Congress, NASA

Next CR cuts NASA earmarks, keeps Constellation provision

House appropriators released today details of their next planned continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded for three more weeks after the current CR expires on a week from Friday. The CR includes $6 billion of spending cuts, including $63 million from NASA’s Cross Agency Support account. The CR specifically targets what NASA calls “Congressionally directed items”, better known as earmarks; the FY10 appropriations bill contained $63 million of such items, which carried over into FY11 under the ongoing series of CRs.

The text of the proposed new CR contains no other NASA-related provisions. That means that current language from the FY10 appropriations bill that prevents NASA from terminating Constellation programs will remain in force under the new CR, which extends to April 8. Last week, members of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies subcommittee of the appropriations committee told NASA administrator Charles Bolden that they would get the agency “some immediate clarification” on that provision, but the new CR is silent on the subject.

113 comments to Next CR cuts NASA earmarks, keeps Constellation provision

  • SLS/Orion are the biggest earmark in the NASA budget, even if they don’t call it one.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ March 11th, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    SLS/Orion are the biggest earmark in the NASA budget, even if they don’t call it one…..

    well said Robert G. Oler

  • Last week, members of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies subcommittee of the appropriations committee told NASA administrator Charles Bolden that they would get the agency “some immediate clarification” on that provision, but the new CR is silent on the subject.

    This cluster f@ck is so politicized that this will all be twisted around to be Gen. Bolden’s fault for not using the CxP funds properly to build the monster rocket the NASA district Congress-critters want for their voters.

    What a shame.

  • Coastal Ron

    This ineptitude would be funny if it wasn’t wasting so much money on cancelled programs – so much for the promises of politicians…

  • Egad

    > Relevant editorial in the Washington Times:

    Good job, Rand!

    (Though if I’d written the headline, it would have been “shouldn’t be” rather than “isn’t.” Not Rand’s fault, as headline writers frequently don’t quite get the point.)

  • Yes, copy editors are the bane of a writer’s existence. At least they didn’t use “Lost In Space.” No one’s ever done that. ;-)

  • Robert G. Oler

    Nice job by Simberg on the op ed. The opposition by Whittington is predictable. Mark does his goofy 18 wheeler comparison without the reality that the 18 wheelers in terms of being a heavy lift…are more expensive then the SUV’s…and really there are no payloads that need a SUV..

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    I wrote:

    and really there are no payloads that need a SUV….

    sorry. it should be “and really there are no payloads that need a HLV”.

    the editor regrets the error.

    Robert G. Oler

  • amightywind

    The fight for Constellation continues, as I predicted yesterday. It is confirmation that the debate continues behind the scenes. Congress has only to preserve the program through one more budget cycle before the cavalry arrives in 2012. I just don’t see point behind scattering the world class shuttle workforce to the four winds. Congress sees that they shutter the spacecoast at their peril.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Re Simberg op ed, which is well done, I would only suggest that what he’s talking about isn’t space, but NASA. I think it’s high time that distinction was made. Commercial space is not a jobs program. It’s a profit driven program. ULA, SpaceX etc. don’t do what they do to make jobs. That isn’t their bottom line. In the case of commercial space that’s largely federally funded, industry doesn’t define the mission. They just support the mission (which looks to be, as Mr. Simberg says, to produce jobs) in order to produce profit for themselves. In the case of commercial space that is not largely federally funded, they have their own motives, which may be culturally visionary, that seek profit as the end item.

    It’s increasingly clear that consternation by space advocates should be directed at Congress, and not at NASA. Now, it isn’t that given enough money by Congress, NASA can build any launcher they want. Maybe they could at one time, but they can’t anymore. As has been pointed out repeatedly, that isn’t what NASA does anymore. What NASA does is largely to manage contracts to aerospace companies. It also drives technology advances that these aerospace companies use. It does that really well. In that respect, the efforts by Congress to dismantle the ambitious space technology program that is trying to get constituted in OCT is so upsetting. It’s upsetting because THAT is just the kind of thing that NASA does best. That is now NASA’s real strength. It’s an activity that produces incremental but relentless progress, which is well matched to its Congressional appropriation which is, after all, incremental funding. The question is whether Congress can be convinced that technology development can be a jobs program!

    Unfortunately, it’s becoming clear that culturally visionary space efforts (at least for HSF) cannot be done by NASA. That’s not to say that commercial space knows how to do it yet, but the way that NASA is funded by Congress is so obscenely incompetent and so incremental, with job creation as the bottom line, that as much as NASA wants to do such things, they aren’t going to happen. Well, you might say, why doesn’t Congress just adopt a plan that the agency produces, and get firmly behind it? The reason, of course, is Constellation, which was such a plan that Congress liked to think it got behind. It cratered. Congress now sees that as a lesson. They now throw up their hands and tell themselves that they know best how to design a space architecture that meets national needs, and order NASA to do it.

    OK, sure, I’d like to tell Congress to get their act together, and stop looking at NASA as a jobs program. But it ain’t gonna happen.

  • amightywind

    SLS/Orion are the biggest earmark in the NASA budget, even if they don’t call it one.

    What is an earmark but an expression of distrust that the administration will target funds on an item specified by congress? The administration has shown it does not merit such flexibility.

  • common sense

    My very sad prediction: Those CRs will go on and on. They will fxx up the FY12 budget as much they did FY11. All the SD HLV fans will believe they have something going when it will actually be dying by suffocation. Then it will be too late. Several billions later other Congress parasites will come and finish the job. If NASA does not get to do something relevant soon, NASA HSF will be history. Worse the NASA budget will go from $19B to $15B or so. Shuttle budget will be removed and NOT replaced. Then commercials will look really really good to the fervent defenders of BEO, ELE, colonization, ISRU and the rest that of course need an HLV.

    Oh well…

  • NASA Fan

    The form of government we have in the country isn’t working.

  • What is an earmark but an expression of distrust that the administration will target funds on an item specified by congress?

    An earmark is a direction by Congress to direct taxpayer funds to particular zip codes, regardless of efficacy.

  • Michael from Iowa

    amightywind’s delusions would be funny if they weren’t so pathetic. To hear him talk you’d think NASA will magically pull an Ares V out of their hat the day after a new administration is elected.

  • Coastal Ron

    Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 11:38 am

    A wonderful extension to the article that Rand Simberg did, and I think you laid out the issues very nicely. I’ll be echoing them in the future.

  • Gary Warburton

    I hope that come the next election that a concerted effort is made to brand these politicians as the wastefull spendthirfts that they are, through an extensive advertising campaign that exposes how much they have wasted and the sillyness of it all.

  • E.P. Grondine

    Hi Rand –

    I’ll have to disagree with you about this point:
    “And the Orion was never a very good vehicle for true deep-space operations – it is designed for a repeat of the Apollo missions to the moon.”

    It looks to me and others that Orion was sized so that it demanded the use of the Ares 1 launcher from ATK.

    As Griffin’s Moon missions were really little more than test flights for manned flight to Mars, Orion must be viewed from that perspective, in my own opinion and that of others.

    Since W.’s Vision for Space Exploration included manned flight to Mars, Griffin was designing for that as well as manned Moon missions.

    Our opinion is that all of this will finally come out of the NASA history office or National Archives someday.

  • I hope that come the next election that a concerted effort is made to brand these politicians as the wastefull spendthirfts that they are, through an extensive advertising campaign that exposes how much they have wasted and the sillyness of it all.

    That’s what I’m trying to do, but it’s tough going, given how unimportant space is.

  • It looks to me and others that Orion was sized so that it demanded the use of the Ares 1 launcher from ATK.

    While true, that would come off as too cynical and upsupported for a mainstream op-ed. You have to try to keep things simple, and as unassailable as possible from non-morons. The DRM for Orion was in fact a redo of the moon. Any notion of using it beyond that was always purely notional (e.g., I think that Plymouth Rock is nuts), so what I wrote is true as far as it goes.

  • Dennis Berube

    All as I hear from you people is NASA is a jobs program. I will say again so what. Is it none of you have jobs, so you are jealous? At least if NASA is puting our people to work, we are not paying Russians to work and launch our people into space. I would much rather have NASA paying our people than our government paying the Russians, wouldnt you? As to Orion and Ares, if the government wants it built, that is what we will get. I think Orion is certain to come, as to the launch vehicle, maybe Delta heavy will finally be used, I dont know. Whatever comes down the line, we will progress, and if may not be in the manner you guys wish. PAY NASA PEOPLE, NOT RUSSIANS!!!!!!!

  • DCSCA

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 11th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
    @Rand Simberg wrote @ March 11th, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    Shills of a feather, shill together. Such is the mind set of commercial space.

  • DCSCA

    Rand Simberg wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 3:43 pm
    Hmmm. Start with eliminiating all government funding subsidizing commercial space. And BTW, space is important- and strategic- ask the DoD.

  • DCSCA

    FYI- ‘Washington Times’ = right wing rag.

  • Coastal Ron

    E.P. Grondine wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 3:36 pm

    It looks to me and others that Orion was sized so that it demanded the use of the Ares 1 launcher from ATK.

    Orion could have easily fit on Delta IV Heavy, and Griffin knew that. Ares I was needed for the development of Ares V, both for the common technology and the overall budget (Ares I paid for common Ares V technologies like 5-segment SRM’s and the J-2X).

    As Griffin’s Moon missions were really little more than test flights for manned flight to Mars…

    The term “test flight” implies that you are testing something you think meets the requirements. Constellation was not testing specific technology for a Mars mission, but general technologies and capabilities – not too different from what we’re doing on the ISS in testing out construction, zero-G and survivability issues. All of these efforts get us closer, but none are the real deal yet – we don’t know what we don’t know for a mission to Mars, and going to the Moon doesn’t solve that by itself.

    Since W.’s Vision for Space Exploration included manned flight to Mars, Griffin was designing for that as well as manned Moon missions.

    Orion was not designed for a trip to Mars, nor use on Mars. No one is going to live in an Orion capsule for months on end, and no one at NASA, including Griffin, would propose such a stupid idea. Orion was sized for a lunar “Apollo on steroids” length mission. You could take Orion on a Mars mission as a lifeboat, but even then it’s over-designed and over-priced.

  • E.P. Grondine

    Hi Rand –

    “That’s what I’m trying to do, but it’s tough going, given how unimportant space is.”

    I’ll have to disagree with you on how unimportant space is, even if you mean as a political issue.

    But if you mean how unimportant manned flight to Mars is as a political issue, then I’ll agree.

  • red

    “The question is whether Congress can be convinced that technology development can be a jobs program!”

    NASA space technology development is clearly better at creating jobs than SLS or Orion. Both technology development and SLS/Orion generate the immediate jobs funded by the respective program. That’s it for the SLS/Orion jobs, though.

    NASA technology development creates additional jobs through COTS-like “skin in the game” private investment when done through commercial partnerships as has been proposed in some cases, through jobs generated by spinning off new technologies to the commercial sector or other government agencies, and through increased competitiveness enabled by successful technology development.

    Similarly, commercial partnerships like ISS commercial cargo and crew generate additional jobs beyond those directly funded by NASA.

    Like commercial cargo/crew/etc, technology development wins over SLS/Orion in job creation per dollar spent, affordability, usefulness, time to results, etc.

    However, although it creates more jobs per dollar spent than SLS/Orion, Congress, or the sliver of Congress controlling the relevant committees, cannot be convinced that technology development is a better “jobs program” because too many of the jobs are in the wrong Congressional districts.

  • common sense

    @E.P. Grondine wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 3:36 pm

    “It looks to me and others that Orion was sized so that it demanded the use of the Ares 1 launcher from ATK.”

    Nope. Absolutely not. You have it wrong and your friends too. The reason Orion looks the way it does is actually that it had to look like an Apollo. Let me repeat. It had to look like an Apollo. This is THE reason. This being said the reason we have Ares is because of ESAS. ESAS “showed” that the SRBs were the most economical, most efficient way to get the program going. If you want to believe this. Both vehicles were “designed” separately. Actually I should say their requirements were not established in concert. So much so that the requirements for Orion kept changing as the Ares vehicles ability to loft it kept going down. What our great leaders were thinking was that after all it’s only a capsule atop a rocket. The same crowd thought the LAS was just a rocket atop a capsule. You believe me or not will not change anything. However when you have systems of systems the ONLY way to design them is to do it concurrently. In particular you need to establish a set of requirements that the vehicles may adhere to. Doing so makes things very expensive, it is an iterative process whether we like it or not. Also sometimes the design does not close. C’est la vie.

    For the sake of argument. Let’s assume NASA had chosen an EELV for a LV then the requirements would have been put on the capsule and the LAS with some mods to the LVs but nothing big. You would have mostly constrained the cost to the capsule and the LAS. This was the way OSP and the original CEV were supposed to go.

    Unfortunately doing so would not have given any jobs to ATK and possibly fewer to Alabama. So of course it was not the solution either since the leaders were hoping that 1) they would be much further along and 2) had the political support of the pork machine, thereby insuring its perennity. Well the technical challenges to make those 3 (three) vehicles work together were so great that in the end the whole thing collapsed. The design did not close. Surprise surprise. Ah and for those who need a little more dot on the i’s a design actually includes… Guess what????… Yeah you in the front… A b.u.d.g.e.t.!!!!! Wowwww… A budget? In a design???? Come on. Well. Yeah.

    See the problem is when people actually know they know every thing or believe they do. Dissent is suppressed and they think they can do away with whatever. Unfortunately for them it does not work that way. See LVs and RVs are engineering contraptions based on physics, not on faith. When physics says no only an act of faith may change the deal but is it that important for a miracle?

    “As Griffin’s Moon missions were really little more than test flights for manned flight to Mars, Orion must be viewed from that perspective, in my own opinion and that of others.”

    It does not make any difference if it had been designed for LEO. It still would not have worked. The best proof? MPCV. There is better proof but then again you have to understand how a system of systems actually works.

    “Our opinion is that all of this will finally come out of the NASA history office or National Archives someday.”

    And then what? Actually again it does not matter. There was even a time when we were mandated to drop anything Mars. I’ll try again. CEV and SRBs developed separately under a different set of requirements did not work because the architecture made no to little sense.

    Now assume the requirement would have been: Use an SRB, a 4 seg SRB. Then develop a capsule that works. What would have happened is the crew size would have been more like 3. Not 6, not 4. But we had to have an ISS secondary mission too. So they had to cram 7 people in there and they ended up with a giant capsule.

    Oh shoot the giant capsule cannot be lofted by Ares. No problem reduce the crew size. Nah you don’t understand it’s the chutes that don’t work… Okay reduce the crew size! Come on! Ah I forgot the LAV on abort will pull so many Gs to go away from the SRB that you’ll recover your crew but it’ll be a lot flatter. See they had to sustain only 15 Gs thereabout at a minimum under certain conditions. Oh but you don’t understand SRBs are safe. So why do we need a LAS? I’ll repeat it again: Reduce the crew size.

    Well anyway. You can believe it’s because of the Moon or Mars or whatever. The reality is that it was a very poorly designed architecture. Designed and managed by people who did not understand and actually worse who refused to understand the difficulties when exposed to them. They actually had faith it would work. Faith may be a good thing but it does not launch LVs. Sorry. It helps sustain Congress though.

    Oh well…

  • Nice job by Simberg on the op ed.

    agreed!

  • DCSCA

    Let’s be clear. Some advocates attacking Orion/SLS are associated with some zealous group of right wing fiscal conservatives who favor gutting government funding for space projects managed by the civilian space agency while at the same time seek government subsidies for private sectored commercial space– funding they cannot secure from capital markets in the private sector. You know who they are. Among them is Bob Walker, a retired Congressman and former Chairman of the House Science Committee. Here’s a fellow who opposes government spending for space projects but is living on government pensions and healthcare at American taxpayers expense long after he left his government service job to become a lobbyist. Walker backed the likes of right wing conservatives like Newt Gingrich and his presidential run in 2008 until it fizzled then switched support to right wing GOP extremist Fred Thompson. Speaks voulmes about the mind set in play of the characters associated with this group. Walker recently remarked, “The Space Economy is emerging as the next great frontier for economic expansion and U.S. leadership. If we really want to ‘win the future,’ we cannot abandon our commitment to space exploration and human spaceflight. The fastest path to space is not through Moscow, but through the American entrepreneur.” -source, verticalnews.com.

    Walker is wrong.

    History has shown that, in fact, the slowest path to space has been the ‘American entrapreneur’. Witness Goddard. Starved for funding and begging for support in the private sector, he was all but shunned. The private sector saw no profit in it. Lindbergh took an interest and secured a small stipend from Guggenheim for Goddard’s research in New Mexico, but it was bare-boned. Meanwhile, rocket research thrived and progressed in Hitler’s Germany with Von Braun’s research flush with government funding through the military, not the private sector. Korolev’s research grew with government/military funding from Stalin’s era into Khrushchev’s reign as well, resulting in, among other successes, Sputnik, Gagarin,… etc. Government rocket and space research, under many political guises, made all the great strides forward in this still very young science, in terms of human history and evolution. Private enterprise balked. No, Walker, Simberg, et al., it was fascist and socialist/communist governments, for political gain, not for financial profit, that pushed the science and technology of manned and unmanned spaceflight forward- not “American entrepreneurs.”

    The history of Western space efforts have demonstrated that they are reactive– not proactive. And, of course, the Russians led the way in space well into the 1960’s before U.S. government funded space programs ramped up American space efforts to catch up and compete. And a decisive factor in American successes was government funding spent on the American efforts- as Russia’s Mishin noted some years back. Private enterprise- the ‘entrapreneurs’ – have balked from the start. Too risky. Too much start-up capital; no real ROI- limited market. Let the government take the risks and we’ll contract for the work. And so it goes. Private sector commercial HSF advocates today simply want to swoop in and feed off the public investments made by and for the all American people. A small group of profiteers, not rocketeers. Not much of a surprise there. And not much risk, either.

    Several of the individuals associated w/this conservative lobbying group have ties to the CEI. “CEI’s stated belief is that people are best helped not by government regulation of commercial interests, but by a free marketplace… Among the methods used to implement the organization’s agenda are various press releases and policy papers, testifying at governmental hearings, suits against various governmental agencies, paid advertising, editorial and op-ed pieces, open letters, books, and NGO operations. MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, National Review, [surprise->!] Washington Times, Detroit News, Investor’s Daily, Inside EPA’s Clean Air Report, CNBC, C-SPAN, CBS Radio and Voice of America. It also published its first book, titled Environmental Politics. ” -source, SourceWatch. Just another cog in the right wing anti-big government machinery. Kindred spirits with the AEI. Space exploitation is not space exploration. This is about business using the veil of space exploitation to attempt to tap government funds- funds of which 42 cents of every dollar is borrowed on the taxpayers back- which they cannot secure in private capital markets because the risks are too high and probability of returns too low.

    Wiser Americans know better. It was government that seized the initiative, for politics, not for profit, using tax dollars that beared the burden, the risks, made the capital investments and shouldered the costs of creating and constructing a space infrastructure for the United States. It was NOT a private sector initiative. Too much risk. That’s why governments do it. So it has been and so it will be for the foreseeable future at this point in human history given the state of the art of rocket technology with respect to human spaceflight. Kraft and his compatriots got it right some months ago in their op-ed. They’ve shown how to get it done. Conservatives, not so much. Reaganomics-styled privatization has been a failure on Earth, rejected by Americans. It is not going to fund, fuel and expand the human experience out into the cosmos, either.

  • Bennett

    Every day it gets easier and easier to simply scroll past the trollish comments. The one at 7:08 being a perfect example.

    As far as quality comments go,

    common sense wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 5:46 pm

    Great stuff man, thanks for taking the time to pen that. The fuckfest that was Constellation keeps on giving, if not in progress, at lkeast in lessons on how NOT to design a LV.

    …and as far as bewildered comments go:

    Dennis Berube wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    All as I hear from you people is NASA is a jobs program.

    Dennis, old boy. Please try to understand. It’s not NASA that’s a jobs program, it’s the NASA Programs given to subcontractors that end up being nothing but a porky jobs programs (Ares 5 seg SRB). ATK is not a part of NASA. Do you understand that? United Space Alliance is not part of NASA. Boeing is not part of NASA. ULA is not part of NASA. They are all contractors or subcontractors who lobby to get their slice of the NASA pie, whether their work results in advancements in human space flight or not.

    I object to the no-bid contracts that encourage companies like ATK to rape the NASA budget for the benefit of their shareholders.

    Are you following all of this?

  • E.P. Grondine

    Hi Rand –

    ep – It looks to me and others that Orion was sized so that it demanded the use of the Ares 1 launcher from ATK.

    rand – While true, that would come off as too cynical and upsupported for a mainstream op-ed. You have to try to keep things simple, and as unassailable as possible from non-morons. The DRM for Orion was in fact a redo of the moon. Any notion of using it beyond that was always purely notional (e.g., I think that Plymouth Rock is nuts), so what I wrote is true as far as it goes.

    Rand, when we tell less than the full truth is that not lying in some form?
    For example, I am reminded of “I did not have sex with that woman”, but then the responder’s situation was a little more dire, as he had to face his wife.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Dennis Berube wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    All as I hear from you people is NASA is a jobs program. I will say again so what. ..

    it is a jobs program that has no end program or effort that is useful to the people who pay for it, the taxpayers…

    thats pork

    Robert G. Oler

  • E.P. Grondine

    Hi CS –

    Parts I believe:

    “The reality is that it was a very poorly designed architecture. Designed and managed by people who did not understand and actually worse who refused to understand the difficulties when exposed to them. They actually had faith it would work. Faith may be a good thing but it does not launch LVs.

    “A good design has a budget.”

    But for ISS operations you actually want more capsules with smaller crews for operational safety. And for manned Moon work you only need a 2 seater.

    When Griffin scaled the Orion, he scaled it with shuttle replacement crew size for his own reasons: manned Mars and ATK.

  • Fred Willett

    DCSCA wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 7:08 pm
    “Walker is wrong.”
    Well no.
    Like many spaceflight fans you look at NASA and think that’s all there is.
    It’s not. Not even NASA believes that anymore.
    The US space economy is now in the $100s of Billions p.a.
    ($208B in 2009).
    Compare this with NASA’s budget of $18B p.a.
    As well NASA’s budget is going to be flat for the forseeable future while the space economy has grown 40% in the last 5 years
    ( figures to 2009 taken from the FAA report)
    http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/media/Economic%20Impact%20Study%20September%202010_20101026_PS.pdf
    These are facts.
    But not all you say is totally wrong.
    Govt space has been the driver in the past, yes.
    But that is changing.
    The future is going to be driven more by commercial needs.
    Companies like Boeing, Orbital, and, yes, SpaceX are putting their own money on the line because they see this.
    NASA, through COTS, CRC and CCdev recognises the changing space landscape.
    You should catch up.

  • E.P. Grondine

    Hi DCSCA –

    “This is about business using the veil of space exploitation to attempt to tap government funds- funds of which 42 cents of every dollar is borrowed on the taxpayers back- which they cannot secure in private capital markets because the risks are too high and probability of returns too low.”

    Yep: high risk, low rate of return, long payback period – most of the time, anyway. Fortunately real companies like Orbital and SpaceX are able to exploit the existing technological base.

    And Yes, a lot of the rhetoric has been thought stopping slogans by manned Mars flight enthusiasts. For example:
    “It is not going to fund, fuel and expand the human experience out into the cosmos, either.”

    The funny thing about these Little Government sloganeers is trying to get them to admit to a real hazard that only government can deal with. Its the same problem I have with the Big Government sloganeers.

    A business is a business, and the distinction that some people have tried to make between “new space” and “old space” is just thought stopping sloganeering.

    In point of fact NASA does not build anything, but rather it hires private firms to build things.

  • E.P. Grondine

    Hi red –

    For some reason you seem to think that technology is not in those Congressional districts.

    While it is true that solids have limitations, and that the lowest cost space launch system is likely to be fly-back liquids* , you have to get there from here.

    Given ATK’s support, I think that they only way forward at this point is the 60 ton DIRECT, along with other launch companies for manned launch.

    If ATK wants to use its own funds to attempt to compete in that manned launch market, or the commercial launch marker, then that’s up to them…

    In other words, stop space pork now.

    *(though of course there could be unforeseen technologies developed)

  • Martijn Meijering

    Shills of a feather, shill together. Such is the mind set of commercial space.

    Let me remind you that arguing for fair, competitive and redundant procurement is the opposite of shilling.

  • Aberwys

    Where, oh where did innovation go? Oh where, oh where can she be?

  • Martijn Meijering

    In other words, stop space pork now.

    Stopping space pork now would mean no DIRECT and no SDLV of any kind.

  • Interesting article by columnist John Kelly in this morning’s Florida Today:

    “Accessibility is Key in Space”

    Here’s a philosophical dilemma concerning the future of the United States’ space launch industry: Is it the government’s job to steer contracts to certain private launch companies to help keep them in business?

    Or, ought NASA and other federal agencies that need to get satellites into space just buy the launch system that costs taxpayers the least (as long as that system is proven reliable)?

    He goes on to write that the federal government subsidizes part of the U.S. launch industry to keep them in business. Foreign launchers are heavily subsidized by their nations and get the bulk of the launch business.

    I wonder how the Tea Partiers will cope with this — cut the subsidies and let the jobs flee overseas?!

  • Robert G. Oler

    common sense wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 12:11 pm

    “My very sad prediction: Those CRs will go on and on. They will fxx up the FY12 budget as much they did FY11. All the SD HLV fans will believe they have something going when it will actually be dying by suffocation.:”

    The CR’s are going to go own because the GOP house cannot like the Dem House before it…pass a budget.

    In the end the GOP is floundering because it cannot “come up” with a coherent set of actions to meet its message. The “fix the budget” by cutting descretionary spending is of course laughable. The GOP cannot as a party (although some elements can) find itself cutting the pork machine of the DoD…and their love for the Bush wars stops them from being able to simply say “enough is enough”…and worse for them the cuts to entitlements (Like Social Security and even medicare/caid) are non starters among the “Old” which is a large part of the GOP base.

    In the end we are going to see a series of CR’s which take us up to the election season where we can all battle out the rhetoric of a failed Tea Party/GOP message and Obama’s inability to gather steam…and how it plays out is in large measure going to depend on where the economy is “drifting”.

    For human spaceflight it is a wasteful world, but in the end it wont matter because commercial space, commercial humans to orbit will continue to gather steam (as new ideas do in this Country when their time has come) and the “save our big government program” (such as Whittington wants) continues to die of starvation.

    What will make the next year even more exciting is if the GOP turns really hard right. Palin, ,who thinks Africa is a country, or Bachman who thinks that The Revolutionary war started in New Hampshire…are all classic suicide runs…andwhile I dont think that either will eventually gain traction…that must be the most delightful thought in the Obama administration now.

    Space CR’s are good…every day kills the beast.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Rand, when we tell less than the full truth is that not lying in some form?

    No.

    The CR’s are going to go own because the GOP house cannot like the Dem House before it…pass a budget.

    The GOP House has already passed a budget. It’s called “HR 1.” The Democrat House didn’t. It was one of the reasons they no longer run the House.

    Please stop flaunting your ignorance of basic civics.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Mark Whittington on his blog wrote: in response to Rands piece.

    “By mandating that a heavy lift launcher and the Orion deep space craft be built by 2016, Congress is signaling that it wants to keep Constellation on life support. Why? Because Congress believes that a future President will reverse President Obama’s cancellation of the space exploration program. By keeping a heavy lifter and the Orion alive, Congress is giving that future President the option to send astronauts back to the Moon or elsewhere quicker than otherwise might be the case.”

    as much as I enjoy the Tea Party/GOP nashing at itself and the microcosim of that with Rand and Mark…it does illustrate both the issues in space policy and the general problem in The Republic ….and the wishful thinking that seems to prevail many members of the GOP in regards to space policy. Since this is the space policy board I’ll concentrate on the later.

    The theory that Whittington goes is that any GOP president (and he assumes that there will be one in 12…he assumed that Dole would beat Clinton)…will go back to a big government space exploration program much like Bush the last allowed to occur.

    there is nothing more then wishful thinking to say that is where a future GOP candidate would go. In fact there seems to be a lot of reality based programing that says otherwise.

    OTHER then the pork squealers there is no real support in the GOP for Orion or some massive HLV (SDV or otherwise) vehicle developed or operated by NASA. It would be interesting to see the SDV HLV (or even an HLV) come up on a single vote much like the alternate engine the forlorn F-35…

    My view is that it would go down…and I see nothing in data that says otherwise.

    What people like Whittington are stuck in is a world where we never left the 1980’s…and yet we more or less left it thanks to Mr. Bush. The economy is going to be a long time coming back to full steam, the notions of the US as a teenager shouting out how great it is seems to have been exhausted in the sands of the Iraq and Afland deserts…and programs like Cx illustrate that.

    If the GOP folks wanted to preserve it or any part of it they would have taken a leaf out of the B-1 program when Carter was President. THERE they really thought a new President 1) had a chance to be elected in 80 and 2) would restore the B-1…so both Dems and members of the GOP banded together and kept the B-1 flying by specific very direct authorization.

    Here they have not done that.

    It is fun to watch Whittington and Rand beat each other about the “internet(s)” and in the end on this op ed Rand got off a good piece. It is at least (and far more) logical and addresses some version of reality; whereas Marks comments are like Paul Wolfowitz who got everything wrong about Iraq…offering advice on Libya.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 10:44 am

    HR 1is in no respects a “budget” in addition, It has no chance of becoming law, as is illustrated by the notion of one CR after another.

    nice try…Man hug will have to wait, I am back in North Africa in a few weeks.

    Robert G. Oler

  • HR 1is in no respects a “budget”

    Of course it is. I ask you to stop flaunting your ignorance, and instead you double down. I’m hoping that if you’re really in North Africa, your return will be in a few decades, not weeks.

    And Jeff, I’d appreciate it if, in addition to “thunderheads,” you’d ban the phrase “man hug.” I’m pretty sure it doesn’t contribute in any way to discussions of space policy.

  • Dennis Berube

    though it may be pork, who doesnt like pork. Everyone forgets, what this pork provides. It put us on the moon, gave us the ISS, and robotic exploration missions. While it is pork, it has given us spin offs, of great value to public interest. Pork indeed, and you failed to answer, the question as to whether you would rather see our pork keep American workers employed, or Russians? Also with this pork, we will continue to learn more about the Universe we live in. I think it is well worth it, and certainly worth the price tag. I hope we can find cheaper methods to get to space, and that should be a goal, but not at the expense of closing NASA down. Way back when we started the space program, the same rhetoric prevailed. We should feed the poor, etc. etc. There is and always will be poor and hungry people. There will alway be war, but does that mean we must stop learning about our Universe? I think not. If a hungry person comes to my door I will feed them, no problem, would you? Lets keep NASA strong, whether some pork is present or not. Lets move forward. Like an article I just read stated: Korolev would be laughing at the thought that we Americans are paying the Russians for taxi service into space. They are the ones ahead, not us! How long will we be fools in this game?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 11:25 am

    HR1 is not a budget, it has no chance of becoming law, and has generated no significant, outside the usual suspects political support.

    It was a political document designed to assuage the folks of the far right who really have no clue as to reality.

    It is the essence of what you wrote about in the op ed.

    Not in North Africa now, but was and will be. check out the facebook page…lots of pictures burning oil, sand, technicals…having a blast.

    glad to be home…for a bit

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    Dennis Berube wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    “though it may be pork, who doesnt like pork. Everyone forgets, what this pork provides. It put us on the moon, gave us the ISS, and robotic exploration missions. While it is pork, it has given us spin offs, of great value to public interest. Pork indeed, and you failed to answer, the question as to whether you would rather see our pork keep American workers employed, or Russians?”

    I dont like pork of the political kind.

    I have this strange notion of taxing the citizenry of a Republic…the money that is taken from “their efforts” should go to things that have some value for the cost that they incur.

    You ask about the Russians providing “lift”. These dollars compared to what it cost to continue Cx are small, the provide some value for the cost in terms of our notions of good foreign policy AND they are part of interlocking international deals which are the hallmark of a superpower.

    I wont get into a discussion of Apollo other then to say the “spinoffs” were grossly exaggerated in terms of their value (we went to the Moon to get electric tools…nonsense). But there is really no sense of the spinoffs of Cx for instance doing anything much of value as awhole The effort is not driving technology it is consuming it. There is far more “technology” in say FAlcon9 if “affordability” is one of the hallmarks of successful technology development.

    We are learning about the Universe…Messenger is about to go into orbit around Mercury and will teach us far more about “the universe” then Orion will ever…Do I feed hungry people who knock on my door? Yes and what that has to do with the discussion I dont understand unless it is a stooge for right wing babble about social programs…

    Besides Cx was not about exploration. When you come to grips with the notion that cx has consumed more money for nothing then Gemini did for the entire program you will be quite a lot smarter.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Martijn Meijering

    though it may be pork, who doesnt like pork. Everyone forgets, what this pork provides. It put us on the moon, gave us the ISS, and robotic exploration missions. While it is pork, it has given us spin offs, of great value to public interest.

    That at best is an argument for government funded manned spaceflight, not an argument against fair, competitive and redundant procurement.

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis Berube wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    Everyone forgets, what this pork provides. It put us on the moon, gave us the ISS, and robotic exploration missions.

    Not all government spending is pork, and not all pork spending provides long-term economic benefits.

    There is a difference between legitimate government spending (i.e. for the good of all) and politically motivated spending (i.e. benefits those politicians want to support).

    The Apollo program was envisioned by Kennedy as one of the many efforts to keep us strong during the Cold War/Vietnam War era. That it spurred knowledge and technology that benefitted us all was a bonus, but not the intended goal.

    The ISS benefits the nation in helping us to learn what it takes to live and work in space, and the robotic exploration missions expand our knowledge of various places within our solar system, preparing us for eventual visits.

    There will always be some that disagree with these efforts, and as citizens they have a legitimate point of view. But so far Congress has supported the eventual goals of establishing a U.S. presence off-world, so the space program overall would not be considered pork, since it has an overall national benefit. How much to spend towards it goals is also a legitimate debate – $20B/year, $10B/year, $30B/year?

    Pork tends to be more widely recognized when certain companies (or individuals) get rewarded without either A.) a competition that they fairly win, or B.) an expenditure that is not clearly needed.

    For instance, Congress has wishes it wants met for the SLS, but it has not defined a need (B above), and since they spent considerable effort to define the components that must be used (A above), regardless of technical or overall merit, then it clearly falls into the definition of “pork”.

    Since the end benefit of pork does not necessarily benefit many people, pork spending does not provide the best Return-On-Investment (ROI) for the American Taxpayer. And since another goal of pork is to strengthen ones allies, it tends to distort the playing field for true competition, which normally rewards innovators, not those politically connected.

    So pork spending in itself is not good. Government spending, where it is being used for a defined goal and it’s benefits will enrich us all, can be good, and a legitimate use of the funds we contribute.

  • @Fred Willett

    But the core point is that government investment in space has turned out to be good for private industry and for the US economy. So you don’t kill the goose that laid the golden eggs by gutting NASA’s ability to continue to be a pioneering organization– just to promote some laissez faire capitalist mythology that has never truly existed in American history.

    We don’t need private industry to replace NASA! We need these new private space programs to– do their own thing– largely outside of government and, eventually, without being dependent on tax payer dollars.

  • common sense

    @ Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 10:02 am

    “The CR’s are going to go own because the GOP house cannot like the Dem House before it…pass a budget.”

    What I find really embarassing for our nation is that under the cover of trying to do best for the people, these clowns actually are only doing backdoor deals. The $61B cut is a fraud. Anyone who can count should realize that out of a $1.3T deficit. I wish the WH had the guts to tell them to take a hike when the bill comes for signature. Unfortunately this corruption is too engrained in our political apparatus. What I find fascinating though is how the failure of CxP is a small opening into our political process at large. We see all the same workmanship dealing with alternate reality and the inablity to face the music by people be they on the left or on the right. They just seem to smoke a different brand of hallucinogenic herbs. Arugula vs. good ol’ lettuce I suppose.

    “In the end the GOP is floundering because it cannot “come up” with a coherent set of actions to meet its message. The “fix the budget” by cutting descretionary spending is of course laughable. The GOP cannot as a party (although some elements can) find itself cutting the pork machine of the DoD…and their love for the Bush wars stops them from being able to simply say “enough is enough”…and worse for them the cuts to entitlements (Like Social Security and even medicare/caid) are non starters among the “Old” which is a large part of the GOP base.”

    Which is the basis (at least in part) of the surrounding hypocrisy. Now I don’t give the “left” much credit either. Of course saying the Dems are the “left” says how far right our country has gone. Pretty pathetic. When some moron calls Obama a soviet or similar it is clear how little understanding they have of the soviets. Unfortunately they preach to the choir. Socialist is used for anything today. If you want to help your community you are a socialist. If you promote the emergence of small businesses in the space arena you are a socialist. In the end if you do not accomodate the fascist agenda of some on the right then you are a socialist, never mind what national-socialism meant a few decades ago. It is not that far. Now let us all put our heads in the sand again… See what I mean?

    “In the end we are going to see a series of CR’s which take us up to the election season where we can all battle out the rhetoric of a failed Tea Party/GOP message and Obama’s inability to gather steam…and how it plays out is in large measure going to depend on where the economy is “drifting”.”

    I don’t like the CRs they only show us how little the people count for our elected leaders. They cannot come up with a budget? Come on. It is not rocket science, now is it? Ah wait. Congress designs rockets today so let me take that back.

    “For human spaceflight it is a wasteful world, but in the end it wont matter because commercial space, commercial humans to orbit will continue to gather steam (as new ideas do in this Country when their time has come) and the “save our big government program” (such as Whittington wants) continues to die of starvation.”

    To me the waste is a bigger picture. I don’t want Constellation back. But I would rather not waste the accumulated talent inside and outside NASA either. We can give them a mission. Actually we MUST give them a mission. FY11 was that mission. The failure there was to not explain the vision clearly. I was able thanks to my crystal ball to see the vision between the lines but some people need the dots on the i’s and conversely.

    “What will make the next year even more exciting is if the GOP turns really hard right. Palin, ,who thinks Africa is a country, or Bachman who thinks that The Revolutionary war started in New Hampshire…are all classic suicide runs…andwhile I dont think that either will eventually gain traction…that must be the most delightful thought in the Obama administration now.”

    Well I told you before and I’ll say it again. You are far more optimistic than I. I think we are not that far from a president Palin. After all people voted for Bush because he looked like the guy they could hang with at a bar with a beer. Never mind it would never ever have happened. But he wore cowboy boots. So.

    “Space CR’s are good…every day kills the beast.”

    Constellation agreed. NASA as a whole is in jeopardy and it makes me profoundly sad.

  • DCSCA

    @Fred Willett wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 10:34 pm
    RE-Walker- Well, yes, he is wrong. His statement is just bogus. Start by taking it up with the Goddard estate. It’s not that NASA is ‘all there is’– far from it. But with respect to HSF, ‘it’s all that matters.’ Because, as history has shown, government funded and managed space programs have been the engine which truly drives space and rocket technology forward, not ‘entrapreneurs.’ That’s just the way it is at this point in human history given the state of the art. When the PRC starts pressing on and outward, the West will react accordingly- the character and caliber of which remains to be seen. But it will be a government funded and managed response.

    With each passing year, as the space station spirals down, closer and closer to splash, the window of and rational attempt at profitability shrinks for private firms to get some kind of manned space pod up and flying- flying safely and returned safely- BTW. These commercial firms may end up hauling freight and playing at room service to the ISS, delivering supplies and luggage, but crews will ride up and down on Soyuz for the duration of the ISS’s life time. Private firms like SpaceX are never going to loft a soul up to the ISS. It’s not economical to do so. But it’s great R to keep dangling that carrot out there to try to attract investors.

    @E.P. Grondine wrote @ March 12th, 2011 at 10:50 pm
    You may have misplaced interpreting ‘sloganeering.’ In fact, the only high profile sloganeering comes from SpaceX. [Retirement on Mars for Master Musk…. Mars, PA., more likely.] The space elevator/asteroid mining crowd are just noise. Kraft’s op-ed some months back pretty much layed out a realistic path forward with the state of the technology as it is. Whether it is American led is another matter. But it wasn’t a for profit plan, fueled nor funded by Reaganomics, which these profiteer/rocketeers cling to like moths. Theit goal is to many money and transfer the risk to the taxpayer. We’ve seen this before- on Wall Street. Space exploitation is not space exploration. At this point in time, HSF, real space exploration, is not a short term profit center. And won’t be for decades- maybe centuries to come. That’s the way it is. A loss leader of the human species. Reaganomics- the flawed ‘for profit’ trickle down economics has shown it cannot operate and absorb financial failures on massive scales w/o government intervention- and can do great damage- be it banking or rocketry. “In point of fact NASA does not build anything, but rather it hires private firms to build things.” It puts out contracts for bids as stated: “Let the government take the risks and we’ll contract for the work. And so it goes.” Which is why, in part, government funded and managed HSF reached the moon 40 years ago and continues to orbit people under many flags and commercial HSF, has not orbited anybody to date. No private firm would attempt a moonshot w/o some kind of profitable, ROI. Same w/LEO operations. And with each passing month, it becomes less and less economical for firms like SpaceX to invest millions to try to loft, orbit and return safely, crewed vehicles for LEO operations to a space station slated for splash by the end of the decade. A space station which faces increasingly austere times to secure operational funding, particularly in America. These commercial space firms may haul freight, which is fine, great and long overdue, but not crews. Soyuz will do that. “In point of fact NASA does not build anything, but rather it hires private firms to build things.” It puts out contracts for bids. In fact, this was stated: “Let the government take the risks and we’ll contract for the work. And so it goes.” Which is why, in part, government funded and managed HSF has reached the moon and commercial HSF has not orbited anybody. Watch 1949’s ‘Destination Moon’– strip out the enterainment elements and, in fact, you’ll discover it has a fairly good business plan for private enterprised space venture– provided you find uranium on the moon in the last reel.

  • DCSCA

    @Coastal Ron wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 2:16 pm

    “There is a difference between legitimate government spending (i.e. for the good of all) and politically motivated spending (i.e. benefits those politicians want to support).”

    Or what lobbyists for private firms want– such as seek government subsidies for private sectored commercial space– funding they cannot secure from capital markets in the private sector. A small group of commercial HSF advocates who simply want to swoop in and feed off the public investments made by and for all American people. A small group of profiteers, not rocketeers.

  • E.P. Grondine

    ep- Rand, when we tell less than the full truth is that not lying in some form?

    Rand – No.

    Well, Rand, I suppose the first duty of a journalist is to earn a paycheck, and if he has to not tell his readers anything which might upset them to do that, even if they need to know that information for their benefit, then he should not report accurately.

    The CR comment was from someone else.

  • E.P. Grondine

    All this discussion about NASA pork among manned Mars flight enthusiasts kind of reminds me of the old Cary Grant movie:
    “That’s not ham, it’s WHAM.”

  • common sense wrote:

    To me the waste is a bigger picture. I don’t want Constellation back. But I would rather not waste the accumulated talent inside and outside NASA either. We can give them a mission.

    See, this is the problem. It’s the excuse used by the Congresscritters who want to give pork to their districts. “I have this space center with all these talented engineers. I don’t want to waste their talent. So let’s give them a mission. Who cares if it’s one we can afford or will ever actually achieve.”

    In the real world, talented people get laid off all the time. I’ve lost my job three times in my career. I’ve been unemployed now for over two years. I volunteer at two different places just to be out there. I have a Masters degree and 30 years of experience as an employee. Last week, I had my first job interview in close to six months, and it was for a part-time job that pays about $10/hour with no benefits. All my friends say, “You’re too smart and talented not to find a job.” Well, guess what? There are plenty of people out there too smart and talented not to find a job — but they can’t find a job.

    Why the people who work for NASA, or NASA contractors, should be exempt from reality is beyond me.

    After all people voted for Bush because he looked like the guy they could hang with at a bar with a beer.

    Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election by over 500,000 votes. You can blame the Constitution’s electoral college for giving us Dubya.

    Since Gore is a huge supporter of space, one can only imagine what our space program would look like now if he’d won the electoral college and become President.

  • Coastal Ron

    E.P. Grondine wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    All this discussion about NASA pork among manned Mars flight enthusiasts…

    I’ve been contributing to this blog for over a year, and I can’t say I know of anyone that fits your description of “Mars flight enthusiasts”. Maybe you’re confusing blogs?

  • Freddo

    “The GOP House has already passed a budget. It’s called “HR 1.” The Democrat House didn’t.”

    The House did pass a full-year CR in the lame-duck session in December. (As I recall it also repealed the Shelby Provision.) The Senate didn’t approve it, though, which is why we’re in this current mess.

    “It was one of the reasons they no longer run the House.”

    No more than the the reason the Republicans lost the Senate in 2006 because they didn’t pass any spending bills. In both cases much bigger issues were in play.

    “Please stop flaunting your ignorance of basic civics.”

    Physician, heal thyself.

  • DCSCA

    @Marcel F. Williams wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
    Precisely. Bravo! Well said.

    Commercial HSF advocates squawk and scream; they whine and dream. But orbit nobody. They never launch, orbit and return anyone. Nobody in half a century. And nobody’s stopping them except the very constraints of the free market itself. That’s the bottom line. And the clock is ticking.

    Fly somebody. Orbit them. Get’em up, around and back down, safe and sound.

    The day this occurs is the time when capital markets will look closer and government subsidies- from some governments anyway- might just start to flow. Get some skin in the game. The ‘free market’ will adapt accordingly through successes– and failures. Until that day, there is zero equivalency between commercial HSF boasting promises about what it will do and what has been done over the half-century history of accomplishments of government funded and managed HSF programs around the world.

  • DCSCA

    @common sense wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
    “To me the waste is a bigger picture. I don’t want Constellation back. But I would rather not waste the accumulated talent inside and outside NASA either. We can give them a mission.”

    You have it backwards. First you define the goal/mission, prepare a budget and then assemble the team, per NASA Administrator Tom Paine. Some would stay. Some would go. But the last thing NASA needs now is a variety of make work projects to keep staff treading water through the Age of Austerity. Won’t wash in these times. It’s not like they were ‘protected’ as ‘national security’ assets if they were under the wing of the DoD. As they should be.

    @ Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 10:02 am
    “For human spaceflight it is a wasteful world, but in the end it wont matter because commercial space, commercial humans to orbit will continue to gather steam (as new ideas do in this Country when their time has come) and the “save our big government program” (such as Whittington wants) continues to die of starvation.”

    Nonsense. More false equivalency from a commercial HSF shill boasting of ‘things to come’ (that was science fiction, too) with promises about what it will do (to date, they’ve not orbited anybody) tilting at windmills against the actual accomplishments over the half-century history of government funded and managed HSF programs around the world.

  • As long as Shuttle was flying an SRB-based cargo system might have been feasible. Without Shuttle any use of SRBs for future systems will make operational costs go through the roof, since most of the servicing, overhead and facilities costs of the Shuttle program would continue. As for Orion, it is not appropriate for LEO logistics, with a huge service module and no cargo capacity. Dragon is better designed for this mission with lighter weight and a larger cargo capacity.

  • Well, Rand, I suppose the first duty of a journalist is to earn a paycheck, and if he has to not tell his readers anything which might upset them to do that, even if they need to know that information for their benefit, then he should not report accurately.

    What does journalism have to do with this? It was an op-ed. And I didn’t get paid for it.

  • common sense

    @ Stephen C. Smith wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 7:35 pm

    I think you misunderstood my statement. I do not want NASA to be exempt from reality. Absolutely not. I am saying that in our society it is sad we cannot find use for very talented people. You included I assume. I am saying that rather than they work on a ridiculous SLS/Orion program with no chance of being built our nation would be better served if they did something else. And I do care that they actually achieve something. It is also unfortunate that for the ineptitude of a few a lot many others are going to pay. I don’t want to “protect” their jobs. I want them to do something useful and productive. See the difference?

    As for Gore I know he won the popular vote. Unfortunately in this country it does not matter. Bush won the election that mattered whether we like it or not. And my statement stands about those who voted for him just because he looked like the guy next door, or rather next ranch.

  • Beancounter from Downunder

    Hi DCSCA. What will you do when SpaceX does actually orbit someone and returns them safely to Earth? Will it then be ‘wait until they have a disaster’ etc etc?

  • Dennis Berube

    Yet another way to look at pork, is that the money isnt lost, it is recycled back into the economy. The pay these people net, whether it is building the rockets, that fail, or spacecraft that have over runs, etc. goes back into their personal lives. So it is not totally lost. However I understand what you are saying concerning pork, but the price of spaceflight is high, and i think will remain high for awhile yet. I keep seeing where Musk is signing new contracts, yet when is he going to start launching, fullfilling some of these contracts? I also do agree someone should put a rein on NASAs constant over runs in cost and make it more efficient. To my knowledge no one is in line for that duty. None of our leaders have the ability to do that. Whatis needed is a business man at the helm, and not a former astronaut. Someone savy n business. NASA needs an overviewer, to watch where the money goes. However, I believe as long as government runs the way it is, pork is in the works, whether in NASA and or the military. Watch and see. At least we are getting a space program which is better than none. I liked the movie Independence Day, because one actor told the Pres. who really pays 500 dollars for a toilet seat? Maybe indeed some of the over runs are going into other black opt projects, who knows…

  • Dennis Berube

    Plus, gentlemen, this whole pork thing, well everyone has favorites, including our government. Dont you have your favorites? Jobs will go where the politicians say, whether it is fair or not.

  • amightywind

    What will you do when SpaceX does actually orbit someone and returns them safely to Earth?

    I for one will celebrate. Like I do on 4th of July when they do Revolutionary War reenactments. Proving that hobbyists can imitate early space flight 50 years later for ‘less money’ isn’t much of a space program.

  • What will you do when SpaceX does actually orbit someone and returns them safely to Earth? Will it then be ‘wait until they have a disaster’ etc etc?

    He’ll say, “…but they haven’t sent anyone to the moon yet, and never will.”

    He’s the kind of creature that will say, after we’ve settled the solar system, “…but those people have never headed off to another star, and never will.”

  • John Malkin

    I think the Falcon 1, carrying the RazakSAT satellite, lifting off on July 13, 2009 at 8:35 p.m. (PDT) is the first contract successfully filed as a previous flight ended in failure. Also this year they are manifested to begin fulfillment of the ORBCOMM contract and an MDA Corp. contract. Of course this doesn’t include the two orbital tests for COTS successfully completed or any of the COTS related flights this year.

    http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php

  • Robert G. Oler

    Dennis Berube wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 7:03 am

    Yet another way to look at pork, is that the money isnt lost, it is recycled back into the economy. ……………..

    nope its lost.

    The notion of a free society, one where the people are soverign is that their labors should result in their fruits…exclusive of the “fruits” that collectively are needed to run “The Republic”.

    If we the people are going to take money from the people who have worked to earn that money, then we should at the very least make sure that “the people who made the money possible, get some results from them”…otherwise the money is lost.

    HSF is what I call “technowelfare”…it is worse then just welfare because it cost far more then just welfare. A lot of money goes to the salaries but a lot of it goes to getting the “things” that eventually say make up a space shuttle launch and those “things” and the talent that put them together are “one shot ponies” that cost a lot of money.

    Now you might get a personal level of enjoyment of astronauts all up saying “this is the greatest moment of my life” (a goofy statement) or some joy shouting “USA NUMBER 1″ or whatever…but in the end the reality of it is that every dollar spent on HSF right now is simply lost…at the end of each shuttle mission the dollars are gone and we have really nothing to show for it that changes everyones life on hte planet.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis Berube wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 7:14 am

    Jobs will go where the politicians say, whether it is fair or not.

    Sometimes you’re so cute with your simple outlook on the world. :-)

  • Robert G. Oler

    common sense wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    I dont disagree with much that you wrote…I would reply in two parts.

    First I am really not all that worried “right now” about a Palin or Bachmann Presidency because the “GOP right” is really not all that large and the elections it has won, Mr. Bush’s two terms and the last congressional elections have all been what David Frum correctly called “Diablo Canyon” elections…ie they have been won by virtue of the GOP turning out its base in very large numbers and the “other side” not having that good a turnout.

    That happens because the GOP leadership is adroit at coming up with “gut check issues” which drive their base and then running right at those issues. The right wing is mostly pretty uninformed (or informed by what they hear on Fox News) so they “think” they are being served…they are not. Rand and Whittington toss that meat, Rand insisting that the House came up with a budget (it did not) is illustrative. The GOP right now is stuck on busting Unions because the right wing supporters generally are not educated enough to have a job that needs a Union and issues like plan parenthood because this excites the “god squad”….

    The Dem base and the American middle which more or less drifts “left” as time and history go on is particularly unenthusiastic because folks like Obama have turned out to be well “blah”. Whittington may paint Obama as a socialist but thinking people know better …and Obama’s politics are right now at least not very well executed.

    It is concievable that Palin/et all (the “loon squad”) might be able to rev up another base election but in my view the GOP House has seen to it that this will be “harder”. As time drifts on the GOP House looks more and more “doltish” to the rest of the American people and ineffective to those who are right wing shills (or shrills) and at some point in 12 we are going to have a debate over a GOP Congress that probably will not be able to pass serious legislation that is a viable alternative to deficit reduction…or can come up with viable answers to meet the crisis of today..not reliving the yesteryears.

    I agree that Cx is a microcosm of this. It “lives” only by inertia…but really is in my view considering everything is not doing all that much damage compared to the “good” it is doing…which is stopping any real serious development of a new NASA run launch system. While there is waste of money the talent lost is not all that much…really at an individual level it might be put these people are so ingrained in the NASA way of doing things that they are almost functionally useless other places….

    and there is far not enough money to allow Cx to mature into anything operational…

    meanwhile Musk and others just keep on going. Before long we are going to see a Dragon go near if not “berth” with the space station and while that wont stop the Whittingtons it will effectively stop any effort to respin Cx or any large exploration program.

    Americans take a while to get on the correct track as big issues start coming down it. I am somewhat saddened at this, but buoyed by history that just as the Lindbergh s and others held sway (much as the Palin’s and Bachmanns do…although Lindbergh was far more informed and thoughtful then either of those two)…for sometime, eventually goodness takes over and before long they fade…and fade fast.

    The first party to shed its corporate foundation is in my view going to be the ruling party in the US for quite sometime…my guess right now is that we will see either the Dem’s do it first or a new one.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis Berube wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 7:03 am

    Yet another way to look at pork, is that the money isnt lost, it is recycled back into the economy.

    Dennis, you should become familiar with the concept of “opportunity cost”.

    Let me give you just one example of the bad effects of what you’re suggesting (i.e. we need more pork).

    If Congress gave NASA $2 Billion dollars, NASA could either:

    A. Hire 10,000 people, pay them $50/hour, and have them paint, landscape and clean all the NASA facilities. This would be pork.

    B. Hold a competition, and fund the top two winners for creating a redundant and competitive U.S. commercial crew LEO transportation system. This would not be pork.

    Choice “A” does some value (makes NASA facilities look nicer & temporarily stimulates the economy), but the lasting effects are close to zero.

    Choice “B” provides direct and indirect benefits over time, in that it ultimately lowers NASA costs for supporting the ISS, and it broadens the tax base with a sustaining industry it created (crew transportation to space).

    Choose wisely.

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
    “against the actual accomplishments over the half-century history of government funded and managed HSF programs around the world.”

    goofy Cx has spent twice the amount of money the Gemini program spent in real dollars for the entire program, including space flights.

    Cx is no where…that is how the “government…managed HSF programs” are doing.

    LOL

    Robert G. Oler

  • Rand insisting that the House came up with a budget (it did not) is illustrative.

    No matter how often you repeat falsehoods, they do not become true.

    The House passed a budget. The Congress has not.

  • Martijn Meijering

    A small group of commercial HSF advocates who simply want to swoop in and feed off the public investments made by and for all American people. A small group of profiteers, not rocketeers.

    You seem to live in a world where black is white and white is black. NASA is currently spending a lot of taxpayers’ money on crew solutions that will only be of benefit to NASA, when they could also spend that money (or significantly less) and get something that benefits a larger group of organisations. It’s the ones trying to prevent this who are a group of profiteers. And sadly they’re a rather large group of people.

  • It’s the ones trying to prevent this who are a group of profiteers. And sadly they’re a rather large group of people.

    And both the profits (at least in the near term) and waste are much larger.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
    “But the core point is that government investment in space has turned out to be good for private industry and for the US economy. So you don’t kill the goose that laid the golden eggs by gutting NASA’s ability to continue to be a pioneering organization– just to promote some laissez faire capitalist mythology that has never truly existed in American history.”

    But the other core point is that our government investment in space has turned out to be extremely bad for moving humans out of LEO, and even doing much new in LEO. That’s not to say that commercial will do all that anytime soon. But as I said above, federal funding is not well suited to long-range commitments on projects that don’t obviously serve needs of national defense, international relations, or public well-being. Government investment may be good at funneling money to industry (the golden eggs you refer to), and thereby nurturing the economy, but it hasn’t really been that good at human space exploration. NASA’s ability to be a pioneering organization? For ISS, yes, I suppose. But for human space flight, what else? Shuttle was nice, but as a launch technology is turning out to be a dead-end.

    We did make a long-range commitment once successfully, with Apollo. But that was a form of national defense. Maybe also with ISS, which was a form of international relations.

    I am just not optimistic about our federal government making any kind of major, long-range, and visionary commitment to human space flight. No, a SLV isn’t a visionary commitment. It’s a tool. It’s a tool that Congress wants us to build, without knowing what its for. It’s partly that the return to the taxpayer from human space flight hasn’t been clearly identified, and partly that the yearly funding allocations and two or three year policy statements in Auth don’t have the legs to support such a commitment. It’s a structural problem.

  • DCSCA

    @ Beancounter from Downunder wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 3:14 am
    Per Bogie as ‘Rick Blaine’ in “Casablanca”: “Ask me when you get there.” Tick-tock, tick-tock.

  • DCSCA

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    Again, commercial HSF has not launched, orbited and safely return anybody in fifty years. Get somebody up, around and down safely and earn some credibility.

  • Gregori

    Where did y’all get the idea that its not a jobs program?

    I mean, we might not like that it is. We might be ideologically opposed to that, but it is what it is.

    There will always be an element to the space program that’s job orientated, and anyone saying otherwise are not living in reality. As long as there is government money being spent on these program, the elected representatives are going to want evidence on the Earth that the money is doing regular people some sort of good in their district. Nerdy fantasies about space are going to take a backseat in most people minds to needs like employment and paying their mortgage, putting kids in college etc etc

    The questions now are how NASA can get more value for the money it spends, do more things in space, and if the economy in space based services can be grown so that people who work in the aerospace sector can do something that is more useful to NASA and the nation. If space employs more people than it currently does, that will be GREAT.

  • DCSCA

    @Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 3:27 pm re-
    Marcel F. Williams wrote @ March 13th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
    “But the core point is that government investment in space has turned out to be good for private industry and for the US economy. So you don’t kill the goose that laid the golden eggs by gutting NASA’s ability to continue to be a pioneering organization– just to promote some laissez faire capitalist mythology that has never truly existed in American history.”

    “But the other core point is that our government investment in space has turned out to be extremely bad for moving humans out of LEO, and even doing much new in LEO.”

    Not really. In the grand sweep of time, the movement of humans off the planet to the initial lunar landings of the Apollo program was quite fast. 66 years from Kitty Hawk to the moon. And if you review the history of the ‘space age’ era, at least with respect to the United States. a large percentage of government investment was made into actually creating the infrastructure for space operations to begin with. Confinement to LEO HSF operations was chiefly a political decision coupled with a reduction in funding and shifting priorities for the U.S. on Earth- and at the same time, the caliber of technology has improved. Shuttle may have been confined to LEO by design, but as a reuseable spacecraft, it is/was an incedible step forward for its time over one-use ‘space capsules.’ Yet over this same period, from bare-boned ‘capsules’ through the 30-plus year long shuttle era, commercial HSF has not launched, orbited and safely recovered anybody.

  • DCSCA

    @Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 3:27 pm

    “I am just not optimistic about our federal government making any kind of major, long-range, and visionary commitment to human space flight.”

    A postscript- It never has. Space programs in the West have always been reactive– not proactive. As Tom Wolfe noted (just after Challenger was lost) the only real ‘philosopher’ at NASA with any vision for space was Wernher von Braun.

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    “Again, commercial HSF has not launched, orbited and safely return anybody in fifty years. Get somebody up, around and down safely and earn some credibility.”

    When that happens do you keep singing the song or do you move on to some other objection?

    Robert G. Oler

  • DCSCA

    @Rand Simberg wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 10:23 am

    Commercial HSF advocates squawk and scream; they whine and dream. But orbit nobody. They never launch, orbit and return anyone. Nobody in half a century. And nobody’s stopping them except the very constraints of the free market itself. That’s the bottom line. And the clock is ticking.

    Fly somebody. Orbit them. Get’em up, around and back down, safe and sound. Make the investment- take the risk.

    The day this occurs is the time when capital markets will look closer and government subsidies- from some governments anyway- might just start to flow. Get some skin in the game. Take the risk Alan Shepard did 50 years ago. The ‘free market’ will adapt accordingly through successes– and failures. Until that day, there is zero equivalency between commercial HSF boasting promises about what it will do and what has been done over the half-century history of accomplishments of government funded and managed HSF programs around the world.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Jobs will go where the politicians say, whether it is fair or not.

    Perhaps, but that doesn’t mean we should stop arguing against it or that we should pretend “it’s all pork, so it doesn’t matter who gets the money”. Which is of course a strange argument coming from those who energetically promote the continued flow of money to the Shuttle political industrial complex.

  • Vladislaw

    DCSCA wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    “Again, commercial HSF has not launched, orbited and safely return anybody in fifty years. Get somebody up, around and down safely and earn some credibility.”

    Show me the documents where the FAA had the laws, permits and regulations in place for a private manned launch to orbit 50 years ago? From 40 years ago, from 30 years ago, from 20 years ago, et cetera.

    Show me the documents where the Dept of Transportation had the laws, permits and regulations in place for a private manned launch to orbit 50 years ago? From 40 years ago, from 30 years ago, from 20 years ago, et cetera.

    Show me the documents where the Dept of Defense had given the green light for a private manned launch to orbit 50 years ago? From 40 years ago, from 30 years ago, from 20 years ago, et cetera.

    You singing this same song is beyond silly. When has private enterprise ever been encouraged and NASA not putting up road blocks for this very thing to occur.

    Show us the documents where our Government agencies have paved the way to make this happen 50 years ago. Show me what agency was ready to hand out permits for this to happen 50 years ago.

  • DCSCA

    @Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 5:46 pm
    As Rick Blaine said, “Ask me when you get there.”

  • Bennett

    Vladislaw wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 6:59 pm

    And that’s really the main point, isn’t it? Until COTS, there had never been an opportunity for non-NASA entities to achieve what SpaceX has achieved.

    There have always been roadblocks and a coldly uncooperative NASA, so far from the heritage of NACA (not to mention “…an unknown source of low frequency noise that caused the guidance system to order course corrections when none were needed.” – 1995 launch of Conestoga 1620).

    Until COTS, where was the opportunity? SpaceX was lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time. Personally, I think Elon would have prevailed even without COTS, but who’s to say?

    No matter how much I disliked having the Bush Cabal in charge of our country, I think that in 500 years they will be remembered for only one thing, the COTS program. That this program was started under Bush/Griffin is one of life’s great ironies, but I’m okay with that.

    Ad Astra.

  • E.P. Grondine

    You guys are getting off message here, which is that the Utah delegation has really manged to screw up US human space flight capabilities.

    The lack of “clarification” in the new bill is just another sign of that.

    Their tactic now is delay.

  • Shaggy

    Here’s a thought… What if, just what if, the new space budget outline is a stalling tactic until Obama is out of the presidency. For instance, why would Bolden knowingly go to battle for a repeat of what happened last year? He didn’t get all what he wanted and in actuality, hasn’t gotten anything yet for FT11 as it is not funded.

    Congress could remove the Cx language, but they have chosen not to. And, in a sense, they continue Cx only under a different pretense. I wouldn’t be surprised that they continue the FY10 funding for FY11, NASA will continue to work Cx for this year and possibly, won’t get what he wants for next year either. This is a very complex political game they are playing….

    So, if Bolden and NASA go down this road once again and now under a republican house, do you think that House and Senate will really come to a compromise when the house has ever reason to stop what happened last year? I don’t think so…

  • Doug Lassiter

    DCSCA wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
    ” In the grand sweep of time, the movement of humans off the planet to the initial lunar landings of the Apollo program was quite fast. 66 years from Kitty Hawk to the moon.”

    The arguments that are being made for “human space flight right now” have nothing to do with grand sweeps of time. If that were the case, then just pull the plug on HSF, and do it when we really need it, in some future grand sweep. I don’t believe Wilbur and Orville drew a line in the sand at Kitty Hawk and said “the Moon or bust in 66 years”. That is, the “movement” of which you write was more of a meander.

    You make my point well. “Confinement to LEO HSF operations was chiefly a political decision coupled with a reduction in funding and shifting priorities for the U.S. on Earth”. That’s how we try to have NASA make major advances in human space flight or, more properly, how we don’t quite get it to make them.

    No, I’m not saying that commercial has demonstrated technical and management capability to take us where we want to go. You’re just setting up a straw man. I’m saying that politics is effectively keeping federally funded human space flight from going where space advocates want it to go, and sending it instead to where job advocates want it to go. I’m not confident that will change. Your point about reactivity just drives my argument home. It won’t take a space exploration vision to get the federal government to forge boldly ahead in human space flight, but rather a reaction to some threat. But the lesson from Apollo is that reactivity to a threat wasn’t the way to create a sustainable program.

    I’m just saying that commercial space doesn’t play by these rules that are limiting our progress. When they achieve the capability to move humans around competently and safely in space, perhaps in your grand sweep of time, they will not suffer the same political limitations that NASA suffers from. Yes, they’ll probably suffer from other limitations, but at least not these!

  • DCSCA

    Bennett wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 9:33 pm

    And that’s really the main point, isn’t it? Until COTS, there had never been an opportunity for non-NASA entities to achieve what SpaceX has achieved.

    Nonsense. SpaceX has not flown anybody. And past efforts in the states come to mind…. Conestoga 1.. Robert Truax…. good grief. It’s a big planet and there are lots of countries and places for ‘private enterprised’ space to ‘take off.’ Private enterprise is not the sole province of the US of A… unless you’re trying to sucker U.S. taxpayers into subsidizing it.

    Stop making excuses. Just get on with it. Take the risk Alan Shepard did half a century ago. Fly someone.

  • Dennis Berube

    Coastal Ron, my point in all of this is that there will always be some pork, it cannot be eliminated altogether. Maybe Musk and his crew will becoe the new pork, if NASA gets what it wants. Im for all efforts that get us off planet. I see Russia has raised its prices for taxi service to the ISS once again. Will Musk do the same? I think he already did once!

  • Dennis Berube

    Oh yes, those hot 5 seg. SR boosters may still fly…….. Watch….

  • Manu

    I typically don’t weigh in on budgeting issues due to congress being the only entity to appropriate funds, so they hold the purse strings, and play games with peoples lives. One day the people are going to get tired of playing games with race, and socioeconomic issues and really look at how little this group really cares about America, and how only select govt contracts always seem to go to the same few multinational companies. Wake up!!!! This is by design they played both sides then is going to chop everybody’s heads in the end with only a select few profiting because capitalism is the way of the future. Well this disproves that a single company could manage nasa and all of it’s assets because it is too big to fail. Senators can starve the money from the programs then make a law that says they still have to spend the money as is being done with the Constellation program. The town in Alabama still gets all of the contracts, and people are getting paid to do nothing while the congressmen are telling you we can’t afford to keep a little old lady on life support. Makes a lot of sense doesn’t it? It’s overly obvious who these people are, and either we stand together or lose everything.

  • VirgilSamms

    The 5 segment boosters are a space flight enabler above all others. At 3.6 million pounds of thrust each there is no other pair of boosters in the world that can put out 7.2 million pounds of thrust. With a liquid hydrogen core using just one RS-68 it will put out more thrust than the Saturn V. Or with a human rated RS-25. A flight heritage of 200+ flawless firings. Those are the facts that everyone seems to ignore. The private space advocates would rather guffaw and make up stuff like- oh, they vibrate or oh, the blew up once. Uh huh.

    And we are wasting time and money on a hobby rocket. Pathetic.

  • Vladislaw

    The FIVE stage Conestoga 3632 had the greatest payload at 2141 kg. HARDLY a crew launch vehicle as it was never intended to launch crews.

  • Martijn Meijering

    You guys are getting off message here, which is that the Utah delegation has really manged to screw up US human space flight capabilities.

    Your narrative of blaiming the Utah delegation and exculpating the rest of the Shuttle political industrial complex is inaccurate. Nelson, Shelby, Hutchison, Hall etc (and their staffers) are just as guilty.

  • Martijn Meijering

    And we are wasting time and money on a hobby rocket. Pathetic.

    What’s pathetic is your continuous praise of the weakest link of the SDLV concept as if it were the best thing since sliced bread. NASA didn’t initially want SRBs (and MSFC fought it tooth and nail) because they rightly considered liquid rockets superior for space launch.

  • VirgilSamms

    “NASA didn’t initially want SRBs”

    But they got them and they have been constantly inspected, modified, and improved for 30 years since Challenger. 200+ flawless firings in a row.
    They are superior in every way as a first stage to any other comparable booster.

    They are now the best thing since sliced bread.

  • VirgilSamms

    -” they rightly considered liquid rockets superior for space launch”

    If you think SRB’s are expensive, try getting that much thrust out of liquid boosters. I think the equivalent of F-1 engines would be more expensive than SRB’s nowadays. Safety wise, the quality of the pouring process for solid fuel easily exceeds that available for the manufacture of those thousands of high quality liquid rocket engine parts- that have to be test fired and inspected. Then they turn into junk. SRB’s are reusable which might not even be cheaper than throwing them away but it allows them to be inspected which guarantees an ongoing product improvement program. 200+ firings in a row is the best record on planet earth for that much thrust. Of course, only Saturn V or maybe energia beats twin SRB’s so there is not much competition. Which is the whole point. There is no competition.

  • DCSCA

    Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 14th, 2011 at 11:59 pm

    The arguments that are being made for “human space flight right now” have nothing to do with grand sweeps of time.

    Of course they do. And if you step back from it all, you’ll see it. Kraft’s op-ed some months back layed out the way forward. Whether it is American led or not remains to be seen.

    “I’m not saying that commercial has demonstrated technical and management capability to take us where we want to go.” But that’s really key to their capability to succeed in the eyes of investors and central to convincing government to subsidize them with tax dollars.

    It all comes back to the same thing. Fly somebody.

  • Martijn Meijering

    If you think SRB’s are expensive, try getting that much thrust out of liquid boosters.

    You don’t need that much thrust. It’s quite simply a lie that’s being pushed by SDLV and HLV enthusiasts.

    There is no competition.

    There cannot be ongoing competition between HLVs for the foreseeable future, or maybe ever. Which is why HLVs are an unaffordable dead end.

  • Coastal Ron

    Vladislaw wrote @ March 15th, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    The FIVE stage Conestoga 3632 had the greatest payload at 2141 kg. HARDLY a crew launch vehicle as it was never intended to launch crews.

    Don’t remind him of this – he was an investor, and he is still hurting from it’s failure.

    Once you understand that, then his opinions on “the investment community” and commercial crew in general are understandable. He hopes no one will succeed, because if they do, then his too-early investment looks really ridiculous – and to quote from the Godfather “And a man in my position can’t afford to be made to look ridiculous.”

    He deserves your pity, but not your attention.

  • Coastal Ron

    VirgilSamms wrote @ March 15th, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    If you think SRB’s are expensive, try getting that much thrust out of liquid boosters.

    You only need as much thrust as what’s needed to get the payload into it’s desired orbit. Anything above and beyond that is a waste.

    This always come back to the same question – what is the funded program that demands a launcher with more capability than Delta IV Heavy?

    Until someone can show the need (with money to back it up), then building an HLV is a waste of money. If there is a funded need, then maybe an HLV is needed, but maybe not – a trade-off study would have to be done that looks at the need and total costs.

    But if you don’t have money for a payload, you shouldn’t spend money on a launcher.

  • DCSCA

    @Coastal Ron wrote @ March 15th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
    Nonsense. LOL It’s a pleasure reminding commercial HSF space advocates and shills of the decades of wasted time, false starts, monies lost and the practice they’ve perfected at going no place fast with nobody stoping them but themselves and the limits of the free market they wish to service. And to quote ‘The Godfather’ aptly, “It’s not personal. It’s business.” It always comes back to the same thing, fella. Fly somebody. Take the risk, like Alan Shepard did half a century ago when there were a lot more unknowns. Fly somebody.

  • Frank Glover

    “And BTW, space is important- and strategic- ask the DoD.”

    Of course, their responsibility pretty much ends at LEO, and they have no requirement for anything beyond the capacity of EELVs.

    DoD won’t take you BEO.

    “Pork indeed, and you failed to answer, the question as to whether you would rather see our pork keep American workers employed, or Russians?”

    It’s not just abut that. Nelson, Shelby, etc. are all for that. The question is,*how* is that American talent being used? The idea is not just to hand engineers paychecks. BTW, the commercial providers are American, too.

  • Dennis Berube

    Bennet I totally understand and have contunually. Im with you on commercial andhope they succeed in every way. Im also for NASA going deep space. Whether it be to an asteroid or on a more spectacular note Mars, with a manned spacecraft. If indeed it is a Delta that must be used to launch beyond Earth so be it. Lets just get the damn ball rolling. My point however is that the government will build what they want, and if it supports PORK, that is what will happen. No one here will change that. Orion will fly on whatever our governemt holds to.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Of course, their responsibility pretty much ends at LEO, and they have no requirement for anything beyond the capacity of EELVs.

    It ends in GEO, not LEO. And EELVs are more than good enough for exploration.

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