Is there something wrong with the word “conservative”? That is a much more understood and agreed-upon word.

Cannot have the Government keeping people from making money – even if the technology was developed with tax dollars, so Reagan had to do something about that and in 84 signed into law the commercial space launch act.

And the rest is history. The products of your tax dollars handed over to the thieves.

From the Space Act:

DEFINITIONS

Sec. 103.
(2) the term “aeronautical and space vehicles” means aircraft, missiles, satellites, and other space vehicles, manned and unmanned, together with related equipment, devices, components, and parts.

and what should have killed Ares 1, given the existence of Atlas and Delta:

FUNCTIONS OF THE ADMINISTRATION
Sec. 203. (a) The Administration, in order to carry out the purpose of this Act, shall–

(1) plan, direct, and conduct aeronautical and space activities;
(2) arrange for participation by the scientific community in planning scientific measurements and observations to be made through use of aeronautical and space vehicles, and conduct or arrange for the conduct of such measurements and observations;
(3) provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof;
(4) seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space; and
(5) encourage and provide for Federal Government use of commercially provided space services and hardware, consistent with the requirements of the Federal Government.

(emphasis mine)

Rumsfeld pushed hi-tech, doing more with less, reducing the size and footprint of the military. Very much like the NASA “flexible path.”
Cheaper is better?

There is no cheap. We are losing an infrastructure that is….priceless. Why? Because it was underfunded in the first place and made to fail. Not space politics- money and defense job politics.

I like you Mr. Oler. I used to fly around in rescue helicopters; in the back running the hoist. I am a pilot myself- paragliders. I fly for hours along the coast, back and forth. Looking at the ocean, at San Francisco, at 25 miles an hour about a thousand feet up on a strong day. Pretty quiet. One day it will end and I will die. But I don’t want it to end for everyone else. It is quiet out in space ; we have never picked up any TV shows from another planet. I suggest you think about why.

Stephen. the problem is that everyone agrees that the status quo is bad and needs changing, until the effort starts to change “their” status quo. Then all of a sudden that “change” is bad.

What the folks who work in the HSF industry have come to believe is taht their program is important no matter what or if any results that it produces…because like just about every other federal program on a local level, they have wrapped that program in the flag and made it the determiner of national destiny.

When the right wing (or left, but the right wing is the worst) finds that their pork is in peril then they feel justified pulling out all the stops…because of course to attack their pork is not patriotic. They are after all “patriots”.

Robert G. Oler

So am I, but complaints about “right wingers” continue to not have much of a useful place in space policy discussion.

Want to rephrase that to remain credible? i.e., not put yourself in the Oler category?

No. It’s true. And quite frankly, I’m fed up with the hypocrisy in this area from people who crank off letters to Florida Today calling Obama a socialist yet they demand he keep the government-funded Constellation jobs program.

I don’t know where you live, but I live here and see this mindless Obama hatred every day. Up and down Courtenay (the main road into the KSC south gate) someone plastered “NObama” stickers on street signs. The neon sign on the diner across the street for months has been running a message stating, “Obama lied!” with a web site address. I volunteered for a local emergency response volunteer group but stopped going when the monthly meetings turned into non-stop Obama hate rhetoric.

Heaven forbid I try to respond with actual facts.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzztttt.

Want to rephrase that to remain credible? i.e., not put yourself in the Oler category?

Serious question.

There wasn’t much “unexpected” about the shutdown of the Shuttle program…

Well, it’ll probably be in the context of the Shuttle retirement combined with the Great Recession.

It doesn’t matter how much help the Obama Administration lards upon Space Coast, people here won’t support him. The area is too right-wing.

It’s more help than the Bush Administration gave them, though. As I’ve mentioned before, in the days after Bush announced his vision in January 2004 then-NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe testified before a Senate Commerce Committee. When asked about the thousands of jobs that would be lost, he told them, “We’ll have to work out those challenges at that time,” the “time” referring to after the end of Shuttle.