Congress, Lobbying

Commercial space gets its day on the Hill

Or, at least, its morning on the Hill. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF) announced today that Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) will be hosting an event tomorrow morning for senators and their staffers to discuss commercial spaceflight. Keynoting the event will be Norm Augustine, with other speakers from SpaceX, ULA, Orbital, and Sierra Nevada Corporation. The CSF release notes that in his invitation to his Senate colleague, Brownback wrote that the event will allow them to “hear [from] some of the leading private aerospace companies about what they believe the private sector can contribute to America’s mission in space, and what Congress can do to make it possible.”

Brownback, who did chair the space subcommittee of the Senate Commerce Committee several years ago, has been relatively quiet on the debate about NASA’s future and the role of the commercial sector to date, although he did appear supportive of a greater role for commercial providers in a Senate hearing on the subject last month. The event will be from 10:30am to 12 noon Thursday in Dirksen 562, and is also open to the media.

64 comments to Commercial space gets its day on the Hill

  • Vladislaw

    I am curious about how many other congressional figures will show up. If the committee meetings to date are any clue it will be about 3-4.

  • amightywind

    Gets its day? This bizarre SpaceX phenomenon is a leftist lovefest!

  • Sam Brownback is a leftist?

    You’re out of your mind.

  • Moose

    I’m also wondering how a private entrepreneurial enterprise is “leftist.”

  • Vladislaw

    Shades of George Orwell and newspeak, “war is peace”, free enterprise is leftist and a stalinist big government model for space is ‘gooder’ and ‘goodest’.

  • Paul D.

    You’re out of your mind.

    Windy has a mind?

  • Ferris Valyn

    I would argue that private entrepreneurial enterprise is leftist, but I am not looking to start a larger debate here. Windy’s hot air has truly reaching epic (or maybe fusion) proportions

  • Gets its day? This bizarre SpaceX phenomenon is a leftist lovefest!

    Windy is the ideologue’s ideologue! ;)

  • Al Fansome

    Sometimes I wonder how old windy is.

    At times, it sounds like he works at JSC, or in Houston, is just defending his job and worldview, and will say anything he thinks might work.

    Other times it sounds like he is in high school somewhere, and has not yet learned how to write (or think).

    FWIW,

    – Al

  • DCSCA

    =yawn= ‘Commercial Space’ doesnt need another ‘day on the hill.’ It needs about 10,000 days experience in space. Earth to Conestoga 1; Earth to Conestoga 1…

  • common sense

    @ DCSCA wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 3:16 pm

    Still seeing things as “commercial” against NASA right? They will use NASA’s experience and it’ll be that.

  • DCSCA

    @commonsense- So what’s stopping them? =yawn= The same excuse for thirty years. Inexpensive access to space. Cheap LVs. Funny how Ford figured out how to stamp out affordable cars to get the world moving. Seems the private rocketeers can’t raise the capital in the private sector yet. Too risky. Look what happened to the X-33. NASA wanted the private sector to help carry the load, sunk a billion into it and L/M balked when the technical problems made costs balloon so NASA cancelled the project. Private rocketeers are quaint and welcomed supplements, but until one of these toy rocket companies starts stamping out cheap, efficient, inexpensive LVs as ‘tranaspotation’ to space, government funded space projects will carry the load.

  • Gary Church

    “until one of these toy rocket companies starts stamping out cheap, efficient, inexpensive LVs as ‘tranaspotation’ to space, ”

    Sorry, I am not buying it. There is no cheap. Space flight is inherently expensive. The profit motive is poison to space exploration. The DOD budget is what is strangling HSF- and politics.

    Go Sidemount!

  • Bennett

    DCSCA wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 3:38 pm

    =yawn=

  • Seems the private rocketeers can’t raise the capital in the private sector yet.

    Really? How did SpaceX launch that Falcon a couple weeks ago? It has many tens of millions of private investment. How did Bob Bigelow launch Genesis?

    until one of these toy rocket companies starts stamping out cheap, efficient, inexpensive LVs as ‘tranaspotation’ to space

    SpaceX has already started. The lines in Hawthorne are running 24/7.

  • DCSCA

    Rand Simberg wrote @ June 23rd, 2010 at 3:58 pm <- ROFLMAO. Musk is another Tucker, not Ford.

  • jm

    “Leftist” is essentially the new “Centrist.” We should no longer speak in directional metaphors.

  • John Malkin

    @DCSCA

    The difference was money and requirements. The X-33 was a single stage to orbit lifting body fully reusable spacecraft. This was part of the Space Launch Initiative. SLI had a budget of 4.8 B over ~4 years. COTS Crew only requires getting astronauts to the ISS. Since they don’t have to develop advance technologies they can focus on making it affordable and therefore marketable to other entities than just NASA. X-33 wouldn’t be affordable to anyone except government just like Shuttle.

    Lori Garver answered that exact question in the interview yesterday.

    I think commercial space has reached the breakeven point and it will continue with or without NASA.

  • John Malkin

    SLI and Constellation would be a better comparison. :)

  • The X-33 was a single stage to orbit lifting body fully reusable spacecraft.

    No, it was a suborbital technology demonstrator for such a theoretical vehicle.

    This was part of the Space Launch Initiative.

    No, SLI was started in 2001, after X-33 died. And no, sorry, Wikipedia is wrong (gasp!).

  • John Malkin

    That’s not from Wikipedia. It’s from fact sheet number: FS-2002-04-87-MSFC. Correct X-33 was a technical demonstrator but the goal was a single stage to orbit lifting body fully reusable spacecraft and COTS Crew is not, which makes it different.

  • Paul D.

    Gary Church wrote:

    Sorry, I am not buying it. There is no cheap. Space flight is inherently expensive.

    If we accept your premise, that human spaceflight is inherently expensive, then it is also inherently pointless. The correct budget for it would be zero.

    HSF makes sense only if we imagine it will one day be much less expensive. The sooner that day is, the more sense HSF makes.

    Why are you working so hard to make the case for zero HSF? Do you not like having humans in space?

  • Anyone know if it will be on NASA tv or elsewhere?

  • That’s not from Wikipedia.

    I was referring to your SLI comment.

  • DCSCA

    @Malkin “Since they don’t have to develop advance technologies they can focus on making it affordable and therefore marketable to other entities than just NASA.” Affordable? Existing technologies? LOL What have they been doing for 30 years. Earth to Conestoga 1; Earth to Conestoga 1….

    Garver has zero credibility; she is nothing more than an aerospace lobbyist, not an advocate for manned space exploration. A creature of the corridors of Washington. Nothing more.

  • Neil H.

    > Gets its day? This bizarre SpaceX phenomenon is a leftist lovefest!

    Any chance amightywind could just be banned from commenting? It seems to be a pretty obvious troll and never adds anything to the discussions here.

  • Bennett

    I vote with Neil. Same for Mr. “cut and paste” DCSCA.

  • Artemus

    Why does the Commercial Spaceflight Federation care what senators think? Shouldn’t they be pitching their plans to private investors? Or are they not all that “commercial”?

  • Senators write the laws that commercial activities take place under. They also write the budgets making the government a (potential key) customer in the newly-proposed approach to human spaceflight.

  • Actually, if all you so called SPACE EXPERTS were being truthful, you could see that the commerical space programs are nothing more than picking up technology built by private firms, UNDER THE DIRECTION AND CONTROL of NASA and building their pissy little spacecraft. Even the vaunted SPACEX Falcon uses Russian technology to power that silly craft.

    Lori Garver? A typical lobbyist gone to government work to further feather her nest at the expense of the government agency and the taxpayers who contribute to her salary. The bimbo has no credibility, she is simply there to make sure the private sector gets their graft recovered and to feather her nest for her next job, AFTER she is drummed out of NASA. That day cannot come soon enough. She, Bolden and Holdren are an embarrassment to the country, but that seems to be the regular requirement for Obama’s senior staffers.

    Love the “experts” on here to tout the private sector advances. Bull Feces. They do nothing but take advantage of the technologies created by the NASA Space Programs and of the Russian space programs.

    Can any of you say, SPACEX SOYUZ instead of Falcon? At least that is more honest.

  • Robert Horning

    The reason it is important for senators and congressional representatives to be listening and paying attention to this debate is that they are the ones who are setting up the regulations and the economic climate that will either allow private commercial spaceflight to happen or not happen.

    Previous private efforts such as the Conestoga I and even AT&T’s Telstar satellite proved to be a disaster from a fiscal viewpoint… explicitly because of congressional meddling in the private spaceflight markets and awarding “monopolies” to groups that gave the most in terms of campaign contributions and other purely political motivations rather than any sort of sound economic decisions or realistic opportunities for private individuals on their own initiative to be able to get into space.

    Conestoga I couldn’t fly because NASA’s Space Shuttle sucked up any potential contracts with a heavily subsidized commercial payloads (and never realized… very few flights actually happened on the Shuttle). Telstar is almost legendary in terms of a for-profit company really putting itself “out there” to develop private commercial space and then having its competitors being awarded a flagrant monopoly where AT&T wasn’t even allowed the opportunity to build another satellite… they weren’t even given “permission” to fly another mission in spite of clearly having the finances and raw technical infrastructure to get it to happen.

    This is happening all over again with the Orion “life-boat” and even the “heavy lift” rockets, where commercial efforts are being strongly considered for both of these applications (financed by industry and not necessarily government sources) but due to cronyism, congressional pork largess, and arguably pure graft and corruption these commercial efforts are being thwarted to push back for yet another generation a real opportunity to develop resources in space. For myself, I blame both the Democratic and Republican parties in the USA for this, and really trust neither political party in terms of a real champion for commercial spaceflight.

  • Egad

    “Even the vaunted SPACEX Falcon uses Russian technology to power that silly craft.”

    The silly season has started early this year.

  • Vladislaw

    “They do nothing but take advantage of the technologies created by the NASA Space Programs”

    NASA is a publically funded federal agency, that means it is owned by the American people. Everything NASA creates is created by Americans for America. The business of America is business, it is fundamental to our way of life. The cornerstone of American business is the 29 million small businesses our country enjoys. They account for 84% of all new jobs and 70% of jobs overall. Space tourism and other human economic activities in low earth orbit is a new sector in the overall space economy. It is also one that America has the potential to not only capture but dominate early.

    Why anyone be opposed to NASA spinning off technology as fast as possible into the private sector of our economy and get it producing jobs is beyond me. Private sector employment has fell off a cliff in the last three years and America needs job opportunities for the 21st century. High tech employment in the coming space boom is going to go the country that creates the first businesses to service that economy.

  • Robert Horning

    In terms of Lori Garver, from the congressional representatives that I’ve been talking with, she has been very blunt and lacks some diplomatic flair in terms of trying to get congressional support for the shift in space policy. I am blaming her for many of the problems that seem to be happening right now in congress, as she is ticking off congressmen with her attitude and they in turn are against Obama’s space policy not because of logic or sound reasoning, but because the issue has become very personal toward them.

    The Obama administration has to learn (and perhaps they simply won’t learn this lesson) that even if the same party controls both houses in congress and the White House, you still need some support from “the opposition party” in order to get things to happen. This comes from several sources, but the prevailing attitude is “we won the election, you lost, and as long as we are ruling America there is nothing you can do about it.” While certainly the strongly partisian atmosphere in Washington has been there from even before Obama was elected to the Seante (much less the White House), his administration is even sharpening that divide even more rather than trying to make a tone that can allow for some kind of compromise.

    I’ve also been highly critical of Obama personally here, not because of his political philosophies but because of his singular lack of leadership skills necessary to get things to happen. I dare say that Obama is the very definition of the Peter Principle and is in way, way over his head in terms of what he can accomplish. It is disappointing to me that for an area of government policy that I care deeply about, spaceflight in general and human spaceflight in particular, that this guy can’t lead himself out of a paper bag. Just like Obama is having problems with General McChrystal, Lori Garver is running amok and causing more problems than she is worth. Unfortunately, the “mainstream press” doesn’t give this coverage… but then again the press doesn’t really care about spaceflight in general so that shouldn’t be anything new.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Robert Horning wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 10:08 am

    At some point we will have to have a discussion on the Telstar/Syncom/comsat decision making process…

    to the point

    I’ve also been highly critical of Obama personally here, not because of his political philosophies but because of his singular lack of leadership skills

    this seems to be a growing problem. And it might be one coupled with a philosophical one of that The President seems to have no serious idea as to where he wants to take The Republic.

    It is hard to make a convincing case for leadership if the person doing the leading has no clue where they are going. To me the speech that was troublesome was the recent one on the Gulf oil issue…the (to paraphrase) “I cannot describe the future but we will know it when we see it”.

    that whole sequence of the speech was almost saying “folks I dont have a clue where we are going but we are going”.

    What is surprising to me (and I think Obama gets his space policy) is that they have put together a pretty good policy and yet they cannot seem to understand how to sell it as a PR issue

    Robert G. Oler

  • John Malkin

    The SLI comment was from the same fact sheet which is on the NASA site.

    http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/background/facts/slifactstext02.html

    My point is COTS Crew is not repeating the past. HLV development is more similar to SLI than COTS Crew. In 2003 after Columbia, Lockheed was talking about having an OSP (Orbital Space Plane) and Atlas combination ready by 2012. Since the focus went away from “getting to orbit” to “getting back to the moon”, it died or rather was killed.

    http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/8645.pdf

  • The President seems to have no serious idea as to where he wants to take The Republic.

    Oh, he knows exactly where he wants to take it. If he had a solid sixty votes in the Senate, we’d have been heading there on a greased toboggan. Fortunately, he doesn’t. Not that it’s relevant to space policy.

  • Robert Horning

    To give an example of where I think Obama could have given some leadership on space policy but simply didn’t, it is in the congressional hearings themselves. When you have panels that are so plainly biased in favor of a particular viewpoint… particularly one that is so contrary to the program that is being “pushed” by the “majority party”, you have to even wonder what political party is even in control of congress?

    Obama hasn’t sold the new spaceflight direction to the leaders of his own party, and certainly not to the chair of the House Committee on Science and Technology. Here is a name that should be not only prominent but preeminent in terms of “carrying the water” for the Obama administration: Gabrielle Giffords. She chairs the very sub-committee who has direct oversight and responsibility for appropriations to NASA. Yet going to her congressional web pageshows hardly a thing on space policy and certainly nothing “defending the President” or for that matter anything at all about space policy except for a link to the committee that she supposedly chairs. She has made a couple of remarks about space policy during hearings, but it certainly is not as a strong advocate for the President’s program.

    The White House Press Secretary certainly has said virtually nothing about comments against the Obama space policy. Certainly when comments were made by Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan against the change in policy, the White House was silent about that testimony. I can’t even begin to count the times that I’ve seen Charles Bolden sort of hang out dangling in the wind being left to defend himself. It sounds sort of like Obama doesn’t even know of or even like his own space policy. The congressional leadership (at least the Democratic leadership) certainly isn’t behind the effort. That speaks volumes for is happening for space policy in America.

    I’m not exactly saying that this is different from other recent Presidents either, as the last administration to really make a serious effort at forming a cohesive space policy and push through bold new ideas was the Johnson administration. You certainly will never find a Jimmy Carter Spaceflight Research Center or some other similar facility named after a former president in recent memory.

    Still, considering how big and bold of a change that this has been, it would seem like it would be something that would at least be mentioned from time to time from the White House. If it was genuinely important, it would be at least mentioned, even if in passing, during a speech like the State of the Union address or other similar kinds of speeches. Instead, space policy is conspicuous by its absence. I can only come to the conclusion that Obama simply doesn’t care and it certainly isn’t a priority for him.

  • the last administration to really make a serious effort at forming a cohesive space policy and push through bold new ideas was the Johnson administration.

    When did it do that? What were the “bold new ideas”?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Robert Horning wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 11:52 am

    First off as Jon and Stephen have pointed out in another thread there is no real compromise available IF the notion of compromise involves maintaining any or all of the POR. There is no money for it…period. The POR cannot be done on the money available.

    Second however there is an issue about “leadership”. one cannot lead people to a place that “you” cannot define. Obama will get his space policy but only by default there is no viable opposition.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert Horning

    The Johnson administration? It was the Space Shuttle. BTW, the last major human spaceflight vehicle to actually make it to orbit (when James Webb was administrator no less). Johnson also pushed through the funding for the Apollo program when the chips were down and it needed to be funded… making sure the various appropriations sub-committee members and others who were in key positions would actually get the job done for financing the thing. It was also during the Johnson administration that projects like the MOL and “Apollo Aplications Program” were developed.

    A sign of how gutsy the Johnson administration got was the manned mission to Venus…. something that certainly wouldn’t even be considered with any of the more recent presidential administrations. Skylab eventually grew out of this program.

    You can argue that LBJ did spaceflight for personal political reasons, but he at least did have a cohesive plan. You can hardly call the Nixon administration as having something resembling an organized plan other than perhaps dismantling NASA and knowing how to send out pink slips to various contractors and sub-contractors.

    I will toss a bone to the Reagan administration: at least they got “Space Station Freedom” up and going, with a kick and modification under the Clinton administration to what is now the ISS.

  • yakman

    Venus flyby sounds better than some random asteroid…

    Could the revised Dream Plan go there?

  • MOL was cancelled and there was never a manned Venus mission, so I don’t understand how you can say that the Johnson administration “pushed them through.” And what ended up as the Space Shuttle really originated in the Nixon administration, not Johnson.

    Johnson also pushed through the funding for the Apollo program when the chips were down and it needed to be funded…

    And then acquiesced to cancelling it in 1967.

  • DCSCA

    Robert Horning wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 1:19 pm <- The irony is, the most supportive individual of our space program in the White House in recent years was Hillary Clinton. Her personal interest was keen and it was she who initially influenced her husband into finally attending a manned space launch, STS-95, the first time a sitting U.S. president did so since Nixon witness the Apollo 12 lanuch in November, 1969.

  • DCSCA

    @RandSimberg- Johnson also pushed through the funding for the Apollo program when the chips were down and it needed to be funded…
    “And then acquiesced to cancelling it in 1967.” <– Inaccurate, as usual. And endlessly amusing, as usual.

  • DCSCA

    “The first [Apollo] mission to be canceled was Apollo 20. On January 4, 1970. [Lyndon Johnson left office January 20, 1969, nearly a year ealier, when President Nixon was inaugurated.]

    “NASA announced it was canceling Apollo 20 as its Saturn V rocket was now needed for the Skylab space station and budget restrictions had limited the Saturn V production to the original 15 flight models.NASA Deputy Administrator George M. Low announced at that time that the final three moon landings were rescheduled for 1973 and 1974, after three planned Skylab missions. Originally scheduled for July 1972, under a timetable where lunar missions would be launched every four months, Apollo 20 had been scheduled to land in the Copernicus crater.”

    “Then, on September 2, 1970, NASA announced it was canceling what were to be the Apollo 15 and Apollo 19 missions. At the time, 35 of NASA’s 49 active astronauts were waiting for a chance for a mission. Apollo 15 was originally meant to be an H mission — like Apollo 12, 13 and 14. These cancellations meant that Apollo 15 became a J mission—a three-day stay on the moon with the lunar rover—and that Apollo 19 would no longer be launched.” -source, NASA/Wiki. Any attempt to infer the Johnson Administration terminated the Apollo program is inaccurate and disingenuous. Nixon killed Apollo.

  • common sense

    No wonder why the space community lives in the past. Suffice to look at all the diatribe herein about who did what 40 years ago…

  • “Soon after Lyndon Johnson became President, he had asked NASA to begin to identify post-Apollo options. NASA responded by January 1965 with a “laundry list” of future possibilities. (Volume I, III-18) But by that time, ‘Johnson did not want to hear about the possibilities, nor did he particularly want the Congress to hear them.’

    Recognizing that a second Apollo-like initiative was not in the offing, NASA focused its post-Apollo planning on an interim effort that became known as the Apollo Applications Program. The program initially was ambitious in scope, but never received significant funding. (II-45) Ultimately only one of the proposed Apollo Applications missions was flown; this was the 1973 Skylab, using an upper stage of a surplus Saturn V launch vehicle as an interim space station. Lacking any additional missions for the Saturn V, Webb in August 1968 found himself forced to make the painful decision to begin the process of shutting down the production of the heavy lift booster, a decision that became final in 1972.”

    Emphasis mine, from John Logsdon’s book.

  • We’re talking about ending Saturn production, which happened under Johnson, not about cancelling a couple missions. Ending Saturn production was equivalent to ending Apollo.

  • DCSCA

    @RandSimberg-“We’re talking about ending Saturn production, which happened under Johnson, not about cancelling a couple missions. Ending Saturn production was equivalent to ending Apollo.”

    You’ve been schooled on this inaccuracy before. The Nixon Administration terminated Saturn V production:

    “In January 1970, (Nixon was in office a year) faced with a Fiscal Year 1971 NASA budget of only $3.5 billion, NASA Administrator Tom Paine permanently halted Saturn V production.”

    [On January 14, 1970, virtually a year after LBJ left office] after preliminary discussions on the fiscal 1971 budget, [Nixon Administration & NASA] administrator Thomas O. Paine revealed more changes in space exploration. Saturn V launch vehicle production was to be suspended indefinitely after the fifteenth booster was completed, leaving NASA with no means of putting really large payloads into earth orbit or continuing lunar exploration. The last Saturn V was reassigned from Apollo 20 to Skylab. Unmanned explorations of Mercury and Mars were reduced or deferred. Some 50,000 of the estimated 190,000 employees of NASA and its contractors would have to be laid off, and many university scientists would find their projects without funds. Though the new plans imposed real austerity, Paine noted that they did provide for a start on the next project, development of a reusable spacecraft to shuttle crews and payloads between earth and a space station in earth orbit. In January 1970, faced with a Fiscal Year 1971 NASA budget of only $3.5 billion, NASA Administrator Tom Paine permanently halted Saturn V production.” -Source NASA

    The Nixon Administration killed Saturn V. 1+1=2, not 11.

  • DCSCA

    common sense wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 6:03 pm <- past is prologue.

  • Webb began the termination under Johnson, Paine completed it. It started under Johnson.

  • DCSCA

    Webb began the termination under Johnson, Paine completed it. It started under Johnson. <- Inaccurate. Webb placed Saturn production on 'hold' and did not irrevocably terminate the production line. Paine terminated it as part of Nixon's policies. The Nixon Administration killed Apollo- albeit earlier than it was originally projected to end, which was the mid 70s. =sigh=

  • common sense

    @DCSCA wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 6:48 pm

    “common sense wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 6:03 pm <- past is prologue."

    When applicable yes. What decisions did any of the past presidents resemble anything we see today? In what way is a Cold War situation applicable to what we live in today? Where is any clue as to what is going on today that can be picked up from the past in terms of National Security? Since Apollo really was a national security set up. Please enlighten me.

  • Godzilla

    The Reusable Launch Vehicle program SSTO proposals (X-33, X-34) had a number of technical difficulties and the program was eventually canceled.

    The Space Launch Initiative (SLI) was a proposal to make a TSTO Shuttle replacement which would supposedly require less advanced materials and vehicle construction techniques. Supposedly the SLI TSTO would have a LOX/Kerosene first stage (a proposed engine was RS-84) and a LOX/LH2 first stage (proposed engines were RS-83 and COBRA).

    Wikipedia is just plain wrong. Unfortunately you would think these people would bother to check their facts before writing, or changing what someone else wrote. I personally got tired of Wikipedia after I saw cohesive articles based on actual facts being mass edited into a mash of errors. The worst thing is these Wikipedia bozos then claim you need “references” to “prove you are right” when they changed the whole thing based on some nutcase’s website on the web instead of going for reliable sources!

    It is pretty futile to rely on Wikipedia for things are are either: a) not mainstream knowledge, or b) heavily contested.

  • DCSCA

    “common sense wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 6:03 pm <- past is prologue." "When applicable yes."

    It is always applicable. =sigh=

  • Webb placed Saturn production on ‘hold’

    In other words, it started under Johnson. Do you think it could be “on hold” indefinitely? This is exactly why it will cost so much to restart Shuttle now.

    Why do you insist on being so obtuse?

    Oh. Wait. I know.

    It’s because you idiotically and ignorantly want to insist that Johnson was a visionary space president, and Nixon was an evil anti-space president, despite the fact that he approved the Shuttle.

    Tell me, who made the decision to shut down the Shuttle, George Bush, or Barack Obama?

  • Godzilla

    PS: Oh and yeah X-33 was a subscale prototype of the real thing (it was an X vehicle, duh!). Venturestar was supposed to be the final vehicle.

  • DCSCA

    @RandSimberg- Why do you insist on being so obtuse?<- indeed, why do you- or why do you insist on being inaccurate. The Saturn V program was terminated/killed/ended/buried/unfunded/closed/people fired/furlough under the NIXON administration. Good grief. 1+1=2, not 11. But your historical inaccuracies are always amusing.

  • DCSCA

    “It’s because you idiotically and ignorantly want to insist that Johnson was a visionary space president…” <–He was.

    "and Nixon was an evil anti-space president, despite the fact that he approved the Shuttle." <– He was:

    "Early in his presidency, Nixon appointed a Space Task Group under the direction of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew to assess the future of spaceflight in the nation. Its report recommended a vigorous post-Apollo exploration program culminating in a human expedition to Mars. Nixon did not approve this plan, but did decide in favour of building one element of it, the Space Shuttle, which was approved on January 5, 1972."

    =sigh= 1+1=2, not 11.

  • By citing a completely irrelevant bit of history, thank you for demonstrating that you are an ahistorical moron.

  • common sense

    @ DCSCA wrote @ June 24th, 2010 at 8:11 pm

    “It is always applicable. =sigh=”

    What a thoughtful answer! And some still wonder why the POR supporters won’t get their way… Very impressive piece of reasoning…

  • DCSCA

    Rand Simberg wrote @ June 25th, 2010 at 12:08 am <- your perpetual historical inaccuracies are always amusing– and easy to correct. Your lessons for today- Nixon ended Apollo and 1+1 =2, not 11.

  • Bob

    Here is a name that should be not only prominent but preeminent in terms of “carrying the water” for the Obama administration: Gabrielle Giffords. She chairs the very sub-committee who has direct oversight and responsibility for appropriations to NASA.

    Um, no. She’s an authorizer, not an appropriator. An authorization is nice to have, but an appropriation is a need to have. That’s where the focus will be.

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