFK got us going to the Moon the last time in part to cover up some of his immediate political debacles…]

    So that leaves us (in broad strokes) with a) keeping the status quo (plus or minus a few billion dollars, and plus or minus a particular booster or two) or b) a reduction of some sort that shrinks the objectives for HSF down substantially to significantly less than the original Vision (which, really, Griffin’s ESAS had already started).

    In either case, don’t expect it to be done in any seriously public fashion. ANY attachment of the current administration to spaceflight in public would look bad since it would quickly take on the image of them fiddling whilst Rome was burning….and if they suggested publicly that we kill HSF completely because of our current financial problems, well, that wouldn’t look to good either.

    My own prediction remains what it has always been since before the 2008 election: NASA HSF gets reduced to LEO access only, extending the ISS duration (if not expanding its experiment cache), and everything beyond LEO goes back to advanced study work but no cutting of metal.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Bob Mahoney wrote @ January 22nd, 2010 at 12:19 pm

    Doug: “The quest for political viability is indeed probably his safest option.”..

    Bob. I agree it is Obama’s only option.

    Two points.

    When people say “JFK was in trouble so he pushed out the moon landing”…I wont argue with that…but the POINT that almost everyone misses is that the goal of a lunar landing CAPTURED the political spirit and trends of the times.

    JFK didnt go to the Moon to go to the Moon…he went to the Moon as a “marque” if you will of his entire “New Frontier” effort…what was his campaign slogan “Get America moving again”?

    The effort captured the publics imagination and was a signature of the entire thrust of his administration. Go look at the pictures that they released of JFK and the space program…there is a great looking, sunglassed JFK with VB looking at the Saturn (1B I think)…it just spoke “new frontier”.

    It was as much of the storefront of his administration as Jackie’s “Pillbox” hats.

    The closest a President has come to “Marqueing” human spaceflight since…was Ronaldus the Great at I think it was STS 1’s landing. It spoke “American power”.

    Now? The marque of the Obama administration is “we have spent trillions of dollars on the very people who got us into this mess AND THEY ARE STILL shafting us”

    I simply cannot imagine that anyone with any sanity in his administration is going to propose that he attach his name to spending billions more in a quest that 1) the American people care nothing about and 2) on an organization NASA which as spent billions so badly so far in that quest.

    I can imagine that someone is whispering in his ear “Private lift to space creates private jobs and you need those now”.

    All Presidents have hard first years…but Obama’s to my mind has turned out to be nearly catastrophic (and while I did not vote for him I think I have been fair in evaluating him)…not only is the effort he labored hard over going down the excrement pot…he is getting a good chunk of the blame and everything else in his administration that is a signature issue has turned up a flop. Worse…he and his PR people seem to be tone deaf.

    Political viability is the only thing at issue for him.

    If things keep going the way they are…he may have simply spared Bush the last the comparison to Hoover.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Seany boy

    Budgetary considerations are necessary but the majority of the budget is already spoken for by untouchable items such as medicare, social security, medicaid… welfare state obligations which only have negative effects but make us feel so much better about ourselves.

    The only thing left to cut is the military, which is actually an official duty of the government, roads, bridges, you know stuff we don’t actually need right!

  • Robert G. Oler

    Doug Lassiter wrote @ January 22nd, 2010 at 8:01 am

    No, what it should tell you is that Obama understands that a compelling vision for HSF is worthless if you don’t have buy-in from Congress.

    the problem is that there is NO COMPELLING vision for human spaceflight right now…that I think is salable at any political level.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    “If it would be viewed as being to his political advantage to have the POTUS stand up and give a clarion-call speech on space policy that endorses a robust, expanded space program, they would have him do it.”

    I recall a recent POTUS who stood up, did that, and then completely and utterly lost interest in it and basically headed us down the road to where we are now. His handlers realized, after the fact I guess, that there was no political advantage to having done it. Clarion-call speeches are kind of cheap, especially with regard to space these days.

    That every item coming from this White House has been the product of political calculation puts Obama in a long and illustrious tradition of politicians. One can’t ask a lot more. I mean, political calculation is based on what the nation wants. That human space flight is not obviously what they want is not really his problem.

    I agree that true leaders know how to enroll others in the possibilities of their vision. That’s crucial. But it’s not clear that human space flight can define a vision. Pretending that it can do so is a sad mistake, and one that is routinely made. Human space flight can be seen as an element to achieving a vision, whether that vision is scientific discovery (well, hardly), bringing the solar system into our economic sphere (maybe), ensuring technological leadership and inspiring people to achieve it (probably), or security for the human species (decidedly). But let’s not buy into this garbage about human space flight being a vision in itself. Obama is probably smart enough to understand that.

    So what will be more interesting than which launch architecture is funded in FY11 will be what reasons the administration give for doing human space flight in the first place. That’s the root of the relevant vision, and it’s those words (presumably in the NASA budget submission) that the administration will use to enroll others and build on.

  • NASA Fan

    @ All: Regarding HSF Vision.

    IMHO, I offer the following:

    The question that needs answering, that folks have brought up in various forms already on this blog is:

    What difference does NASA want to make on behalf of the American Public, that is in keeping with it’s charter, that requires HSF as a contributing factor in ‘making this difference’….in 25 years…in 50 years.. in 100 years into the future.

    (and the HSF can be commercially/privately supplied)

    Add in as a parallel statement to the above : “..that requires Earth Science…” or “..that requires Space Science…” or “..that requires Aerospace Research…”

    Answer that big question, and you will have a plan for NASA/Commercial Space (including HSF) that will last beyond the next voting cycle.

    Asking the question, then pursuing the answer, then formulating a long term strategy requires the kind of leadership that does not presently exist within the Government – either career civil servant, politically appointees, or elected officials – and that includes the POTUS.

    So what we get is sausage.

  • Space Advocate

    So what we get is sausage.

    And what the American people got the last nine years was the ‘shaft’.

    What a deal. Heckava job, murka. I can’t wait until they propose tossing away working SSMEs by the quad. We’ll see how long that lasts as well.

  • common sense

    @NASA Fan:

    I am not sure I understand your point here. But I’d like to say this: No matter the reason why or what/how we plan to do with HSF a sound plan MUST show the public at large what it is they get in return of their investment now, in 10 years, in a millenium but preferably now. And that is that.

    Not even the science is that big of a deal as they are not part of HSF not now anyway. It does not mean HSF does not do science on their behalf and most likely with their cash, just that science is not a justification of its own.

    Beyond the cost, one of the reason to involve commercial LV suppliers is to show the public now that this is not work for an elite alone. If said commercials can provide crew access now then that would be a great great accomplishment towards public support now.

    Or we can keep doing what we do and in 10 years from now we’ll finally be working not on Ares, not on Jupiter but rather on a new Pluto LV if you see what I mean.

    And the leadership may be lacking but the infrastructure lacks too. NASA is not set up to do these things and it is difficult to find adequate workforce in particular one that knows about HSF outside NASA and a few contractors. Therefore change will be all the more difficult to get.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “What difference does NASA want to make on behalf of the American Public, that is in keeping with it’s charter, that requires HSF as a contributing factor in ‘making this difference’….in 25 years…in 50 years.. in 100 years into the future.”

    OK, let’s take a leap here. Fasten your seat belt.

    You know, this gets back to what I’ve been saying repeatedly. The only real justification for human space flight is to expand the species. It isn’t for science, and it isn’t really uniquely inspiring. Nor is it for even exploration in the sense of just looking around. It’s exploration in the sense of trailblazing a path for humanity, though without supplying a reason for doing it. Jeff Greason, who was an Augustine committee member, was on the the Space Show a few days ago, and I was struck by the wisdom of his concluding comment, when he was asked for any thoughts he wanted to leave the audience with. He had exactly one thought, and it was this (boldface, underscore):

    “The most important thing the committee did, I think, is we actually did engage the question of why we have a manned exploration program, and nobody ever talks about that. I was stunned by the rapid emergence of a consensus among such a disparate group of players that ultimately the reason why we explore is to expand human civilization or, in my words, to open a frontier. And if ten people with such diverse backgrounds that were knowledgeable in space immediately come to that answer, it’s probably more widely held that we have a space program for that reason. And yet, if that’s the reason we have a space program, why has nobody one ever made it their job to do that? It’s never been part of their mission, and I think it should be.”

    That’s precisely right. Hardly anyone ever talks about justifications for human spaceflight, except for reflexive handwaving about “exploration”. Whatever the hell that means. The justification isn’t fundamentally about helium-3, palladium, or picking up rocks on Mars. At least defensible federal expenditures have no ultimate justifications like those. Also, there are many ways to “advance technology”. We don’t need to strap people to rockets to do that. But expanding civilization, or even just the American part of it, has to be the reason. That being the case, however, this task has never been an identified national goal. It certainly isn’t an assigned responsibility for NASA as per the Space Act. It isn’t their job! That’s why they aren’t doing it.

    Maybe it should be their job.

    Of course, one can ask the obvious followup question, which is why expanding civilization is justified, but that’s an easier one to answer. Bad things can happen to our planet, and our legacy needs some insurance. You can get patriotic and say that what really needs insurance is our American ideals. I don’t really want to go there, but if that’s the case, then human space flight is very much a national security issue, but it isn’t one that is solved by fighting and investment in weapons.

    So we’ve been asking a federal agency to do human space flight even though we’ve never given them, as an explicit task, the only justifiable, unique reason for doing it. Howzabout that?

    Obama could gently trot out this direction (if not an explicit goal), which merges seamlessly with international collaboration (hey, it’s their problem too!). Could even mumble something about terrorist threats by NEOs and assign Dick Cheney as an “expansion czar”! The obvious argument with that goal is — why now? Yes can see “celestial expansion” as a laugh line in a Jay Leno monologue. The answer is that it isn’t about expanding now, it’s about working our way onto a technological path to eventually be able to do so, and getting good stuff as we go. In a sense, it’s a responsibility for the species. Those aren’t words politicians like to use, but I could just barely see Obama trying to use them. Those are words that would probably require some cultivation of public awareness, because it sort of changes the game.

    How is that public awareness best cultivated?

  • common sense

    @Doug Lassiter:

    Not bad, I mean it. Relate that to US pressing national priorities and you may have something.

    The problem I see is that most pressing issues come out of fear of something: Job loss, terrorism, retirement loss, health (or lack of thereof), things like that. The “threat” you talk about is (appears to be anyway) much more long term (which may be justified with a not so large a budget for it). But you have something. Wll how about global warming as a justification? That could turn out to be a lot quicker than anyone thinks… Changing the Space Act, they sure could but do they have the will and time right now?

    So basically: Preservation Expansion of civilization

  • common sense

    Preservation Expansion of civilization

  • common sense

    Looks like the arrows are not showing so in words:

    Preservation . equivalent to . Expansion of civilization

  • NASA Fan

    @ Doug et al: “… that ultimately the reason why we explore is to expand human civilization or, in my words, to open a frontier”

    Now, a leader of the ilk I am pointing to, will take ‘open a new frontier’ and begin an inquiry of the sort:

    “What is possible for humanity now that we have opened a new frontier?”

    The answers to that question provides the juice for buy in, enrollment, and funding. The answer to that question needs to be in daily conversations in the halls of NASA, Commerical/Alt Space, Congress, WH, OSTP, OMB, etc. If not, it will be replaced by other conversations surrounding ‘survival’

    Humans fundamentally come from two places in their lives (true for organizations as well)

    1. Survival
    2. Making a difference

    There is a particular quality to an individuals (and organizations) life when coming from survival (which is important..don’t get me wrong) vs. making a difference.

    When we are making sausage of our space enterprises, we are focusing too much on ‘survival’, and not ‘making a difference’

    It will take a brave and courageous leader to argue for the possibilities that can come from ‘opening a new frontier’ for humanity.

    We’ll see if Obama is that leader.

  • Robert G. Oler

    NASA fan (and others)

    What amazes me about Obama most of all (Other then the mandate he has whizzed away) is that for all his brain power, he apparently never read much history.

    I dont agree that our current economic problems are exactly like the Great Depression, although I think that they are more like it then not…and indeed I think unless courses change we are headed for our own version of it…

    but it is amazing to me that Obama in things like the stim bill and others failed to learn the well executed lessons of FDR.

    I could define easily a space program(human and machine) that would be salable in a tough economic environment. It would not be a lot of exploration in the classical sense (ie people going to other worlds planting flags making stupid speeches and then returning)…but it would be exciting space efforts that would improve our technology and create private industry jobs while preserving infrastructure that could be used for other things.

    FDR and how he put together some of the Navy ship builds during the depression with WPA funds…is a model of how Obama could put together a serious effort at human spaceflight which had hte goals of creating private jobs, private infrastructure and enabling private industry to do more of that…while maintaining federal infrastructure.

    So far I have not seen that effort from them, although it strikes me that such an effort is the heart of “flexible path”.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Bob Mahoney

    @Doug, quoting Greason:

    “The most important thing the committee did, I think, is we actually did engage the question of why we have a manned exploration program, and nobody ever talks about that. I was stunned by the rapid emergence of a consensus among such a disparate group of players that ultimately the reason why we explore is to expand human civilization or, in my words, to open a frontier. And if ten people with such diverse backgrounds that were knowledgeable in space immediately come to that answer, it’s probably more widely held that we have a space program for that reason. And yet, if that’s the reason we have a space program, why has nobody one ever made it their job to do that? It’s never been part of their mission, and I think it should be.”

    This (and your further points) were very specifically and thoroughly articulated in the 1986 Paine Commission Report (Pioneering the Space Frontier), and that effort even had pretty pictures to help it along. The primary rationale offered therein is quite explicit: we the democratic nations of the Earth (with the USA in the lead) should apply the full potential of the free-enterprise system to expand our free society outward across the entire solar system while also tapping into its abundant resources to help life back here on Earth. Pursuit of wealth out there (i.e., extraterrestrial resources there for the taking…and selling ) would serve to preserve our free society even as it contributed to our society’s continuing economic advancement and growth.

    NASA’s role to play (with a not-too-excessive increase in its budget, as the report compared it to the nation’s GNP) was to pursue the critical high-leverage enabling technologies (aerobraking, tethers, advanced propulsion, in-situ resource utilization, closed-cycle life support) that industry could then exploit as they pursued economic opportunities across the expanding frontier. All routine space operations that would follow behind the first exploration missions should be handed off to industry…and so on and so on.

    This was rearticulated and partly muddled up in the Ride Report and later efforts, but the report’s core rationale essentially became a given in all future space policy discussions (even if it was dismissed as too grandiose too soon at times), and thus was part of the foundational fiber of both the Space Exploration Initiative and SEI-lite (=VSE) 15 years later. This was demonstrated quite blatantly by Marburger’s explanatory comments about “bringing the solar system into our economic sphere of influence.” What he said compares very closely with the discussion offered in the 1986 report.

    Is it really any surprise that all the members of the Augustine committee each arrived at this same conclusion? It has been a…now rarely articulated…core thread of space policy DNA, always there underneath the surface, for nearly 25 years…with tendrils reaching all the way back through the late 60s (the first Paine commission, which begat the “STS”) and some elements even tracing to Von Braun’s visions as presented in Colliers, etc.

    Sadly, the only real flaw of Pioneering the Space Frontier was its timing, arriving as it did immediately post-Challenger…but even that reinforced some of its recommendations, such as separating cargo and personnel LEO access (and it had MANY very specific recommendations).

    Perhaps a re-issue of Pioneering the Space Frontier is needed today. While the glossy images of Moon and Mars bases might seem too much pie-in-the-sky right now, the justifying rationale for solar system exploration and development articulated therein remains just as valid today. The question to ask oneself when reading it is not “Can we afford such a scheme?” but rather “Can we afford NOT to pursue it, even if we do it slowly?”

    Protecting against possible but unlikely natural or man-made castrophes is really just gravy when compared to what that report offers in terms of strong, practical notions about how human civilization (with both its known strengths and weaknesses) can advance by exploiting space to do so.

  • Bob Mahoney

    That would be “catastrophes.” Sorry, it’s late and it’s been a looonnnggg week.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “This (and your further points) were very specifically and thoroughly articulated in the 1986 Paine Commission Report (Pioneering the Space Frontier), and that effort even had pretty pictures to help it along. The primary rationale offered therein is quite explicit: we the democratic nations of the Earth (with the USA in the lead) should apply the full potential of the free-enterprise system to expand our free society outward across the entire solar system while also tapping into its abundant resources to help life back here on Earth.”

    Yeah, but I’m not convinced about the “abundant resources” part. I have never seen a cogent argument about abundant resources that absolutely require human miners to get them. That may have been a fair assessment in 1986, when all we had was bulldozers and pickaxes, but our technologies have come a long way since then, and are developing very rapidly. By the time we actually get to a mineable resource, they will be vastly more capable. So lets not even go that route. That is NOT a unique reason for human space flight, but it may well be a reason for space development, which in my mind does not automatically imply human space flight.

    Let’s respect and be instructed by, but not fall into the ruts left behind by old studies like the Paine Report.

    It can be only about one thing. That’s insurance for the species. In many respects, one can argue with this, that money expended on learning how to leave is better spent on making it so we don’t have to leave. That’s a good argument. With regard to NEOs, which are just one flavor of potential global catastrophe, we should be spending money on detection and hazard mitigation. (By the way, the NRC report that came out yesterday rather bluntly says that human space flight is not a big help in doing either.) But that’s not the premise of insurance. I have health insurance, not because I don’t exercise or eat right, or spend effort and money to maintain my health, but because bad things can and do happen.

    One challenge here is seeing human space flight as a response to a virtual, rather than a real, threat. We’re not exactly looking down the maw of global catastrophe. That is, the “why now?” part. The other challenge is the “why us?” part. Why should US taxpayer dollars be expended to save the species?

    In fact, the global response to climate change offers some lessons here that we have frankly never seen before. We now have people wondering about the very long-term livability of our world. That’s never happened before. The response to that is not where world leaders spout about a solution that will make people wealthy, by mining the riches of CO2 mitigation, but where world leaders try to agree on common goals and sacrifices that will lead to a culture change about consumption. So the main hurdle isn’t about designing an architecture that will take us to the Moon or Mars. (We did that for the Moon. Check the box.) It’s about developing a cultural mandate for expansion. If our country is going to help cultivate that mandate, our government has to start using words like that, ideally starting with an amended Space Act that actually challenges our space agency to consider species insurance as one of many reasons for its existence. It’s going to take time.

  • GuessWho

    “In fact, the global response to climate change offers some lessons here that we have frankly never seen before. We now have people wondering about the very long-term livability of our world.”

    I have to say that this statement seriously damages the credibility of anything else you have to say. AGW (now “climate change”) is a scam that is unraveling quickly: (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6999051.ece)

    The response of the “global” community has been more one of how best to squeeze money out the richer nations (producers) so it can be re-distributed to poorer nations (moochers & looters). AGW is just one of many arguments used to justify a statist mentality and was on stark display at Copenhagen. Why wouldn’t ensuring the survivability of the human species follow the same path: rich nations footing the bill to keep poorer nations alive and well? I would rather see HSF die and wither than the alternative.

  • common sense

    @Doug Lassiter:

    GessWho’s response above I hope gives you an idea at the size of the problem you face in your endeavor.

    Good luck!

  • Robert G. Oler

    Doug L.

    If (my words but a paraphrase) “expansion off the planet for human kind”
    is the reason for human spaceflight because “We now have people wondering about the very long-term livability of our world.” then count me out.

    “Global climate change” is to my mind the lefts version of “Saddam is going to kill us with his WMD and balsa wood airplanes so we have to invade go now…really dont think about it dont ask for the evidence and for Creators sake ignore evidence that contradicts our claim …smoking gun smoking mushroom lets go”.

    and when the global climate change folks get caught in a “exaggeration” then there answer is like the idiots who spout…”OK there was no WMD but we really did have justification for invading Iraq even if the WMD Wasnt there.” .

    (and no I did not think Saddam had WMD nor that it was a threat to us pre or post 9/11 and the “wayback machine” will find post to that affect …and post to the affect that we are all going to die if we dont invade now by some other people…not you…who post here),

    First off I dont think that the long term viability of the Earth is in question. I have no problems with environmental efforts to mitigate local pollution efforts and we all like the water clean… But comeon …

    OK now it is 2300 or so that the Himalayan glaciers are suppose to melt and while I doubt that is correct, by 2300 we will have better and different technology or the right wing in America (or in the Mid East) will win and we will have no technology just theocracies.

    All the people who predict catastrophe are taking an inch of data and projecting a mile or assuming worst case or all sorts of phoney baloney science (or intelligence in the case of the right wing troglodytes of the last administration) all in my view to summon up some cover for some other agenda.

    There are people who really believed Bush or now Gore and thats that…but the folks who should now have some other agenda (as Bush did) ,

    Our technology is to primitive to even think about expanding the “species” to some other worlds. The effort right now cost to much returns to little and has to be balanced against some real and current problems (like survival of The Republic) that are in my view the most important thing in the world.

    There is right now, in the present economic situation only one reason to send people into space; it is to make money, to create jobs that actually affect/change the economy for the good, and to advance the technology to keep that cycle going.

    In the end Mankind can in my view take a flying leap into oblivion as long as The Republic and Americans stay viable. I dont have a problem with “green energy” (whatever that means) nor with nukes…whatever makes The Republic stronger. The only reason American tax payers spend money in human spaceflight is so our economy gets stronger and more resilient.

    The world was here long before the current “save the planet” crowd cranked up and it will be here long after they have saladoed off into the same room that all the ditto heads who thought Saddam was a peril now…are.

    There is only one justification for human spaceflight. Make The Republic stronger. Everything else is well everything else.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Doug Lassiter

    The words I used were “We now have people wondering about the very long-term livability of our world.” That’s a true fact. I made no statement about whether that wonder was justified, and not how many people were wondering about it. That discussion has no place in this forum. The knee-jerk response to such words of mine is sobering and disappointing. If you want to change the discussion, there are plenty of other forums you can go to.

    My point was that the world is talking about risks to the planet, and not just to small pieces of it. In many respects, this kind of wondering started with the Cold War and the MAD defense posture, though that threat was understood as being about hardware that had nothing to do with economic viability. One could just decide not to do it! NEO threats and human induced climate change are (to the extent you want to believe in them) are not that simple.

    So let’s close this out.

    The point I was trying to make is that there is ONE overlying reason for federal funding of human space flight. That is species preservation. That will become even more the case as our technological capabilities improve. There are other reasons that can be brought to bear, but those are not unique to human presence. Let’s not pretend that it’s about resource development, because even if you can find a market (got a helium-3 reactor, anyone?) it is far from obvious that a critical or cost effective ingredient to such resource development is human flesh in a space suit. Those are the bedtime stories we were told as young ‘uns, in a different technological era. Time to grow up.

    I personally am not interested in being a vocal proponent of a human space flight crusade for the purpose of species preservation. Some are. I’m just pointing out the fact that this is what human space flight comes down to. I’m just telling it like it is. This is the ball that human space flight has to run with (or, I guess, punt away, as per our earlier metaphor).

    Some confuse the goals of our space agency with species preservation. That, as I’ve pointed out, is ludicrous, because that’s not what NASA is chartered to do. That should somehow be made part of its charter, and would be a fundamental policy challenge for any administration. Some would like to believe that colonies on the Moon, or on Mars, are the fundamental answer to the species preservation problem. But that’s wrong. The answer is the capability, not the colony. The Augustine committee hit the nail on the head with their conclusion that human space flight has to be about goals, rather than destinations, and that we spend vastly more time talking about destinations than goals. OK, sure, a colony proves a capability, but we have not learned how to convince the taxpayer that this capability is justified, and until we do, ranting about the need for families and farms underground on the Moon is a bit absurd.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Doug Lassiter you are one of the bright lights on this forum who always bring an interesting viewpoint to the debate and handle that debate with a grace and style that I strive for, and rarely achieve.

    My point inelegantly expressed is that I think the nation is running out of horsepower to pursue long term goals that offer little or not short term feedback that is positive and indeed most of that feedback is negative.

    I’ll stay on space

    http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2010/01/taking-aim-phobos-nasa-flexible-path-precursor-mars/

    I have no doubt that a lot of people in NASA think that this is “important”.

    I think that it is just simply more of the same…it isnt really flexible path, it is “Apollo on sedatives”

    After decades of effort, billions of dollars and about two to three years of mission time…we get a few astronauts having 40 days or so around Mars, making “the closest approach to the sun” that humans have yet done…andsome rocks from the Mars system…and thats it.

    I dont think that this effort can be explained to the American people, who are facing in large measure the end of a middle class existence thanks to mindless government spending…at any level.

    There are in my view two fantasies which are killing human spaceflight.

    The first is that we must explore space with humans. The second is that we must explore space with humans because humans are eventually going to live in space.

    Both those may happen. We someday might have the technology, the wealth and the reason to push humans into environments which are very very different from the “one we grew up in” …but there is little or no data that that day is anywhere close….anymore then it is for having large colonies on the ocean floor.

    I fly airplanes…and in my assignment before this one I flew those airplanes (sometimes…mostly I was on the ground) in a region of the world that is virtually habitatless…mideast high desert. But one could get the same affect in most of the regions of New Mexico.

    Survival there is far easier then survival on the Moon, and yet there is a reason almost no one lives there.

    Things that can sell as reasons to do spaceflight are things which bring space down to Earth, not try and bring Earth up to space.

    We live right now in a time of collapsing and collapsed institutions of our entire society. This is not unique, we have gone through this before…but we have always gone through this when the people who pay are not the people who are served.

    Most Americans will not, in your or my lifetime go into space. That is obvious, but having said that the real shocker in my view is that most Americans do NOT WANT TO GO into space. Any more then they want to go to an offshore oil well. But they see the reasons for off shore oil wells and they see the need for people to work on them.

    Not so much for human spaceflight. I can come up with a program to sell human spaceflight, but concepts like linked to above…are death.

    Robert G. Oler

  • space cadet

    This debate sounds a lot like Mike Griffin’s speech about “real reasons” vs. “acceptable reasons” http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=23738 . Expansion and survival of the human species are the “real reasons” that are rarely talked about because the threat addressed and the goal pursued are so long-term as to be vulnerable to ridicule (as Robert Oler has demonstrated).

    Economics and national prestige are the “acceptable reasons”. The problems with acceptable reasons is that there are any number of alternative areas for investment that would accomplish the same goals. We could spend the $ going to NASA on basic research in the phyical sciences, on alternative energy technology, on a stronger military, on more foreign aid … the length of the list is limited only by the time I’m willing to spend writing it. Space is not unique in serving any of the “acceptable reasons”

  • common sense

    As I was saying, the major blockroad I see for changing NASA’s charter to something like “species preservation” is the long term aspect of the threat.

    NOW and I really mean it NOW may be the time though. NASA’s charter was established when the threat was all about Cold War, nuclear threat, arms race which no longer are. Period. However as you aptly suggested a new threat has emerged, more inisidious than Cold War and it is the catastrophe that may come out of climate change (as a note to those who don’t “believe”: Once upon a time the Earth was flat).

    This WH has said it wants to address global warming (even though we are still waiting for some major feat). It might be the time to retire the 1958 Space Act and ammend it to the new world we live in: Agreed but I won’t hold my breath.

    Today even a very polluted Earth might be the ONLY place where humans can live on. Mars or the Moon (let alone the void of space sso to speak) are so much worse than Earth that it might take some time before the Earth be that bad. Of course the smart thing to do is to start preparing but as I told you before it is not the essential characteristic of those in power nor of their constituents: Again Katrina and asteroid observation budget at NASA as examples.

    I would love to see the advocacy community come around a common theme as you suggest rather than trying to define the next space architecture when they mostly have NO such experience. Their voice would be that much stronger.

    A final point on climate change: Most nations agree that this is happening except the USA: Probably because our scientifc culture is so vastly superior to others that we can see it is a scam and they cannot. Yet that could be a rallying of the international community. Again I am not holding my breath.

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