As soon as later today NASA is expected to announce the winners of the second round of Commercial Crew Development awards (aka CCDev-2). Space News reports that as much as $270 million in funded agreements will be awarded (although final numbers may depend on exactly what the agency’s final FY11 budget is), with four or more companies winning awards.
Those awards, though, will likely only heighten attention to a topic that has already generates a lot of positive and negative reactions, as seen just in the last few days. Earlier this week slides of an Aerospace Corporation study were published by NASA Watch that did not offer that positive an assessment of the program. According to the internal Aerospace study (briefed to NASA administrator Charles Bolden over a month ago, according to the slides), commercial crew transportation would cost NASA $10-20 billion over 10 years at per seat prices potentially in excess of $100 million each, using Aerospace’s cost models. However, those conclusions have been strongly rejected by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF), an industry group that supports the commercial crew initiative. The cSF cites a number of issues with the Aerospace study, including no interviews with industry, questionable assumptions and cost figures, and neglecting additional markets for such vehicles, such as so-called “sovereign clients”, other national space agencies that could purchase seats for their countries’ astronaut corps.
Commercial crew does have an advocate, though, in former NASA Johnson Space Center director Gerry Griffin, who calls commercial crew “an encouraging near-term solution for human spaceflight” in an op-ed in USA Today on Wednesday. Griffin says that the NASA’s support for commercial crew providers “would significantly strengthen the agency’s chances to have humans explore beyond Earth orbit once again.” Griffin calls on Congress to fully fund the $850 million requested for the commercial crew program in the FY12 budget proposal.
hat did not offer that positive an assessment of the program.
A naive euphoria has propelled ‘commercial space’ to this point. You can see on this forum the heights that the hype has reached, even as far as the NASA leadership. The Oz of commercial spaceflight is telling us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Thank goodness someone is looking at the plans more critically. Euphoria could very well turn to disillusionment. This country should be very careful before abandoning the marvelous gains of NASA spaceflight.
Having seen 38 minutes of Elon yesterday I have more faith in commercial delivering HSF (and probably heavy lift) than anything Congress is browbeating Bolden about.
I’d rather see my tax dollars go there now and see NASA leverage commercial prices against ULA’s. Cheaper prices mean more lifts, more “stuff” in orbit this decade and if you believe Elon the moon and Mars not much later!
What marvelous gains? We’ve been flying the same vehicle for the last 30 years, killed off a couple crews needlessly with it, built a massive useless flying space station that has earned us zero major scientific discoveries to date. Lame.
@ amightywind wrote @ April 6th, 2011 at 11:00 am
“Thank goodness someone is looking at the plans more critically.”
Hmm, who’s that mysterious “someone”? Aerospace? What are their role in decision making? Do you know?
http://www.aero.org/corporation/
A very shallow and disappointing opinion from Gerry Griffin, person who should understand the task ahead. The rockets already exist but are not certified to lift people. That will take additional work along with modifications to the pads, etc. The capsule also is a new development – SpaceX has flown once, who wants to use any new vehicle (or version of Windows!) until it is proven? Especially in space – so it has a test period ahead of it. CST-100 has not flown yet and so that is an unknown. Gerry glosses over the challenges and expenses ahead.
Commercial space companies – working with NASA – might quickly bog down in the NASA bureaucracy (which Gerry helped develop). Their proven efficiency will be reduced when they start to fly for NASA, just as payloads got quite a surprise when going from expendable rockets to being flown on the Shuttle. 
Certainly we should spend money to assist in the growth of commercial astronaut transportation but it is not as simple as Gerry seems to say that it is. He helped over sell the Shuttle, let’s take a more critical look and not think that the future path is going to be simple.
The one thing I wish Gerry Griffin had said – we need to have several options. And this road is going to be rough for a few years.
built a massive useless flying space station that has earned us zero major scientific discoveries to date. Lame.
No arguments about the ISS. Selling it as a ‘national laboratory’ is only the latest con. The vehicle may have been misguided, but the technology (propulsion, tanks, SRBs, thermal control, guidance) are undeniably useful. Devolving back to Gemini makes no sense.
I wouldn’t expect “major scientific discoveries” from ISS. Most fundamental science doesn’t have immediate results. It takes decades to produce any significant impact on society.
I wonder what HSF would look like today without ISS. Would Constellation have been created without ISS? COTS and CCDev wouldn’t exist. Russia was planning to replace MIR on their own.
Notice that through all of these budget issues with the SLS, that the commercial industry keeps launching customer payloads and moving towards next-generation systems?
Why would anyone want to depend on a government-run transportation system that relies on the largess of Congress in order to get built and keep running? Oh, and no one else besides the government is going to use it, so Congress is locked into spending money every year for programs & payloads that are needed to justify a launcher that no one yet needs and is far more expensive than commercial alternatives.
“commercial crew transportation would cost NASA $10-20 billion over 10 years at per seat prices potentially in excess of $100 million each”
Why did NASA have to commission a study to get total costs like this? Why didn’t they just ask ULA or SpaceX how much they’d charge per seat? That’s the beauty and simplicity of fixed price contracts in a competitive marketplace.
The internal corporate cost structures should be irrelevant to NASA since they just need to specify a quantity of astronauts to be transported to a particular orbital destination, as long as the commercial crew service adheres to published NASA safety standards.
Then ask the service how much they’d charge, given those requirements. Is getting a price really this complicated?
I don`t think the space station has been a waste at all. It takes time for new discoveries to happen in any laboratory even those on earth. There are many different experiments going on all the time. One discovery using salmonella is already showing promise but that is only one of many experiments. On the next shuttle STS-134 an Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer will be shipped up to space to study antimatter and dark matter this is serious science indeed.
But one of the greatest gains that is often overlooked is the construction of things in space. Something we will need to know how to do if we ever expect to live in space. Learning how recycle and reuse things in space is another thing we have to know. Protecting ourselves from radiation is another.
Many people believe we`ll build massive ships on earth and go to Mars but it is rather impractical to do so. Also you couldn`t build one big enough and still get it off the ground. No, the sooner we try to build something along the lines of ” Nautilus-X ” the sooner we`ll be going to Mars and the Moon. If started now we could gradually learn what needs to be learned to build such a ship.
You all are missing the point of ISS, which isn’t to make any groundbraking discoveries but rather to prove that humans can live in space for extended durations and learn to meet some of the challenges that will entail.
ISS is the prerequisite to longer voyages away from planet Earth. As such it’s proven a success and the deep space vehicles that are to come will be directly evolved from the lesson learned. ISS has been well worth every tax dollar spent on it.
The challenge now is doing all this cheaper, that promise comes from ‘commercial’ not from Congress or naysayers bemoaning the loss of corporate profits and false securities.
This study couldn’t be a more classical case of garbage in, garbage out.
Of course the amusing fact is that even if it was correct, commercial crew would still be significantly cheaper than anything developed by NASA.
So I don’t know, they seem to be making the case for indefinite reliance on Soyuz? Yeah right, that’ll go over really well with the American public. And nevermind that Soyuz will likely be phased out within the decade, to be replaced by a system not unlike Orion+EELV, but without all the silliness*, which will probably carry a price hike for foreign customers.
(* The silliness of designing the spacecraft for BEO first and then having to scale back as you run into a wall of issues.)
Correction:
…significantly cheaper than anything operated by NASA.
probably would have been a better choice of words.
From what I have read, I was under the impression that CCDev-2 would not be awarded until a full-year CR is passed.
Then ask the service how much they’d charge, given those requirements. Is getting a price really this complicated?
You refuse to think, don’t you. NASA, the Air Force, and NRO must fund (invest) in the development of space launch because the public market doesn’t see the rate of return required to justify public funding. The Air Force not only has to worry about squeezing dollars out of their launch suppliers, they also have to worry about running them out of business. It is not in their interest to run Pratt out of business because they really need their RL-10. Like it or not NASA is a branch of the military, a soft branch. It projects the force of international prestige. Hard to do when you are hitching rides on Soyuz, I know. ISS resupply does not represent perfect competition. It is Kubiki Theatre.
SpaceNews now says on their twitter account that the announcement has been delayed to tomorrow afternoon. But they also say not to hold your breath…
Like it or not NASA is a branch of the military, a soft branch.
Another ignorant and false statement from abreakingwind.
How are ISS resupply missions like Kabuki theatre?
“Like it or not NASA is a branch of the military, a soft branch.”
That may be formally false, but it’s an interesting way of looking at it. We have legislators who routinely refer to human space exploration as being in the interest of national security. That’s daft from a “hard” point of view. If human space flight were critical to national security the DOD would be doing it. Also national defense is not explicit in the Space Act or agency authorization. But from a perspective of perceived “soft power”, which has been discussed by policy pundits in the context of NASA, it makes some sense. FWIW, the astronaut corps is firmly grounded in military sensibility.
I guess the question is whether we should take these perceptions seriously. I hope we don’t. I guess another question is whether “power” (whether hard or soft) is something that should be measured militarily.
@ Doug Lassiter wrote @ April 6th, 2011 at 6:18 pm
“FWIW, the astronaut corps is firmly grounded in military sensibility.”
It only is historical. Remember that they needed to find people ready to fly the rockets way back when. Who better than military test pilots? That’s the way it started, simply put. It is a lot more complicated than that and you may read this http://www.amazon.com/Real-Stuff-Joseph-D-Atkinson/dp/0275918084
Then it is a matter of hiring the new classes. Like with any other profession people like to hire people they (think they) know. Little by little though the high ground for military test pilots has eroded. Still there was a need because of Shuttle.
Tomorrow’s spacecraft will be mostly automated and the “right stuff” will take another meaning. If we do ever decide to explore new planets for example then the need for the military test pilots might arise again but even that is unclear.
The point was they needed people with very specific skills when it all started. Note that they eventually sent a geologist to the Moon but it was not a done deal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Schmitt a special one if you ask me, look at his training… And that comment regardless of his current views on NASA.
FWIW…
@ amightywind wrote @ April 6th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
” ISS resupply does not represent perfect competition.”
So we should not do it unless we go from government monopoly to CRS? That the government still is a customer? We will only have “perfect competition” when the government will be out of the business? Can you say airlines? Are they in a perfect competition? Does government play a role in their lives? Are they part of the military?
What do you think?
What about GM? Is it also part of the military?
You would think after his 27th prediction was proven false, Amightwind The Great would have hung up his cape and turned in his crystal ball, but nope! He’s determined to continue his prognostication until at least one of his predictions comes true.
“built a massive useless flying space station that has earned us zero major scientific discoveries to date. Lame.”
Is the problem the lab, or access to the lab?
As Doug Messier notes, there’s “no there, there” on that Aerospace Corp study. windy and Charles – and whomever released that preliminary, notional study – jumped the gun.
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110406-commercial-market-study-firestorm.html
“The results shown to NASA and Congress recently were not intended to represent any specific real world scenario,†the company said in a memo obtained by Space News. “We modeled a scenario utilizing data from as long as 10 months ago in order to demonstrate the tool’s viability, not the viability of any specific commercial crew transportation system.â€
Govt sends the military out to explore the unknown. After getting back govt helps the private individual to set up staging posts along the way following more military explorers. By now private individuals want to explore new territory for themselves, they did and some were killed through faulty transportation and other hazards. Supply posts, manufacturers of transportation, repair posts profited. Eventually new forms of transportation came along… Fiction? No…
This is the story of discovery on our own planet. Think of the early explorers using Soyuz, Atlas, Titan, Saturn, Shuttle as the very early versions of the conestoga wagons… Where do we want to be?
Doug Lassiter wrote:
Also national defense is not explicit in the Space Act or agency authorization.
Actually, the opening paragraphs of the National Aeronautics and Space Act make it clear that all military activities are the purview of the Defense Department.
When NASA was created in 1958, there was a very real concern that using a nominally civilian program for military purposes would give the Soviets an excuse to militarize space. That’s why the line was drawn in the law, and that line remains to this day.
In the early days, of course, civilian capsules were flying atop military rockets that launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and astronauts were military test pilots. But eventually NASA got its own turf (Kennedy Space Center) and its own rocket (Saturn).
The Air Force for several years attempted their own military astronaut program. The first was the X-20 Dyna-Soar, which was cancelled in 1963. That was replaced by the Manned Orbiting Laboratory, but that was cancelled in 1969.
If NASA was truly “military” as the troll claimed, there wouldn’t have been a need for either program.
Of course, the Air Force and other military branches figured out that they really don’t need a human space flight program. It’s costly, it’s risky, and the job can be done much more cheaply with satellites.
“Tomorrow’s spacecraft will be mostly automated and the “right stuff†will take another meaning.”
I agree completely, and endorse the change to new classes. But in the minds of the public, these folks are disciples of the military test pilots of yore. Remember, they’re all “heroes” who fly and wear uniforms. Again, it’s about perception. Have there been any Shuttle pilots with no military aviation creds?
True, Schmitt was never even in the military, but I’ll bet the American public would find that hard to believe.
amightywind wrote @ April 6th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
“ISS resupply does not represent perfect competition.”
Who knows what your definition of “perfect competition” is, but the COTS/CRS program fits the definition of “competition” – 19 groups competed for the two spots. It even happened on your buddy Griffin’s watch, so you know it had to be aboveboard.
Not only that, NASA even showed that they weren’t kidding about kicking off winners that couldn’t meet the milestone tasks, which is why initial winner Rocketplane Kistler was replaced with Orbital Sciences.
And as far as Kubiki Theatre, you’re the one that usually over-dramatizes things (i.e. Falcon 9 spinning out of control)…
“Sam wrote @ April 6th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
What marvelous gains? We’ve been flying the same vehicle for the last 30 years, killed off a couple crews needlessly with it, built a massive useless flying space station that has earned us zero major scientific discoveries to date. Lame.”
Lame alright! Wrt to the ISS, well seriously you need to do some research and discover what science is being conducted on the ISS. Try Wiki and don’t make pointless comments without any basis in fact.
@ Doug Lassiter wrote @ April 6th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
“But in the minds of the public, these folks are disciples of the military test pilots of yore. Remember, they’re all “heroes†who fly and wear uniforms. Again, it’s about perception.”
Of course it is so in the mind of the public and the reason is pretty simple. The only astronauts any one really knows about are those of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programs. These astronauts have been celebrated for ever. There is no Shuttle astronaut whatsoever with the same fame. None. And the reason is simple. Suddenly space was routine so why bother. We were sending shuttles every so often. Note though that even the former astronauts are not that well known by the newer generations. Their preoccupations have nothing to do with Cold War – which supported those early programs. The military hero has lost a lots of its shine for the newer generations.
“Have there been any Shuttle pilots with no military aviation creds?”
I cannot remember that for sure but I don’t think there is any without any military aviation training. But on a crew of 7 only 2 are Commander and Pilot. The others are not. Now a lot of skills required to be an effective astronaut are still intimately related to those who fly, pilots. If nothing else just because they actually move in 3D, use instruments to perform high speed maneuvers. Does that mean that only test pilots can do that? Nope. And if we want to expend the type of astronauts then we will make sure that people do not have to have military test pilot experience. However, even in the space station, some emergency may require people to follow appropriate check lists in a rapidly evolving environment. Pilots in general tend to work like that, or they hmm die. You don’t really have a second chance when you fxxx up when you fly.
“True, Schmitt was never even in the military, but I’ll bet the American public would find that hard to believe.”
And he was trained as one. They wanted to make sure he was able to manage the pressure, etc. I’ll bet the American public, today, does not know Schmitt whatsoever. All the public can “see” are the glorious images of astronauts in suits on the Moon saluting the US flag. It is enough to “think” of the military.
Finally, you addressed the “public” perception not that of our Congress that should know better. And if Congress does not know better then they ought to get out of the way. They are those ruining the whole show right now. Not Musk, not even ATK. Possibly amightywind but that would be lot of power conferred on him
FWIW, guys, NASA Watch is reporting that NASA are pooh-poohing the Aerospace report and saying that it was based on second- and third-hand data, not actual data from the actual commercial space companies. In other words, like a lot of the stuff they did for Augustine, it is a guess. An educated guess, perhaps, but a guess nonetheless. :-p
While I am loath to agree with Windy, his parody has the finger on the pulse of the neo-con mind-set in Congress, i.e., NASA’s main job is HSF and the projection of “soft power.” It doesn’t matter if we know better or not.
The thing is, the Congress-critters are strangling the SLS/MPCV in their respective cribs playing political game-bed bingo. Amusing.
And this Aerospace Commercial Study, that is the real “Kabuki Theater.” LOL
Like I said, the “real” Kabuki Theater;
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/110406-commercial-market-study-firestorm.html
While I am loath to agree with Windy, his parody has the finger on the pulse of the neo-con mind-set in Congress, i.e., NASA’s main job is HSF and the projection of “soft power.†It doesn’t matter if we know better or not.
Enlightened people, like you, cancelled Constellation in mid-execution and created this rather embarrassing malaise. Interesting that you claim no paternity. Like Bill Parcells once said, “You are what you are.” And Obama’s Bolsheviks are responsible. The new blood in congress are Tea Partiers, not neocons, and are ready to rock your world.
American human spaceflight is about exerting political power, with an eye toward controlling, exploiting, and defending space resources. The US conquest of the moon did more to damage the Soviet psyche than an all out nuclear attack.
I thought that was the 1980 “miracle on Ice” US win over USSR
/sarcasm
American human spaceflight is about exerting political power, with an eye toward controlling, exploiting, and defending space resources.
It is not that now, and has never been. To imagine it is is a fantasy.
@ dad2059 wrote @ April 7th, 2011 at 6:05 am
“While I am loath to agree with Windy, his parody has the finger on the pulse of the neo-con mind-set in Congress, i.e., NASA’s main job is HSF and the projection of “soft power.†It doesn’t matter if we know better or not.”
Ah come on dad2059! You cannot just give up like that. If Congress is a bunch of ideological morons then they have to go. And we have to expose them for what they are. Can you imagine amightywind Speaker of the House??? On the other hand it would tell me it is time to finally retire to a nice tropical place.
“The thing is, the Congress-critters are strangling the SLS/MPCV in their respective cribs playing political game-bed bingo. Amusing.”
Yeah but it is an expensive game while others are in needs, real needs.
“And this Aerospace Commercial Study, that is the real “Kabuki Theater.†LOL ”
This study is not that important. They could come out and say it’ll cost $100B it would still be less expensive than Constellation. The only thing that might do some damage is if they had stated it would cost more than Constellation. Now can they do that? Nah. Too late they already gave their opinion on Constellation and it was not sustainable… And it would possibly kill all HSF since nothing would be sustainable.
The new blood in congress are Tea Partiers, not neocons, and are ready to rock your world.
Heh-heh, yeah I’m sure, lol.
Until they prove they can save the taxpayer a real buck by cost-cutting the world expanding Pentagon, not just granny’s social security and medicare, they’re just a garden variety Empire-lovin’ neo-con.
Only more rabid.
“American human spaceflight is about exerting political power”
Unfortunately, from a Congressional perspective, that’s true, whether or not it is supposed to be true or if we want it to be true. To Congress, human spaceflight is not about exploration in the interest of discovery. It’s about exploration in the interest of showing up other nations (perhaps by pretending to do it in the interest of discovery), or at least exercising technological superiority over them. In many respects, that’s a hallmark of DOD enterprises. We don’t build high technology military stuff as much to make war as to scare the $%^&*@ out of people who might want to make war.
“If Congress is a bunch of ideological morons then they have to go.”
LOL. With regard to human spaceflight, I’m waiting …
@ Doug Lassiter wrote @ April 7th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
“In many respects, that’s a hallmark of DOD enterprises. We don’t build high technology military stuff as much to make war as to scare the $%^&*@ out of people who might want to make war.”
I beg to differ. We are in multiple wars at this time and have been for most of the 20th Century on to today.
“LOL. With regard to human spaceflight, I’m waiting …”
With any regard… I know. Just venting.
“I beg to differ. We are in multiple wars at this time and have been for most of the 20th Century on to today.”
Well, you have to use these technologies in nonglobal confrontations to prove to nations that might really threaten our country that these technologies work. I should note that we have a huge investment in ICBMs that have never been used. In the spirit of MAD, those are instruments to scare the $%^&*@ out of people who might want to make war.
I’m not suggesting that this is what human space flight should be about. But the words that emit from many of our ideologically moronic congressional leaders strongly suggest that they believe, in their hearts, that human spaceflight is essential to national defense. They can’t think of any other way to justify it, and use national defense as a taxpayer-digestible excuse for dropping piles of cash in their districts.
In the broadest sense, “inspiration” can be considered a tool for soft power. We want to “inspire” kids so they can grow up to master fancy technologies that are directly needed for national defense. The word “exploration” is a slippery one, but it connotes challenge and conquest.
@ Doug Lassiter wrote @ April 7th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
“Well, you have to use these technologies in nonglobal confrontations to prove to nations that might really threaten our country that these technologies work. ”
Do you? Why? As you pointed out with MAD no one, so far, has tried to challenge us on that regard? Why is that? There are simplistically two kinds of threats as I see it today: 1. The old Cold War type between two or more nations and 2. The guerilla type such as 9/11. In either case there is no confrontation that is going to prove anything to nations that threaten us. Nothing.
“They can’t think of any other way to justify it, and use national defense as a taxpayer-digestible excuse for dropping piles of cash in their districts.”
Well that does not mean they think of NASA as National Security in their hearts. It only means “They can’t think of any other way to justify it”. Remember that fear is the strongest motivator of all to get anything. Congress has relied on fear for anything. Not just Congress mind you but every one in politics, save maybe for President Obama whose message was then of hope, not that we had to fear every one on this planet and elsewhere.
“In the broadest sense, “inspiration†can be considered a tool for soft power. We want to “inspire†kids so they can grow up to master fancy technologies that are directly needed for national defense.”
Boy you’re stretching a bit now… I would say National Security not Defense. Indeed a lot of things can be put under the umbrella of national security that has no military application, e.g. Wall Street well being (and it hurts to say it).
“The word “exploration†is a slippery one, but it connotes challenge and conquest.”
Well exploration has not been well defined because those who speak about it don’t really understand it. For example in its basic form science is exploration. There is a multitude of definition for exploration. But I think that if you tie it with national security it is a big mistake. National security and exploration together? Nah. The very thinly stretched argument is that about He3 on the Moon and China or whoever and it does not hold water if I may.
I think that survival and to a lesser extent expansion of the species is a much better argument to be made and then possibly resources exploitation for a government endeavor. But that’s about it. And without a direct known threat to our species there is little chance that this argument convinces any one, regardless whether it is in the Space Act. Prevention would be a lot less expensive and a lot more effective than HSF. All in all there is no intelligible argument for HSF, none. The little hope is that with ISS and possibly Bigelow we can commence a new era of commercial services delivery to LEO. Then if all works out well maybe we’ll start exploring outside of LEO. But it won’t be tomorrow. Maybe not even the day after tomorrow. We’ll see how CCdev works out first.
dad2059 wrote @ April 7th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Great comment!
“I think that survival and to a lesser extent expansion of the species is a much better argument to be made and then possibly resources exploitation for a government endeavor. But that’s about it.”
We’re in complete agreement here, and on 95% of the rest. I do, however, think that the congressional picture of human space flight involves a large dollop of power projection, which they translate as national security. That’s either in their hearts, or in whatever few brain cells they have that are functional. There are few in Congress who speak of human space flight without referring either directly or indirectly to national security. This is, in many respects, a reflection of the confusion about what “exploration” really means.
That there is no confrontation that is going on to prove anything to nations that threaten us is probably right. But there is a lot going on to nations that would like to see themselves as threatening us. The major threats right now to our nation are economic and not military. In some strange way, military expressions of technological competence can represent economic virility. That is, hey, a nation that can figure out how to operate drones and cruise missles is one that has a lot of technological potential for an advanced economy.
That there is no intelligible argument for HSF is exactly right. It pains me to say that, but I’m afraid it’s true. The best ones (species protection and expansion) are ones that NASA won’t touch with a ten foot pole.That’s a challenge that our nation doesn’t really want to step up to.
@ Doug Lassiter wrote @ April 8th, 2011 at 8:01 am
I think you had it right first when you said they do not know how to sell HSF other than for national security. It’s a total lack of imagination. It’s also that HSF is not that important so you do not get the best and brightest at the helm. Who in his right mind would seek a seat in Congress to discuss the NASA budget and policies? It is not, far from it, where THE power lies in Congress. So we have what we have. A strong disconnect with those who work the jig of whom we ask to have PhDs and the likes and those who control the purse who cannot subtract $61B from $1.4T to see the fraud this really is. Such is life. However, I would argue again that it is our job to try and frame HSF for what it really is. But as mentioned earlier there are so many PhDs and other “rocket scientists” in this field with so many egos to deal with that we are far from unity.
“The major threats right now to our nation are economic and not military. ”
Absolutely right. And today you do not need an army to put a country to their knees. The flip of key on a regular computer can do that for you. And btw we live every day the economic consequences of 9/11, possibly even worse than its military consequences which are only some part of the overall economic fiasco. The people who fomented 9/11 most likely knew that we would stupidly embark in at least one war thereby draining treasure and blood. All of that with box cutters. Not with super stealth fighter aircraft. Smarts will always defeat force. It is sad we have to learn this every so often. And btw all this technology you are talking about is actually spreading to countries that did not have it before rather quickly now. Engineering is not the sole privilege of a few western countries. In times of trouble we, like any one else, will sell technology we would not otherwise for a buck or two. The real military high ground today is probably related to human intelligence and counter intelligence, information and disinformation. For example thanks to our friend the Internet you can quickly spread disinformation that will affect far more people and upset their thinking one way or the other much more efficiently than with a F-22. And by the time people realize it was a military move it’s too late. It’s just the new form of sending propaganda pamphlets over the enemy territory.
“The best ones (species protection and expansion) are ones that NASA won’t touch with a ten foot pole.”
Of course they won’t!!! Have you read the advocates of “species protection” and “expansion” here and elsewhere? There reasoning is quite scary. Now if we had a real grand plan I think it would start with Earth sciences, climatology and others that affect our planet with adapted mitigation plans. In the big picture you’d had impact observation, prevention, protection and mitigation. Finally you’d have species expansion as a last resource if we cannot do anything to protect our environment in which we actually live you know. Making sure that those obtuse enough to politicize the subject don’t forget that without a well balanced environment our species will just go. Period. Earth will for sure stay and reboot but we’ll be a nice case in stupidity for the future archaeologists…
Any way.