Newt could have defended the idea of discussing space policy as an adult topic a little better.

So we assume. DCSCA can name drop Atlas 5, too.

Why is it shameful to discuss proposals for using the $18 billion we are already spending?

It’s not, but did it ever occur to you that no one has more than a half-baked idea of how to spend that $18 billion in the first place? That goes for Newt, Mitt, Griffin, Garver, and everyone else here. A government agency with a budget on the order of tens of billions isn’t the equivalent of a company with similar sized revenues. It didn’t organically grow into its mass, building or acquiring operations that add to the total revenue stream. A government agency’s customers are limited to the 535 members of Congress, who at times may find more value in an agency’s ability to run up head count or spend money in certain districts than its ability to provide a product or service.

For someone always talking about facing reality you need a dose.

Says the brown-nosing back-bencher from the hobby leagues.

You are not talking about tweaking a Federal agency’s budget a few %. This is almost 20% of NASA’s budget for a decade.

And? A quarter of NASA’s budget is gets tweaked year after year. All I’m proposing is directing that highly fluctuating slush fund that has dubious political support for a useful end. Of course, you can always return to your oh-so-successful strategy of flipping the bird at Congress.

..that will be useless unless a lot of other stuff gets funded and actually gets built and flies.

You know something, I’m starting to think your side is a bit schizo. First you want to kill SLS so you can do things in parallel. When I find you another $5 billion that’s easier to grab, you whine about how we’re not doing things in stages. If you really feel like down-luna engineering should wait until lifters and spacecraft are available, then stop whining. You’re going to get a a range of options–the first should be available starting this year.

At a time of shrinking budgets and everyone trying to protect their fiefdom.

Some fiefs are weaker than others. Considerably so. Yet for some reason, you think going after the one program with the most political support is a viable strategy.

21 billion seems a little high for down capability.

It may be. All spacecraft in the LUNOX proposal were expendable (Phoenix would be replenished for ascent only). I offered $21 billion as the ceiling, not an average or a floor, for the 1990s studies.

Instead we expect candidates to jut out their jaws, say a few buzz lightyear-esque lines, and then move on without discussing anything too nerdy.

You wrote NASA was going to get 120 billion over 8 years

I wrote “[t]he down-luna component costs for the more expensive option ran $21 billion in present dollars. Last I checked, NASA can expect north of $120 million (sic) through 2020.” And you were generous enough to read “$120 million” as a typo. $120 billion, of course, is NASA’s bottom line through 2020.

…the implication being that was the amount available when the bulk of that is already allocated for other uses.

The implication being that $21 billion < $120 billion, and that NASA's budget is always subject to reprogramming.

“I don’t understand your math. $21 billion over 8 years is $2.6 billion a year. “

You wrote NASA was going to get 120 billion over 8 years, the implication being that was the amount available when the bulk of that is already allocated for other uses.

I do not understand your math. Are you suggesting NASA has more than roughly 5 billion a year for human spaceflight hardware developement?

I don’t understand your math. $21 billion over 8 years is $2.6 billion a year.

There is no way the entire NASA budget could or would be put towards human spaceflight hardware.

Doesn’t need to be.

I’m sorry, what were you saying is just a stupid thing to say?

No, what you were saying is a stupid thing to say.

Oh, but you’re including Pluto in your mass total, aren’t you?

Don’t believe so. Matter of fact, I’m including nothing more outward than Saturn.

I do think that Romney’s plan for human space flight is largely undeveloped.

I’d be more impressed by your observation if Romney hadn’t explicitly said he had no plan and no intentions of devising one during the campaign.

And there’s even more mass and power in neighboring star systems, and in the rest of the galaxy. Indeed, there are many more orders of magnitude more mass in the earth below our feet than what we’ve so far explored much less mined. And all this is relevant to practical business economics how?

Beats me, it’s your non-sequitur.

I would say that is true for pretty much every candidate for the President prior to their first visit to florida, then suddenly they have plans for space in one form or another, after florida you never hear about it again.