Lobbying

Cramer’s not a Bud of SpaceX

Earlier this year there was some concern in Alabama that former Congressman Bud Cramer, picked by local leaders to head Huntsville’s “Second to None” lobbying effort to preserve Constellation, might have a conflict of interest: he works for Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, a lobbying firm retained by, among other companies, SpaceX, a leading advocate of the administration’s plan to rely more on the commercial sector. At the time Cramer said would not support anything “that is contrary to what is in Marshall’s best interest”, a reference to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

On Tuesday Cramer reiterated that stance to the Birmingham News and added something else: he is not working for SpaceX at all and is not registered to lobby on its behalf. “I knew that my firm was registering to lobby for SpaceX and I’m a partner there, and there might appear to be a conflict,” he said. “I think they removed my name from there to be clear about it,” referring to lobbying registration filings by Wexler and Walker.

According to Senate lobbying records, Cramer’s name was listed on a lobbying registration form filed by Wexler and Walker on March 1 that indicated that the firm was working for SpaceX. Cramer’s name was listed with another former congressman, Bob Walker, and Dale Snape. Three weeks later, the lobbying firm filed an amended registration that replaced Cramer with Patric Link. The amended filing gives no reason for the change. According to filings, Wexler and Walker performed $30,000 of lobbying for SpaceX in the first quarter of this year and $60,000 in the second quarter, all on the topic of “NASA Funding”.

50 comments to Cramer’s not a Bud of SpaceX

  • whore insists “he’s not my man”.

  • mr. mark

    LOL, you have to love Bud Cramers politics. I didn’t realize this was a comedy website. Next we’ll hear that some Nazi was doing double duty working to raise funds for the Jewish Defense League. This is getting really out there. I love it! Can’t wait to hear what amightywind has to say about this! Of course he will blame it all on Elon Musk saying if Spacex wasn’t lobbying for government help (as if boeing and Lockheed Martin do not lobby) then Bud Cramer would not of had his hand in the cookie jar. Can’t wait for him to deflect the blame onto Spacex. I can hear him now LOL.

  • If I was Elon, I’d fire their arses anyway, with the crappy job they were doing.

    He’s still learning that he needs more money to buy congress-critters.

  • Dennis Berube

    Mr. Musk, Im sure wants profits. If he finds he doesnt get them, Im sure he will get out of the orbital business. Who could blame him. Maybe he should concentrate on cleaning up all the garbage that has continually been put into orbit over the years and are detrimental to future space travelers. Of course for a price. I think I read somewhere how some have postualted using a giant solar type of sail to collect space junk in orbit, concentrate it and burn it up in our atmosphere. Certainly a novel idea.

  • Robert G. Oler

    some how Thank you for Smoking comes to mind Robert G. Oler

  • amightywind

    Mr. Musk, Im sure wants profits. If he finds he doesnt get them, Im sure he will get out of the orbital business.

    Musk doesn’t want profits. We wants government handouts (in lieu of venture capital) and then he wants to sell his company to get out of the orbital business. It doesn’t matter what lobbyist he hires. There will be no escaping the great austerity that is coming.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ August 26th, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    now comeon this is Musk not Dick “I love government handouts to the corporations I am head of” Cheney.

    Robert G. Oler

  • now comeon this is Musk not Dick “I love government handouts to the corporations I am head of” Cheney.

    Don’t waste your breath Oler, Windy is deep into his Left=Evil, Right=Righteous paradigm to believe that Cheney would do such a thing.

    He’s such a willing and good puppet.

  • Major Tom

    “We [sic]”

    It’s not “we”. It’s “he”.

    Learn your pronouns.

    “wants government handouts…”

    A competed $278 million agreement to co-develop a domestic capability that the government will be lacking after Shuttle retirement and a competed $1.6 billion contract to provide a domestic service that the government desperately needs after Ares I/Orion failure is not a “handout”. They’re business transactions.

    And if those are a “handouts”, then the $10 billion spent on Ares I/Orion sole-source contracts to date is massive welfare.

    “… (in lieu of venture capital)…”

    SpaceX has already received two rounds of VC funding from the Founders Fund and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, on top of Musk’s own investment in the company.

    Ares I/Orion has earned no private financing, VC or otherwise.

    Don’t make stupid statements out of ignorance.

  • Major Tom

    To drive the point home, these are links to Flickr photos of Dragon and Merlin hardware, taken by Steve Jurvetson, one of the VCs funding SpaceX:

    flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/4928532022/
    flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/4928541992/

    Jurvetson also collects Apollo hardware:

    flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/

    FWIW…

  • amightywind

    Minor Tom,

    Thanks for the pictures. Could you use the anchor markup? It makes it easier to navigate and demonstrates you know what you are doing when you post. I am struck by how crude and incomplete the Dragon hardware looks. As for the Merlin, it is very tiny. It seems highly improbable to me that the device should be considered the future of manned spaceflight.

    Musk routinely fleeces many venture capitalists to support his lavish lifestyle. It is what he does.

  • I am struck by how crude and incomplete the Dragon hardware looks. As for the Merlin, it is very tiny. It seems highly improbable to me that the device should be considered the future of manned spaceflight.

    Well, if you weren’t an established idiot, we might care about your opinion.

    Musk routinely fleeces many venture capitalists to support his lavish lifestyle. It is what he does.

    What “lavish lifestyle”?

    Do you have any evidence for this casual slander of either Mr. Musk or the intelligence of his investors?

    As always, of course you don’t.

  • amightywind

    Do you have any evidence for this casual slander of either Mr. Musk or the intelligence of his investors?

    Not hard to find. Google “Elon Musk bankrupt 200K”. There are rumours that he blows $200K a month. Perhaps he is just trying to game his ex.

  • Major Tom

    “Could you use the anchor markup?”

    No, the blog s/w interprets posts with lots of http addresses as spam and blocks them.

    If you ever bothered to make arguments based on linked evidence, instead of spewing ignorant idiocy backed by false statements, you’d know this.

    “It makes it easier to navigate and demonstrates you know what you are doing when you post.”

    Learn how to cut and paste, genius. Hint: CNTRL-X and CNTRL-V.

    “I am struck by how crude and incomplete the Dragon hardware looks.”

    Yes, Dragon is so, so much more crude and incomplete than Orion:

    wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/orion-test-para/

    “As for the Merlin, it is very tiny. It seems highly improbable to me that the device should be considered the future of manned spaceflight.”

    Propulsion engineers measure engines by quantities like Isp and thrust, not grade-school qualifiers like “tiny”.

    Grow up or go away.

    “Musk routinely fleeces many venture capitalists to support his lavish lifestyle. It is what he does.”

    First you claim that SpaceX has never received VC funding.

    Now you claim that “Musk routinely fleeces many venture capitalists”?

    Which is it?

    Why don’t you go away for a good, long while, try to think really, really hard about it, and get back us when you’ve decided which false argument you’re going to stick with.

    Take your time.

    Ugh…

  • Major Tom

    “There are rumours that he blows $200K a month.”

    It’s not a rumor. It’s a fact.

    But the vast majority of that amount is for divorce proceedings:

    “The legal and accounting bills for the divorce total four million dollars so far, which is an average of roughly $170,000 per month for the past 24 months. Journalists were quick to mock the poor “broke” guy that had $200k a month expenses, failing to note that legal fees constituted the majority.”

    huffingtonpost.com/elon-musk/correcting-the-record-abo_b_639625.html

    Don’t make idiotic statements out of ignorance.

  • amightywind

    First you claim that SpaceX has never received VC funding.

    No I said, “in lieu of venture capital.” It doesn’t mean SpaceX receives none. It means he can’t stay open without government support. True enough. Read more closely.

    Why don’t you go away for a good, long while, try to think really, really hard about it, and get back us when you’ve decided which false argument you’re going to stick with.

    It would be wrong to yield this forum to the Obamaspace cabal. The casual reader might be tricked into thinking the discussion here is representative of the mainstream.

  • Ferris Valyn

    abreakingwind – I’ll be honest – when I think of mainstream, you really aren’t it.

  • Bennett

    Actually, I a fan of Bushspace in that it was under HIS watch that SpaceX won its COTS contract.

  • mr. mark

    Oh boy , Did I call it or what! amightywind, you can be read like a book. Talk about being one dimensional. LOL

  • byeman

    “how crude and incomplete”

    must be a reference to Ares I

  • Major Tom

    “It means he can’t stay open without government support. True enough.”

    Wrong again, genius.

    Just over two months ago, SpaceX won the largest commercial launch contract in history:

    investor.iridium.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=479890

    That’s on top of a commercial backlog of at least ten launches, including a DragonLab launch:

    spacex.com/launch_manifest.php

    And several more launches for ORBCOMM:

    spacenews.com/launch/spacex-lands-orbcomm-launch-contract.html

    SpaceX doesn’t need government money to “stay open”. The company has a commercial launch revenue stream measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

    Can’t you get anything right?

  • mr. mark

    I mean really. amightywind has turned this into a personal attack on Elon Musk. When you can’t see that every space based company has lobbyists and you are only attacking one, you are truly wearing blinders to reality. I suggest you get off your personal hate campain. A dose of reality is in order. Everyone in the space biz is playing the same game by the same rules. Welcome to reality.

  • Major Tom

    “It would be wrong to yield this forum to the Obamaspace cabal.”

    Yes, we’re all part of the grand Obama Administration conspiracy that gave SpaceX its COTS and CRS awards during Griffin’s tenure under the Bush II Administration.

    Think before you post.

    Or, if you’re really this disconnected from reality, take the pills your psychiatrist is prescribing.

    Lawdy…

  • John Malkin

    @ Ferris Valyn

    Thank you. It really made me laugh because it’s so true and I needed it today.

  • Major Tom

    “No I said, “in lieu of venture capital.” It doesn’t mean SpaceX receives none… Read more closely.”

    Read your own posts more closely, think with a modicum of logic, and keep your arguments straight, genius.

    First you argued that Musk is relying on Uncle Sugar instead of venture capital.

    Then you argued that Musk regularly fleeces VCs.

    Which is it, genius?

    Is Musk forgoing VC investments in favor of taxpayer dollars?

    Or is he robbing VCs left and right?

    Again, go away for a good, long while, try to think really, really hard about it, and get back us when you’ve decided which false argument you’re going to stick with.

    Take your time.

    Genius.

  • I’m still amazed that people respond to the troll. You’re giving him the attention he wants. Don’t you think it would be fun to see how the troll wigs out when no one responds to his drivel any more?

  • Mimir

    I agree. I’ve been reading SpacePolitics for a while now – but not the comments, as they mainly seem to descend in amightywind trolling the hell out of everyone.

    I’d love to hear some interesting discussions about space politics, but they get drowned out in a useless Ares I/commercial space argument that any reasonable person has already decided.

    Can the non-lurkers on this forum just agree to ignore amightywind for the time being? Don’t respond to his posts, don’t read his posts. Nothing good seems to come of them and there’s no way he’s ever going to change his mind. Hell, I half expect he’s a fervent SpaceX junkie having the time of his life mocking the very people he despises.

  • craig morford

    Folks i have a question, I realize i might be off topic a bit but here goes. Much lament has been expressed about not developing a lunar lander. However if new shepard is successfull could that system be modified to make a lunar landing? Launch the whole dang thing their surely if it can take paying customers straight up and down in earth’s atmosphere it would do the same from lunar orbit. hmmm just asking.

  • Coastal Ron

    craig morford wrote @ August 26th, 2010 at 9:50 pm

    Much lament has been expressed about not developing a lunar lander. However if new shepard is successfull could that system be modified to make a lunar landing?

    Really the issue is not about the technology that we use to go back to the Moon, but how much Congress would allocate for such a venture. Just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we’ve always had the technical ability to return to the moon.

    The Congress thing gets back to both national desire, and national perceived need. Both have really been lacking since Apollo, and so we haven’t gone back. Notice Constellation, which Congress approved, never got fully funded, and is being cancelled without much Congressional resistance.

    I think the Moon will become an affordable destination when our costs to LEO decline more, and we have more affordable & multiple ways to get people to LEO. At that point, a mission to the Moon will be a lot less complicated, a lot more affordable, and could be instigated by some event that gets our national will behind going back.

    My $0.02

  • Robert G. Oler

    What I find amazing actually is how ineffective the lobbying on all sides has been (although there probably was some behind the scenes manuevering on the Senate Bill) but particularly by the big corporations.

    ATK has been stuffed…The Constellation program is dead and Alliance looks like it is on a fast track to nowhere…

    Bolden more or less got his way on all of this.

    What this tells me is that really there was no enthusiasm for any of the “stay the course” moves from other then the pork junkies…and probably some fear that the stay the course moves were not sustainable.

    It will be entertaining to see how NASA fares in the upcoming budget wars over the deficit. If Obama’s economic plans dont work (and I dont think that they are) the next try is going to be some serious budget cutting…and I suspect that NASA may find it has about 15 billion or so to play with (if the budget cutting actually gets serious)

    Robert G. Oler

  • Major Tom

    “However if new shepard is successfull could that system be modified to make a lunar landing?”

    As the Augustine Committee pointed out in it final report, between Armadillo, Blue Origin, and Masten, the critical GNC and vertical DL capabilities and expertise for planetary landers now reside in entrepreneurial industry, in addition to JPL/LockMart Space Systems and what little remains of Apollo heritage at NASA’s human space flight centers. Depending on which company you’re talking about, their flight experience and/or precision with this kind of technology is unparalleled. Assuming these companies are still around in another 10-20 years, it makes sense to tap them in a commercial mode for a lunar landing capability/service, rather than go the traditional NASA design/cost-plus contract route.

    To get the right mass fractions, those capabilities would need to be married to lightweight structures and higher performing engines (e.g., LOX/methane instead of peroxide/RP) to get the necessary mass fractions for a lander on the pointy end of an HLV or in-space exploration infrastructure. But Blue Origin is working a composite crew capsule under its CCDev contract (arguably more advanced than Orion) which could be applicable to the lander, and other entrepreneurial companies like XCOR are working LOX/methane engines.

    FWIW…

  • Remember that no cryogenic lander has ever made it to the Moon. Perhaps Project-M (http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/future.asp) will be the first to rectify this.

  • But Blue Origin is working a composite crew capsule under its CCDev contract (arguably more advanced than Orion) ..

    Not to seem like an Orion hugger, but didn’t NASA turn down a composite material design (but not for re-entry shield) because it was determined it didn’t make any difference in weight and strength, or they couldn’t certify it? ;
    A NASA programme manager confirms aluminium-lithium remains the favoured material to serve as the primary structure for the Orion crew module despite an ongoing, two-year programme to develop a mostly composite alternative.

    A switch to a relatively unknown structural material would force NASA to invest in a risky and uncertain certification programme in order to fly a human-rated habitation module in space, says Mike Kirsch, programme manager for the composite crew module programme.

    “We don’t have that much experience certifying composites,” Kirsch says. “So there is some uncertainty in scoping the amount that’s required to certify this.”

    Some NASA officials, including former administrator Michael Griffin, promoted composite materials as a potentially superior materials technology compared to even advanced metal alloys, such as aluminium-lithium.

    These supporters launched the composite crew module programme for NASA and its contractors to gain practical experience designing and manufacturing the technology for a human-rated spacecraft.

    Last year, Michael Saemisch, a Lockheed Orion team member, blamed the composite programme for delaying the preliminary design review of the aluminum-lithium Orion module by several months.

    Composites technology has gained widespread use in the aerospace sector as a stronger material than aluminum that can also be lighter and less expensive to manufacture.

    http://avia.superforum.fr/astronautique-f36/capsule-orion-t807.htm

  • DCSCA

    Meanwhile, tick-tock, tick-tock…

    Another day moves from dawn to dusk;
    And still no humans flown by Musk;
    The hours move; the calendar flies;
    Yet no manned Dragons cross our skies.

  • Coast Ron wrote:

    The Congress thing gets back to both national desire, and national perceived need. Both have really been lacking since Apollo, and so we haven’t gone back. Notice Constellation, which Congress approved, never got fully funded, and is being cancelled without much Congressional resistance.

    Which is the point I’ve made ad nauseam.

    Polls for several years now have shown that a majority of Americans want less government spending on space, and more private sector spending on space. Americans are not against space exploration. They just don’t want to pay for it.

    Absent that national imperative, Congresscritters have turned NASA into one giant pork program. The space subcommittees are populated by politicians from states with NASA space centers and NASA contractors.

    Today’s NASA has little in common with the National Aeronautics and Space Act. The Act doesn’t mandate NASA to fly humans into space, to explore other worlds or to own its rockets. NASA was intended to conduct cutting-edge aerospace research that would be shared with other government agencies and the private sector. The Act was amended in 1984 by the Reagan Administration to direct that NASA prioritize helping grow private access to space.

    But Congress has thumbed its collective nose at the Act. It’s all about pork. And they get away with it because, for the most part, the voting public is apathetic about space.

    Obama’s proposal returns NASA to its purpose as specified in the Act, but it also neatly derails the Congressional gravy train. That’s why so many Congresscritters are fighting it.

    I’m all for deep space exploration, for boldly going and all that. But the way Congress currently views NASA ensures that will never happen. The pork has to end.

  • Major Tom

    “Meanwhile, tick-tock, tick-tock…

    Another day moves from dawn to dusk;
    And still no humans flown by Musk;
    The hours move; the calendar flies;
    Yet no manned Dragons cross our skies.”

    Roses are red
    Violets are blue
    Your point is idiotic
    Orion is years away in the queue

    Ugh…

  • Major Tom

    “Not to seem like an Orion hugger, but didn’t NASA turn down a composite material design (but not for re-entry shield) because it was determined it didn’t make any difference in weight and strength, or they couldn’t certify it?”

    I was simply stating that a composite crew capsule, like that being pursued by Blue Origin, would be more advanced technically than Orion. Advanced isn’t necessarily good, and it depends on the application. Any advanced technology has pros and cons that have to be traded against less advanced alternatives in the context of the application in question.

    In this case, composites are harder to work with and have less space flight heritage, but promise considerable mass savings, which can be critical in your final stage (like a crew capsule) because the rocket equation causes every extra kilogram on that final stage to require multiple extra kilograms on the earlier stages. If you have lots of margin, there’s no reason to take on the extra development costs associated with qualifying a composite crew capsule. But if you don’t, as was the case with Ares I/Orion, it’s nice to have a composite alternative.

    To his credit, Horowitz tried to get a composite Orion test article built by one of the large fast composite layup operations in Kansas. But the follow-through wasn’t there. The fact that Constellation couldn’t figure out how to certify a composite structure, when the commercial aircraft industry does it as a matter of routine today, says a lot about where the domain expertise in this area lies today.

    FWIW…

  • Assuming these companies are still around in another 10-20 years, it makes sense to tap them in a commercial mode for a lunar landing capability/service, rather than go the traditional NASA design/cost-plus contract route.

    Do you know what the parametric cost estimate for Altair was? I’ve heard ridiculously high numbers, and assume that they’re based on historical LEM costs. Which would be an insane basis.

  • Coastal Ron

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ August 27th, 2010 at 8:21 am

    But Congress has thumbed its collective nose at the Act. It’s all about pork. And they get away with it because, for the most part, the voting public is apathetic about space.

    And that pretty much sums it up.

    In the DOD world, the large contractors have learned that you have to spread your project over as many relevant congressional districts as possible in order to keep a program from being considered for budget reductions.

    NASA having only a relatively small budget, and established centers that don’t move, is more susceptible to a smaller group in Congress, especially because of the space apathy you noted.

    I don’t see that apathy towards space coming from a negative perception of space, but just that it is yet one more source of interest in a world filled with interesting things, and NASA has not found a way to make space interesting for more than a few sound bites. The ISS has become just another place we go to, and unless something exciting happens, then it’s “been there, done that”.

    In some ways, that’s another reason we need to get commercial companies into LEO (or beyond), because they naturally seek out promotion of their efforts, and if in a positive light, this could lead to better education about what were doing in space, and hopefully generate some positive interest (including funding). It’s the side effect that anti-commercial types ignore or don’t understand, which is too bad, because it helps out NASA too.

  • Coastal Ron

    Major Tom wrote @ August 27th, 2010 at 10:26 am

    I was simply stating that a composite crew capsule, like that being pursued by Blue Origin, would be more advanced technically than Orion. Advanced isn’t necessarily good, and it depends on the application.

    One advantage Blue Origin might have is that they are starting with a design that takes composite material strengths and weaknesses into account upfront.

    The Orion test was a valid attempt at using alternative materials, but it might have only shown us that a composite version of Orion did not make a difference, not that composite materials can’t make a difference with other design approaches.

  • The fact that Constellation couldn’t figure out how to certify a composite structure, when the commercial aircraft industry does it as a matter of routine today, says a lot about where the domain expertise in this area lies today.

    Ahh..that explains it. Thanx.

    That’s too bad in a way, it shows that NASA has a large knowledge gap in it’s materials certification process.

  • Coastal Ron wrote:

    In the DOD world, the large contractors have learned that you have to spread your project over as many relevant congressional districts as possible in order to keep a program from being considered for budget reductions.

    The thing is, we could vote out those porkers and replace them with someone out but the process would assure that their replacements wind up on those subcommittees and they’ll be pressured to go after the pork too for the reason you gave.

    Which is why it’s so important to get Congress out of the space rocket design business. Let the private sector build their rockets and then bid for specific government flights and missions. After all, the government doesn’t build its own staff cars. They go out to bid.

  • Stephen C. Smith wrote @ August 27th, 2010 at 12:06 pm

    Which is why it’s so important to get Congress out of the space rocket design business. Let the private sector build their rockets and then bid for specific government flights and missions. After all, the government doesn’t build its own staff cars. They go out to bid.

    This captures the dilemma very nicely.

    How do you propose to compel Congress to appropriate money for things they do not wish to appropriate money for? Under the US Constitution, no one can trump Congress when it come to spending dollars raised by taxation.

    My solution is to be willing to embrace private revenue streams (tourism, entertainment and advertising dollars) but that cannot happen within NASA’s aegis, it must happen independently of NASA and may require playing to a global market.

    In other words, go around NASA rather than through NASA. Create a competitor for NASA — Globetrotters and Generals, Wily E. Coyote and Roadrunner, etc . . .

  • Coastal Ron

    Bill White wrote @ August 27th, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    In other words, go around NASA rather than through NASA. Create a competitor for NASA — Globetrotters and Generals, Wily E. Coyote and Roadrunner, etc . . .

    You have voiced this on a number of occasions, but I don’t agree with it. NASA uses contractors and suppliers today for those things that either NASA doesn’t have the experience or ability to do, or that it’s just cheaper to buy it. Pens & paper, commercial flights, Shuttle processing – there are lots of things that NASA is better off buying than doing themselves.

    As an example, commercial crew to LEO is really just an extension of transportation services that take place on Earth. This will eventually happen, and then our grandkids can book their flights to LEO not through NASA, but through Southwest or American Airlines.

    This is not competing with NASA, but relieving them of the routine tasks so that they can focus on the hard ones. Everyone has traditional roles to play, and there is no need to try and usurp NASA, or go around them.

  • DCSCA

    @Tommy wrote @ August 27th, 2010 at 10:10 am

    The Major needs a history lesson;
    So class for him is now in session.
    NASA has been orbiting crew,
    Since Glenn’s three revs in ’62.

    Musk has not yet flown a soul;
    And Falcon showed a rated roll;
    The seasons change, the calendar flies,
    But no manned Dragons cross our skies.

  • Coastal Ron

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ August 27th, 2010 at 12:06 pm

    The thing is, we could vote out those porkers and replace them with someone out but the process would assure that their replacements wind up on those subcommittees and they’ll be pressured to go after the pork too for the reason you gave.

    That is the thing, but the congressional system we have today has survived a long time, so it’s unlikely to change.

    I think this budget year is kind of exceptional since we have so much programmatic change going on within NASA’s budget, and all of that on top of a lousy economy. I’m OK with the Senate bill, since commercial crew has a chance to get more funding next year.

    The funny thing is, is that those that don’t like SpaceX are making it really hard for any company other than SpaceX. Dragon will fly it’s CRS missions, all the while racking up both dollars and reliability data. As long as there are no major failures, the delayed congressional funding for commercial crew only makes the lead SpaceX has even bigger, both in actual accomplishment and schedule.

    This is the unintended consequence of a politically driven decision process, which is sad, because I truly see the need for more than one U.S. commercial crew provider, and I would love a third (that’s where I put Dream Chaser).

    Oh well…

  • Mr. Mark

    There are actually 2 more government cargo providers coming on line from both ESA and Japan in the next few years with down mass capsules. It’s not just Spacex. Cargo is about to get busy and with the ISS and Bigelow stations, Space is starting to get busy.. I like it!

  • There’s only a conflict of interest so long as SpaceX’s “friends” insist that any federal support for commercial space come solely out of Constellation’s pockets. Picking a fight with your public launch provider at the same time the private sector is still short of demonstrating crew and cargo was a singularly stupid idea. Should’ve just let Ares continue, carve out $3 billion from the rest of the budget–which supports considerably fewer jobs and attracts far less interest from Congress–and used *that* to encourage commercial. Deal with the sinkhole when commercial delivers something that can compete.

  • Matt Wiser

    You want a way to get people (especially Congress) behind a genuine return to the moon? How about confirmed intelligence that the PRC (I prefer the ChiCom definition, but that’s just me) is embarking on a lunar program. That’ll get Congressional attention. And funding, support, etc. Bolden blew a lot of support when he said that he didn’t care if someone beat us back to the lunar surface. That got several Congresscritters angry, and they also raked the Presidential Science Advisor over the coals when he basically said the same thing. Saying that you’re not interested in going back to the Moon is a sure-fire way to get the Congresscritters that matter not to support you.

  • Coastal Ron

    Presley Cannady wrote @ August 31st, 2010 at 11:30 am

    Should’ve just let Ares continue, carve out $3 billion from the rest of the budget–which supports considerably fewer jobs and attracts far less interest from Congress–and used *that* to encourage commercial. Deal with the sinkhole when commercial delivers something that can compete.

    Ares I duplicates existing commercial alternatives, specifically Delta IV Heavy, and even Atlas V Heavy and Falcon 9 Heavy. There are no shortages of commercial alternatives to Ares I, and they are all an order of magnitude less expensive, and two of them are not SpaceX (in case you care).

    Your jobs comments is pretty silly, since the same number and quality of jobs are going to be created no matter where you spend NASA’s money. It may affect WHERE the money goes, but so what? Why should any one area be carved out over another – are we socialists or capitalists? Let the free market decide, not politics.

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