NASA, White House

Additional reaction to the president’s speech

While published Congressional responses tended to be more negative than positive, the opposite was true in responses from companies and other organizations, although not without some caveats. Not surprisingly, SpaceX founder Elon Musk—who got to give the president a brief tour of the company’s facilities at Cape Canaveral prior to the speech—was pleased with the plan. “Cancellation [of Constellation] was therefore simply a matter of time and thankfully we have a president with the political courage to do the right thing sooner rather than later,” Musk said in a statement released shortly before the speech, which he said could be as important as President Kennedy’s 1962 Rice University speech. “Thankfully, as a result of funds freed up by this cancellation, there is now hope for a bright future in space exploration.”

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation, an industry organization for the emerging commercial human spaceflight industry, praised the speech and the plan’s continued emphasis on commercial crew transportation in a statement that features quotes from people ranging from CSF chairman Mark Sirangelo to Bill Nye (of Science Guy fame). Said CSF president Brett Alexander: “The President’s message today was spot-on: the new plan means more jobs, more spacecraft, more new technologies, and more astronaut flights.” A similar group, the Next Step in Space Coalition, also endorsed the updated NASA exploration plan.

AIAA president David Thompson, who also is CEO of Orbital Sciences Corporation, called the speech “inspiring” in a statement released by AIAA. “As with President Kennedy’s speech in 1961,” Thompson said, “President Obama set out goals that will test our ability to advance technology, field revolutionary new systems, and sustain commitment over many years, ensuring the United States will maintain its leadership role in space in the 21st century as we were in the 20th.”

The National Space Society was “gratified” to see the president refine his space exploration policy, noting that it had “advocated for the inclusion of more detailed goals” when the FY11 budget proposal came out in February. The NSS planned to work with various players “to foster, achieve, and sustain the consensus needed to see it [the plan] come to fruition.”

The Coalition for Space Exploration, an industry organization, was more conditional in its support for the plan. In particular, the organization expressed concern that waiting until 2015 to make a decision on a heavy-lift vehicle design “threatens to sacrifice a generation of experience and expertise in our nation’s human space flight workforce.” The organization also worried about relying solely on commercial providers for human access to LEO. “In the final analysis, the U.S. human spaceflight program is a national imperative, not only a commercial interest.”

Boeing also raised the issue of delaying a heavy-lift design decision to 2015 as well as the uncertainty about what kind of crewed spacecraft would be used for missions beyond LEO. “[W]e believe the United States should be on a clear path to accelerate the development and production of this critical system, along with a deep-space capsule,” according to a company statement. “We have the technology and the people to commence development of these vehicles now.” However, the company endorsed other aspects of the plan, including the extension of ISS operations.

Aerospace Industries Association president Marion Blakey, who called for clear goals and a national space strategy in a speech earlier this week, was “encouraged” by the updated plan, in particular the workforce transition plan the president discussed in Thursday’s speech. “Now we need the more immediate specifics and short-term milestones that will allow us to measure our progress toward America’s space program and achieving the brilliant future he envisions.”

87 comments to Additional reaction to the president’s speech

  • SpaceMan

    the organization expressed concern that waiting until 2015 to make a decision on a heavy-lift vehicle design

    I wonder what part of “no later than 2015″ these people don’t understand. Always the worse case, never the best case or the reasonable most likely case.

    Dolts.

    Cue the ignorant replies in 5…4…3…2…

  • Robert G. Oler

    “Now we need the more immediate specifics and short-term milestones that will allow us to measure our progress toward America’s space program and achieving the brilliant future he envisions.”

    this logic to me is bizarre it is “lets redo Apollo”.

    As is pointed out here “http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1604/1″

    “To them, I would say: we are no longer living in the Apollo era. NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver was quite correct when she recently pointed out that NASA has been trying and failing to duplicate the goal-time paradigm of program management in human spaceflight for the last 40 years and that Apollo was possible due only to a unique convergence of political will and technological innovation.”

    Whittington and the uber right need a “goal” because it suits their anti Obama doctrine and their themes of “America the bully”…but the rest of America no longer cares.

    Indeed it stopped caring around 1968 even for the goal which was then being executed and once had had public support.

    there is no hint, despite the ravings of Fox News and all the other “America is the tough guy” people that the over all majority of Americans care to pay for a goal.

    If Obama had gone down to JSC and said “The Moon in 2020 and Mars in 2030″ or “This goal by this time period” all those time periods would have been outside his one or two terms…and the “next person” would feel no need to embrace those or even to continue them past the accomplishment of that goal.

    I dont quite understand why anyone thinks a goal that has no defining reason for existing AND has not a lot of national support is a good thing.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Major Tom

    “I wonder what part of ‘no later than 2015′ these people don’t understand.”

    Boeing and CSE would like an earlier HLV decision so Shuttle-derived options are still in the mix. It’s not smart or efficient for civil human space exploration or the taxpayer, but the big contractors would prefer to have both a Shuttle-derived revenue stream and an EELV revenue stream.

    FWIW…

  • Robert G. Oler

    Major Tom wrote @ April 16th, 2010 at 6:57 pm

    “I wonder what part of ‘no later than 2015′ these people don’t understand.”

    Boeing and CSE would like an earlier HLV decision so Shuttle-derived options are still in the mix…

    exactly As long as shuttle Derived stuff is viable, it is inescapable as part of the solution.

    Robert G. Oler

  • common sense

    @ Major Tom wrote @ April 16th, 2010 at 6:57 pm
    @ Robert G. Oler wrote @ April 16th, 2010 at 7:12 pm

    Told you guys the game was not over for the good SD-HLV people… It’s political and politics trump logic, any logic.

    Oh well…

  • Robert G. Oler

    common sense wrote @ April 16th, 2010 at 7:24 pm

    the game is not over but the fix is in. The DoD is driving this and they dont want SDV to survive.

    They want NASA heavy lift to pay for a new affordable HLV derived from some other source.

    Robert G. Oler

  • mike shupp

    IOW, the usual suspects have shown up to make the usual statements, in hopes of getting some well-buttered bread.
    None of this is going to take up pages in the history books in two thousand years, or two.

  • common sense

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ April 16th, 2010 at 7:47 pm

    “the game is not over but the fix is in. The DoD is driving this and they dont want SDV to survive.

    They want NASA heavy lift to pay for a new affordable HLV derived from some other source.”

    I do not think it is wise to have DoD meddle with NASA. They have vastly different requirements and resources even though one may ask what NASA’s are but it’s a different story. I hope there will be some ITAR reform and that it will somehow help out NASA dig into the commercials rather than the DoD contractors to get their LVs. Otherwise we may have again a similar nonsense about the AF needs the solid booster argument all over again.

  • Bennett

    For what it’s worth, all three of Vermont’s federal reps (Leahy, Sanders, and Welch) will be voting in favor of the FY2011 NASA budget, as is.

    What do you know about your reps?

  • You folks might want to look at this Time magazine article.

    I thought, “Did this guy see the same event I saw?!”

    The author’s name, Jeffrey Kluger, sounded familiar. A couple seconds on Google revealed he co-authored Lost Moon about Apollo 13 with Jim Lovell, who co-wrote that hysterical letter the other day with Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan.

    I think Obama is correct to simply ignore these people. They want their butts kissed. That was the gist of Kluger’s article — Obama’s visit was a disaster because he didn’t kowtow to the locals.

    Well, the bottom line is the locals need Obama a lot more than he needs them.

    This area is Tea Party Central. They voted against him in 2008 and they sure won’t vote for him in 2012. He owes them nothing. They need him to come through with jobs — which he’s doing, but now they’re complaining it’s not instantaneous. Never mind they’ve known for six years this would be coming.

    Obama gave his speech to placate people like Kosmas and Nelson, but in the end he’s going to get his way regardless of the space-industrial complex. The only stop he made before the speech was a visit to the SpaceX facility, which I interpret as a hardy middle-finger to the space-industrial complex.

    Back on March 12, I wrote this blog which went verbatim through Obama’s Titusville campaign speech to see which promises were made, which have been kept, which are in progress and which haven’t been kept.

    The locals were only interested in hearing about jobs, but if you look at the rest it’s pretty clear he intended to shake up things. So from that perspective, promise kept.

    The only promise was to save jobs, and he addressed that yesterday with his proposal that will be out in August. He’s doing what the locals should have done over the last six years but failed to do. So he’s going to do it for them, although in my opinion he should have said point blank they’ve had all this time and done nothing, and let them deal with the consequences of their inaction, but that’s politics.

    Anyway, he’s going to get what he wants.

  • Kris Ringwood

    So, Heavy Lift: 2020. That’s assuming that the “new” HLV will be designed developed and launched in that time as was the Saturn V. The current rate of technological “progress” leads me to feel that 2025 is more realistic. That’s 15 years.

    Fifteen years ago we were developing Venture Star which was then canceled due to technical and financial problems 9 years ago. That too was innovative, cutting edge, blah,blah ad nauseum, and was to be be a step forward. Instead it turned into a step backwards.

    What guarantee do we have that in 2015 we have anything that will constitute REAL progress in technical terms over what is available now or, has been in the past.SPACE X for example is strictly “OLD TECH”: hence the cheapness being touted by it’s MD.

  • Kris Ringwood

    “I do not think it is wise to have DoD meddle with NASA. They have vastly different requirements and resources even though one may ask what NASA’s are but it’s a different story.”

    This is what ruined the STS/Orbiter which was required to do far more than NASA had originally intended and carry greater payloads. Then when it failed the “other customer” abandoned it ( brought me some unexpected work at Vandenberg AFB BTW!) leaving it as a completely uneconomical vehicle and doomed to death. How right you are.

  • Kris Ringwood

    I would point out that the Augustine committee report – in all of it’s alternative proposals – had a near-term HLV option/ requirement. This idea of Obama’s (Musk/Garver origination?) will leave a gap which will cost far more than is budgeted for to overcome. The MAJOR cost of Apollo was developing a completely new Launch vehicle. Will we NEVER learn?

  • Robert G. Oler

    common sense wrote @ April 16th, 2010 at 7:56 pm and Kris…

    the goals during the shuttle era differed..now they are pretty remarkably the same…Lift of about 25 percent more then what is now, cost that is affordable and fairly fast prep times…

    plus unlike the shuttle era where there was going to be only “1” vehicle remaining…there will be multiple of them

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ April 16th, 2010 at 9:43 pm

    Yeap. the thing about the TIME article is that it assumes that most of the people who are none space junkies and non NASA folks care about the space program and “exploration”…they dont.

    Tea Party central…Mark my words they will turn out to be the biggest bluff since falsies…

    Robert G. Oler

  • NASA Fan

    “NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver was quite correct when she recently pointed out that NASA has been trying and failing to duplicate the goal-time paradigm of program management in human spaceflight for the last 40 years and that Apollo was possible due only to a unique convergence of political will and technological innovation.”

    Lori Garver is indeed correct. What she doesn’t understand is that in addition to new ‘hardware technologies that will propel us into Obama Space’, there is required a ‘new model’ for leadership; both at the executive level, which she occupies, and at the project management level.

    Executive leadership inside the new model is about creating context, about creating an environment in which brilliant people exercise their brilliance, and cause the breakthroughs needed in technology for Obama Space to succeed.

    Context is decisive.

    The context surrounding Apollo was decisive. …and accidental; however it provides a great lesson to leaders like Bolden and Garver, if they’d listen: which is, leaders today need to fully understand how to distinguish existing bankrupt contexts (See Challenger and Columbia disasters) and transform them into powerful ones that CAN fulfill on goals with set due dates, CAN engage and excite the American taxpayer, and CAN align all the various stakeholders surrounding NASA (OMB, Congress, WH, OSTP,etc.).

    Humans are at their infancy in understanding the power of context and how to harness it decisiveness. Garver and Bolden , from what I have seen so far, are just clever and politically adept at playing inside the old model of leadership.

    Too bad the old model will not achieve Obama Space.

  • amightywind

    The verdict is in. The proposed NASA program is just as feckless as it was before the Obama town meeting, er, speech. My question is how he could find 200 people at NASA for an audience that wouldn’t tar and feather him? Much has been said here about Garver and Bolden. Lori Garver is a democrat hack, an Obamabot. She is NASA’s real administrator. Somehow she became a fangirl of SpaceX. my guess is Elon Musk is also a liberal and they travel in the same circles. Cronyism is rife in this government. Charles Boldin seems to be an accomplished fellow, but oddly miscast for his role as Administrator. He is not effective in front of congress. Neither of these people has made a convincing argument for eviscerating NASA, which is why such a large majority has turned them out, and will continue to do so.

  • The MAJOR cost of Apollo was developing a completely new Launch vehicle. Will we NEVER learn?

    Which is why we need to learn how to do exploration without a new launch vehicle. We have plenty of launch systems.

  • Vladislaw

    NASA Fan wrote:

    “CAN engage and excite the American taxpayer”

    America is the land of instant gratification and 10 second attention span. The Nation was bored with lunar landings after what .. the third trip?

    I believe when Bolden was first annunciating the budget rollout he used the phrase “a series of firsts”. I think that is exactly what you are talking about and what NASA is planning for – Engagement. And may be why the lunar landings/base were by passed.

  • Vladislaw

    Rand, when you attend meetings/confrences etc … do either the old or new NASA actually ever use the “N” word? I have yet to hear or see in print the President use it as it regards space. The fact sheets told about the plutonum production start up but I never noticed it was accompanied with the word Nuclear.

    I recall it wasn’t that long ago that some Congress members were literally wanting the word Mars removed from the lexicon of terms for NASA as it related to human space flight and so was curious if nuclear is actually openly talked about at a policy level for power and propulsion.

  • Major Tom

    “Humans are at their infancy in understanding the power of context and how to harness it decisiveness.”

    The “power of context”?

    “Harness” the “decisiveness” of “context”?

    What is this gobbledygook?

    Inspirational speaking for people with poor vocabularies?

    Lawdy, use a dictionary…

  • Major Tom

    “The verdict is in. The proposed NASA program is just as feckless as it was before the Obama town meeting, er, speech.”

    Yes, the “verdict” is that NASA’s FY 2011 budget request is “feckless” because the Aerospace Industries Association, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, and the National Space Society have all endorsed it.

    Do you even bother to read Mr. Foust’s posts before commenting here?

    Or did you skip the whole reading comprehension thing in second grade?

    Oy vey…

    “Lori Garver is… an Obamabot.”

    Yes, Garver is an “Obamabot” because she started the 2008 campaign as Hillary Clinton’s space advisor.

    Do you just not bother to think before you post?

    Or is you I.Q. really that low?

    Lawdy…

    “Charles Boldin… oddly miscast for his role as Administrator.”

    Yes, ex-astronauts and former Marine generals aren’t the stuff that NASA Administrators are made of.

    What are you smoking?

    And if you’re going to sling mud at public figures, at least spell their names correctly. It’s “Bolden”, not “Boldin”.

    Is English not your first language?

    Jeez…

    “Neither of these people has made a convincing argument for eviscerating NASA”

    Yeah, adding $6 billion to the agency’s five-year budget, enhancing and extending ISS operations by five years, putting in place two providers of crew transport, accelerating HLV development over the PoR, and investing billions in exploration technology — that’s just “eviscerating NASA”.

    Where are you from, Bizarro World?

    Cripes…

  • NASA Fan

    Major Tom.

    Good catch on my grammar. I went to engineering school.

    Should have said ‘harness the power of context’. Context runs us all the time. It ‘ran’ the Linda Ham led Mission Management team right into a disaster, just like it ‘ran’ the folks deciding to launch Challenger back in 1986. And you can’t see it or touch it – context that is. It’s created through language.

    And I get you don’t know what I am talking about. No problem.

    And it is not gobbledygook.
    Don’t make stuff up.

  • NASA Fan

    Major Tom,
    Forgive me, you didn’t actually say it was gobbledygook. You asked if it was.
    My bad.

  • Rand, when you attend meetings/confrences etc … do either the old or new NASA actually ever use the “N” word?

    Not that I’m aware of, but I don’t get to that many. We certainly discussed the need for it at Space Access last Thursday night, but no one from NASA was on the panel with us.

  • Coastal Ron

    A couple of observations:

    A might wind blows again…

    Response to Kris Ringwoods comment “So, Heavy Lift: 2020. That’s assuming that the “new” HLV will be designed developed and launched in that time as was the Saturn V. The current rate of technological “progress” leads me to feel that 2025 is more realistic. That’s 15 years.”.

    All Obama said they would do is make a decision by 2015. No production schedule has been announced. For those of us who don’t see the need for HLV yet, this is a good thing. For those that wanted an HLV (like Ares V), this starts the HLV program around the time Ares V would have started anyways, so no big change.

    Response to Kris Ringwoods comment “SPACE X for example is strictly “OLD TECH”: hence the cheapness being touted by it’s MD.”.

    Coming from a manufacturing background, I would disagree. SpaceX is using modular designs, mature technology, and building their assemblies using current manufacturing techniques. They have designed and built two engines from the ground up, and they build them in-house – there is lots of new technology involved with doing this. Building most of their rocket in-house (vertical integration) gives them a low initial cost of manufacturing. They based their roll-out and launch design on the well understood and quick Russian designs, which lowers their operating costs. This is an example of using existing knowledge in new ways, which is very smart and cost effective.

    On the flip side, so what if tech is old, as long as it works. The Russians are do very well with their Soyuz. Though not as powerful as Falcon 9, they have been the only solution for getting to space on a regular basis.

  • Aerospace Engineer

    The plan remains a disaster. The president’s speech was all talk, no HSF action. We don’t need 5 years to figure out to decide what HLLV to pursue. We don’t need 15 years to visit an asteroid. And to do what exactly? Claim a first? Plant a flag? Collect some rocks? Is that what the space cadets want? Can’t a robot sample return do that job? As for the moon…. Been there? Six touch & goes near the lunar equator does not equal been there done that. There’s a whole ‘nother lunar world to explore, colonize, mine, settle. There a lot of water there too. Makes too much practical sense i guess. So here we are still with no actual HSF vehicle under development. Nothing to fly. No commitment to any HSF vehicle ops. Nothing but talk. And studies . And “game changing technologies”. And “cross cutting capabilities”. In other words, BS. But we still have time to pay homage to the paypal mogul’s 1960s vintage rocket at Cape Canaveral, not KSC! where (ho-hum) yet another Mach 25 spaceplane is being prepared by workers (with another one in orbit as we speak) who really know how to do HSF and carry on with Cx but are being hung out to dry by Obama and the tragically inept OSTP. So this is your bold new frontier. 50 years of HSF expertise tossed away for the New Space Age can’t even hold a candle to the Gemini program. Congratulations.

    Aerospace operations beyond the atmosphere is not the like inventing the Internet. It’s not like the next “killer app”. You can “relentlessly innovate” forever but for a robust HSF space program you need to cut metal now and go fly. The rest is all talk or pissing away R&D money in the vague and unfocused manner trickled out incoherently and amateurishly by our OSTP technocrats.

    Reality Check:

    http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2010/04/16/%E2%80%9Cwe%E2%80%99ve-been-there-before-buzz-has-been-there-%E2%80%9D/#comments

    http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1982475,00.html?hpt=T2

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/16/obamas-hollow-promise-space/

  • Makes too much practical sense i guess. So here we are still with no actual HSF vehicle under development.

    We don’t need one. Atlas, Delta and Falcon are all HSF vehicles.

  • Vladislaw

    “As for the moon…. Been there? Six touch & goes near the lunar equator does not equal been there done that. ”

    Kennedy challenged the Nation to create the technology needed to land a man and safely return him. We did it.. been there done that is EXACTLY right.

    Now there is a new challenge, create the technology to take a person and safely return them to an asteroid. Once we do it .. been there done that. New technology challenge, orbit a moon mars, once we do .. been there done that. Next TECHNOLOGY challenge, orbit mars (aerobraking?) after we have .. been there done that. Next technology challenge land a person on mars.

    This is not about boots and flags, it is about pushing technology.

  • Coastal Ron

    Wow Aerospace Engineer, lots of interesting comments. Where to begin:

    “visit an asteroid. And to do what exactly? Claim a first? Plant a flag?”. Isn’t this what we did with Apollo? Sure we did more, and we would do more on an asteroid. Isn’t NASA supposed to explore? More on this later…

    “There’s a whole ‘nother lunar world to explore, colonize, mine, settle.”. You’re confusing exploration with exploitation. Both are good, but you explore first, then exploit. But this does beg the question – who should be building the lunar colonies, and running the mines. You apparently think NASA should do it (i.e. The Government). I think this should be left to the commercial market, which may do some of the work under a U.S. government contract, but otherwise they will be risk sharing. Don’t you like capitalism?

    “So here we are still with no actual HSF vehicle under development”. No change, since Ares V really wasn’t doing too much development right now anyways. The Ares I common stuff could be considered development, but otherwise it was mainly design stuff.

    “pay homage to the paypal mogul’s 1960s vintage rocket at Cape Canaveral”. I guess you could say that about any RP-1/LOX launcher, but are you really saying you’re discouraged that we’re not using fusion drives or space elevators? Who cares what the lineage of the hardware is? It’s like saying that you’re really just a Cro-Magnon in new clothes.

    “…KSC… know how to do HSF…”. The decision to cancel the Space Shuttle rests with Bush & Griffin. Why to you ignore this? Are you so consumed with being anti-Obama that when he agrees with a Bush decision, then it’s his fault for the original decision? Is this some form of anger transference?

    “50 years of HSF expertise tossed away”. Ok, here’s the other interesting thing that some people do – they ignore that the U.S. still has a large and robust aerospace industry. We have two (Atlas/Delta) under-used but very good heavy launchers that delivery the same amount of mass to LEO as the Shuttle could. We are nowhere near maxing out the amount of hardware we can delivery to orbit with them, so why do we need anything bigger? Where is the cargo for HLLV? What funded programs demand them? With modular space construction, we can do a lot, but people like you seem to think you have to launch everything on one rocket. Pretend like you only have a limited amount of money – how could you preform the same task without spending the money for an HLLV?

    Finally, here is the sequence I see for human exploration & exploitation, and what the new plan initially supports:

    NASA Human Exploration = Visiting new places beyond Earth, while perfecting the methods and technologies that let us do it safely.

    NASA Human Exploitation (for lack of a better word) = Re-visiting a prior destination, and expanding our knowledge of that place.

    Commercial Exploration = Utilizing the knowledge accumulated by NASA Exploration/Exploitation to identify future commercial areas of interest.

    Commercial Exploitation = Creating profitable enterprises in space.

  • eh

    “”What guarantee do we have that in 2015 we have anything that will constitute REAL progress in technical terms over what is available now or, has been in the past.SPACE X for example is strictly “OLD TECH”: hence the cheapness being touted by it’s MD.”””

    You want guarantees in space development? Have I missed the previous money back guarantee fine print? Do CxP managers now cover the costs from their own pocket? Do taxpayers get a ginsu knife?

  • Vladislaw

    President Kennedy did not say we will land on the moon and start colonizing or start building a base. He said we would develop the technology to land and return THAT was the challenge.

    The Soviets were looked at as the TECHNOLOGY leaders, therefore communism was the better system and smaller countries were moving towards communism. Kennedy was about proving our technology was superior therefore, by default, OUR political and economic system was better.

    The economic technology boom of the 70’s and 80’s that has lead us to today had absolutely nothing to do with the actual footprints on the moon, it was the development of the technology that brought that foot there to make the foot print.

    Do we want another technology boom? I certainly do. How do we do it? With a series of technology firsts.

  • Aerospace Engineer

    I voted for Obama.
    I realize Bush killed Shuttle and replaced it with Cx.
    Obama killed Cx and replaces it with nothing, HSF wise,
    except a hope that commercial will come up
    with a mid 1960s capability. This is progress?
    Whether one is for Heavy Lift or not we don’t need 5 years to figure it out!
    Meanwhile we ain’t building HSF spacecraft or flying them.
    We therefore decline.

  • Vladislaw

    “commercial will come up with a mid 1960s capability. This is progress?”

    Is commercial currently doing this? No, if they start doing it … then yes that is progress. By definition commercial aerospace will have PROGRESSED to doing earth to leo transport.

    “Meanwhile we ain’t building HSF spacecraft or flying them.”

    Read your own statement, you said commercial will be building and flying spacecraft, so yes, “we” America, WILL building HSF spacecraft.

  • Aerospace Engineer

    @Vladisaw:

    The reason we got all that technology was precisely because we had a focused mission requirement to put footprints on the moon. Form follows function. We have no mission now. Just long term promises, unfocused R&D money, and an unwise primary reliance on commercial ops.

  • Vladislaw

    “We have no mission now”

    Excerpts from the President’s speech:

    “But we can also see it in other ways: in the reluctance of those who hold office to set clear, achievable objectives; to provide the resources to meet those objectives; and to justify not just these plans but the larger purpose of space exploration in the 21st century.

    All that has to change. And with the strategy I’m outlining today, it will. We start by increasing NASA’s budget by $6 billion over the next five years,”

    —–
    MISSION 1

    “we will extend the life of the International Space Station likely by more than five years, while actually using it for its intended purpose: conducting advanced research that can help improve the daily lives of people here on Earth, as well as testing and improving upon our capabilities in space. This includes technologies like more efficient life support systems that will help reduce the cost of future missions.”

    —–
    MISSION 2

    “we will work with a growing array of private companies competing to make getting to space easier and more affordable …. By buying the services of space transportation — rather than the vehicles themselves — we can continue to ensure rigorous safety standards are met. But we will also accelerate the pace of innovations as companies — from young startups to established leaders — compete to design and build and launch new means of carrying people and materials out of our atmosphere.”

    —-

    MISSION 3

    “In addition, as part of this effort, we will build on the good work already done on the Orion crew capsule. I’ve directed Charlie Bolden to immediately begin developing a rescue vehicle using this technology, so we are not forced to rely on foreign providers if it becomes necessary to quickly bring our people home from the International Space Station. And this Orion effort will be part of the technological foundation for advanced spacecraft to be used in future deep space missions”

    —–
    MISSION 4

    “we will invest more than $3 billion to conduct research on an advanced “heavy lift rocket” — a vehicle to efficiently send into orbit the crew capsules, propulsion systems, and large quantities of supplies needed to reach deep space. In developing this new vehicle, we will not only look at revising or modifying older models; we want to look at new designs, new materials, new technologies that will transform not just where we can go but what we can do when we get there. And we will finalize a rocket design no later than 2015 and then begin to build it.

    —-

    MISSION 5

    “we will increase investment — right away — in other groundbreaking technologies that will allow astronauts to reach space sooner and more often, to travel farther and faster for less cost, and to live and work in space for longer periods of time more safely. That means tackling major scientific and technological challenges. How do we shield astronauts from radiation on longer missions? How do we harness resources on distant worlds? How do we supply spacecraft with energy needed for these far-reaching journeys? ”

    —-

    MISSION 6

    “Early in the next decade, a set of crewed flights will test and prove the systems required for exploration beyond low Earth orbit. ”

    —-

    MISSION 7

    “by 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the Moon into deep space. So we’ll start — we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history.”

    —-

    MISSION 8

    “By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth.”

    —-

    MISSION 9

    “a landing on Mars will follow. And I expect to be around to see it”

    —-

    MISSION 10

    “Critical to deep space exploration will be the development of breakthrough propulsion systems and other advanced technologies. So I’m challenging NASA to break through these barriers. And we’ll give you the resources to break through these barriers.”

  • eh

    Aerospace Engineer?

    Why lie like that? I mean, what drives you to do it? Why don’t you just say you disagree with the destination rather than pretend it’s not been discussed?

  • Coastal Ron

    I guess, Aerospace Engineer, that you were happy with the over-budget, behind-schedule, under-performing Constellation program? Based on your comments, as long as we have any HLV program, that’s good, regardless of the outcome?

    The HLV argument really boils down to whether you perceive that there is a need. You and others do. For those of us that don’t see an immediate need (notice the qualification), we keep wondering what can’t be accomplished with our current under-utilized fleet of Atlas, Delta, and soon-to-be Falcon 9?

    What specifically?

    I haven’t heard a good answer to this yet…

  • Aerospace Engineer

    By “we”, I mean NASA and its HSF contractor team. I know NASA is a dirty four letter word around here. Sorry. Yeah I know ULA could man rate Atlas or Delta. Ok by me. Still need a man rated capsule to put on top. Like the Orion spacecraft under development! or Dragon eventually, sure. The jury is still out on SpaceX, I wish them well, believe it or not, but they have a long way to go. Orbital? Last time I checked 2 of their last 3 taurus rocket launches failed. They have a long way to go too.

    Commercial HSF to LEO? Fine. Go for it. Let’s just give NASA something useful to do in HSF to maintain our leadership and expertise. Now. Worth that extra $3 billion a year, don’t you think?

  • Aerospace Engineer

    Constellation: Technically sound, but underfunded. – The Augustine Committee

  • Vladislaw

    “I know NASA is a dirty four letter word around here.”

    I just laid out 10 missions that I WANT NASA to do.

  • Vladislaw

    “Let’s just give NASA something useful to do in HSF”

    So if NASA is not doing the up and down part, everything else is not really that useful. Astronauts on orbit at the station is not useful because it is not part of the up and down?

  • Vladislaw

    http://www.hbccufo.org/Boeingclosegap.html

    “Boeing and Bigelow Aerospace expect to beat NASA’s expectations of 2016 for a commercial crew launch capability to the International Space Station outlined in President Barack Obama’s 2011 budget.

    The partnership that pairs Boeing’s experience with Bigelow’s zeal for private spaceflight was among five competitors awarded a total of $50 million in contracts by NASA under the Space Act to accelerate development of a U.S. commercial space taxi to replace the Constellation program’s Ares I rocket and the Orion crew exploration vehicle.

    “We certainly plan to exceed NASA’s expectation of a 2016 capability,” says Keith Reiley, the program manager for commercial crew development at Boeing Integrated Defense Systems in Houston.

    Bigelow, which is developing three- and seven-person commercially operated space stations using the NASA-pioneered TransHab inflatable space-habitation technology, would like to see the taxi operating by 2014, when the company expects to launch the first of its smaller Sundancer orbital stations.

    “We’d love to have a crew transfer vehicle service available to implement the assembly of our first station [in 2014] and actually conduct service to our clients in 2015,” says Robert Bigelow, president of the Las Vegas -based company he founded in 1999 with wealth amassed from the hotel chain Budget Suites of America.”

  • Aerospace Engineer

    Concerning Boeing & Bigelow:

    I’m all for it! We’ll see.

  • Vladislaw

    Coastal Ron wrote:

    “The HLV argument really boils down to whether you perceive that there is a need. You and others do.”

    I started commenting on here around 5+ years ago, and readily admit I was a freakin’ ragin’ maniac about HLLV’s as a few might remember.

    If NASA only got X funding per year, and is only going to launch X times a year, it was my thought they should be building seadragon, or something similier. I had fell in love with the Saturn V follow on’s that had been outlined. 300-500 ton monsters.

    Biggest bang for the buck. Then fellow commenters like Rand, Ferris etc, tried to change my thinking and talked about fuel depots etc and it just didn’t work for me until someone used to the term “gas station”.

    THAT was the eureka moment when the light switch finally went off and the possiblities really opened up with the whole idea of reusable “gas n’ go” space based vehicles and no real mission for Ares V. (although the 10 meter core and 12-14 meter shroud really opened possiblities for Very Large space telescopes)

    It also followed that the “pop & drop” systems for actual earth to LEO transport should move towards the commercial sector freeing up enormous amounts of NASA’s budget that could be used for beyond GEO travel and the lagrange highway system.

  • Coastal Ron

    Vladislaw, I think I have gone through a similar process of review.

    When Constellation was announced, I was happy that we were going back to the Moon. But as time went by, all the little issues started to cause me to not be so enthusiastic about the architecture. I thought Ares V was a logical evolution, but Direct had it’s advantages too.

    Then I started looking into the Lockheed ACES 41 design, and realized that smarter designs already existed, and they could be launched on existing vehicles. But Constellation was the POR, regardless of it’s merit.

    I originally went to an aerospace engineering college, but I sucked at calculus (plus I ran out of money). But I ended up in hi-tech manufacturing, and have an appreciation for modular construction.

    We have lots of space hardware designed for the ISS that could easily be used for many of the things we want to do in space. For the cost of designing an HLV, we could build, launch and support lots of space hardware. This is the direction that the new space plan takes us, and why I think it is better than Constellation.

    I think that once we start having multiple destinations & activities in space, then public excitement will follow. The public does love a good story like landing on the Moon, but those can be far & few between. Imagine if NASA let’s people guide one of their robotic explorers on the Moon – maybe a combination of contests and paid access. That will generate a lot of buzz.

    A constant presence in space will garner it’s own following, and on a more constant basis. This in itself will keep the pressure on the U.S. to continue our push into space.

    The challenge right now is getting to that inflection point, and I understand people’s concerns about whether this plan will survive the next president…

  • Vladislaw

    “I think that once we start having multiple destinations & activities in space, then public excitement will follow. ”

    I agree, when the space shuttle launched, there was never any mystery, you knew EXACTLY where it is was going. It was always going to be LEO.

    I had elaborated on a blog I did for while on the concept of F2P vehicles. Fly to Point. Traveling to different points in space, is to me, space exploration.

    Landing on Luna and staying there would be lunar exploration rather than space exploration. Although I agree on the potential of the moon that people, like Paul Spudis, have outlined I can’t help thinking, knowing how our government works, it would turn into a money pit and actual space exploration would grind to a halt before we could really design, develop and harness the power of reusable, space based vehicles.

    The space shuttle and the public’s uninterest was a mirrored reflection of what happened on the moon and the public’s lack of interest. I felt the same would happen with a lunar base.

    But with a couple F2P vehicles and literally hundreds of NEW points in space to explore, the public would be constantly fed new points of interest engaging them more. Orbiting moons and planets and teleoperating probes in real time, again, feeding new exploration for the public without getting bogged down in a location (in the public’s mind) and losing support in congress.

  • amightywind

    Vladislaw wrote:

    “But with a couple F2P vehicles and literally hundreds of NEW points in space to explore, the public would be constantly fed new points of interest engaging them more.”

    If the leftists lack the will patience to build a modest exploration vehicle like Orion, what makes you think that commercial organizations pursuing their own fragmented efforts will do better? You don’t even know who will be building a manned vehicle or for what. To go anywhere beyond LEO requires large rockets. What will they be? A Delta IV heavy is not that big. An Atlas V heavy doesn’t exist. Neither has man rated components.

    The argument that the public will ‘learn to love’ the new program sournd laughably similar to the arguments that they will learn to love their new socialized health plan. The massive demonstrations of the last fewdays suggest that teh public doesn’t like these cram downs..

    We can be thankful that Obama has dithered for almost a year and a half on NASA, leaving him only 2 1/2 more where he can inflict damage. A new GOP administration will surely role all of this madness back.

  • CessnaDriver

    Obama plan is still fatal.
    Promises so far in the future are worthless and laughable.
    What matters is now.
    He still wants to gut NASA human spaceflight and offers up Orion
    as an escape pod.
    HLV? LOL!
    Let’s think about it for FIVE years, then we will build it? LOL
    My god. What a joke.
    If his approval keeps plunging as it has, he won’t be President by then.

    The majority of Astros are right about Obama plan.
    It’s a raw deal and it’s disasterous.

    Strip away the pretty words and its more of the same from Obama.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ April 17th, 2010 at 7:40 pm

    I know it is hard when one thinks of Bush and rummy as competent…but you really should break out of the ideological shell.

    The public doesnt care about human spaceflight. One can make an argument that they will or will not turn to like the new health care situation…but to then extrapolate that to they will or will not learn to like the new concepts of human spaceflight is ridiculous. they dont care.

    As for the rest. to buy you and Whittington and Cessna driver and all the other “we dont like the new plan” babble one has to suspend reality and assume that the current program was going somewhere or doing something.

    It wasnt…yet you and all the other folks who dont like the new plan always hold it up as if it was doing something or going somewhere…as if something useful has been abandoned.

    The bottom line on Constellation is that the means to get it into orbit were not going anywhere fast.

    Hence in a world where logic prevails it should serve as no baseboard for comparison with something else. But in a world where Rummy is thought of well…well reality is something that doesnt matter

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    CessnaDriver wrote @ April 17th, 2010 at 7:54 pm

    Obama plan is still fatal.
    Promises so far in the future are worthless and laughable…

    and yet you support Constellation.

    Robert G. Oler

  • If the leftists lack the will patience to build a modest exploration vehicle like Orion, what makes you think that commercial organizations pursuing their own fragmented efforts will do better?

    Was this sentence supposed to make sense?

    It’s sort of like, “If my cat liked cheese, my elephant might want to wear a spats.”

    To go anywhere beyond LEO requires large rockets.

    We already have large rockets. They’re called Atlas and Delta, and soon, Falcon.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Aerospace Engineer wrote @ April 17th, 2010 at 2:58 pm

    you share the same nonsense (sorry its that) as all the other POR supporters…you think that the program had value.

    absurd

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ April 17th, 2010 at 9:39 pm

    It’s sort of like, “If my cat liked cheese, my elephant might want to wear a spats.”..

    lol really that was pretty good

    Robert G. Oler

  • Ben Joshua

    Three points – one rational, one speculative and one fantastical, even quixotic.

    The new plan maximizes use of the ISS, which is now a developed, operational resource. Its potential may exceed planners’ original hopes for its use, in multiple and imaginative ways.

    The flexible path aspect of the FY 2011 NASA budget brings NEOs, Phobos and Deimos into focus as next destinations, challenging mission designers and space enthusiasts alike to think beyond the earth / moon system, not as fast as we would like, but given the facts of NASA politics and budgets, perhaps faster than some of us expected.

    Query – What kind of delta-v is required to bring a NEO into earth orbit?

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind said “lack the will patience to build a modest exploration vehicle like Orion”.

    Orion is a horrible exploration vehicle, and a good example of the design compromises that Griffin had to make for Constellation:

    1. It was a crew launch vehicle
    2. It was an exploration vehicle
    3. It was living quarters for 4 people for a number of months
    4. It was a high-speed (i.e. from the Moon & beyond) heat shield
    5. It was a crew return vehicle

    This type of all-in-one design does a horrible job of #2 & 3. For a short expedition it would be OK, but can you imagine spending months cooped up with 3 other people, and no privacy or exercise? Our astronauts are used to the ISS accommodations now, and we could easily start using ISS components to build simple spacecraft.

    Constellation supporters are wedded to the Apollo past (launch everything at once), and need to envision a future where purpose built spacecraft are how we travel while in space. Then all you need is a CLV/CRV, which can be cheaper, smaller, and quicker to design & build.

    We need to stop building perfect systems, and start using proven space hardware, which we have a lot of. Practically everything the Shuttle could launch to orbit can be launched on a Atlas/Delta/Falcon.

    If we do this, then we’ll have real progress quicker, and programs with hardware built are harder to cancel. That was part of the problem with Ares V. Besides being horribly expensive, it was taking way too long to build. Once people realized that we could build better spacecraft using modular construction, and use the launchers we already had, Constellation lost support.

  • Rhyolite

    The odd thing about the Constellation supporters on this site it how few actually seem to be aware of the program schedule for it.

    Why would you make an argument like this against the new HLV plan:

    “Promises so far in the future are worthless and laughable.”

    “Let’s think about it for FIVE years, then we will build it?”

    When Constellation doesn’t begin developing Ares V for SEVEN or EIGHT years? The bulk of the Constellation supporters don’t seem to even know what they are supporting.

  • It is high time that the Flexible Path Plan GETS EXPOSED FOR THE FRAUD THAT IT IS!!! Under this “Plan” there will be NO specific spacecraft developed—-certainly NO new deep space rockets developed!! (We’re going to develop a new New heavy-lift launcher in 2015, JUST to go visit an asteroid? HA, HA!! Yeah…right…THAT will happen!! Especially after we went ahead and killed the Aries 5, simply because we didn’t like the intended destination.) Ah yes, Flexible Path: This totally INFLEXIBLE scheme only serves the purpose of bypassing & avoiding the Moon—as if it were a plague in the night sky! By so blatantly excluding the Moon as a destination, these Mars & Asteroid zealots have pulverized the long term future of manned spaceflight, and have brought NASA to the point of irrelevance, and even extinction. The Augustine Commision was loaded with these “Anywhere-but-the-Moon” fanatics. And their hidden-until-April-15th agenda was all along to wrecking ball any imminent plan which included the Moon. And sadly, they found a President of the U.S. who was ignorant, dumb and gullible enough to listen to them! This is why Project Constellation is on a hangman’s noose right now.

  • .. speaking of a hangman’s noose.

    Chris, so if its a fraud then you’d be willing to name the perpetrators of this crime. Who are they? Please, go ahead, name names.

  • Jack

    Chris Castro,

    At the moment you are just shouting.

    First of all, relax for a while.

    Then, if you really want to do it right:
    Read some ‘behind the scenes’ books about the Apollo and Shuttle history.
    Read what groups before the Augustine committee have written for NASA about the future of Spaceflight.
    Read some of the previous NASA studies, for example on beyondapollo.blogspot.com and beyondshuttle.blogspot.com
    Read the VSE, the report of the Augustine committee and the current plan presented by Bolden and Obama.

    Don’t read Space Politics or other sites with opinions.
    Don’t look and listen to Spacenews on the various newsmedia.

    Then try to formulate your own opinion on the whole thing. Who knows, maybe you will still feel the same, but you will hopefully be able to support that opinion in a way that people will pay attention.

  • Aggelos

    I think that Nasa wants to build a commercially useful Hlv..The studies show that 50-60t to leo is the commercially viable spot..Some studies also show that in the future the biggest Geo sats will be 10t class.. so a common core booster of 50t can launch 2 sats like these to geo..and with strap on solids,like Atlas the payload can double to 100t..and with 3 cores like Delta 4 heavy can go to monster 150t vehicle..
    with 5 (for example)Rd-180 class engines maybe that common core can be build,and later replace the rd-180 entirelly on smaller launchers..

    the Hlv Bolden wants to build I think will be assembled horisontally like delta 4,with solids strap on service tower and raise on the pad.. but it will be kerolox..

    The new Hlv will never be the one piece monster like saturn V ..it will be probably Modular..

  • Aggelos

    And the Obama plan says that in 2015 the engine will be ready..thats what I saw after reading the pdf.. so 5 years for an engine is not so bad..

  • Vladislaw

    “If the leftists lack the will patience to build a modest exploration vehicle like Orion, what makes you think that commercial organizations pursuing their own fragmented efforts will do better?”

    This is only my opinion, but Orion is not a true exploration vehicle. Why does exploration have to start on the ground launching your return capsule? Why not instead change the starting line to LEO and start your exploration from there?

    Allow the private sector to handle the first 200 miles and allow NASA to handle the next 40 million miles?

  • Set it straight

    Chris Castro is right… Obama’s MARS speech is nothing more than avoidance since he knows he won’t be around to tend it and NASA will get a new goal when a new pres steps in.

  • amightywind

    Ben Joshua wrote:

    “Query – What kind of delta-v is required to bring a NEO into earth orbit?”

    On the order of the relative momentum of the NEO with Earth, i.e. a lot. It would be much better to mine and concentrate the valuable materials in situ and send them back.

  • Vladislaw

    Space policy on Meet the Press, what a rare thing. Let’s see how much David Gregory studied the issue.

    Well that wasn’t much.

    Neil Armstrong has been the THEE most vocal critic?

  • Two articles of interest in Florida Today:

    “Brevard Preps for Unknown” — more moaning about the loss of jobs even though they’ve known this would be coming for more than six years.

    “Wanted: New Partners” — Instead of sitting around wanting jobs dropped in their laps, some people are actually doing something about attracting the private sector here. The important message here is how intransigent NASA has been in processing commercial requests. The hope is that it will change under Obama’s proposal.

  • amightywind

    Stephen C. Smith wrote:

    “more moaning about the loss of jobs even though they’ve known this would be coming for more than six years.”

    I wish Obomber was as tough with the unions in Michigan. He blew $68G on them. Enough to fund NASA for 4 years. What about the scumbags who will free load on health care? This will come back to bite him though. He is handing the GOP an election issue on a silver platter. Consider who he has offended there: retirees who will see Medicare cut, Cuban’s with his support of Castro, NASA workers on the space coast. I don’t see him winning Florida again.

  • The Augustine Commision was loaded with these “Anywhere-but-the-Moon” fanatics.

    It was? Really? Can you name a name or two, and provide some substantiation for such a ridiculous charge?

  • Ulrich von Bilderberg

    @aerospace engineer

    Your analysis is excellent and to the point.
    The pack here jumped on you with arguments proving they have no idea what they’re talking about, only some agendas or day duties so to fulfill.

  • eh

    Strange to see the space tebaggers morph into this “anti-long range plan” group. What exactly was CxP?

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ April 18th, 2010 at 11:17 am

    you really have bought the right wing droll

    Robert G. Oler

  • Lyle Kelly

    I welcome the active use of commercial space transportation. However, the time frames for a piloted asteroid mission and/or Mars missions are too long to (1) survive across the ups and downs of multiple US administrations, and (2) inspire young people to choose careers related to human space exploration. It’s still in the “sometime” range, not in the “near future” range.

  • red

    Lyle Kelly: “However, the time frames for a piloted asteroid mission and/or Mars missions are too long to (1) survive across the ups and downs of multiple US administrations, and (2) inspire young people to choose careers related to human space exploration.”

    2025 is 15 years away. That’s closer than the 2020 Moon date was in 2004. It’s way closer than Constellation’s prospects of getting to the lunar surface.

    I would also be very surprised if an asteroid is the first beyond LEO destination. It’s probably just the first beyond LEO destination that makes a good sound bite. I would expect at least some of Earth-Moon Lagrange points, lunar orbit, GEO, and Earth-Sun Lagrange points to come first.

    I also wouldn’t put too much emphasis on those dates. The real decisions on those dates and destinations will be made by future administrations. Not only that, but they will be based on whatever results come back from technology demonstrations, international partnerships, commercial space capabilities, robotic HSF precursors, and research.

    I see those dates as just suggestions – something to strive for. The real business of the next few years will be establishing a firm foothold in LEO, making all of those destinations more affordable and achievable through research, technology demonstrations, and commercial development, and scouting those destinations with robotic precursors.

    Meanwhile, there will be lots of other things to inspire the next generation, too – such as the ability to actually participate in space work (ISS, suborbital RLVs, smallsats, more satellite data, university research projects, commercial space, participatory exploration, etc). There should be a lot more of this sort of thing than with the Constellation plan.

  • Coastal Ron

    I agree Red.

    After the new budget is approved, and assuming it’s not changed too much, I think we’ll see new programs being funded that strengthen their emphasis on getting more people in space.

  • Strange to see the space tebaggers morph into this “anti-long range plan” group.

    Nowhere near as strange as to see moronic anonymous scumbaggers calling unspecified people “space tebaggers.” You’d almost think they have nothing useful to say.

  • […] Additional reaction to the president’s speech – Space Politics […]

  • @ Trent Waddington & Jack: Look, maybe I sound a bit like an emotionally high-strung canary right now. Yeah, you’ve really got me there! But, it’s going to take some passionate commitment to carry on this campaign now, to reverse this horrible course that Mr. Obama has set us on! I think that there are writers & commentators which subliminally set us up for this—every space writer who ever said that the Moon was “boring and uninteresting”. Carl Sagan, now deseased, never missed an opportunity to bash our sole natural satellite as a place unworthy to re-visit. Robert Zubrin—who ironically is speaking out against the President’s Plan—repeatedly slew out put-downs upon any concepts of re-visiting the Moon. Check out the “Avoiding the Sirens” chapter of his “Case For Mars” book, plus his recent “How to live on Mars”. Michael Collins, Apollo 11 astronaut, who actually orbited the Moon on that flight, wrote a book many years ago, “Mission to Mars”, which condemned any further manned Lunar visits, in favor of the Direct-to-Mars message. Now you got Sally Ride, Mae Jemison, shuttle astronauts, who SHOULD know better, hopping on the “Let’s ignore the Moon” bandwagon. Then who would ever forget that big traitor to manned deep spaceflight, Buzz Aldrin, who got the heaven-sent privilege of history, to actually get to walk on another world; who would now deny that honor to anyone else in the future, simply because he doesn’t care about the Moon. He should be exiled to the ISS for six months after what he’s done to NASA. All those members of the Augustine Commission, take a lot of the most recent blame, for the imbroglio that NASA is now in—the idiotic quagmire of now having to do an infinitely more complex asteroid visit mission, while the Moon is completely ignored. This whole thing is just monumentally tragic, how the anti-Moon hysteria is going to keep us chained to LEO for the next solid 15 to 20 years!

  • By the way, Charles Bolden—the man who’s going to develop starship warp-drive propulsion during the next five years—is squarely one of the culprits, in the putting of Project Constellation on the hangman’s noose & scaffold. There has never been a NASA administrator who was SO high on illusion like this before!

  • Oh yeah….and the Planetary Society are very much to blame for the Moon getting negative press. That group would just be elated if the Moon would magically vanish from existence! They love to act as if it doesn’t exist, as a destination.

  • eh

    “””Nowhere near as strange as to see moronic anonymous scumbaggers calling unspecified people “space tebaggers.” You’d almost think they have nothing useful to say.”””

    Ah, well, I recognize people that don’t seriously think about space policy and have only leapt into this discussion to bash Obama. I don’t know you you are so I won’t specificlaly insult you. Classy guy.

  • Ah, well, I recognize people that don’t seriously think about space policy and have only leapt into this discussion to bash Obama.

    Yes, there are people like that, and it’s stupid, but it doesn’t make them “teabaggers.” The only teabaggers are, you know, people who actually teabag, and it has nothing to do with politics. And I will persist in calling people who mindlessly call citizens concerned about the growth in government “teabaggers” scumbaggers.

  • @ Set It Straight: Thank you for your positive comment on the 18th! All this Obama talk about going to Asteroids & Mars is just a ruse, a smokescreen. It makes it SEEM like we’re going to make progress under his leadership, but trust me, an enormous let-down is in store for us! Think about just one aspect to his re-iterated proposal to terminate Constellation: He is moving to scrap the HEAVY-LIFT ROCKET Aries 5—the first launch vehicle since the Saturn 5, which can and would be used for trans-lunar & trans-planetary transport—which IS EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED—which is slated for design & construction by NASA, as commissioned by the Bush administration;—and he wants it terminated, simply because he and Buzz Aldrin dislike the designated first destination. Then, he has the moronic gall to tell all those people gathered in that room, that he’s going to see that NASA gets a WHOLE NEW heavy-lift rocket! The sketches will start getting drawn sometime in 2015—when he may or may not still be in office. Plus the choice of design will be based on all that starship warp-drive propulsion stuff that Charles Bolden will be cooking up in the labs, over the next five years. Further: In his speech, the President said that Constellation was “underfunded & unsustainable” because of the high costs, but then, he goes ahead and says that he’ll INCREASE NASA’s budget by amounts of billions of dollars per year much higher than that Project ever would’ve cost and required!! My God, is this President’s brain connected right?! If Constellation was underfunded, then what he should’ve freaking done was JUST FUND IT!!!

  • He is moving to scrap the HEAVY-LIFT ROCKET Aries 5—the first launch vehicle since the Saturn 5, which can and would be used for trans-lunar & trans-planetary transport—which IS EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED—which is slated for design & construction by NASA, as commissioned by the Bush administration;—and he wants it terminated, simply because he and Buzz Aldrin dislike the designated first destination.

    We don’t “need” a Saturn-V-class vehicle to get back to the moon, even if you capitalize all the letters of the word. It wasn’t terminated because we aren’t going to the moon, it was terminated because it’s horrifically expensive and unnecessary.

    In his speech, the President said that Constellation was “underfunded & unsustainable” because of the high costs, but then, he goes ahead and says that he’ll INCREASE NASA’s budget by amounts of billions of dollars per year much higher than that Project ever would’ve cost and required!!

    Again, using all caps and multiple exclamation marks doesn’t magically render nonsense true. Ares was not sustainable within the current budget, or the increased one. Go read the Augustine report. And if you’re going to whine about its cancellation, at least learn to spell it.

  • richardb

    Bob Zubrin wrote an excellent op-ed on the deception inherent in Obama’s plan: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/04/19/2010-04-19_obamas_failure_to_launch.html

    Someone brought up the Tea Party and I think its a good question what a Tea Party Congress would do with Nasa in 2011. If Constellation is terminated this year, then I think Nasa gets deeper spending cuts. Should those contracts be terminated in 2010 and the job losses booked his year and next, a Tea Party Congress will have a free ride cutting billions from Nasa’s top line. A Tea Party Congress will want to show its voters they are serious about cutting tens of billions, perhaps hundreds of billions from the USG budget. Nasa, along with a great many federal agencies will get haircuts.

    If Constellation isn’t killed this year, then of course it won’t get any funding increases either and Nasa is still going to have to take big cuts.

    I take it as a given that if the GOP adopts the Tea Party message and activism, it wins a sweeping victory in November at all levels of government. I see no message more powerful in 2010 than the Tea Party’s, can anyone else find a bigger message? A victory for their message is likely to have a serious impact on Nasa, with real spending cuts and real programs being discarded. Constellation could still be among them in 2011 should it survive 2010.

  • Matt Wiser

    Well, the speech was interesting…but still, why not just plain keep Orion as is, which is what Lockheed-Martin seems to prefer as the “Block I”, and have a Block II version optimized for deep space, which was the original idea for Orion? The Commercial sector still has to convince Congress that they can deliver on their promises, and I would bet that Congress is going to insist on a Government vehicle as a backup to Commercial not being able to deliver. Remember: the President proposes, and the Congress disposes.

    As for heavy lift, even the Augustine Commission came to the conclusion that an Ares V lite was the preferred heavy-lift option in the near term. Talk of on-orbit refueling is that-talk-at the present time. There’s still many unknowns to solve before orbtial refueling can prove viable, such as propellant storage and transfer, replenishment (I presume the depots will be replenished), safety on orbit, and so forth.

    Destinations: while the Moon was left out, no doubt the first BEO mission or two will be lunar orbit, to test the spacecraft and systems, and give crews experience in BEO before tackling a target beyond the Earth-Moon system. And when it comes time to get ready for Mars, the Moon will be used as the proving ground for Mars (habitats, EVA suits, rovers-both human and robotic, on-site resource exploitation, etc.). A successor administration will probably say “We’re going back to the Moon” at some point. But there’s one question the “Flexible Path” advocates fail to answer: how do you get past the feeling by the Moon first folks that Flexible Path is the “Look, but don’t touch” program, when to the public, exploration is an astronaut getting out of a lander, planting a flag, and bringing stuff back?

  • Fred Cink

    Vladislaw, your response to “we have no mission now” claims that we now have 10 missions from Obama’s speach.

    #1 Extend ISS
    No Problem, good use of existing resources/investments no increase in costs, just maintain current funding.Not visionary but doesnt need to be.

    #2 Develope and BUY COMMERCIAL manned access to LEO
    Again no problem, use existing resources/investments (Atlas/Delta) and maybe Falcon/Dragon. MIGHT reduce costs, shuttle was supposed to, too.

    #5 Develope BEO deep space mission tech. Again, not only “no problem”
    (with 1 and 2 it starts to be doable in 3-5 years) its just that funding
    is left for a nebulous future in “out year” budgets.

    From there things get a little slippery…

    #3 Keep Orion-ultra-lite as a down only CRV. What a total waste in duplicating (very poorly) an already existing reliable asset (Soyuz)
    Even I, a right wing, gun toting, fox news and limbaugh addicted, rascist sexist biggoted teabagger can’t believe he pulled this one out of his hat.

    #4 Spend ANOTHER 3 BILLION on ANOTHER HLV STUDY!!! Ever hear of Shuttle C, NLS, Ares 5, Jupiter. The stacks of paper studies from the last 40 years are tall enough to CLIMB them to orbit. How the hell did nasa come up with the Saturn V that fast that good way back then?!?

    #6, #7, #8, #9, are all so far in future years and future dollars with no inkling or funding of an inkling as to be meaningless.

    #10 I just can’t wait for anti gravity, transporters, matter/antimatter warp
    drive, orbital towers or Pixie Dust technology to be developed either but again see #s 6,7,8,and 9

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