Congress, NASA

Posey: direct NASA towards human spaceflight

Yesterday the House Budget Committee took testimony from fellow members of the House on various issues as it prepares work on a budget resolution for fiscal year 2012. That included a statement from Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), who spoke out on the need to fully fund NASA’s human spaceflight programs, cranking up the rhetoric in the process.

Posey’s statement followed familiar themes: NASA’s human spaceflight program was adrift thanks to the Obama Administration’s decision to cancel Constellation, with implications for American leadership and national security, even while the administration sought increase spending on climate change research and commercial spaceflight. And he sought to make those points with blunt language.

“By failing to set priorities within NASA’s budget, the Administration has left NASA with no priorities,” he said. “Should Congress fail to step in where the Administration has left a leadership void we will be making an unacceptable compromise in our national security and lose economic and intangible benefits from our space program.”

Among his other statements, he claimed that China and Russia “have announced plans to colonize the Moon–they are not going there to collect and study rocks like we did.” What they are going to do is left to our imaginations, but it was clear he was playing up the military significance of space: “Human space flight is a matter of national security. Space is the world’s military high ground, our Golan Heights if you will.” Later, he warns of the consequences of “one day without your cell phones, one day without your laptops, one day without a weather report, one day without your GPS, one day not being able to use your credit card or withdraw cash from the bank,” all made possible by satellites (but not related to human spaceflight).

Posey, in his statement, claimed that the administration’s 2012 budget proposal “is a substantial departure from the Authorization Bill that he signed into law in October–cutting $2 billion from the heavy lift program while increasing taxpayer subsidies for the low earth orbit commercial space companies.” While the administration does fund the Space Launch System below authorized levels, the source of the $2 billion figure isn’t clear: in the 2012 proposal SLS would receive $1.8 billion, compared to the 2012 authorized level of $2.65 billion.

There are some real issues worth debating about the agency and its budget proposal, such as what kind of human spaceflight program it should have, including launch vehicles and spacecraft, and how much funding it should receive. However, it’s not clear that statements like Posey’s do much to advance the debate, particularly when the heavy lifting on these issues will be done not by the budget committee but instead by appropriators months (perhaps many months, if FY11 is any guide) from now.

27 comments to Posey: direct NASA towards human spaceflight

  • Living here on the Space Coast, I don’t know who’s daffier, Posey or Adams.

  • amightywind

    “I, for one, don’t want to go the sleep by the light of a Communist moon!”

  • John Malkin

    “is a substantial departure from the Authorization Bill that he signed into law in October–cutting $2 billion from the heavy lift program while increasing taxpayer subsidies for the low earth orbit commercial space companies.”

    What portion of SLS/MPCV money is going to commercial companies (Lockheed, ATK…) vs. NASA employees? How is that different? Oh yea it won’t be a fixed cost contract.

  • it’s not clear that statements like Posey’s do much to advance the debate

    That’s certainly understating it…

  • GWM

    “I, for one, don’t want to go to sleep by the light of a Communist moon”.

    Setting aside the fact the U.S. doesn’t own the Moon, honestly, if the Russian’s could have gone to the Moon, they would have. Now if we offered to carry a cosmonault us back there with us, and they were willing to kick in a few rubles, I’d be in favor of it. But there’s no real way we’ll otherwise see a Russian plant a flag. And as for the Chinese – seriously….

  • amightywind

    Setting aside the fact the U.S. doesn’t own the Moon

    I don’t accept that at all. Not with Russia making extensive territorial claims in the Arctic, and occupying parts of Japan, and Georgia; or with China making claims on international waters in the Yellow Sea.

    Now if we offered to carry a cosmonault us back there with us, and they were willing to kick in a few rubles, I’d be in favor of it.

    What hand the despots in Russia or China a gratuity? Fly a Japanese or even a Euro is someone must go.

  • Ben Russell-Gough

    I do have the strangest feeling that Rep. Posey is in a parallel dimension, vaguely resembling but having several points of difference to ours.

    For example: I would like to see proof of his claim that China and/or Russia are planning to colonise the Moon. An actual public statement, by the way, not innuendo, xenophobic hysteria, unsourced rumour or an attempted historical inferrance based on the countries’ past behaviour in areas the exploitation of which is orders of magnitude lower than they would be on the Moon.

    The cost of sending humans to the Moon is great indeed; The cost of settling there vastly more. I find it difficult to believe either country would be currently willing (or able) to do more than a short-duration ‘footprints and flags’ geological survey or two.

    Ultimately, Mr. Posey’s statement has achieved nothing except demonstrate why he is unsuited to make any decisions regarding public expenditure whatsoever.

  • John Malkin

    Russia making extensive territorial claims in the Arctic

    Well at least they went through the UN. Besides they want the natural resources there which would make sense since we are doing the same for Alaska. I don’t think they have the money to go for natural resources on the Moon.

    Didn’t Russia sell us Alaska? There’s a Duh moment. Shouldn’t the property description be on the deed? just joking.

  • vulture4

    In the last election Posey, who is proud of his AA degree from a local community college, handily defeated Dr. Shannon Roberts, a PhD and former NASA Deputy Associate Administrator.

    Posey had the support of most KSC employees who want the government to stop taking “their” money in the form of taxes and apparently do not realize that those taxes pay their salaries. One factor contributing to his victory was Posey’s effective strategy of blaming President Obama for cancelling the Space Shuttle Program.

  • One factor contributing to his victory was Posey’s effective strategy of blaming President Obama for cancelling the Space Shuttle Program.

    So he won the election by lying? Or is he so ignorant that he really believes that?

  • Robert G. Oler

    Ben Russell-Gough wrote @ March 31st, 2011 at 11:44 am

    “I do have the strangest feeling that Rep. Posey is in a parallel dimension, vaguely resembling but having several points of difference to ours.”

    yes, its called politics and in this case it is called right wing politics.

    Whatever Obama does is bad, even if it is what “you” were proposing when Obama was proposing something else…blame everything on Obama and pander to the people who are simply out of touch with reality.

    These are mostly space shuttle employees. Federal programs are generally “bad” except for the shuttle of course which is the backbone of the nation.

    Robert G. Oler

  • CharlesHouston

    Don’t you wish you had some of that stuff that Posey is taking?? Certainly, ill informed and sensational junk like this will do no one any good. He certainly has no idea what kind of resources would be required to colonize the Moon!

  • Rand Simberg wrote:

    So he won the election by lying? Or is he so ignorant that he really believes that?

    More likely is that some Brevard County GOP strategist did some polling and told Posey he could win by tossing red meat to a certain demographic.

    What’s interesting is that his nonsensical claims about Russia and China and ceding leadership are almost exactly the same as what Rep. Sandy Adams said a few days ago when she appeared before the same committee. Adams has KSC in her district, Posey has CCAFS. Given their insane rhetoric is so similar, it seems likely someone gave them the same script to read.

  • common sense

    Space Nut Bill Posey.

    “Should Congress fail to step in where the Administration has left a leadership void we will be making an unacceptable compromise in our national security and lose economic and intangible benefits from our space program.”

    Yeah you guys come on! Let’s fund “intangible benefits”. What do we get in return? Well ya know, nothing… I mean all those intangible benefits!!! They are benefits!!! You know, intangible ones, benefits nonetheless!!!! Not clear enough?

    “Human space flight is a matter of national security. Space is the world’s military high ground, our Golan Heights if you will.”

    Our Golan Heights??? What a great analogy! Why isn’t this guy associated with foreign policy? Not foreign enough I guess. The Moon really is foreign though, all that far and yet so close. It’d be funny to see AIPAC complains about that remark though.

    Maybe instead of the NYT or any one of those we should have SNL take the lead on reporting about space policy/politics.

    Oh well…

  • Major Tom

    “‘Setting aside the fact the U.S. doesn’t own the Moon’

    I don’t accept that at all. Not with Russia making extensive territorial claims in the Arctic, and occupying parts of Japan, and Georgia; or with China making claims on international waters in the Yellow Sea.”

    Sending handful of astronauts to the Moon is not going to help fight the expansion of undemocratic powers in Asia. If you want to contain Russia or China, there are better ways — trade, aid, propoganda, intel, military — to spend $100-200 billion.

    FWIW…

  • NASA Fan

    Guys like Posey are everywhere in Congress. He is the norm, not the anomaly.

    I can hear the Founding Fathers, brave, courageous, the elite of the country in their day, rolling in their collective graves at those who now occupy the halls of Congress.

    How pathetic.

  • as I pointed out elsewhere; most of Posey’s remarks reveal heavy lift as unnecessary for achieving human space flight. Certainly the DoD has decided it has no need for HSF in achieving it’s missions.

  • Florida Today columnist John Kelly offers this somewhat apologetic rationalization for Rep. Posey’s remarks:

    http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20110403/COLUMNISTS0405/104030317/John-Kelly-Set-budget-before-criticism

    Personally, I don’t see what Kelly sees. He thinks Posey was just expressing frustration with Congress’ inaction. I think it’s rather obvious Posey chose to smear the President for partisan purposes rather than accept any personal responsibility for the situation.

  • @Major Tom;….Sending another hundred astronauts to LEO is NOT going to help anything either! Re-creating the Mercury program via commercial space leads to nothing either! The flight plan of the space taxis mirrors the flight plans of the Mercury, the Gemini, and even the Vostok. What originality do any of these proposed future space flights by commercial space really offer?? I seem to recall a project called Skylab which took place in 1973-74. The Dragon reaching the ISS: SAME BASIC THING! Mr.Obama stood in a NASA arena in Florida about this time last year, and condemned the would’ve-been new Lunar program; saying the tired old words: “We’ve been there already.” Then, what does our mighty leader propose to replace it with: MORE LOW EARTH ORBIT!!!! This is truly the sickening part: We can just keep sending our astronauts on space station sorties endlessly, over & over again; no problem from anybody. Nobody sees the space taxis as “repeating the past”, now do they?! Nobody says,”Been there, done that”, with regard to re-creating the first Mercury full-orbit space flights, via the Dragon, the Dreamchaser, or the Cygnus capsules. Whenever any of those vehicles will fly manned. Talk about repeating the past!!!

  • Coastal Ron

    Chris Castro wrote @ April 4th, 2011 at 1:59 am

    Nobody sees the space taxis as “repeating the past”, now do they?

    You apparently do, and i’m sure others do too. But it’s kind of like accusing current car makers of “just repeating what Henry Ford did in 1908″. Well sure current cars have four tires, a motor and a steering wheel, but progress has been made in features, reliability and capabilities.

    So it is with the upcoming crew capsules like CST-100 and Dragon. Whereas the Mercury and Gemini were designed for test pilots, these new commercial capsules will be a more modern, spacious, and likely fully automated. They are also designed for transporting people to/from LEO destinations, and not for long endurance in free flight.

    Why are you so upset about this? Do you think everyone on Earth should drive the same kind of car? Weird.

  • anonymous

    “So he won the election by lying? Or is he so ignorant that he really believes that?”

    For many politicians today the question of “truth” simply doesn’t arise. All that is important is political advantage. Issues are usually presented to the voters in simplistic terms, and what matters is whether you can be convincing, not whether you can be accurate. It is generally easier to get people to believe that some nefarious conspirator is to blame for their misfortune than that they might be responsible themselves.

    It was obviously advantageous for Posey to blame Obama for the impending job losses at Kennedy Space Center.To some of the local conservatives, the cancellation of Shuttle is not exactly seen as positive but was ignored under the Bush administration. The cancellation of Constellation is seen as the real cause for the job losses although Constellation has neither the funding to actually work nor any practical product even if it does.

    Posey, although uneducated, is by no means stupid. He is an instinctive politician who can work people up. He is an extremely partisan figure who sees politics in pure good-and-evil terms. I think Posey believes what he says, but of course in his world Democrats are evil by definition and anything bad that happens is the fault of Democrats. Therefore, to the extent he thinks about it, he honestly believes what he says that Obama had “cancelled our space program” as part of some nefarious leftist conspiracy, although Obama had actually requested a budget increase for NASA in a year when most programs were facing cuts.

    In contrast Dr. Shannon Roberts is a very nice lady who spent ten years at NASA Headquarters and knows a great deal about the organization. Logically as a Democrat she would be in a much better position to bring NASA activities to her district under a Democratic administration. She is scrupulously honest and always treated Posey with great respect during the campaign. However she was running in a strongly Republican district where gut issues were important and an appeal to reason was not likely to be sufficient.

  • @Coastal Ron;….BINGO!!! Do you really think that just because Constellation had the same manned destination as NASA reached forty years ago, that somehow we were just going to repeat beat-for-beat, pace-by-pace, the exact same Lunar mission?! Heck, each individual Apollo mission did NOT do the same, exact, precise thing during each expedition. Sure, the basic physics of reaching the Moon dictate a very similar mission profile & approach. But believe you me, the Constellation Lunar missions were going to be realms apart from what was done, when Apollo’s brave story ended on the Taurus-Littrow Valley, in December 1972. If sending men Moonward is nothing more than “repeating the past”, then sending men into Low Earth Orbit on board the space taxis IS EVEN MORE SO!!!

  • Major Tom

    “@Major Tom;….Sending another hundred astronauts to LEO is NOT going to help anything either!”

    Of course it’s going to help. Unless you want NASA astronauts flying Soyuzes forever to ISS and then staged BEO missions, we have to develop a domestic LEO crew transport capability.

    “Re-creating the Mercury program via commercial space leads to nothing either!”

    Mercury orbited one astronaut for a maximum of one day and ten hours.

    The commercial crew vehicles are flying seven astronauts to a multi-day rendezvous with a space station.

    They are in no way comparable.

    “But believe you me, the Constellation Lunar missions were going to be realms apart from what was done, when Apollo’s brave story ended on the Taurus-Littrow Valley, in December 1972.”

    What funded Constellation activities “were going to be realms apart” from Apollo? What specifically was Constellation going to do that Apollo did not already do? And how much budget was allocated for that?

    The reality is that Griffin defunded Altair to pay for Ares I/Orion cost growth. No lunar lander, no lunar program.

    FWIW…

  • common sense

    @ Chris Castro wrote @ April 5th, 2011 at 1:46 am

    I’ll try slowly: Without any budget there would be no mission, not on the Moon, not in LEO, not in your backyard. You need money and you don’t have any money.

    Since you are familiar with space trivia: “No bucks, no Buck Rogers”.

    Clear now?

  • Coastal Ron

    Chris Castro wrote @ April 5th, 2011 at 1:46 am

    Do you really think that just because Constellation had the same manned destination as NASA reached forty years ago, that somehow we were just going to repeat beat-for-beat, pace-by-pace, the exact same Lunar mission?

    If you look at what the Constellation was going to do, it was just a scaled up Apollo mission, which is likely why Michael Griffin termed it “Apollo on steroids”. That type of mission is not bad, but the price tag (~$200B) did not merit it. That’s the bottom line – how much it was going to cost to just doing a upgraded repeat of Apollo.

    Some day we will go back to the Moon, and despite rumors to the contrary, the Moon has not be put on any “Do Not Return” list by the President or anyone else that matters.

    Since NASA has limited resources, and large programs tend to take a decade or more to mount, the President expressed his preference to doing something completely new (i.e. visit an NEO) as the next major mission, instead of repeating (even in an expanded way) a Moon mission.

    We know how to go to the Moon, roam around, and return safely, so the challenge now is just expanding on our capabilities. Going to an NEO forces us to create lots of NEW capabilities that will be useful for expanding out into the solar system, which is a stated goal of the VSE.

    We can’t do everything at once, since as Common Sense has pointed out, we lack the money.

    As long as NASA is limited to the budget it currently has, it needs to focus on the best ROI for it’s investments in time and money, so paving the way for others to follow is probably the best thing it can do, which means continuously striving to do things no one else has done. Based on that, I would then think that commercial companies will be the most likely to re-establish our presence on the Moon, and they will do it because of the resources the Moon has to support our expanding activities in space.

    But regardless if it’s NASA or commercial groups, it’s going to be a while before anyone has the money to return to the Moon. That’s why the SpaceX announcement today should be cheered by Moon supporters like you, because that means the Moon just got that much less expensive.

    i.e. no bucks, no Buck Rogers

  • The challenge isn’t in expanding our capabilities, it is in reducing the cost of human spaceflight to a level at which the cost of sending people into space is lower than the practical value of the work they can do there — or the price they are willing to pay for the ride.

  • Luminaux

    All this talk about cost and benefits… how can we put a value on the preservation of humanity’s accrued knowledge? What is the purpose of humanity’s constant “investment” in itself? How much money is “invested” every day on global stock markets with the only goal being to gain more wealth? Beneath all humanity’s greed and deception there is still the same basic premise of all biological life… to survive. The difference is that we are not ONLY individual biological entities, we are also all part of a collective consciousness.

    Without investments and advancements in human space flight beyond Low Earth Orbit humanity will not be able to face the challenge of survival when we finally find ourselves in “need” of the ability to leave or expand beyond this planet. (“Need” is in quotes because we actually don’t NEED to survive… survival is a choice for a conscious being.)

    Humanity is a pattern of nature (or God or the big bang or whatever creation/creator(s) term you prefer), and the knowledge humanity collects is dependent on our perspective being present. Imagine for a moment our pattern as a data set that we have spent thousands of years collecting… is it not prudent to have at least one back-up copy? The Earth holds humanity’s “one copy” in its chaotic embrace. Colonization of space is the only way humanity’s experiences and expressions have a long-term chance for survival.

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