Congress, NASA

For other purposes, indeed

Last week Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced S. 3356, which the bill’s description describes as “to increase the maximum age for children eligible for medical care under the CHAMPVA program, and for other purposes.” The first section of the bill alters the maximum age, and the second section (of two) does, well, “other purposes”:

SEC. 2. CANCELLATION OF HUMAN LUNAR MISSION UNDER CONSTELLATION PROGRAM OF NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION.

(a) In General- Except as provided in subsection (b), the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration may not obligate or expend any amount to support a human lunar mission, including any such mission under the Constellation Program of the Administration.

(b) Exception- The Administrator may use amounts obligated or otherwise made available before the date of the enactment of this Act for a human lunar mission, including amounts for a human lunar mission under the Constellation Program, to wind down any activity or operations related to such mission.

I contacted Sen. Feingold’s office for more information about this bill, including why the Constellation provision is in the bill (given that the president’s FY11 budget cancels Constellation other than the reconfigured Orion) and why that provision is in this bill, which has nothing to do NASA. I haven’t gotten a response yet beyond a note that Sen. Feingold introduced a similar provision in S. 1808, the “Control Spending Now Act”, last fall. That provision would have delayed a human lunar mission to at least 2025. However, that bill was introduced before the White House released its FY11 budget proposal.

41 comments to For other purposes, indeed

  • amightywind

    The libs better hurry! The time is running out on their sleazy, anti-democratic mechanizations. And he kicks up entitlement spending too! The nation is on the edge of ruin and he lards up the budget with more free health care. Man, the Tea Party is gonna haul out a can of whupass on the Bolsheviks this fall. And through it all, Constellation lives!

  • Vladislaw

    ya those sleazy anti democratic mechanizations that want to provide health care for the children of veterans who get killed or maimed fighting overseas.We definately do not owe our warfighters anything when they get killed or permantly maimed. Hell pack them off to some ghetto and lets forget about their service to the country. The dead and maimed warfighters’s children can sell pencils on street corners if they need healthcare. The country certainly do not owe them anything for their service. … Good answer amightwind.

  • It is a bizarre rider. Is its intent to cancel out the directive in the 2010 appropriations bill prohibiting NASA from ending Constellation?

  • Vladislaw

    Rand, if this bill became law before the budget is passed, or a continuing resolution passed, would it allow or free up funds that are allocated for 2010 and constellation?

    I am thinking that what it may be about?

  • Set it straight

    Fiengold has always been against space exploration as he thinks it’s a waste of resources. Space flight doesn’t affect Wisconsin much even though (maybe he doesn’t know) Sheboygan is home to the only launch site in Wisconsin. This bill won’t pass as the many like it before.

  • Robert G. Oler

    After the elections Tuesday most of the claims by many of our right wing (or Fox News viewers…for you Rand) about the election in 10 should be seen in the light of bad partisanship.

    I’ve spent sometime today (while watching Lorelei) reviewing the various state elections…and it is clear particularly from the results in PA 12 that the GOP is going to have a harder time then most of the “winds” here claim taking back the Congress. the GOP should have won in 12 and it bombed.

    And it is also clear that whatever changes are made in Congress will not be willing to spend a lot more money on hsf.

    Robert G. Oler

  • “Bolsheviks”

    Almighty, again, you haven’t a clue what Bolshevism is. Stick to words you know, even if than means less catchy protest signs.

    “Sheboygan is home to the only launch site in Wisconsin.”

    Wisconsin’s also home to the single largest annual airshow in the world, which regularly features space tech. Also of note, when RpK fizzled on its COTS fundraising it moved from OK to WI. Additionally, right here in Madison, where I live, there’s also orbitech (www.orbitech.com) which makes, among other things, simulated regolith and the life support systems for Bigelow’s Sundancer. It’s not a huge WI industry, like in Texas or the Space Coast, but there is some space-oriented business in the state.

  • amightywind

    Robert G. Oler wrote:

    “and it is clear particularly from the results in PA 12 that the GOP is going to have a harder time then most of the “winds” here claim taking back the Congress. the GOP should have won in 12 and it bombed. ”

    Oh come on! We don’t expect a shutout in November. PA 12 is a rotted union wasteland where people stopped working 25 years ago and registered dems outnumber GOP 2:1. In your ‘review’ today, you must have noticed Critz ran against Obama, Obamacare and the porkulus! Small details, I know. Obama is absolutely radioactive.

    As for HSF in the coming austerity, proponents need only align it defense and national security and they have a blank check. Do you know nothing of history? It is not morning in America yet, but there is a faint glimmer in the east!

  • Bennett

    Rand Simberg wrote @ May 19th, 2010 at 9:03 pm

    That was my first take on it too, but I don’t like the fuzzy language. Legislating against a lunar mission just doesn’t sit well, even if the purpose it aimed at Constellation. My dad was from Wisconsin, so it has a spot in my heart, but damn the legacy of Proxmire just won’t die.

    Re: our flatulent troll, I had no use for him before his sleazy comment about Dr. Aldrin, less so now, if that’s even possible.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    I am not surprised that this is not the first time Feingold has tried this kind of sleazy ploy. Proxmire’s dark legacy indeed.

  • Robert G. Oler

    PA 12 is a rotted union wasteland where people stopped working 25 years ago and registered dems outnumber GOP 2:1.

    oh there is thoughtful analysis.

    PA 12 has to be the worst news that the GOP got last night, in a night of bad news.

    PA 12 went for Kerry in 04 and then flipped for McCain in 08. The GOP national poured in 1 million dollars and some high priced talent…and the GOP person attacked all the GOP hot button issues…and got creamed.

    For space advocates what is most entertaining is the rise of Rand Paul. If he is like his Dad he has no use for human spaceflight of the NASA variety…and it will be interesting to see IF he wins the seat if he is able to help slice the GOP up into the “adult wing” (ie WMR), the nutty social wing (Palin) and the Ron Paul wing.

    Not winning 12 was very very bad for the hopes of a big red wave in 10…

    Robert G. Oler

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Just FYI, the Fusion Technology Institute, which studies the use of lunar helium 3 to create fusion energy, is located at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Oler, by the way, is forgetting that the Dem in PA 12 ran as pro-life, pro-gun, anti-ObamaCare, and against cap and trade–in other words as a Republican. That is one way for a Dem to win. It will not work for most for obvious reasons.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark R. Whittington wrote @ May 20th, 2010 at 12:01 am

    nice spin and I guess that is what one does when the entire theory of “the wave” seems to be more propaganda then anything else…(“Saddam could have had WMD” LOL) and as I have told you, it is foolish to try now and predict the outcome of elections in NOV…

    but

    The Dem running in PA 12 was the COS to Murtha…hence while he ran a “local” election nevertheless the GOP candidate was unable to tie the issues that Murtha voted on to the COS…and worse the GOP guy HAD NOTHING…other then an attempt to nationalize the election based on national policies.

    In a district that McCain carried the GOP person couldnt even come close.

    And what that relays as the state of the situation right now is

    1. The Line about “the GOP voters are the ones fired up” is not reflected in the vote totals

    2. Districts “on the margin” are ready to reject out of hand the Dem party…the vote totals dont reflect that.

    3. An established Dem cannot managed to separate himself from the national party..the vote totals dont reflect that.

    There is a very angry mood in The Republic, but this is not 1994. First the GOP does not have a national campaign platform “LETS RETURN TO THE MOON” (yeah watch that be a headliner) and Second the only group hated more then Dems, is The Republican party.

    Both parties are more or less reshaping themselves. The results in PA statewide were fascinating. Tummy (Spell) and Sestak will have an entertaining race.

    you use to be a person who could analyze politics…now you are just almost always wrong!

    sigh

    Robert G. Oler

  • This is off topic, but:

    1. The Line about “the GOP voters are the ones fired up” is not reflected in the vote totals

    Because there was a heavily contested Senate primary for the Dems, while the Republicans already had their candidate.

    2. Districts “on the margin” are ready to reject out of hand the Dem party…the vote totals dont reflect that.

    The district was a heavily Democratic one, and the Democrat ran to the right of the Republican.

    3. An established Dem cannot managed to separate himself from the national party..the vote totals dont reflect that.

    Because he wasn’t an incumbent, and didn’t have to defend any actual votes. He could say whatever he wanted about what he would do in office. Most Democrats won’t have that option in November.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ May 20th, 2010 at 12:57 am

    This is off topic, but:

    I wrote:
    1. The Line about “the GOP voters are the ones fired up” is not reflected in the vote totals

    You replied:
    Because there was a heavily contested Senate primary for the Dems, while the Republicans already had their candidate…………..

    that could be. It requires believing that no matter the issues or the effort that the only time GOP voters are excited is at a general election…ie that being fired up doesnt extend past coming out to vote at the normal time…

    particularly since this was, in all respects a general election.

    The GOP tossed its heavy hitters into this and a lot of money….and if any district should be “unhappY” with the Obama status quo this district was a candidate for it.

    and in the end the election was not even close.

    More to space policy…it seems unlikely that any of the people who were elected or nominated seem to be ready to spend a lot more money in human spaceflight….indeed the entire message seems to be “cut spending”.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Rhyolite

    Is this a matter of the PAYGO rules, which were modified in Feburary?

    If Sen. Feingold proposes new spending under the CHAMPVA program, does he also have to find something to cut or tax to pay for it?

  • Mark R. Whittington

    PAYGO is a rule honored more in the breach with this Congress. Feingold just doesn’t like space exploration. That’s all.

  • More to space policy…it seems unlikely that any of the people who were elected or nominated seem to be ready to spend a lot more money in human spaceflight….indeed the entire message seems to be “cut spending”.

    Yessir, spot on as usual RGO.

    Most GOPers here think this is another 1994, but it ain’t, although I would predict the House will be more evenly split come January.

    That means, if anything, all things might fall under the budget ax, even the military. So tying NASA funding to national security will be a non-starter for CxP. Even funding for commercial.

    Look for more Clinton Era-like international partnership with Russia.

    Get used to it.

  • particularly since this was, in all respects a general election.

    No, it wasn’t. That’s why it’s called a “special” election. A general election wouldn’t have a primary on the same day, particularly a one-sided one.

  • yakman

    OK, folks; some are tired of hand-waving polemics about PA12 without the facts, so see below for the actual numbers. In short the Dems had ~80,000 votes in their primary, the GOP just under 46,000; in the “special general” election, the tally ended up being Dem 70,800, GOP 60,600, and Lib 3100; so, a few more (~7000) people voted in the “special general” than in the primary total (probably Indies), and the Dems lost 9000, the GOP picked up ~14,500 relative to their primary totals. Now, armed with those real figures (and below), have at it folks, but remember “numbers are sharp objects, it’s easy to get cut up juggling them”

    Here are the actual results from, horrors, a Fox News page…
    U.S. House – District 12 – Dem Primary
    May 19, 2010 – 05:18PM ET
    Pennsylvania – 597 of 597 Precincts Reporting – 100%
    Name Party Votes Vote %
    Critz , Mark Dem 57,881 71%
    Bucchianeri , Ryan Dem 16,692 21%
    Mackell , Ronald Dem 6,424 8%

    U.S. House – District 12 – GOP Primary
    May 19, 2010 – 05:18PM ET
    Pennsylvania – 597 of 597 Precincts Reporting – 100%
    Name Party Votes Vote %
    Burns , Tim GOP 26,174 57%
    Russell , William GOP 19,763 43%

    U.S. House – District 12 – Special General
    May 19, 2010 – 05:18PM ET
    Pennsylvania – 597 of 597 Precincts Reporting – 100%
    Name Party Votes Vote %
    Critz , Mark Dem 70,867 53%
    Burns , Tim GOP 60,653 45%
    Agoris , Demo Lib 3,150 2%

  • Doug Lassiter

    Getting back to Feingold and CHAMPVA, this bill was introduced and referred to the Committee on Veterans Affairs. Hard to believe that the CVA would keep such language about human space flight, and it’s also hard to believe that Feingold would tie a brick like this to the foot of a childrens medical assistance bill.

    So let’s not concern ourselves with whether it will get passed. That’s irrelevant. It’s a long way from even getting out of committee, much less bicameral passage. What’s more relevant, and kind of interesting, is that given all that, whatever purpose was served by doing this? At least S. 1808 had something to do with space exploration. If Feingold just wants to get his feelings about Constellation in the Congressional Record, he doesn’t need to do it through a rider like this. If you’re looking for action, you glue provisions to important bills that can’t tolerate delay, not ones like this.

  • Robert G. Oler

    yakman wrote @ May 20th, 2010 at 1:30 pm

    thanks for making my point…I would not have made the statement(s) I made without a peek at the numbers Robert

  • yakman

    Frankly, sir: the figures also support the points of some others, as well. This district is clearly nearly 2:1 Dem:GOP by registration of those that voted; the GOP candidate ran 33% ahead of GOP registration (the Dem ran 12% below Dem registration) in order to yield a Dem 53:45 win; the numbers indicate that this is a tough district for a GOP-er to win, not impossible, just tough – running that far ahead of registration ratio will do the job in many, many districts; also another variable not specifically answered by the numbers is how did the Indies break – they must have gone for the GOP by a big margin, but we can’s say quantifiably from only these numbers without making some assumptions (such as, if we assume the difference in total vote between primary and general was all Indies (126,000 vs 133,000 or 7000 Indies) AND if the 10,000 vote loss for Dems from primary to general all went to GOP, then that means that ~5000 out of 7000 Indies voted GOP (because I do not want to be cut by these cold numbers, I repeat that can NOT be quantifiably determined from these numbers, but if it is anywhere near accurate it has to be giving some Dem strategists the willies).
    Lastly, the figures can not directly address the assertions by others that the Dem ran well to the right of mainstream Dem positions – that will have to be supported or refuted by other means (links to campaign websites, etc).

  • I’ve just email both my senators to see that this bill is defeated.

    I would suggest everyone else of similar mind do the same!

    T

  • Michael Kent

    amightywind wrote:

    As for HSF in the coming austerity, proponents need only align it defense and national security and they have a blank check.

    Are you not paying attention to the Tea Party? If they win, there will be no more blank checks. For anybody.

    Mike

  • CrossoverManiac

    Vladislaw puked:

    “ya those sleazy anti democratic mechanizations that want to provide health care for the children of veterans who get killed or maimed fighting overseas.We definately do not owe our warfighters anything when they get killed or permantly maimed. Hell pack them off to some ghetto and lets forget about their service to the country. The dead and maimed warfighters’s children can sell pencils on street corners if they need healthcare. The country certainly do not owe them anything for their service. … Good answer amightwind.”

    I’ve seen more class from crackheads than from you. amightwind was clearly talking about Feingold slipping in an anti-NASA legislation into that bill that didn’t have anything to do with the CHAMPVA program. It was sleazy of Feingold and it’s sleazy of you to defend his action by implying that amightwind wants children of wounded vets to suffer.

  • Bennett

    CrossoverManiac wrote @ May 20th, 2010 at 9:21 pm

    got anger?

  • DCSCA

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ May 19th, 2010 at 9:29 pm

    Good analysis. Manned spaceflight, as least as Americans have come to take it for granted since 1961, will die when the last shuttle crew says, ‘wheels stop.’ They most likely do not realize this is coming. Feingold is fanning the flames Proxmire used to light. If Constellation- in whatever modified form– is killed, any relevant manned spaceflight enterpeise for the United States is dead– or as Armstrong noted, will simply fade away. By 2015, as budgets tighten in an every shrinking economic climate any rationale to keep funding NASA, at least to the public, with no new spacecraft in the pipeline and no goal, no plan in work will seem a waste. NASA will be ripe for disbanding, folding its assets into existing relevent agencies (FAA, NOAA, DoD, etc.,) and the civilian space agency will be history… by the end of the decade.

  • Robert G. Oler

    CSCA wrote @ May 21st, 2010 at 1:47 am

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ May 19th, 2010 at 9:29 pm

    Good analysis. Manned spaceflight, as least as Americans have come to take it for granted since 1961, will die when the last shuttle crew says, ‘wheels stop.’

    I agree, where we disagree is that I dont really think this is a bad thing.

    First off, nothing to me is more important then The REpublic continuing…and it wont if we keep spending like we are. There is wide spread agreement on that…but where the agreement ends is what spending should be cut…in other words there are a lot of folks who think that the status quo should be changed. But not their status quo.

    If I thought for an instant that spending 3-10 billion dollars a year spent (like it is) on HSF in NASA was the right way to continue HSF and that money would, for the better change The Republic. I would argue for spending it

    But I have actually come to the complete opposition conclusion. I think spending whatever money is being spent at NASA to sustain its human spaceflight policy…is the same thing as spending money (and lies) in Iraq to continue Rumsfelds stupid theories.

    Leaving, abandoning Iraq was better then doing that.

    Now there was a third way, and that was the surge and we were lucky that there were military flags who were willing to risk their careers to make that happen…and eventually the politics caught up with even Bush and his thunderheads.

    But if the best we can do is sustain a standing army for 200 million a month, doing not a lot of flights a year ALL Of people who are only government employees and really dont do much at all of value.

    Then we as a country and human spaceflight in general would in my view be better off if we just stopped.

    But like Iraq there is a third way and I think Obama has found it.

    I believe (trying to make some career choices here based on this theory) that things are going to get far worse in terms of federal spending and maybe even the economy before they get better. With people I know who fought in Fallujah and places losing their homes because they cannot get their old job back or find a new one…it is just not worth spending g3 billion for the shuttle infrastructure or 3 billion for an alternate engine for the F-35 or whatever billion for the C-17…or whatever.

    Obama’s way in my view tries to create a commercial launch industry that might (MIGHT) be able to find a way to survive off the government teat and expand the horizons of human spaceflight. The technology experiments are good ideas in terms of (a phrase I hate) game change technology which can make us more competitive.

    I dont care if humans go back to the Moon anytime soon, I dont see the need no one who is for it can make a rational case for it except things which are “dont cares”.

    We are in a time of great transition and if we dont manage that well, there wont be a country like I knew it growing up. The old ways of both the Dems and the GOP (or of the two corporate parties) are driving us into the ground.

    Change is brutal, but in some cases it is necessary. I wont cry when I hear “wheels stop” on the last shuttle mission. To me, it will be the end of something that has kept us “locked in place” for three decades now. time to move on

    Robert G. Oler

  • CrossoverManiac

    “got anger?” And why not? Some people seem to think disagreeing with their politics in the slightest justifies outright slander. Vladislaw did precisely that to amightywind

  • Vladislaw

    I slandered amightywind?

    Slander is:

    “Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, slander (for transitory statements), and libel (for written, broadcast, or otherwise published words)—is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image. It is usually, but not always,[1] a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (the claimant).”

    If anything it would have been libel, not slander because it was a written statement. But I didn’t make any claims directly at him. The sarcasm was directed at his statement and its value. I did not directly defame is person at all.

  • It’s hard to see how you can slander a pseudonymous person. We don’t know who “abreakingwind” really is (it could be three or four different people — I could even post using that name, though I doubt if I could write things so ignorant even if I tried), so it can’t suffer from anything that we say about it, in terms of damaging its real-world reputation.

  • DCSCA

    @ Robert G. Oler wrote @ May 21st, 2010 at 4:00 am
    The ‘Republic’ will continue. Revisit some volumes titled ‘Public Papers’ by President Franklin Roosevelt, published in 1941. It’s deja vu all over again, right down to the budget mess and name calling. Only problem is Obama needs to show a little more FDR, but reversing 30 years of policy isn’t going to happen in 18 months — or with one presidency.

    To be honest, this writer’s career doesn’t hinge on whether the space program survives or dies. The private sector has its own set of pressures only recently being discovered by contractors who depend on government programs for a life in this land. This writer personally has no dog in this hunt, but would prefer to see a viable, active manned spaceflight program thrive, preferably on the wings of a government funded and managed program supervised by a chartered agency, NASA, than in the hands of the private sector playing with tinker toys. This writer wants his tax dollars to go to a properly funded NASA to press on back to the moon and beyond. The pluses need not be relisted here. There are tangibles and intangiables. ‘Technical life insurance’ and so on. But as stated previously, if the manned space program, as all Americans have known it since May 5, 1961 – the program driven by national pride as much as by rocketeers and budgeteers– ends with the words, ‘wheels stopped,’ in the out years, as you noted, when budgets get tighter in an increasingly morose economy, the rationale to keep NASA intact will become hard to make, with no manned program to show for the funding. If it’s just to fund esoteric research projects, they can be folded into other existing agencies; the ISS can be de-orbited into the Pacific — or U.S. interests sold off to other nations — and NASA can be eliminated as a budgeted agency. It’s an easy argument to make — and one conservatives have especially been salivating to make for decades.

    The responsibility for private space ventures taking off is not President Obama’s to guarantee, with financial incentives for private enterprised space ventures. If they cannot raise capital and accept the risk themselves in the private sector, too bad. NASA has been neglected and misdirected for 30 years — and infected with low and mid-level bureaucrats more concerned with protecting turf than pressing on out into the great unknown. A healthy 25% cut across the board in paper jockeying staffer would be a refreshing start. It’s chiefly an R&D outfit with some of the finest engineers on hand. Some may make good managers, as much as they naturally recoil from the title. Engineers are not the kind of people you want planning or running a venture whose goal is turning a profit, not cutting-edge exploration. But if NASA doesn’t have a new spacecraft in the pipeline by the time the last shuttle crew radios ‘wheels stopped,’ it’s mission in the eyes of the public will have ended. And that would signal 52 years of waste… not 30. Yes, it’s time to move on– back to the moon, up and away from going in circles in LOE.

  • This writer wants his tax dollars to go to a properly funded NASA to press on back to the moon and beyond.

    Why does this person refer to itself in the third person? Who does it think it is, Bob Dole?

  • borecrawler

    I work in an office full of engineers. I must agree that many of them are hard-pressed to put on managerial hats. NASA’s management has been the job of government. The only people that make worse managers than engineers are government bearucrats. My solution lies in letting NASA compete head-to-head with the commercial companies, with a board of directors that chooses a CEO (or whatever title you want to give them), rather than an Obama apointee. When “private” companies like Space-X receive government money, they cease to be private and are just another government contractor. To make matters worse, they have much less experience and know how than NASA or it’s contractors (take ATK, LM or Boeing, for instance). If these companies were given the “red carpet” that the new commercial fly-by-nights have received, they would be forging ahead much faster towards a much clearer goal (like they already were before the derailment plan from the president). I can’t help but wonder wistfully where Ares would be now if it had been properly funded from the beginning. We would see no job losses and a successful program that America would be proud to rally behind.

  • When “private” companies like Space-X receive government money, they cease to be private and are just another government contractor.

    When the government buys airplane tickets, or Windows software, does that make the airliner or Microsoft no longer a private contractor?

  • I can’t help but wonder wistfully where Ares would be now if it had been properly funded from the beginning. We would see no job losses and a successful program that America would be proud to rally behind.

    Proper funding for Ares from the beginning would have been zero funds. A program that is unaffordable and unsustainable is not going to be successful.

  • borecrawler

    “Rand Simberg,
    Proper funding for Ares from the beginning would have been zero funds. A program that is unaffordable and unsustainable is not going to be successful”.

    The fact is, calling Ares unaffordable and unsustainable is based on political decisions to make it so. Is the $700+ billion stimulus package affordable or sustainable? The real issue is one of priority. If the government felt that manned space exploration was important to the American people, they would fund it at an acceptable rate (I’m not just picking on the Obama administration here-this has been a problem since the beginning of manned space). As I have always believed and will continue to believe, the NASA budget is relatively tiny and could be increased to an acceptable level without a huge tax burden on Americans. I hope commercial space succeeds, but we are not there yet. If the government really gives a rip about space, they need to do what will happen quickly and capture the hearts of our nation (government per se doesn’t do this well, but meaningful space exploration DOES). Let’s suck it up and give Ares a chance!

  • borecrawler

    When “private” companies like Space-X receive government money, they cease to be private and are just another government contractor.

    When the government buys airplane tickets, or Windows software, does that make the airliner or Microsoft no longer a private contractor?

    Answer: If their primary source of R & D and their success depends on the government’s funding-YES! (I believe Microsoft would do just fine without government money).

  • @ DCSCA…..Well worded, my friend! Let’s get out of this dull, stupid LEO merry-go-round!! The ISS is NOT “inspiring the public” any more than an extra-planetary mission would, yet NO ONE EVER COMPLAINS about our astronauts doing LEO circles over & over & over again!! The ISS and all the Low Earth Orbit activities have been costing NASA billions & billions of federal budget dollars, all this time, yet the Anti-Moon space lobby squeals in outrage over any which way we can, of getting out of this 40-year quagmire of doing nothing but LEO repeatedly. All this talk about extending the ISS till 2020; does not all that sound like the talk about just flying the Space Shuttle clear until that very year, before the Columbia Disaster??! Trust me, if 2020 gets here, and no deep space initiative is going on, the new administration could just decide to keep right on going with the safe, risk-less, easy-way-out scheme of just maintaining the ISS clear to 2030! If Constellation is killed, and Obama succeeds in plunging this country into spaceflight mediocrity, via spacecraft that can only do Low Earth Orbit, then you bet your life that this is where U.S. astronauts will stay trapped for decades longer! Particularly if all the Chinese do is copy us, with another boring space station!

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