Ahh, I see. But of course, nothing has really happened substantially this “space political season” either. Everything is still very much in flux.

So anyway, where is that proof again? For anything concrete and absolute that you have said?

Hi Ron.

My post was aimed at earlier posters wishing for a compelling case for a space program.

I really don’t understand your continued chiding comments to me.

What is not opinion, is the legitimacy of asking for proof for your claim above.

so far I have not in this space political season called a single thing wrong.

Robert G. Oler

Anne, was that another of your random reposts of your husbands articles? Did you want to provide any original content of your own, by perhaps connecting it to the current conversation? Weird

Polls have consistently placed space below almost all other classes of federal expenditures, even farm subsidies.

I believe it is more than fair, it is accurate. As for the “unsophisticated” comment, that is of course your opinion, which seems to count for little.

What is not opinion, is the legitimacy of asking for proof for your claim above. Again, you use very concrete and absolute language as if you know for a fact, by either being in people’s head, or have some sort of documentation to back-up such boasts.

So, show it. Again, put the money where the mouth is. Yet given your track record of never doing such, which is also not very sophisticated, I doubt we will see anything more from you.

The target audience likes the program just fine, or so polls reflect, but only likes it to a spending level of about a 1/2% of the total federal budget.

Polls also reflect that few people realize that is all that is being spent, or what the program is doing with this amount of money.

The story is not being told well. And, thee has to be a story to tell. Constellation’s story was Apollo redux, but the spending level was on steroids. Not compelling.

Sometimes, when advertising fails, the reason is simply that the target audience doesn’t like the product.

In this case, space just isn’t compelling to most voters (or investors). The excuse that the real, compelling case just hasn’t been made adequately gets old after half a century of “communication failure”.

Changing our Approach to Space Flight

[Excerpt] The “long pole” in the tent is getting started. Right now, the architecture for lunar return has no requirement or provision for resource utilization. NASA’s efforts to date have focused on rocket-building and planning for scientific sortie missions. Yet learning how to gather, process and use the resources of the Moon is major goal of the Vision for Space Exploration. The idea is to use what we find in space to create new capabilities. This goal has the promise of freeing us from the “tyranny of the rocket equation” – we would no longer be mass and power-limited in space.

The key to bootstrapping this capability is the judicious use of robotic precursor missions. Robotic spacecraft are now orbiting the Moon, mapping the distribution of elements such as hydrogen and ascertaining the nature of the environment near the poles. The next steps are to measure the composition and physical properties of the polar deposits from the surface; this requires soft-landers capable of landing payloads on the order of a few to tens of kilograms. Small surface rovers would be able to map out the elemental concentration of volatiles and determine the best places to mine.

After the prospects are mapped, we must experiment with different techniques for harvesting and processing. Again, this work can be done by modestly sized robotic missions, landing small excavators and trucks (Mars rover-sized) and using laboratory bench-scale processing equipment. Landing and experimentation with this equipment will allow us to find out which techniques are most effective, what processing methods use the least amounts of energy and have the highest yields, and determine where the choke-points are in the processing and production stream.

These small initial steps allow us to begin extracting and storing resources immediately. Over time, we can increase these capabilities such that when people finally return to the Moon, they have at their disposal a cached accumulation of consumables, including air, water and rocket propellant. In effect, we are creating the initial phases of self-sufficiency even before human arrival through the emplacement and use of automated, robotic infrastructure.

No one knows if lunar resources can be extracted and used in the manner described here. But that’s why we’re going to the Moon in the first place – to answer these questions. We are using the Moon as a laboratory to learn how to live and work productively on other worlds. The skills and technologies developed here will serve us well wherever else we go in the Solar System. And the sooner we get started on this path, the sooner we will develop a true spacefaring infrastructure. [End Excerpt]

http://blogs.airspacemag.com/moon/2009/06/05/lunar-resources-%E2%80%93-part-2-changing-our-approach-to-spaceflight/

I think you are partly right. There is no shortage of rationale. There are plenty of reasons. Some could be made to be seen as compelling. The art is in developing and telling the story. The failure has been and is the inability to clearly and loudly articulate the rationale.