Congress, NASA

Coburn’s curious cuts

On Monday Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) released his own deficit reduction plan that he says will cut federal budget deficits by $9 trillion over the next decade. He provides an agency-by-agency breakdown of his proposed cuts, including a section about NASA. And his proposed cuts are, well, interesting.

Coburn’s plan would, according to the document, cut over $51 billion in NASA spending over the next decade, or about $5.1 billion a year. His goal, it appears, it to streamline the agency into one focused on aeronautics and space missions, transferring to other agencies or eliminating outright what he deems to be non-essential programs. “To achieve these goals, nearly all of NASA’s programs and activities not directly related or essential to space and aeronautics should be transferred to the federal agencies already addressing those missions or eliminated altogether,” his plan states.

Much of the document’s rhetoric, though, is spent on relatively small programs. Coburn appears particularly incensed with NASA’s educational programs (which overall account for $145.8 million in 2011, or less than 1 percent of the overall budget). “NASA’s Spaceward Bound program is not actually bound for space,” the document states at one point, referring to NASA’s Spaceward Bound program of allowing teachers to participate in NASA fieldwork projects. “The National Space Club Scholars program, for example, is not a national program at all despite its name,” it also states, perhaps thinking that it a national “Space Club Scholars” program rather than a “National Space Club” scholars program, with stipends provided by the National Space Club.

Dr. Coburn also wields a budget scalpel on some other programs. He seeks to halve NASA’s public relations budget, from $50 million to $25 million, and eliminate the $1.6-million Space Flight Awareness Program. He wants to terminate NASA’s Space Art program, which in recent years commissioned eight works of art for a grand total of $97,000, and fire NASA’s “Hollywood liaison”, who earns an annual salary of over $100,000. Coburn may well be correct that there is waste in some or all of these programs, but it’s awfully hard to get to billions and trillions of savings when you’re making cuts in the millions or even thousands.

There are some bigger cuts in his proposal, but some of these are also a bit unusual. He believes that NASA has too many field centers—a conclusion others have reached in the past—but instead of recommending a BRAC-like method of eliminating centers, he targets one center in particular: Ames. He devotes one whole paragraph (of three) about closing Ames about one very minor part of its work, supporting viticulture research, arguing in effect that is proof that its work is duplicative or “wholly unrelated” to NASA’s mission.

He also takes aim at a NASA program to build a new launch vehicle and spacecraft. SLS and MPCV? Not exactly. “Until NASA can determine more precisely how much it is likely to ultimately cost and whether or not that amount can be financed within the agency’s budget proposed here, the Constellation program should be canceled or delayed and obligated dollars should be re-evaluated and canceled if possible,” the document states. You read that right: Coburn is arguing that Constellation—a program that officially became defunct earlier this year—should be canceled. The document is silent on Constellation’s successors, SLS and MPCV, as well as commercial crew and cargo initiatives.

While there are some other good ideas in the proposal, such as ending award and bonus fees for programs that miss their cost and schedule targets, and a greater attention to identifying cost savings in audits of NASA programs, this curious mix of outdated and minor cuts seems unlikely to gain much support.

58 comments to Coburn’s curious cuts

  • Cut Constellation?! ROTFLMAO!! Thanks Jeff for that one. For an encore, maybe he can end Apollo after 17 flights.

    Amusing he chose to close a NASA center not in his state. Oh wait, there are no NASA centers in his state. Explains a lot.

  • And if Jeff can forgive the topic drift … Two articles of interest to this forum’s readers, in today’s Florida Today:

    “Atlas V May Loft Astronauts Into Orbit” (news story)

    “Major Step Forward” (editorial)

    As Bob Dylan wrote, The Times They Are a-Changin’.

    It’s so exciting to be here in the Space Coast at a pivotal moment in our nation’s space history.

    Yesterday I was lecturing to a group of tourists. I explained SLS without any of the politics, just the proposal and timeline. I said that Congress had directed existing Shuttle technology be used as much as possible.

    One tourist asked, “If they’re going to use existing technology, why not rebuild the Saturn V?”

    What I wanted to say was, “Because those contracts aren’t in their districts.”

    What I did say, biting my tongue, was, “The program didn’t originate with NASA. It originated with the space subcommittee in the Senate.” And I left it at that. The guest looked confused but didn’t ask a follow-up question, so I guess the point was made.

  • amightywind

    Much of the document’s rhetoric, though, is spent on relatively small programs.

    Yes, and the examples you cite are egregious.

    but it’s awfully hard to get to billions and trillions of savings when you’re making cuts in the millions or even thousands.

    It is awfully hard to cut billions when you seem to object to any cuts at all.

    he targets one center in particular: Ames

    I agree. It is a hippy commune by the Bay. Somebody has to go. I’d also list Glenn Research Center is also as expendable.

    Hooray for Tom Coburn for daring to mention the unmentionable.

  • …the document states. You read that right: Coburn is arguing that Constellation—a program that officially became defunct earlier this year—should be canceled.

    This further proves that Congress-critters only consider NASA as a regional jobs program. Coburn ( more likely his aides) didn’t even bother to update his data about NASA’s present status.

    Pathetic.

  • Moose

    So if you just assume that Ames is a “hippy commune by the Bay” because it happens to be in California, I’m going to go ahead and assume that Marshall is probably just an old Southern cotton plantation. Hell, they probably use slaves.

    Your logic sucks.

    On a side note, I had no idea NASA has a Hollywood liaison, am I the only one who thinks that’s brilliant? How many of us got into the space program inspired by everything from “Star Trek” to “2001: A Space Odyssey” to “Apollo 13″ ? I know it sounds goofy, but I would argue that for that small cost, it’s well worth it for a good space flick every few years.

  • amightywind

    On a side note, I had no idea NASA has a Hollywood liaison, am I the only one who thinks that’s brilliant?

    So what would such a person sell today, rotten, abandoned facilities at the Cape?

    …Hell, they probably use slaves.

    A wittier person would have made a crack about German missile scientists. I have first hand experience with the country club that is Ames. It’s only useful resources are the large wind tunnels. Unfortunately, a lot of non-core activities have accreted to that. Astrobiology anyone?

  • Robert G. Oler

    “You read that right: Coburn is arguing that Constellation—a program that officially became defunct earlier this year—should be canceled”

    This in my view is an unfair criticism. The document was prepared by Senate staffers not the White House or Congressional budget staffs, that they did not update it when the program officially went defunct, particularly since the program is being attempted to be continued by “other names” seems trivial. The main sentiment “Until NASA can determine more precisely how much it is likely to ultimately cost and whether or not that amount can be financed within the agency’s budget proposed here” seems valid almost agency wide.

    To a larger point however. Look Senator Coburn is not my philosophical cup of tea, but he is a serious person who recognizes that these are serious times and is trying to advance some serious proposals. I dont agree with all of them but his effort is in my view in the right place and vector, unlike say the House GOP leadership which is simply lost in space.

    Look I think fixing the federal budget issues are going to require more revenue, and the notion that we are still subsidizing Exxon and have the uber rich with tax rates on some income lower then the near poor is well Bush and Republican economics. We need more revenue but we also need a thorough scrub of federal spending in all departments.

    Certainly this includes NASA. And that includes in my view both large and small items. No the paltry sum spent (incorrectly in my view, and I believe, after three terms on a local school board, one of the largest in Texas in the federalization of primary education) concerning education wont balance the budget, but it is poor spending. It could either be saved or redirected to some space effort that would actually do something of value. There are to many astronauts, there are to many “managers” at NASA, there are to many programs (SLS, Orion or whatever it is called, Webb) that are poorly managed and someone should be fired for that.

    What federal spending, particularly deficit spending, which the GOP has been a major part of, has allowed is incompetence to triumph. No one is ever fired. No one got fired for the banking scandals, no one got fired for Columbia…Hanley still has a job with federal benefits…

    What federal spending, particularly deficit spending has allowed is programs which never have to pay for themselves. Bush claimed the war(s) would, that was either naive or a lie. Bush wanted to go back to the Moon, Whittington wants SLS but none of them want to pay for it.

    It has got to end somewhere and along with revenue scrubbing agencies of spending which is out of portfolio just makes sense. There is NO ROLE for NASA in “educating our youth”. I am sorry there isnt.

    Senator Coburn’s effort will not really get a good debate because neither party is acting responsibly right now (although the GOP leadership has just gone insane) …but to be fair, it is at least a solid effort. And it should be in my view talked about as such.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Michael from Iowa

    Sounds like Amighty would rather see NASA shut down entirely than go another year without restarting his precious Constellation program.

  • Teddy Ballgame

    There are to many astronauts, there are to many “managers” at NASA, there are to many programs (SLS, Orion or whatever it is called, Webb) that are poorly managed and someone should be fired for that.

    Dingbat. I would think someone who has served on a school board would know the proper spelling of too. Geesh!

  • amightywind

    Sounds like Amighty would rather see NASA shut down entirely than go another year without restarting his precious Constellation program.

    It is already restarted under another name. I want to see it finished, yes, to the utter exclusion of every other activity at NASA!

  • VirgilSamms

    “I would argue that for that small cost, it’s well worth it for a good space flick every few years.”

    Unfortunately there are no good space flicks every few years. And NASA Public Relations? They definitely need some leadership.

    What needs to be cut is the ISS. It is going nowhere.

  • I want to see it finished, yes, to the utter exclusion of every other activity at NASA!

    In other words, you want to ensure that NASA never sends humans beyond earth orbit.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Teddy Ballgame wrote @ July 19th, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    “. I would think someone who has served on a school board would know the proper spelling of too. Geesh!”

    it is a little trick I learned from one of my professors at the Great University. Toss out to, too, or two and see who bites (there are some others as well).

    He use to do this with Kissinger.

    It is not spelling to, too or two, it is using the correct word in the correct place. Those words have few spelling erroors. grin RGO

  • Robert G. Oler

    Rand Simberg wrote @ July 19th, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    well done RGO

  • amightywind

    In other words, you want to ensure that NASA never sends humans beyond earth orbit.

    A false choice of the kind we get from newspace. Ignoring the fact that it is 2011 and we are $100’s of millions poorer and newspace has accomplished nothing for another year, Constellation would have worked well if it were allowed to continue. Ares I-X proved that. You equate political skullduggery with program failure. They are not the same.

  • @ablastofhotair
    “Constellation would have worked well if it were allowed to continue. Ares I-X proved that.”

    Oh, that’s right. Ares 1-X put a spacecraft into orbit. . . NOT!
    You’re either crazy, stupid, or both.

  • Byeman

    The only thing that Ares I-X proved is NASA can waste money on useless tests. However, Ares I-X provides a litmus test and which exposes the clueless idiots on these forums

  • Robert Horning

    “I would argue that for that small cost, it’s well worth it for a good space flick every few years.”

    I suppose we can all hope for such grounded-in-reality science fiction films like “Independence Day” and “Armageddon”. Perhaps it was the NASA liaison who suggested the information in “The Astronaut Farmer”? And Star Wars was really a historical documentary?

    While it might be useful to have somebody to contact if folks in Hollywood want to get some factual information about spaceflight, I’d argue that it is either not used or somebody isn’t doing there job. Yes, there are impressive films like “Apollo 13″ and “From the Earth to the Moon”, but those are sadly the exception rather than the rule. As bad as the acting can be, Star Trek is sadly the standard which actually gets at least some things right. The Stargate franchise got a number of things right too, but then again they used USAF liaisons instead.

    This is an interesting but odd list of budget cuts, although I do think he is on the right track. NASA should be more streamlined and get back to the basics of what made NACA successful in the first place.

  • Rhyolite

    “Ignoring the fact that it is 2011 and we are $100′s of millions poorer and newspace has accomplished nothing for another year”

    “Nothing” apparently includes orbiting capsules and recovering them.

    “Constellation would have worked well if it were allowed to continue. Ares I-X proved that.”

    A $500M model rocket? Ares 1-X only proves that NASA developed rockets are a waste of money.

    “You equate political skullduggery with program failure. They are not the same.”

    Failure is year for year schedule slides and skyrocketing costs. $40 Billion for a medium lift launch vehicle and a capsule defines waste, fraud and abuse.

  • Byeman

    Let me correct windy’s words, which no sane person could have said with a straight face or with 100% honest.

    “we are $100′s of millions poorer and newspace has accomplished nothing for another year,”:

    Corrected version

    we are $10 billion poorer and Constellation had accomplished nothing for 6 years.

  • Ignoring the fact that it is 2011 and we are $100′s of millions poorer and newspace has accomplished nothing for another year

    We ignore that “fact” because it’s not a fact. If we’re hundreds of millions poorer, it’s because Dick Shelby forced NASA to continue to waste money on Constellation until April. And commercial crew has accomplished a great deal over the last year, for a tiny fraction of the amounts wasted on the Senate Launch System and MPCV. Just because you’re too ignorant to follow the program doesn’t mean they haven’t been accomplishing things.

  • Googaw

    I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with both amightywind and Oler on Senator Coburn’s very good recommendations.

    The criticism of the “Constellation” cut is unfair. Obviously SLS is just Constellation continued under another name, and is the obvious target of the recommended cut. Senate staffers don’t pour over the NASA budget in detail every few months like the contractor shills who comment on this blog do. Please e-mail Coburn and have his staffers correct this error.

    The suggested cuts are very good ideas. Except that Ames does aerospace core work, they should keep that but ditch the rest of Ames. I’d add that Glenn and Marshall should also go, but given the political realities it might be that Goddard goes instead which would be okay.

    The PR efforts definitely need to be shut down. We don’t need our tax money to be paying for pro-NASA propaganda, so that more tax money and money borrowed from the Chinese, can be spent on NASA, etc.
    A big part of that PR recently has been the extravagant speculations about “astrobiology”. Astrobiology is a science without a subject and should not be receiving any federal funding. If some universities want to pay out of their own pockets for their professors to “study” something that has never been discovered, that should be their business not the feds. As for actually existing biological topics, like life that we actually have discovered, those are certainly not an aerospace core topic and don’t belong in NASA.

    Likewise, climate science related stuff belongs at NOAA, not NASA.

    It will be interesting to see what cuts Obama makes to NASA when we have the impromptu balanced budget in two weeks. Has anybody seen the contingency plan for NASA in this case? What NASA workers won’t be furloughed?

  • Martijn Meijering

    I’d add that Glenn and Marshall should also go

    What’s wrong with Glenn?

  • Martijn Meijering

    And how about LC-39 and Michoud?

  • DCSCA

    Except for Tom Stafford, not much has come out of Oklahoma to enhance America’s space program. Add ol’Doc Coburn and his spacial proposals to it. Nice to see he wants to end Constellation… after it has ended. No doubt the telegraph lines were down when it crossed the wires. Always enjoy a conservative Republican reaffirming his party’s reactionary penchant for gazing backwards and why the patch of parched Earth he represents is regarded as ‘fly over country’ – for both aircraft and spacecraft.

  • Obviously SLS is just Constellation continued under another name

    Only in the sense that the jobs program continues. There’s no Ares 1, and there’s nothing planned except the equivalent of Ares V and Orion, with not even planning efforts for anything beyond LEO. Constellation is dead, though five years too late.

  • Michael from Iowa

    I want to see it finished, yes, to the utter exclusion of every other activity at NASA!So… scientific research, technological development, the dozens of unmanned missions we’re running – shut it down, crash it all, so long as baby Mighty gets his Ares I?

    Ignoring the fact that it is 2011 and we are $100′s of millions poorer and newspace has accomplished nothing for another yearYeah… I mean it’s not like there were any important developments in commercial spaceflight in the last several months *cough cough*
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP5gykvTBpM

  • Doug Lassiter

    I think it’s amusing when people suggest that NASA shed activities as a way of saving costs. It really just removes costs to NASA, not for the nation. To the extent that federal funding is going to go to these things, it’ll just go through a different agency. Coburn isn’t trying to cut NASA’s spending. He’s trying to cut the federal deficit. Most of Coburn’s suggestions would do that (to an arguable degree), but not pawning off activities onto different agencies, where these activities will quite likely cost more to do.

    If you don’t like Earth or climate science, then argue against Earth and climate science, not the fact that NASA does it. If you think that NASA could run better by consolidating activities, say that. But if you’re trying to cut federal spending, better rethink.

    BTW, centers aren’t going to be closed. Too much congressional support. Having NASA in your state is a matter of intense pride. Having a fully funded center in your state is not, so much. It’s a lot easier just to squeeze them, perhaps some more than others. Now that it’s easier to RIF, that shouldn’t be too hard.

  • Coastal Ron

    Coburn’s plan has already been discarded by, well, Coburn himself. Now that he has rejoined the “Gang of Six” that has laid out a bipartisan budget solution, he has stated that his plan could not be passed.

    Nothing to see here folks, move along, move along…

  • Googaw

    Doug, some earth and climate science is important, but putting it in NASA presupposes that the best solution to a problem is some gold-plated spacecraft. Let NOAA decide whether a spacecraft or something else is best for satisfying particular weather and climate data needs.

    With a divided Congress you are probably right that NASA bases are more likely to be squeezed than closed down. But a guy can dream can’t he? The spreading of NASA across the various Congressional districts has been a huge source of waste.

    Martijn, my list of NASA bases to close was not exhaustive and I agree with those too.

    So what about it folks, what happens in two weeks when Obama can no longer borrow money? I’m very surprised to see that that story hasn’t been covered here. Too horrible to contemplate? Surely NASA has a contingency plan?

  • ok then

    His plan isn’t going anywhere and he just rejoined the “gang of six” who have their own plan to cut much less.

  • sc220

    A better option than shutting down NASA centers outright is to recast them as FFRDCs. Let the best survive, and no loss if those that fall can’t compete. That is the fairest thing to do, and beats having to coordinate a lengthy BRAC process.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Googaw wrote @ July 19th, 2011 at 4:52 pm >>

    where all the budget cutting is going is that at somepoint the federal government and its various agencies are going to have to get down to some core purpose…and try and sort out how to implement that

    In the case of NASA we are sort of left with the sinking notion that there is no real core purpose right now,,

    Robert G. Oler

  • Laura in CA

    Not sure what Coburn’s motivation is. If he’s trying to fix the US budget problem, why pick on something so small……and why especially pick on such a small part of something so small? Even if you eliminated NASA entirely – yes, the whole flippin’ agency – you’d only save less than 1% of the discretionary budget (and I think that’s only 43% of the overall budget). And extremely conservative estimates indicate that you get $2.00 in economic benefit for every $1.00 spent on NASA (some estimates indicate a return as high as 14:1). I wonder what the ROI is on Congress?

    Of course there’s always room for improvement and efficiency. Maybe Congress should consider how they can save money in their own operations. I’ve often seen them clamp down on federal spending, while justifying “special” rules for themselves (e.g., travel, retirement, EARMARKS). I’ve also seen programs cost a lot more because they weren’t funded properly at the outset. Anyone can tell you that time is money, and if Congress provides a budget that dictates extending the schedule – why are they surprised if it costs more?

    Anyhow, he obviously had a college intern prepare his rationale. Too bad the intern didn’t participate in a NASA education program…..maybe they’d be more literate in areas that pertain to science and technology.

  • Googaw

    The balanced budget starts in two weeks. I hope everybody is ready!

    Oler: “In the case of NASA we are sort of left with the sinking notion that there is no real core purpose right now”

    Too true:
    * If the core purpose is to build a bigger rocket than the other guy, that went out with the Cold War.

    * If the core purpose is national security, that’s the job of the DoD and the spy agencies.

    * If its core purpose is non-applied science, like astronomy, that’s the job of the NSF.

    * If the core purpose is weather or climate, that’s the job of NOAA.

    * If the core purpose is Star Trek (i.e. astronaut extravaganzas), that’s the job of Hollywood.

    etc.

    NASA has only two plausible core functions (1) like the NACA of old, supporting basic research applied to airliners, and (2) a smaller portion of its budget, because a smaller part of our economy, basic research applied to rockets and satellite engineering. The rest is superfluous or the job of other agencies or the private sector.

    The budget crisis means it’s time to focus on actually useful uses of space and leave Star Trek to Hollywood.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Googaw wrote @ July 19th, 2011 at 6:26 pm
    “Doug, some earth and climate science is important, but putting it in NASA presupposes that the best solution to a problem is some gold-plated spacecraft. Let NOAA decide whether a spacecraft or something else is best for satisfying particular weather and climate data needs.”

    Not sure where you’re coming from here, but that’s nonsense. No one is “presupposing” anything. NASA is doing this work with spacecraft because that’s the most economical, accurate, complete, and effective way to get it done. You can talk to any Earth or climate scientist and they’ll agree that the experiments NASA puts in spacecraft are done best in spacecraft. SMD works hard to listen to its independent advisory committees to help it decide what it really is needed to do. If you have any specific examples you’d like to use to justify your assertion, let’s have them, and let’s have them with some evident scientific insight.

    This perspective is an odd one, but is actually somewhat reminiscent of human space flight planning, for which (and I suspect I’ll get some grief here), missions are done, and then the agency works hard to try to figure out why. That’s a simplified picture, but it’s one that just can’t get mapped onto NASA science. NASA science has some problems, but doing things that could be done better in other ways isn’t one of them.

    As an aside, there are many agencies that do science that overlap somewhat, bringing their unique skills to bear. It’s highly artificial to draw a circle around some branch of science and say it “belongs” to one agency if you really want to do that science best.

  • DCSCA

    “[Coburn] wants to terminate NASA’s Space Art program, which in recent years commissioned eight works of art for a grand total of $97,000, and fire NASA’s “Hollywood liaison”, who earns an annual salary of over $100,000.”

    For a doctor, not to mention a United States Senator, Coburn’s a fairly ignorant fella. He really should take a few lunch hours and visit the NASM, (the most highly visited museum in town) down the block on the Mall and take a look at some of the fine pieces of space art on display. By coincidence, there’s a half century retrospective exhibit going on right now. Everything from Rockwells to Rauschenbergs; from Warhols to McCalls; from Bonestells to Beans, both Calles – and much, much, much more. It’s truly stellar stuff. As for Hollywood, NASA’s liason has, in fact, shown itself to be a superb ROI for one of America’s top exports- entertainment. Just one example: ‘Apollo 13′- Worldwide Gross, $334,100,000.

  • Robert G. Oler

    Googaw wrote @ July 19th, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    “So what about it folks, what happens in two weeks when Obama can no longer borrow money?”

    NASA spending won matter. The GOP will have through its insanity screwed the entire country and as a party they will revert to Hoover levels of popularity.

    (not on this blog…but I would reluctantly advise Obama to invoke the 14th article 4 …which was not written for this but could be used) and invite the GOP to do what it wants to do…aS their election chances pluMMEt (sorry LJ iS hELPING tYPE) RGO

  • tps

    Are we sure Windy isn’t actually Mike Griffin? They sure do have the same obsessions.

  • vulture4

    NASA should focus on practical research and development. At present we do not have the money for BEO human spaceflight. http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/383313main_25 – 20090808.3.practical-benefits.pdf

  • Rhyolite

    For each NASA center we should total the cost overruns for all of their programs over the past 20 years and total money spent on programs that were canceled before completion. Close the two centers the highest totals.

  • On this, the 42nd year commemoration day of Apollo 11’s flight, the gloom tomorrow reaches full circle: NO FURTHER AMERICAN-BUILT SPACECRAFTS WILL FLY FOR THE REST OF THE DECADE. I am so upset at Obama & his people for bungling American space policy! This administration turned everything into rhino dung! Even India might launch a manned spacecraft before we ever get back into the game! It’s kinda-sorta like watching a miniature, downsized version of the end of the Apollo 17 stay on the Moon. Sure, even after that, there was still the three Skylab orbital stay missions, plus the one-time Apollo STP; but this time around the lull in American manned space activity sinks to deeper more gloomier lows! After tomorrow, when the last STS mission concludes, we shall have zero zilch nada of any American-built craft, to come after. The Orion could’ve been the American Soyuz, given the chance; but Obama & his people bungled THAT prospect really quick! All because they didn’t want to go to the Moon. Imagine that! A great succesor craft possibility, eliminated just because of a return-to-the-Moon association. [And by the way: What’s wrong with that?! The Moon is a highly important proving ground for future space faring technologies!]

  • Doug Lassiter

    Chris Castro wrote @ July 20th, 2011 at 4:01 am
    “On this, the 42nd year commemoration day of Apollo 11′s flight, the gloom tomorrow reaches full circle: NO FURTHER AMERICAN-BUILT SPACECRAFTS WILL FLY FOR THE REST OF THE DECADE.”

    That’ll come as a surprise to the commercial folks, if not the SLS folks.

    “[And by the way: What’s wrong with that?! The Moon is a highly important proving ground for future space faring technologies!]

    Because the money for it would come at least partly out of technology development, which is also a highly important proving ground for future space faring technologies. The Moon wasn’t just going to be a “proving ground” which is what VSE originally mandated. It was going to be an outpost, with people stuck there twiddling their thumbs.

    There are actually many such proving grounds. The Moon happens to be just one.

  • Nate Downes

    @Chris — Other than the Cygnus, MPCV, Dragon, CST-100, Blue Origin and DreamChaser, right? And you seem to have forgotten your history, before Obama took over, Orion was about to be scrapped, for the 7th time, to make up for performance shortfalls of the Ares I rocket, which had slipped from it’s required 27 metric tons to the ISS down to just under 20 metric tons to the ISS. Instead, rather than flushing it down the toilet, again, he scrapped Ares I, and kept Orion, and as a result we have a fully functional unit now sitting in Colorado being tested, and is penciled in for a test flight in 2013 on an American built Delta IV Rocket. Just the other day NASA began working with ULA to get their Atlas V rocket ready for manned flight, and Atlas offers two versions able to loft the Orion, now classified the MPCV rather than the CEV. Or, Obama could have said to scrap the Orion in order to keep Ares. Which would you rather have him do?

  • Vladislaw

    “The Orion could’ve been the American Soyuz, given the chance”

    Orion is the gold plated version of soyuz, at 250 million a seat it is beyond silly to even begin to compare the two on costs.

  • “India might launch a manned spacecraft before we ever get back into the game! ”

    India’s talking 2017. You think nothing will come from the US sooner? I’ll take that bet.

  • Byeman

    *If its core purpose is non-applied science, like astronomy, that’s the job of the NSF.

    * If the core purpose is weather or climate, that’s the job of NOAA.*

    Wrong, both this tasks are in NASA’s charter and human exploration isn’t exacting spelled out. NSF does not have the know how nor the capability to manage space missions. NOAA tasks NASA and provides the money for weather spacecraft.

  • Byeman

    Another clueless post from Castro. Dragon, Dreamchaser, CST-100, etc are US manned spacecraft.

  • Coastal Ron

    Chris Castro wrote @ July 20th, 2011 at 4:01 am

    NO FURTHER AMERICAN-BUILT SPACECRAFTS WILL FLY FOR THE REST OF THE DECADE.

    What an ignorant statement.

    At the very least, the MPCV, which is the Cadillac Escalade of the capsule world, will be ready for testing in just a few years, and the main thing holding it up from manned testing is Congress, since they want the SLS to be the only crew carrier for it. Go lobby Congress to free up funds to certify Delta IV Heavy as an alternate launch vehicle, which would also keep us from being grounded when/if the SLS becomes grounded.

    Secondly, though Congress is not fully in love with the CCDev program, they have been funding it. And in fact Commercial Crew is the primary designated method for supporting the ISS, and it has been since the Bush/Griffin FY2006 budet. The CCDev program doesn’t need as much as the MPCV program, and they can get two or more American crew systems going by 2016. The SpaceX Dragon capsule is already flying, so outfitting it for crew won’t take the rest of the decade.

    It surprises me why someone who purports to be such an American space supporter would totally ignore and not support the efforts of the American aerospace industry to provide multiple ways to space. And they are not taking 100% of their money from NASA like Lockheed Martin is for the MPCV, these companies are investing their own money, multiplying the investment from the American Taxpayer. What’s wrong with that?

  • Rhyolite

    “The SpaceX Dragon capsule is already flying, so outfitting it for crew won’t take the rest of the decade.”

    With shuttle and Gemini we were willing to launch people into space with only ejection seats as an escape system. If we *really* wanted to we could modify the Dragon hatches, add ejection seats and launch people in a year. Any gap in US manned launch capabilities is purely the choice of congress made to protect its parochial interests. Congress is choosing to have a gap.

  • We could even do it without ejection seats. We flew Shuttle that way for three decades (after the fourth flight).

  • Martijn Meijering

    With shuttle and Gemini we were willing to launch people into space with only ejection seats as an escape system.

    With Gemini part of the reason ejection seats were considered good enough is that a hypergolic booster cannot easily explode; because the propellants ignite on contact they cannot mix very well. Explosive decomposition of the hydrazine (which can be used as a monopropellant after all) was apparently considered unlikely.

  • Googaw

    Alas, the usually very insightful Oler has lapsed into Democrat robot mode on the debt ceiling. First, there’s no apocalypse happening in August if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, unless you’re a federal employee. Second, the Republicans know this, know that federal employees and their friends vote almost entirely Democrat anyway, and aren’t quaking in their boots about Obama’s threats to not pay this or that obligation that he is legally required to pay and will have plenty of money to pay. Third, more Americans than not oppose raising the debt ceiling at all. Fourth, the idea that the 14th Amendment gives Obama anything remotely resembling the power you suggest is a crank idea that has been debunked by those people who know their constitutional law on both the left (e.g. Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe) and the right. You should actually try reading Article 1 Section 8 to see which branch of government has control over federal borrowing.

    It’s so entertaining to see, though, that the particular insular community that constitutes this blog and its comments section is so in denial that NASA stands a good chance of losing most of its funding in two weeks.

    It’s also in denial over the various budget deals to solve this “crisis”, all of which are draconian on discretionary expending, among which NASA is obviously the most optional of all. For example the Gang of Six’s plan will likely cut far _more_from NASA than Coburn’s plan recommended. Keep on having fun daydreaming about your big big rockets and astronaut extravaganzas. I hope you get to see a lot of them in the movies. :-)

  • the usually very insightful Oler

    I’m splitting a gut from laughter.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Googaw wrote @ July 20th, 2011 at 5:57 pm
    “It’s so entertaining to see, though, that the particular insular community that constitutes this blog and its comments section is so in denial that NASA stands a good chance of losing most of its funding in two weeks.”

    So the insular community that constitutes this blog is going to be at fault when NASA loses it’s funding? Who would have thought!

    But the point that NASA could well suffer a lot from draconian spending cuts is quite correct. But cuts to NASA are hardly going to solve this national “crisis”. Yes, Coburn’s proposed cuts look to be far milder than what could actually come to pass. But what we’re all chuckling about is how mild they are, and how fundamentally useless most of them are. Kill off NASA education and public outreach to save money? Geez. Bill Proxmire never had much impact on federal spending with his Golden Fleece awards either, but it made for great press.

  • Rhyolite

    “…unless you’re a federal employee. Second, the Republicans know this, know that federal employees and their friends vote almost entirely Democrat anyway…”

    The Federal government has 4.4 million employees, of which 1.6 million are uniformed service members and 0.6 million are civilian employees of the defense department. There are a couple of hundred thousand employees in other parts of the national security apparatus. Together, they compose more than half of all Federal employees. Do you really think that national security apparatus – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, CIA, NSA and the rest of the alphabet soup – is a bastion of Democratic fervor?

  • Googaw

    “It’s so entertaining to see, though, that the particular insular community that constitutes this blog and its comments section is so in denial that NASA stands a good chance of losing most of its funding in two weeks.”

    So the insular community that constitutes this blog is going to be at fault when NASA loses it’s funding? Who would have thought!

    What a hilarious parsing error. :-) Means “in denial of the probable fact that NASA…” of course.

  • Martijn Meijering

    Martijn, my list of NASA bases to close was not exhaustive and I agree with those too.

    Still curious what you have against Glenn.

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