The National Space Society (NSS) declared success in its latest Legislative Blitz it held on Capitol Hill last week with fellow member organizations of the Space Exploration Alliance (SEA). Blitz participants (about two dozen are included in a photo in the release) visited over 100 congressional offices over two days to discuss a range of issues. Their talking points included full funding for commercial crew and cargo transportation as well as restoring NASA’s participation in the 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions. Participants also want NASA’s human space exploration program accelerated, with a crewed mission to an asteroid or Mars within the next ten years and a human landing on Mars “no later than 2030.”
The Blitz materials don’t make any specific statements about NASA funding, but it’s likely that to do all of those things, including an accelerated schedule for human space exploration, would require significant additional funding. One person who has recently been in the media calling for a boosted NASA budget is Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist and author of the new book Space Chronicles. In various media interviews for the book, he’s called for doubling NASA’s budget (although, as I note in the review of the book linked to above, that proposal is not a major theme of the book, which instead is a collection of his essays, speeches, and interviews on the importance of space exploration.) Tyson will get to make that argument to a very different audience on Wednesday: he’ll appear at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing titled “Priorities, Plans, and Progress of the Nation’s Space Program” after NASA administrator Charles Bolden (who is also appearing, sans Tyson, at a House Science Committee hearing Wednesday afternoon). We’ll see how well that argument for doubling NASA’s budget goes over with senators.
The Blitz materials don’t make any specific statements about NASA funding, but it’s likely that to do all of those things, including an accelerated schedule for human space exploration, would require significant additional funding.
Just wondering?’ What is the exact dollar amount of “significant additional funding” Based on a study that uses NASA figures?. On a NASA study which uses a dragged out time period? Or based on an overly regulated process of manned space development?
Perhaps even, commerical space development should not be done on a accelerated schedule because it would require signigicant additional funding.
Haven’t heard of the National Space Society. I suspect it is the Tea Party In Space renamed. ExoMars was cancelled because it is too expensive and disrupts the fantastically successful Mars program currently under way. I repeat, a Mars sample return mission is not a priority. Send more rovers.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is a showman. Double the budget? Next witness please…
@ablastofhotair
“Haven’t heard of the National Space Society. I suspect it is the Tea Party In Space renamed.
You are hilarious! One of the biggest space advocacy groups for decades. It was formed in 1987 from the merger of The National Space Institute (founded by Wernher von Braun in 1975) and the L5 Society (also founded in 1975). And you like to pass yourself off as space savvy? You wonder why most of the readers of this blog think you are a joke?
amightywind wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 8:43 am
Haven’t heard of the National Space Society. I suspect it is the Tea Party In Space renamed>>
do you enjoy being completely wrong? RGO
“Haven’t heard of the National Space Society.”
It’s been around for almost 25 years now. It’s predecessor organizations formed more than a decade before that.
http://www.nss.org/about/
“I suspect it is the Tea Party In Space renamed.”
It’s not.
If you bothered to look things up before writing, your posts could be based on facts, instead of suspicions.
Mr. Tyson should push for doubling of the robotic mission budgets. There are more great space and earth science ideas/missions/questions to answer than you can wave a stick at; all are lagging for lack of funds.
amightywind wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 8:43 am
It was cancelled to pay for JWST. Care to explain how it “disrupts” the current Mars exploration missions?
I repeat that I wonder why you’re against ExoMars then, because it wasn’t going to return any samples, but send a rover.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astronomer. You know, people who use science, reason and logic to find out how the world works, kinda the opposite of what you’re doing.
If you bothered to look things up before writing, your posts could be based on facts, instead of suspicions.
But they’d be nowhere near as stupidly entertaining. He wouldn’t have anything to post.
The SEA is well intentioned, but their talking points sure are lacking. We are told that this is critical, and that is vital, but with little or no explanation why. American exceptionalism seems to be the strong undercurrent, though the value of that space exceptionalism to the taxpayer is hardly argued persuasively.
Their belief that “we should set a goal to send humans to at least one intermediate destination beyond low Earth orbit, such as an asteroid or the Moon, within the next ten years” is amusing. Sure sounds like one of the first uses of an SLS should be to launch a 50mt rock to Earth-Moon L1 or L2, so that we’d have a “destination” to send humans to. I mean, those Lagrange points evidently don’t count as destinations unless there is a rock there to go to. One could engineer a sandy patch on the rock with a “place feet here” sign. Technology developments are endorsed as providing the means to explore and develop space, which is somewhat circular.
They do have one thing right — “Only by reaching consensus on our long-term goals in space, and the short-term steps needed to achieve those goals, can our nation reap the enormous technological and economic benefits of space and maintain our competitive edge among nations.” Trouble is, this isn’t about reaching any kind of useful consensus. I think they assume that fellow membership of organizations in a Space Exploration Alliance constitutes the needed consensus. That’s a laughable assumption. Congress is asked to note that because they have a club, their goals deserve lots of funding.
I was vice president of the Houston L-5 Society for five years back in the late 70’s. The NSS sponsors the annual International Space Development Conference, and is the oldest and most effective public interest group promoting large-scale human expansion into space, which would of course require much lower cost access to space.
And yes, Lori Garver got her start as executive director of the National Space Society.
Doubling the NASA budget to perhaps $34 billion a year (the height of Apollo spending in today’s dollars) will never happen. While that would only represent about 1% of annual Federal spending, it will never happen since most folks think that the space technology that we all use today came from magic.
But if Congress did increase the NASA budget to $34 billion a year then:
1. A permanent Moon base by 2020 could easily be accomplished with full funding of the SLS/MPCV, Extraterrestrial landing vehicle, and lunar base components.
2. A permanent Mars base by 2026 could probably also be accomplished along with the exploitation of the Martian moons for water and fuel.
3. NASA could afford to spend $2 billion a year on Commercial Crew efforts while also providing a $1 billion a year subsidy to a National Space Lotto– guaranteeing at least 5 to 10 manned launches per year aboard private American spacecraft for Average American space tourist to private space stations
4. There would of course be plenty of money to continue the wonderful $3 billion a year ISS program of international diplomacy:-)
5. There would also be plenty of money for NASA to purchase several Olympus space stations from Bigelow Aerospace to be deployed by the SLS
6. There would be plenty of money for NASA to develop and deploy rotating space stations and transhabs that produce artificial gravity for space hotels and interplanetary flight. Space hotels that provide artificial gravity are good thing since they could allow humans to remain in space indefinitely without the expense of returning them to Earth after a few months for health reasons.
7. There would be plenty of money to develop and deploy titanic light sails capable of transporting thousand tonnes of manned and unmanned payloads through interplanetary space per annual mission
8. There would be plenty of money to test and deploy space solar power satellites for providing continuous energy for Lunar bases (at L1) and for Earth (at GEO). Such power plants could develop into a trillion dollar a year clean energy production industry
With vigorous government and private space programs, that $34 billion in spending would probably create trillions of dollars of additional wealth for the general economy as it did during the Apollo era.
But a lot of folks would probably still be complaining that the government and private industry was spending way too much money on space even though many of them will continue to unconsciously use the space technology that NASA helped to create in their daily lives and many will probably have a good paying job because of it.
Marcel F. Williams
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
LOL
none of those things would happen.
here is what would happen.
The number of contractors and NASA civil service personnel would double.
The viewgraphs would get better as the money bought new tools to do things
There would be far more studies..
More buildings would spring up
The number of people on the various programs would explode…
…
are you silly do you really think NASA wants to build anything? RGO
vulture4 wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 1:00 pm
“And yes, Lori Garver got her start as executive director of the National Space Society.”
No, in fact Garver got her ‘start’ as a ‘go-fer’ in Glenn’s office. She has no real interest in space exploration beyond the superficial need for her gigs but a real interest in lobbying and contract allocation. The damage Garver did to the NSS is incalculable and not the vision Von Braun had for it at its inception.
“Their talking points included full funding for commercial crew and cargo transportation …” Which is not their putrpose. A few clicks, a few emails and this silliness is neutralized. This is the core flaw of the NSS and the residue from the Lori Garver days.
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
“3. NASA could afford to spend $2 billion a year on Commercial Crew efforts…”
NASA only needs the $830M it requested – the need for Commercial Crew isn’t until 2016, and NASA has a good plan if properly funded.
“4. There would of course be plenty of money to continue the wonderful $3 billion a year ISS program of international diplomacy:-)”
There already is enough money to keep the ISS going through 2020, and Congress will likely extend it out to 2028 – it’s the only HSF program we have going, and it gives us our best path forward if we want to expand our presence out into space. And no extra money is needed for it either.
“1. A permanent Moon base by 2020 could easily be accomplished with full funding of the SLS/MPCV, Extraterrestrial landing vehicle, and lunar base components.”
Congress spoke – they don’t want to go to the Moon, so let’s cancel the SLS. If Congress wants to keep NASA’s existing budget at the same level, they can move that money over to the Science, Aeronautics, and Space Technology departments.
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
“With vigorous government and private space programs, that $34 billion in spending would probably create trillions of dollars of additional wealth for the general economy as it did during the Apollo era. ”
there is little or no data to support that analysis.
when the economic payback that one can point to as justifying a part of federal spending; is in things that are not dependent alone on the main part of the effort AND the bulk of the “things built” are used outside the US…it is at best a tenuous argument.
So for instance the dollars that went into the “Cougar” urban fighting vehicle have in fact paid off to some extent in more crashworthy cars…but it is hard to argue that 1) the effort returned the same amount of dollars that it took or 2) that the dollars could not have been spent in a more directed effort to do crash improvements. Or put another way we could have spent X amount of dollars to do the crash improvements while it took X**Y to do the Cougar…nd the Cougar itself had no real impact on the economy.
This is the argument that NASA gets down to with “Battery powered tools” came from the moon effort.
There is some space spending that there is a bang for the buck. The Syncom program did return a lot of money; far more then it cost to the economy by literally inventing geo sats…but you cannot find an equivalent in human spaceflight…so you are left making up numbers.
RGO
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
A for imagination– F for reinforcing why nobody takes futurist space chatter like this seriously, particularly in the Age of Austerity, as it’s not grounded in reality. Visit a high school and see in the generation attending same– if they bother to show up– are capable of even understanding and paying for, let alone constructing and operating any of your proposals. It’s not realistic.
1. Easy?? Space travel- manned or unmanned– is not easy. Nonsense. By 2020? No it couldn’t.
2. 2026?? Mars?? Shades of Newt Gingrich- moon president
3. Not a dime on Commercial Crew- the nation is nearly broke and today the government has to borrow 43 cents of every dollar it spends.
4. The ISS, ‘WPA” project for the aerospace industry since its inception in them id-80s, has been operating for a decade and returned nothing; is a waste of dwindling resources and penny-pinching Americans, losing their jobs, homes and eating cat food know it.
5. Bigelow– the character in the film, D.O. A., just like the idea of ‘ buying Olympus space stations-‘
6. Rotating space stations- revisit Von Braun’s concept for same and why it was shelved
7. Light sails? Use the warp drive. =eye roll= Then decide whether you’re going to buy dinner or a few gallons of gas.
8. Space power plants… and all you need is a few trillion pennies for the fuse box.
You should be penning science fiction novels.
amightywind wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 8:43 am
Haven’t heard of the National Space Society.
C’mon, Windy, Originally was te NSI– von Braun’s idea– (was an early member myself, but left whne Garver poisoned its mission) later changed to NSS after his death and Garver wrecked it.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73693.html
Newts time is over…but he keeps at it RGO
Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 5:18 pm
“This is the argument that NASA gets down to with “Battery powered tools†came from the moon effort.”
Look, there have been some legitimate spinoffs beyond the usual suspects- for instance, the small high speed motors for spinning thee videohead drums in VCRs made them affordable– and disposable– were direct descendants of the fan motors for spacesuits… but generally speaking, battety-powered tools as a justification is a real stretch, isn’t it.
Frankly, doubling NASA’s budget and directing them to have an operational GP spacecraft in five years, capable of flying on existing ELVs for LEO and beyond on a later HLV in work seems like a reasdonable proposal– and gamble– and if NASA fails to attain that goal in half a decade– a hard deadline, no fudging it– then kill the program, disband the agency and allocate remaining assets and facilities to existing operations.
C’mon, Windy, Originally was te NSI– von Braun’s idea– (was an early member myself, but left whne Garver poisoned its mission) later changed to NSS after his death and Garver wrecked it.
It became NSS before Garver. More historical ignorance from the idiot troll.
It was cancelled to pay for JWST. Care to explain how it “disrupts†the current Mars exploration missions?
US orbiter, lander, and rover vehicles are well advanced. What good would be an expensive, risky international tie up?
I repeat that I wonder why you’re against ExoMars then, because it wasn’t going to return any samples, but send a rover.
The ExoMars rover is a huge technological step backward from the MSL in transit to Mars. It would serve the US interest far more to send improved rovers every 2 years for the next decade. The trace gas orbiter is of minimal interest. The EDM is a waste of time. We already put landers on the surface routinely. Indeed the proposed 2016 lander is likely to focus on heat flow and seismology.
Btwn windy’s abysmal ignorance and the idiotic notion that after 40 years of evidence proving the contrary, NASA could either get or usefully employ a major budget increase, this list of comments has some of the funniest stuff i’ve seen in a long time.
Thanks for the belly laughs!
DCSCA wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 6:42 pm
for instance, the small high speed motors for spinning thee videohead drums in VCRs made them affordable– and disposable– were direct descendants of the fan motors for spacesuits…>>
I am not sure that is correct but even if it is the point is that the motors would have come along anyway. The media drive both commercial and home is an established market that drives its own technology. Sometimes I look at my BVU 800 umatic which was at one time state of the art…and marvel at what you can just buy on the open market for the home use.
Shortly of course “tape” will be gone RGO
Robert G. Oler
“none of those things would happen.”
Well, the last time we did it we got the Gemini test program, the Apollo Moon program and a Skylab space station. So, I guess, according to you, none of that really happened:-)
Marcel F. Williams
Rand Simberg wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Does it matter? no. Is she useless, yes.
DCSCA: “A for imagination– F for reinforcing why nobody takes futurist space chatter like this seriously, particularly in the Age of Austerity, as it’s not grounded in reality. Visit a high school and see in the generation attending same– if they bother to show up– are capable of even understanding and paying for, let alone constructing and operating any of your proposals. It’s not realistic.”
I believe that I said that NASA would never get a $34 billion a year budget. So I’m not sure why you got so excited:-)
But if they did get a $34 billion a year budget, all of those things that I listed would easily be possible. And, of course, we already proved that we could get to the Moon in 8 years back in the 1960s.
Marcel F. Williams
DCSCA wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 6:42 pm
“Look, there have been some legitimate spinoffs beyond the usual suspects”
NASA hasn’t provided much in the technology spinoff arena in decades, and likely never will again. Even your “small high speed motors for spinning thee videohead drums in VCRs” example is not convincing, since NASA would have been a special order customer, not a high-volume customer requiring new factories and driving down costs.
Using “technology spinoffs” as a justification for funding any NASA program is plain nutty. Heck the SLS is just a scaled up Delta IV Medium+ (4,2), and the MPCV is just an updated Apollo capsule – where is the innovation?
Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 8:53 pm
Actually, it is,– at least the engineers at Matshshita kept telling uas this as a selling pitch in my dealings w/them back in the early 80s. But these small things hardly help in justifying budgets. So, unlike Comrade Simberg, we’re essentially in agreement.
Rand Simberg wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 7:52 pm
An error in memory- acknowlwdged and corrected as follows… but does it matter, no. Was she useless, yes. Did she drive out members, yes. Is she a lobbyist and advocate for commercial space? Yes. Was she a champion fo the ISS? Yes. For the record- Von Braun passed in 1977 when NSS was still the NSI. The NSS was established in the United States in 1987, as a result of a merger between two space advocacy organizations: the NSI founded by Dr. Wernher von Braun; and the L5 Society, based on the concepts of Dr. Gerard K. O’Neill. Garver served as the second Executive Director of the NSS, for nine years, leaving the organization in 1998—- the damage done.
unlike Comrade Simberg, we’re essentially in agreement.
So, the pseudonymous Marxist troll is going to continue to pseudonymously slander me, someone who stands up for free enterprise in space, as in all other spheres, as a Marxist.
Par for the course, I guess.
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 9:52 pm
Because it borders on the grandiose and is vastly unrealistic for the austere times we’re in– and there’s been so many of these dreamy lists of sci-fi sounding projects that nobody- particularly a society clinging to their jobs, desperately trying to buy food and fuel and keep shelter- is going to take it seriously. It’s in Newt Gingrich -Moon President territory. you might get support for a nose-to-the-grindstone five year program to get a GP spacecraft adaptable for NEO and beyond use, capable of riding a top ELVs in inventory and adaptable for a HLV bird in out years. Solar sails and moon bases and Mars outposts are just not in the cards for a good half century or so.
Rand Simberg wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 10:13 pm
I think you’ve just insulted Marxists everywhere
—
Also, have a video* (via Bad Astrononomy) that shows nicely why Neil DeGrasse Tyson is an internationally acclaimed scientist, educator and space advocate who appears on television and is invited to congressional hearings, while people like amightywind have to settle with being a minor nuisance on an internet forum.
Marcel F. Williams wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Well, the last time we did it we got the Gemini test program, the Apollo Moon program and a Skylab space station. So, I guess, according to you, none of that really happened:-)”
childish. It happened, but you apparently dont understand the difference between today and that era as far as NASA goes…in that era the Gemini program spent 5 billion (in today’s dollars) and flew an entire program..in our time Cx spent 15 billion and has nothing to show for it.
When you learn why…you will learn something RGO
DCSCA wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Actually, it is,– at least the engineers at Matshshita kept telling uas this as a selling pitch in my dealings w/them back in the early 80s. But these small things hardly help in justifying budgets. So, unlike Comrade Simberg, we’re essentially in agreement.>>
technology is as the series “Connections” use to try and explain a continual line of interacting developments all of which seem to play a hand…the two questions one always has to ask is 1) would the product have been developed another way and 2) if it was an outcome of “a” was it worth doing a in the first place.
The issue with human spaceflight is the government program you so embrace has failed to have a reason for being after the era of superpower confrontation…and has for almost a half century (or at least four decades) been running on the inertia of that confrontation…there is no reason now to send people to do the job that robots can do even if robots are 1/10 as efficient or effective because there is nothing that justifies the several orders of magnitude more in cost.
As for Rand. Look I do a fair amount of name calling here and most of the time I regret it…but oddly enough I find for the most part both you and he have an entertaining view that is at least worth reading. Rand is many things…”comrade” is to harsh.
RGO
Just want to point out that the Budget Control Act of 2011 is the law of the land. Unless amended, it will automatically cut NASA’s budget by 9% later this year. So far, it is the elephant in the room – no one mentions it. However, when it kicks in, NASA’s budget will be reduced to $16 Billion, where it will remain for the foreseeable future. Everything will be hit hard – Planetary, Orion, SLS. The odds for this gloomy scenario are high since we have a Congress than can barely function. They will probably let the automatic cuts take effect.
This truly made me smile.
Thanks Windy.
Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 7th, 2012 at 12:21 am
Yes, Burke’s old series- he was the BBC anchor for the Apollo flight during my years in Britain. The ‘series’ 1 & 2- are his personal take on the path of technological development. Some of them a stretch- some plausable. But his timing was pretty good- one take at the Voyager launch and he had to get it right.
As to government funded/managed HSF, it has been a success because it had to be. Private enterprise failed to step up to the plate to do it and cannot absorb the largess of the costs. Space exploitation is not space exploration. It has been governments in various guises and for military and geo-political motives which have propelled the technology forward, not private industry. Every time private enterprise has had the opportunity to take the lead in this field over the 80-plus years of modern rocketry- it has balked and socialized the risk on the many taxpayers. Red faced comrades like Simberg know it. Free market, ‘Reaganomics’ styled economics is never going to fuel human expansion out into the cosmos beyond LRO, which is a tickwt to no place– unless asteroids are made of diamonds or there’s oil on the moon (or uranium- as in Destination Moon, which for capitalists is still a good business plan.) Even Armstrong reitereates the necessity for government involvement in space projects of scale. There’s just no ROI for the largess of the investments in this era. That’s why government do it– and since 10/4/57, done it pretty well. Commercial HSF, not so much.
@Rand Simberg wrote @ March 6th, 2012 at 10:13 pm
“….someone who stands up for free enterprise in space….”
Hmmmmm. Let’s review: Comrade Simberg advocates government funding of ‘private enterprised’ HSF firms, there by socializing the risk on the many to benefit a select few. That’s socialism, Comrade. And you’ve stated on this forum that hardware is more valuable than the safety of the crews that fly in it. Little wonder you’re red faced, having been denied by skeptical private capital markets and frustrated by government obfuscation A government protecting the public Treasury which has dwindling resources to finance existing civil, military and covert space operations from shills and raiders who cannot sell their proposal w/a limited market and little to no ROI in the private sector.