Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL), a member of the House Science Committee whose district includes NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, easily won his primary election Tuesday night. Brooks defeated former Congressman Parker Griffith by over 40 percentage points, 71 to 29 percent, according to nearly-complete returns. The primary was a rematch of the 2010 Republican primary, when Brooks defeated Griffith, who won the seat in 2008 as a Democrat but switched parties in late 2009. The two candidates discussed space during a televised debate earlier this month, with both expressing doubts about NASA’s commercial space initiatives. “I am very much concerned about the privatization of the NASA space program,” Brooks said in the debate.
““I am very much concerned about the privatization of the NASA space program,†Brooks said in the debate.”
Translation: ” I am very much concerned with NASA funds being transferred to other areas that were not previously extensively associated with the space program the way my district is. Oink! Oink!”
As happened in Florida, Gingrich’s speeches in support of space initiatives did not help him in Alabama. Even in counties with a high percentage of Marshall Space Flight Center workers, like Limestone and Madison, Gingrich did slightly worse, 28% and 27%, respectively, than he did in the state overall (29%).
Absent some exogenous event, it’s hard to see how there will be another major civil human space flight initiative when the issue doesn’t even register in the counties (nevertheless states) where NASA’s human space flight centers reside.
The public is just not in to space. It has become – horror of horrors – yet another place that people know we have conquered, and now we travel there to go to work.
The Moon? We’ve been there, and the public doesn’t really see a reason to go back. Going beyond the Moon is too far in the future for people to get excited.
About the only ones getting excited about “space” are the politicians trying to bring money to their district – for any reason (i.e. SLS).
Dark Blue Nine’s analysis seems spot on, and I wonder if Gingrich’s slightly worse performance in space employment areas speaks to the insettling effect of visionary (or kooky, depending on your view of Newt) space statements on workers who want civil space money to just keep flowing.
Could it be that COTS and CCDev were intended to be quiet little programs that are performing dramatically beyond the establishment’s expectations?
Gingrich’s prize notions may be ahead of their time. Once sub-orbital goes truly commercial and makes an impression, the originating prize will make a lot of sense to voters who do care about spaceflight.
Coastal Ron points out that the public is pretty much in dormancy on space issues. Perhaps that will change as well, when Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, et al begin really happening in public and media view. A new reality, with new possibilities.
Rick Boozer raises the pork issue, which stings both ways – big funding for someday, maybe programs drain dollars from incremental, shorter term, less expensive and more productive approaches. Removing that big funding however, does rip the rug out from under a talented, capable work force who will probably tell you in private how hapless the decision makers on top are.
What happened to “gap” fever? They’d rather rely on Russia than trust US Industry. Are they representing Alabama USA or another Alabama?
Ben Joshua wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
“Perhaps that will change as well, when Virgin Galactic, SpaceX, et al begin really happening in public and media view. A new reality, with new possibilities.”
I don’t know. For instance, when does “exploration” become normal every day work? When the next visitors to the Moon have been picking up rocks for 20 days, that is not riveting daily news.
I have a friend that does underwater “exploration” for a biotech company, and because he uses a closed circuit rebreather he is exploring areas of the ocean never before seen by humans (100m region). With new equipment they’re getting, he’ll go even deeper into unexplored areas. It’s work for him, and we would all be bored watching him.
For some period of time Virgin Galactic will get the public buzz that comes with something new, and their buzz may last longer than normal since the are essentially an entertainment company first, and they’ll have a marketing campaign to keep them in the news (excited commenting on each “first” that happens on their ride).
SpaceX falls under the industrial-type of excitement, like when you go to an industry trade-show and you’re excited about a new CNC machine, an upcoming ERP software release, or the latest fly-by-wire helicopter from Bell that promises better reliability and range. Until Space Adventures starts contracting for empty seats on Commercial Crew providers, this will be pretty invisible to the public.
We should explore space. But the reason for exploration shouldn’t be because of “excitement”, it should be because we want to push the boundaries of knowledge and move us further along to expanding off of Earth. Some segment of the population will never want us to spend money on space, but some do, and I think they are fine with viewing it as an investment, not as a source of entertainment.
My $0.02
Coastal Ron wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 4:39 pm
“But the reason for exploration shouldn’t be because of “excitementâ€, it should be because we want to push the boundaries of knowledge and move us further along to expanding off of Earth. Some segment of the population will never want us to spend money on space, but some do, and I think they are fine with viewing it as an investment, not as a source of entertainment.”
“To push the boundaries of knowlege” should be a prime activity, a prime directive, if you will, of humanity. You state it so well, and I dare say, Congressman Brooks “concern” about NASA funds being “privatized” is not a concern for the purity of exploration and the quest for knowlege.
While there are instances of explorations that are primarily quests for knowlege (the robotic explorarion of the Sol’s neighborhood may be one remarkable example), most explorations in history are amalgam efforts, combining a quest for knowlege with a search for trade routes, strategic power, personal gain, even escape from , say, the inquisition, and yes, vacations for the wealthy and entertainment.
I wish our body politic embraced the notion of “investment,” but that word has been dragged through the mud in recent election cycles by rabid anti government types, and I fear publicly funded exploration, in space, health sciences, physics and oceanography, to name a few, are becoming collateral damage.
Yes. Expecting a motivational excitement to drive space exploration is a futile hope.
An example. There are some folk who get their kicks out of following the aircraft industry. They can tell you all about every aircraft, it’s handling, how many are in service and all that stuff. But they’re a minority. Most people don’t care.
Why should they?
The average person’s only interest in aircraft is when they get to the airport for their flight to Paris. Is their flight on time? Most couldn’t tell you if it was a Boeing or an Airbus, and you know something?
It doesn’t matter. It’s the service that matters, not the hardware.
The sooner space gets to that point the better.
My favorite part is that in the aforementioned debate Brooks tried to draw a connection between NASA and space-related national security. Obviously he is either a pork-hungry crony or he is unaware that current defense launches are carried out mainly on EELV’s by ULA (read: corporation)–as a direct result of military dissatisfaction with NASA launches.
Of course, I could be completely wrong. Perhaps there is a magic secret stash of military payloads all ready to fly on SLS.
The reasoning (or lack thereof) is just so infuriatingly illogical. Imagine if we applied his argument to the rest of the aerospace industry: “I am very much concerned about the privatization of aircraft design and operation in this country. Letting private entities operate aircraft commercially would compromise national security.”
Oh yuck.
It seems fair to be concerned about the privatization of our space efforts, except to the extent that it’s about space efforts that shouldn’t be part of a “NASA space program”. That is, there are many things that only a federal agency can probably be entrusted to do. Routine access to LEO by humans, and certainly suborbital efforts are likely no longer those things. So Brooks is here confusing space efforts in general with NASA, and that confusion is muddying the waters unnecessarily.
Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
“That is, there are many things that only a federal agency can probably be entrusted to do.”
Trust
Speaking only about space-related issues, one of the advantages of the federal government is that it can’t go bankrupt. Whereas a corporation has to somehow pay it’s bills when it’s pouring lots of money into a new product or service, over-budget programs only need to convince Congress to keep writing checks. The JWST program is the latest example – the U.S. Government is making sure that the program gets completed.
In the commercial world we entrust corporations to do resource extraction , and aerospace companies to develop new transportation products, all without much government intervention. So by default we are entrusting our economy to a large collection of corporations, with the government just providing some oversight.
When compared to terrestrial analogies, our Congress is currently voicing concerns on space issues that would seem ridiculous otherwise. Can companies be trusted with transportation? Really?
Of course no one in Congress talks about the $Billions wasted on programs that the U.S. Government didn’t finish. Is the U.S. Government all that much more trustworthy on space-related stuff?
No doubt if you want something to be funded and finished, no matter if it goes over budget, then the U.S. Government is the right entity. But I’m not sure it’s the only trusted entity for space-related tasks, just that so far they’ve been too expensive for commercial companies to attempt them. But slowly that’s been changing, so hopefully Congress wakes up to that reality. And soon.
It really never fails to amaze me how much most of the “space exploration” group is really in the “fan boy” (or fan person) category.
Americans got tired of the lunar missions quickly. the networks stayed “live” on the effort the entire time Apollo 11 was on the Moon…but by 17 little or nothing was shown live and I bet you that barely 2 minutes of the Moonwalks made it on the three national newscast…
I never quite understand why they think that going back to the Moon, Mars, or any chunk of rock would be different…a few minutes/hours of live air and then …………………..
If we glued together the hundreds of billions it would take NASA to go back to the Moon or the half a trillion to go to Mars…people would watch and tire quickly of the video…unless something “cool” happened (monolith on Moon, pyramid on Mars) and then well they would tune back in until it got boring or some political group moved the discussion their direction (“No it cannot be a million year old monlith the Earth is only 6000 years old, creative design forever”)
There is no enthusiasim for the “next logical step” because 1) none of NASA’s “steps” has proven to be worth a darn and 2) the “next” one always cost some insane amount of money…
and almost noone believes that the chinese are going to take over the Moon except the nuts on the right…
So we are stuck…good news is that if the Texas primary means something (adn it might) and Willards candidacy continues its slow march into oblivion…he might try and have a space policy to pander to the JSC voting blocks…Pete Olson is clearly working on one for him.
RGO
“So Brooks is here confusing space efforts in general with NASA…”
Brooks is confused about more than that:
“‘I am very much concerned about the privatization of…'”
Those words should not exit the mouth of any thinking Republican, conservative, or libertarian.
Coastal Ron wrote:
“The Moon? We’ve been there, and the public doesn’t really see a reason to go back.”
I have a slightly different take on it, the public doesn’t really see a reason to send a couple government employees there.
I believe people see the moon as someplace they should already be going to for work. It would be like having a lewis and clark expedition every year for decades. They went once and when they returned we found out what was there and moved in.
It was the same for the moon, we went there found out what was there and the public fully expected to be going there. I do not think any American in belived in the 60’s after landing on the moon, NASA would be a stalinist dictator and defend a government monopoly on space flight for decade after decade. They were sold on the ideas of Pan Am, Hilton, Disney etc and thought America would be going to the moon as a place for both work and play.
The idea that NASA and a few in congress would be so dead set against commercial enterprises never really was given a thought it was so totally unAmerican and more typical of the government controling everything soviet union than America.
I believe the public could be sold on Luna, but only if EVERYONE goes and not a NASA monopoly.
“I don’t know. For instance, when does “exploration†become normal every day work? When the next visitors to the Moon have been picking up rocks for 20 days, that is not riveting daily news.”
Indeed. That’s exactly why one should never make ‘inspiration’ more than a secondary or tertiary justification for a space project. The public gets jaded quickly (without ‘the problem,’ even Apollo 13 would’ve been just a footnote) But as long as the prospect of personal involvement are there, then like your professional diving friend, or the commercial pilot who flies non-stop to Paris without fanfare, the better part of a century after Lindbergh, there will always be a seriously interested subset of people who will take up the profession, even when it fades into the background of everyday life.
And isn’t the goal to make human spaceflight (of which ‘exploration’ will be but a subset, even though the public sees them as one and the same today) a self-supporting activity that *is* common, and like aviation in general, can’t end with serious changes in the policy of one government or another?
It’s what I look for.
Coastal Ron wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 8:08 pm
“Is the U.S. Government all that much more trustworthy on space-related stuff?”
When it comes to things outside of Earth orbit, which private industry has virtually no experience in managing, deep space communications, navigation, and long duration habitation, I actually trust NASA to have a clue about how to do it properly. Whether I can trust them to do it economically is another thing. But if you can’t do it properly, you won’t get it done economically, that’s for sure.
Now, I think that will certainly change, and I very much look forward to it happening, but we’ll take it one step at a time.
Brooks isn’t thinking about trust, capability, or economy. He’s not thinking about getting it done, but rather where the money goes to get it done. In fact, to primarily legislator motivated by jobs, and dollars sent to his district, he actually has little incentive to do stuff economically. The more dollars that have to be spent to do it, the better.
Vladislaw wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 8:29 pm
“I believe people see the moon as someplace they should already be going to for work. It would be like having a lewis and clark expedition every year for decades. They went once and when they returned we found out what was there and moved in.”
That’s precisely right. It’s why “we’ve been there” is a valid reason for not making it a priority to go if the goal is just to “be there” again. If we had some actual reason for being there, such that the purpose wasn’t just to “be there”, the priority would likely be higher.
Frank Glover wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
“That’s exactly why one should never make ‘inspiration’ more than a secondary or tertiary justification for a space project. ”
Also precisely right. Because we don’t really know what this “inspiration” thing is anyway, we can’t measure our success in achieving it. So we’re going to send people back to the Moon, and point to that when our kids improve their STEM education? Fat chance. Inspiration, like exploration, is a word you use to justify something when you can’t think of anything sensible.
Vladislaw wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 8:29 pm
I believe the public could be sold on Luna, but only if EVERYONE goes and not a NASA monopoly.>>
it will only work if there is some monetary reason to do whatever we are doing RGO
Frank Glover wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 8:54 pm
“And isn’t the goal to make human spaceflight … a self-supporting activity that *is* common, and like aviation in general, can’t end with serious changes in the policy of one government or another?”
Yep, that’s what I’m hoping for. You’d think Congress would want that too, since it would employ more people, cut down on our trade deficit, and broaden the tax base.
RGO: “There is no enthusiasm for the “next logical step†because 1) none of NASA’s “steps†has proven to be worth a darn and 2) the “next†one always cost some insane amount of money.”
A remarkably accurate yet succinct description of the history of civilian government space “infrastructure” (including that of the similarly minded old Soviet Union, not just that of NASA).
A few years of real commercial experience is worth far more than five decades of the “logic” of “visionaries”.
“I believe the public could be sold on Luna, but only if EVERYONE goes….”
I can’t wait to see by how many orders of magnitude we will need to low-ball to include EVERYONE. This particular ritual of the Cosmic Faith, it’s like an astronomical auction to see who can come up with the most preposterous cost estimate. This sacrament has indeed overtaken the contest to design the biggest rocket with the fewest affordable payloads as the favorite of most acolytes.
The NASA study says five hundred thousand dollars per kilo to the lunar surface. But I believe in the magic of private enterprise, even though it is still being by NASA, so I bid fifty thousand!
No I bid five!
Five thousand? What a startling lack of faith in the magic of Commerce. I’ll see your five thousand and lower you yet another order of magnitude.
Five hundred? What a disturbing lack of vision and empathy! That’s more than the annual wages of over a billion people! I bid five cents! And not five cents for a puny kilo (who to you think we are sending to the moon here, robots or machines or something?) — no, I bid five cents per tourist to the moon! EVERYONE can afford that! I WIN! I have a more visionary fantasy than you. Nyah nyah nyah-nyah nyah!
“I am very much concerned about the privatization of the NASA space program,†Brooks said in the debate.”
And rightly so. Privatization advocates are simple-minded dinosaurs. Trying to tap dwindling government resources for LEO operations sets back mid-to-long range planning for BEO space exploration for generations. Space exploitation os not space exploration and LEO is a ticket to no place. These firm s have failed to fly anynbody and failed to sell their plans to the private capital markets so in desperation, they try to tap the Treasury as a subsidy, channeling off funds from the successful government space operation. .
@Dark Blue Nine wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 8:16 pm
“So Brooks is here confusing space efforts in general with NASA…â€
Brooks is confused about more than that: “‘I am very much concerned about the privatization of…’â€Those words should not exit the mouth of any thinking Republican, conservative, or libertarian.
There are no thinking Republicans, conservatives or libertarians, fool — but they make for great punch lines… ‘Newt Gingrich, Moon President,’ Exhibit A.
Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
That is, there are many things that only a federal agency can probably be entrusted to do. Routine access to LEO by humans, and certainly suborbital efforts are likely no longer those things.
Federal? PRC and Russia would be amused. ESA as well. Since April, 1961– 51 years- human spaceflight thus far has been most decidedly NOT routine. Over this past half century less than 600 people have flown in Earth orbit and of those, 24 were American astronauts sent to the lunar vicinity as well.
@Coastal Ron wrote @ March 14th, 2012 at 11:04 am
The public is just not in to space. It has become – horror of horrors – yet another place that people know we have conquered, and now we travel there to go to work.
So you believe space has been conquered, eh. Your knowledge of interstellar space and business conducted must be as vast as the universe =eyerol=. And space is a place we go to work, eh. The closest earthbound analogy would be going to ‘work’ in Antarctica- so aside from being a government scientist, researcher, or even a geologist, ( for mineral and oil exploration) or a climatologist, tell us what the personnel do going to ‘work’ in space. Then you should be able to share a long, long list of the ‘work’ accomplished on the ISS in its decade on orbit as a ROI to justify it and be capable of penning a concise prospectus to sell the private capital markets on all the ‘work’ and the profits to be made so you commercial HSF advocates won’t need any subsidies diverted from the government space programs.
Except space exploitation is not space exploration. There’s no market worth the largess of the investment from private capital markets with such minimal ROI. So private capital goes into oil wells, not LEO space proposals. That’s why governments do it.
“”The Moon? We’ve been there, and the public doesn’t really see a reason to go back. Going beyond the Moon is too far in the future for people to get excited.”
That’s quite myopic if not highly provincial thinking. Perhaps to unmotivated Americans with a history of being reactive, not proactive in space operations. it may seem that way. The Chinese and Russians see it differently. They’ve not been there. Other peoples around the world have ambitions as well.
“About the only ones getting excited about “space†are the politicians trying to bring money to their district – for any reason (i.e. SLS).” Again- provincial thinking.
Googaw wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 2:39 am
RGO: “There is no enthusiasm for the “next logical step†because 1) none of NASA’s “steps†has proven to be worth a darn and 2) the “next†one always cost some insane amount of money.â€
you replied:
A remarkably accurate yet succinct description of the history of civilian government space “infrastructure†(including that of the similarly minded old Soviet Union, not just that of NASA).”
Thank you…the issue here is that what got NASA and human spaceflight off the track is that for not the first time, but close to it…is that the infrastructure that they have built with tax payer dollars IS infrastructure built solely for government.
As a result it is infrastructure that is expensive, unsustainable, and not very useful to anything else…in the end that has killed the space shuttle and now is dooming the space station RGO
DCSCA wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 6:21 am
“Since April, 1961– 51 years- human spaceflight thus far has been most decidedly NOT routine. Over this past half century less than 600 people have flown in Earth orbit and of those, 24 were American astronauts sent to the lunar vicinity as well.”
What does “routine”-ness have to do with anything? Are you saying we need the federal government to step in and do things that are not “routine”? Launching commercial satellites is hardly routine either, but our federal agencies don’t have anything to do with those efforts. That’s a poor argument to justify the need for federal involvement. Also, the fact that PRC and Roskosmos have no commercial opportunities for launching humans into LEO is probably mainly due do discouragement of entrepreneurial opportunities, on macroscopic (as in, we don’t want you to launch humans) and microscopic ( as in, we don’t trust you with technologies that could enable that capability) scales. That’s a political decision that isn’t consistent with U.S. economic policy. I have no problem with them being amused.
Robert G. Oler wrote:
“it will only work if there is some monetary reason to do whatever we are doing” RGO
Free resourses is almost always the result when the government does the initial exploration. The homestead act was designed to put free resources into people hands and give them a leg up on starting. Business gets access to mineral/water/gas&oil rights at bargin basement prices for the same reason.
This should be done on Luna, it is a 9 billion acre unclaimed asset just waiting to be entered into the ledger.
Googaw wrote:
“I can’t wait to see by how many orders of magnitude we will need to low-ball to include EVERYONE. This particular ritual of the Cosmic Faith, it’s like an astronomical auction to see who can come up with the most preposterous cost estimate.”
Can anyone become an airline pilot? Does everyone want to be one?
By saying everyone goes, I mean it no longer is one government enitity deciding who goes. It means the gates are now open. Granted everyone won’t go, but the preception will be it is now open. It’s the difference in not bothering with having a dream to do something because it will never be open to you, or having a dream where it is realistic that it can really happen.
As Dennis Tito made happen. The dream of space travel became a reality with his journey.
Thank you…the issue here is that what got NASA and human spaceflight off the track is that for not the first time, but close to it…is that the infrastructure that they have built with tax payer dollars IS infrastructure built solely for government.
What a preposterously ignorant comment.
CST-100 is leasing OPF and SpaceX will soon be using LC-39. Try again Brainiac.
A fool and his words…….
DCSCA wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 6:21 am
“So you believe space has been conquered, eh.”
LEO and the Moon have. Oh sure there’s still more to do, just like even though we’ve conquered the ocean there are still areas we haven’t fully mastered or even explored.
Look, we landed on the Moon and returned safely six times, and astronauts even had a chance to play some golf and go off-roading while they were there. Not your standard vacation, but I’d say we got the formula down. There is more to do, such as strip-mining and setting up tourist resorts, but we perfected the formula of how to get there, survive, and return more than 40 years ago.
And for LEO we fly there so much we can leave people in orbit on a constant basis. Is it hard, dangerous and expensive? Sure.
“And space is a place we go to work, eh.”
If employees are taking money to perform a task (in this case, in space), I’d call it work. What do you call it? Oh, and by the way, I use the “American English” dictionary to define words, not the “I Don’t Like The Answer So I’ll Make Up My Own Definition” dictionary.
“Then you should be able to share a long, long list of the ‘work’ accomplished on the ISS…”
You really should do a little research before you post. Here is the NASA link to the ISS experiment results by experiments name. You can also sort the list by category and facility.
“…as a ROI to justify it and be capable of penning a concise prospectus to sell the private capital markets…”
The ISS is a National Laboratory – go look up what that means. But financially it means that as long as Congress is happy with what they are doing, then Congress will fund it. Oh, and U.S. companies get free access to the results, just like everything else NASA does.
No wonder you are always so angry – you don’t know anything about the modern NASA, you only know what NASA was doing 40 years ago – you really need to get out of your basement more…
McGriddle wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Thank you…the issue here is that what got NASA and human spaceflight off the track is that for not the first time, but close to it…is that the infrastructure that they have built with tax payer dollars IS infrastructure built solely for government.”
you replied:
“What a preposterously ignorant comment.”
only if you did not read what I said. The billions spent on the OPF or LC 39 is trivial compared with the hundreds of billions spent on the space shuttle/space station complex…which are the infrastructure I am referring to.
And there was/is no significant use of either of those “infrastructure” “steps” by anyone other then NASA. That is why they are making a big deal of lego efforts now on the station.
Dont be a Palin…try and follow the conversation RGO
Dont be a Palin…try and follow the conversation
If your attempt was to insult with off-topic commentary, “Don’t be an Oler” would be more effective.
@Coastal Ron wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 1:28 pm
“So you believe space has been conquered, eh.†LEO and the Moon have. Nonsense. The ISS a ‘national lab’ ??? For six international crewmen? ROFLMAO Nice try. It has morphed into many things since Von Braun first proposed it as part of an integrated space program in ’69 and Reagan revived it in the mid-80s. It was nearly killed off in the GHWBush era. It’s nothing more than an aerospace ‘WPA’ project, as Deke Slayton labeled it before he died. A lab that currently consumes and doesnt produce any ROI to merit the cost. But you believe ‘research’ is a productive and profitable enterprise, eh. You ought to do a little ‘research; yourself and you’ll discover the first area profit-oriented, quarterly driven firms do to cut costs is slash R&D budgets.
Actually both Shuttle and ISS were sold as infrastructure to service private enterprise. The Shuttle was supposed to launch satellites for $100/lb. An early version of the astronomical low-ball — this is hardly a new game — it ended up costing many orders of magnitude more than that, and even more than the old ICBM-spinoff ELVs. ISS was supposed to give rise to a whole microgravity manufacturing industry.
Of course, the sci-fi dogmas of reusable spaceplane and space station were around long before these commercial justifications were plastered onto them. But that is the sort of economic fantasy space fans were led to believe, and talked each other into believing.
At least Mike Griffin was honest when observed that these were really projects to build heavenly cathedrals. All his Constellation did was strip off the bogus sci-fi “industry” and go back to the pure cathedral of Apollo. (Why he thinks it’s the U.S. federal government’s role to build cathedrals, there he does not venture…)
Today we’ve conveniently forgotten about these old fantasies and move on to new fantasies, such as about how if NASA builds a big rocket big payloads will come (despite the preposterously expensive rocket taking all the budget money from the preposterously expensive payloads), or the local favorite in these parts, about how the taxpayer-funded billionaire tourist is supposed to, according to sympathetic magic (like creates like), lead to space colonization. It’s voodoo doll space development.
@Robert G. Oler wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 11:28 am
“Thank you…the issue here is that what got NASA and human spaceflight off the track is that for not the first time, but close to it…is that the infrastructure that they have built with tax payer dollars IS infrastructure built solely for government.”
No. What got NASA ‘off track’ was the poisobous tentacles of privatization. There’s nothing wrong w/building a government installation solely for government operations- unless you feel the US Mint should be sold to the Danbury Mint and contracted to securely stamp out coinage and print currency. =eyeroll=
@Doug Lassiter wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 11:36 am
Are you saying we need the federal government to step in and do things that are not “routine� Lincoln said it.
“…but our federal agencies don’t have anything to do with those efforts.”
Yes they do- might want to check who contracted for and paid for facilities and infractructure.
@Vladislaw wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 11:54 am
Revisit the Epilogue penned by Arthur C. Clarke to the 1970 book, “First On The Moon – A Voyage With Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins & Edwin E. Aldrin.’ A long range plan for a ‘space program’ is pretty much layed out by Clarke- complete with exploitation caveats in conjunction w/exploration and for a piece penned four decades ago with the knowledge base of the time, it is fairly prescient, even for Clarke. Its not disimilar to what Kraft was proposing or what Von Braun pitched in vain in August of ’69. An ABC News broadcast from July, 1979 titled ‘Infinite Horizons- Space Beyond Apollo’ was also fairly prescient about the 2000 era time frame- complete w/Jules Bergman predicting ‘wristradio’ personal communication devices in the future costing as little as ten bucks– aka the cellphone.
DCSCA wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
“The ISS a ‘national lab’ ???”
I’ve noticed that facts tend to surprise you. Don’t you see a trend?
“But you believe ‘research’ is a productive and profitable enterprise, eh.”
Yes, eh. You don’t? I guess you’re against college education too, eh.
If only you had the mental ability to do a little research yourself, then you could learn all the facts about ‘research‘. I doubt it will happen in your lifetime though (you doing research), and we just have to hope that certain traits are not passed on genetically…
Googaw wrote @ March 15th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
“Actually both Shuttle and ISS were sold as infrastructure to service private enterprise…”
Not quite. Revisit Von Braun’s August, ’69 presentation. After the Nixon Administration butchered post-Apollo planning, all that was left was shuttle- and that shuttle was nothing like what evolved into the operational STS system. The thread of the mess we have today goes back to that era.