Campaign '12

Obama campaign uses commercial crew awards to press Romney on his space policy

A day after NASA announced the winners of awards in the next round of its commercial crew program, the Florida campaign of President Barack Obama used the news to contrast the administration’s space policy with that of his opponent, Gov. Mitt Romney.

“As Floridians have seen President Obama’s continued commitment on moving our nation’s space program forward, Mitt Romney refuses to answer even the most basic questions surrounding space policy,” Eric Jotkoff of Obama for America-Florida said in the statement, using the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) awards as evidence of continued progress on the administration’s space policy. “He won’t say if he supports President Obama’s efforts to support and grow America’s commercial space industry, and as each day passes, it becomes increasingly clear that Mitt Romney has no clear vision for NASA.”

The Romney campaign has kept a low profile on space issues since the Florida primary at the end of January. At that time Romney declined to articulate a specific vision for NASA or space policy in general, saying he would convene a panel of experts from across the field to study the best direction for NASA.

37 comments to Obama campaign uses commercial crew awards to press Romney on his space policy

  • DCSCA

    “As Floridians have seen President Obama’s continued commitment on moving our nation’s space program forward…”

    Not if you’re a Fox News viewer.

    A ‘special Hannity’ focusing on the ‘failed promises’ of Obama ran on Fox, Friday, same day as the contract awards (coincidence?) opening w/a segment on the economic devastation to Brevard County, interviewing three displaced shuttle workers of varying ages boo-hooing over the end of the program (blaming Obama, not the Bush admin, which actually set in motion the end of shuttle) and the economic wreckage left in its wake; a situation they knew was coming for years. The segment highlighted Obama’s cancellation of Constellation, lack of direction and vision for the program but failed to note the Bush era underfunding of Constellation and camoflaged the massive costs of continuing shuttle ops w/flag waving, national pride and the Hannity quip- “What would JFK say?!” Amusing to see the opining talking heads on the “big government is bad” channel championing government expenditures as long as they’re wrapped in a flag.

  • Vladislaw

    “as each day passes, it becomes increasingly clear that Mitt Romney has no clear vision for NASA. – Eric Jotkoff “

    It is a rare thing for any potential Presidential candidate to have a ‘clear vision’ for NASA, it is such a small amount of the overall budget that is falls into the *after thought* catagory when you make the final run through florida.

  • Neither Obama nor Romney are really that interested in manned space travel! And its really not an issue that either one of them wants to debate during the general election especially since manned space travel is often ridiculed by some on the left and the right as of questionable value and also because it can be a political hot potato in an extremely important swing State like Florida.

    Both of them would look rather foolish even discussing a subject that they both have so little interest in and know so little about!

    Marcel F. Williams

  • Heinrich Monroe

    The amusing thing about sobbing Shuttle workers, who were “promised” support from Obama is that they got it. Counseling and retraining. To the extent they expected support in the form of a new project that required their highly specialized Shuttle training, most of which is obsolete, may I congratulate Obama for not giving it to them. Especially in that the end of Shuttle was evident many years ago, by even extraordinarily policy-nearsighted people. It’s those workers, who nested comfortably with those obsolete skills, and who didn’t have the foresight to see the human space flight bulldozer bearing down on them, are they the ones I want pioneering my space program? Nope.

  • I bet no one on Hannity mentioned the $40 million jobs program for the Space Coast that Obama proposed in April 2010. Obama sent it to Congress, but the newly elected Republican majority in the House cut the funding shortly after taking office.

    Did Mr. Hannity mention this? Enquiring minds would like to know.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Of course in his April, 2010 speech the president promised to generate jobs for displaced shuttle workers at KSC. Another promise with an expiration date. One suspects that stunt will help him lose Florida this fall and hence his own job,

  • Fred Willett

    It all depends on how you look at things.
    The reality is that there are more new human space vehicles being developed today than in all the rest of US space history.
    Consider.
    Past crew vehicles; Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle
    Presently under development; Dragon, CST-100, Dream Chaser, Blue Origin, Liberty, Orion/MPCV.
    The power of commerce has been unleashed in HSF. I don’t know if that is what Obama intended on not, but the potential here is staggering.
    It really makes the politics irellevant.

  • vulture4

    When O’Keefe first introduced Constellation to the Senate in 2004, John McCain said in no uncertain terms that it would be vastly more expensive than O’Keefe claimed and that America could not afford it. He described it as “not a vision, but an illusion.” He was ignored, even by those who claimed to suppport his presidential bid. Now we have Romney, who to his credit says honestly that he would fire anyone who suggested spending hundreds of billions on moon bases.

    Yet the Reoublican base has been led by Bill Posey, Karl Rove and conservative radio to the simple answer that explains everything: Republicans are good and Democrats are evil. They have abandoned critical thinking. Although every part of the commercial crew program fits Republican ideals perfectly (private industry innovation, competition, efficiency and cost control) the Republicans oppose it, as Elon Musk has said, “because Mr. Obama is for it”. They have no trouble blaming Obama for the gap in US human launch while simultaneously cutting funds for commercial space, our only hope to end the gap, and forcing NASA to pump precious billions into the doomed SLS/Orion.

  • mike shupp

    Heinrich Monroe —

    Well guy, you’re definitely the expert on all our our aerospace staffing issues. And I sort of agree, it defintely would have been better for all those now-laid off NASA & contractor workers if they’d bailed out in say 2007 or 2008 and got jobs far far away from Florida and NASA.

    I do have one little question: if all those 50 thousand people had quit, just who would been left to launch the last half dozen shuttle flights and run manned space operations? Where would NASA have found people with the “highly specialized” but “obsolete” skills it needed? I look forward to an answer.

  • Brad

    Oh indeed Romney sucks when it comes to space policy, considering his campaign demagoguery on space policy during the Florida primary.

    But for the Obama campaign of all people to point fingers at Romney is laughable. How many years into the Obama administration was it before there even was a policy? And which way is the wind blowing today? Is Orion dead or alive? Oops! I meant the MPSCV!

    Hey it’s great that Obama pushed forward on commercial manned spaceflight. But even a broken clock is right twice a day. In general the great forward thinking Obama policy is at best just kicking the can down the road, which is gosh darn awfully similar to the the trial ballon that was shot down during the 2008 campaign, and at worst just paying off all the various interest groups instead of moving policy forward.

    I fear all the new Obama policy accomplishes is cementing the International Space Station as the new white elephant which absorbs most NASA resources for decades to come, just as the Space Shuttle did when it was still operational. Another thirty years of spinning our wheels and getting nowhere.

  • The Shuttle was supposed to have been replaced by Project Constellation, and its array of new rockets & spacecrafts. There would indeed have been a manned spaceflight gap, a lull between the final Shuttle flight & the premiere manned Orion CEV flight, but nothing like the vast multi-year, rest-of-the-decade rift that is now all set to happen with Obama’s sacking of the Constellation project. Constellation had as its goal the Moon, and a bold & vigorous renewed human exploration of it, which would surpass the scope to which the last Apollo missions had done, up to their time. But Obama-space drags us back to the starting line, and keeps us trapped there, in low earth orbit, doing endless circles, 200 miles up. What is NASA’s prime mission now?—-grocery runs to the ISS, via heavily-subsidized commercial firms! SO RIDICULOUS. To my view, the American space program will benefit real well from a near future change in Presidential leadership, plus in the position of NASA Administrator. The great destruction that has been brought to NASA, by way of the apathy & ignorance on the part of the Democrats, has been astoundingly bad. Sean Hannity’s program has done a good service to the political news discourse in this country, in highlighting the under-reported story of all the aerospace engineers & technologists who have had their livelihoods demolished by the virtual end of American human spaceflight.

  • On May 1, 2011, Florida Today published an article titled, “Who Broke Obama’s $40 Million Promise to Space Coast?”

    Here’s what the article reported.

    Initially, Obama ordered the task force and $40 million for the Space Coast in a May 2010 presidential memo. The grants were meant to ease thousands of job losses due to his predecessor’s shutdown of the space shuttle program plus Obama’s cancellation of launches to the moon and Mars.

    From May through August, the task force headed by NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke met with hundreds of local “stakeholders” including space workers, politicians and business executives.

    That work was real.

    The president followed through with a budget amendment on June 18, calling for “up to $40 million in aid for Florida’s Space Coast.” By August, the task force had vetted proposals ranging from $400,000 to $27 million, including money for clean-energy startups and roads or buildings to help biomedical and aerospace businesses.

    So far, so good.

    The grant money appeared in the 2011 budget passed last fall by the U.S. House, led then by Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. The Commerce Department had the list of projects and was poised to cut checks, [Senator Bill] Nelson’s office reports.

    But it was an election year.

    Republican Senators killed the budget bill on Nov. 30, along with Brevard’s $40 million, by vowing a filibuster.

    Once again, Fixed News fibbed.

  • Heinrich Monroe

    Constellation had as its goal the Moon, and a bold & vigorous renewed human exploration of it, which would surpass the scope to which the last Apollo missions had done, up to their time.

    But, um, you forget. Constellation had great goals, but it didn’t have the money. It wasn’t really going to happen. It’s amazing how people can wallow in goals and lose sight of implementation. I love it when people get all bold and vigorous when they can’t afford what they’re trying to do. What Obama did to Constellation was a mercy-killing.

    Aerospace engineers and technologists who’ve had their livelihoods demolished? Name one. That’s not an engineer or technologist I’d want on my team.

  • amightywind

    Obama is a socialist.

    “He won’t say if he supports President Obama’s efforts to support and grow America’s commercial space industry, and as each day passes, it becomes increasingly clear that Mitt Romney has no clear vision for NASA.”

    The GOP will let Obama marinate in the failure of manned space flight.

  • I wonder what Chris and other people with similar views will say when Americans finally return to the Moon. Maybe, “But … But … We could have done it with SLS!” I don’t think they will ever be honest enough with themselves to admit that it would never have occurred with SLS. They just don’t see that billions of dollars are being wasted down a very deep rat hole.

  • The Shuttle was supposed to have been replaced by Project Constellation, and its array of new rockets & spacecrafts.

    No, it wasn’t. Constellation was not a Shuttle replacement. Shuttle delivered and returned crew and significant cargo, allowed on-orbit servicing, could act as a mini-space station. Constellation would have done none of those things.

    There would indeed have been a manned spaceflight gap, a lull between the final Shuttle flight & the premiere manned Orion CEV flight, but nothing like the vast multi-year, rest-of-the-decade rift that is now all set to happen with Obama’s sacking of the Constellation project.

    This is nonsense. At least one, and probably two providers will be sending people to orbit within three or four years. The Dragon is designed to send them all the way to lunar orbit and back.

    The great destruction that has been brought to NASA, by way of the apathy & ignorance on the part of the Democrats, has been astoundingly bad.

    Actually, it is both Democrats and Republicans who have been “destroying” the program, by insisting that NASA waste money on new rockets that it doesn’t need for exploration.

    Sean Hannity’s program has done a good service to the political news discourse in this country

    Hannity’s program was as ignorant about what’s actually going on as you seem to be.

  • Googaw

    Presently under development; Dragon, CST-100, Dream Chaser, Blue Origin, Liberty, Orion/MPCV.

    The NewSpace bubble continues to inflate to preposterous proportions.

    You forgot to mention the many crewed vehicles at these stages of development in history that have been canceled, as all these will be.

  • Mary

    Commercial crew was never really a plan just another way of prohibiting NASA from developing a LRB crew /cargo vehicle while maintaining the ATK status quo, ( Bush ). Its merely a subsidy injection ( stimulus ) for commercial. If Romney were a fish, he would would pass this morsel by.

  • Call me Ishmael

    Fred Willett wrote @ August 5th, 2012 at 11:40 pm

    The reality is that there are more new human space vehicles being developed today than in all the rest of US space history.
    Consider.
    Past crew vehicles; Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle
    Presently under development; Dragon, CST-100, Dream Chaser, Blue Origin, Liberty, Orion/MPCV.

    An apples-to-apples comparison would include Dynasoar, MOL, and probably other never-flews that I don’t remember in the “past” list.

  • You forgot to mention the many crewed vehicles at these stages of development in history that have been canceled, as all these will be.

    It’s profoundly ignorant to fantasize that Dragon will be “canceled.”

  • Robert G. Oler

    Heinrich Monroe wrote @ August 6th, 2012 at 8:31 am

    “But, um, you forget. Constellation had great goals, but it didn’t have the money. ”

    NO it had the money…it spent 15-20 billion dollars…what it didnt have was competent management that could do something on the same money that would build 3 super carriers. RGO

  • DougSpace

    It seems to me that Romney is taking unnecessary political risks by persistently neglecting to have any specific plan for America’s space program. His lack of interest in space isn’t sufficient to explain his neglect — he has advisors who are interested and can adivse him even if he himself isn’t interested. Every month that goes by with him not identifying a space policy gives more opportunity for the Obama campaign to bash him as having no policy. So what’s going on?

    Might he actually have an idea about what he wants to do but figures that coming out with the policy would hurt him with voters in specific states? Or likewise, does he figure that any space policy would then give a specific target for opponents to attack?

    Either way, as a voter, I’d like to know what to expect if we elect him. I’d like to be informed so that I can make an informed decision when I get to the polling booth.

    However, I consider it likely that we will go all the way through the election without him establishing a space policy (except for very general platitudes). Then, he’ll do like he promised. He will assemble yet another blue-ribbon panel of space experts and the whole issue will be raked over once again. I’m guessing that Romney will in fact not make a decision about what his space policy should be until while the panel is winding down. Then his administration will come out with a new space policy along with a speech.

    This delay before getting a new space policy gives us in the space advocacy community time to organize a united position. But my concern is that we are too fundamentally divided to come to a united position. We have no formal way to develop such a position at the expense of our own personal views. So my guess is that we will have little impact on any new Romney space policy.

  • Heinrich Monroe

    It seems to me that Romney is taking unnecessary political risks by persistently neglecting to have any specific plan for America’s space program.

    What makes you think that? When Romney thinks about specific plans for America’s space program, only Newt Gingrich comes to mind. Which is why he never thinks about it.

  • Robert G. Oler

    DougSpace wrote @ August 7th, 2012 at 2:34 am

    there are so many reasons that Willard is loathe to talk about space policy or politics…but the main one is that the entire notion does not fit inside his campaign walls.

    Willard is running a “save our past” campaign…

    It is stunning to me that he is giving this a go but it comes from 1) not having any real vision of what he would do as POTUS (its really just another job to him) and 2) being tied to a party whose primary base is becoming more anti science, more anti technology more anti everything that is the future and stuck on guns, their god and hating people who are different then them.

    Willard did some polling in the Florida race and found out that outside of a very narrow constituency; which he is going to win on social issues anyway…space and space politics do not really do anything for his base and that is the election he is running.

    Obama is not much better I would label his campaign “stumbling into the future” but at least he is going forward not trying to return to an imaginary past.

    The reason Willard will appear on Fox news is that 1) they ask him softball questions and 2) the softball answers excite his base….

    It wont win him the elction unless he can depress Obama and independent turnout…and he is trying that as well. but that is the campaign he is running. RGO

  • josh

    i’m really not that worried about romney winning. obama will skewer him in the debates and that will seal the deal. romney has zero charisma, is completely unlikeable and doesn’t know what he’s talking about half the time. obama should press the tax returns issue. maybe mitt will snap on live tv (“you people…”), would be fun:D

  • hmm

    Romney doesnt care about space at all. That’s apparent. Now that may be a good thing or a bad thing depending on who he lets run his NASA show. I suspect little would change given the budgets.

  • Googaw

    It seems to me that Romney is taking unnecessary political risks by persistently neglecting to have any specific plan for America’s space program.

    So let’s see — a guy running on a free-enterprise platform, who knocked his then-nearest rival out of the primaries by mocking the latter’s grandiose astronautical fantasies, is risking rather than benefitting by not having a 5-year plan (or more!) for “the” space program?

    Typical astronaut cult daydreaming: cosmically and comically removed from reality.

  • Fred Willett

    There have been commercial failures in space. Beal comes to mind. Rotary Rocket. There is quite a long list, even if you leave out the projects that were only ever power points.
    But the point is that while a commercial company would give space a try and fail, there was only ever one failure here and there. There never was a surge in commercial investment. Till now.
    Nor is it fair to scorify Commercial for their failures. Their failures are few and far between. NASA on the other hand seems to be mainly failed programs.
    Here’s a short list of cancelled NASA programs just of space transport and exploration vehicles from the last 20 years.
    ALS NLS & shuttle-C, NASP, COMET, DC-XA, X34A, X34, Bantam, NASA X37, 2GRLV TSTO & CTV, Kistler K-1 Demo, PAD, Prometheus/JIMO, X43C, Altair, Orion, Ares 1 & V
    Altogether 7% of NASA’s budget has been wasted on cancelled programs. In 20 years thats north of $21B. More than $1B a year.
    Think what could have been achieved with that money.
    But now, for the first time there is a real surge in commercial investment in space. For every dollar put up by NASA for COTS, CCDev, or CCiCap private companies are investing a dollar or more.
    Why this sudden surge in commercial investment?
    Because NASA has failed.
    Shuttle went away.
    Constellation was cancelled (It was too expensive and taking too long).
    NASA had nothing.
    No way of getting to space.
    No viable space program.
    Zip. Nada.
    It was either give up the ISS and close down NASA altogether or turn to the only other option available. Commercial.
    That’s where we’re at today.
    And companies – seeing the writing on the wall – are jumping in. Even ATK are suddenly discovering that ole true religion of commerce.
    Meanwhile NASA has decided to “leave LEO to commercial” while they concentrate on spending $18B to develop a vehicle to “explore BEO”.
    It’s a nice fig leaf.
    But I can’t help but wonder what will happen in 2 years when for all their expendature on SLS they still don’t have a LV but there is a commercial 53t LV available that’s cost NASA nothing to develop and only costs $125M a launch.

  • Romney has had plenty opportunities to articulate a space policy. He’s passed. When Newt proposed a lunar program, Mitt said he’d fire anyone who proposed that. When asked what we should do if China sends astronauts to the Moon, Mitt said we should ask them to bring back our artifacts.

    Romney has zero interest in space. In my opinion a Romney administration would turn up the porkfest meter (think Fletcher administration of NASA in the 1970s) without any meaningful direction or adequate funding.

  • mike shupp

    Mr Smith – I think you’re optimistic. A Romney administration would probably want to kill a couple of high visibility NASA programs to establish “there’s a new sheriff in town!” (Where else could it go to make easy budget cuts that sound exciting?) And after that … I think it’d be hard going to even suggest significant new spending programs. Kill off a couple billion dollar planetary probes, stretch the first launch date of SLS by three or four years, make some speeches about the importance of commercial space flight… That’d look good to the voters — hey! it’d get the enthusiastic approval of 90% of the people who visit this web site.

    OTOH… I think space policy for the next few years is going to be made by politicians willing to release their tax records.

  • Googaw

    But the point is that while a commercial company would give space a try and fail, there was only ever one failure here and there. There never was a surge in commercial investment. Till now.

    Google “sunk cost fallacy”. When you combine this incredibly long string of failures — dozens of orbital HSF projects with the net result of failure to recover >99.5% of the costs throught real commercial revenues — and the large amounts of investments being put into orbital HSF today despite those many experiences, with the fact that real commercial revenues (i.e. revenues from private sector customers) remain a miniscule fraction of those investments, this is very strong evidence for a bubble – quite the opposite of being evidence for a genuine investment opportunity.

    Yet there’s no hype like the heavenly hype. The NewSpace bubble continues to expand. You may still have time to get in the rocket while it’s going up!

  • Googaw

    A Romney administration would probably want to kill a couple of high visibility NASA programs to establish “there’s a new sheriff in town!” (Where else could it go to make easy budget cuts that sound exciting?)

    This. It’s what the space program needs, it’s what the politicians need, and it’s what we’re going to get, with either Romney or Obama.

  • mike shupp wrote:

    A Romney administration would probably want to kill a couple of high visibility NASA programs to establish “there’s a new sheriff in town!”

    Well, I think good old-fashioned Congressional porking would stop Romney from killing “high visibility NASA programs.” SLS is probably death-penalty proof for a few more years. Commercial cargo should have two more successful flights before the new Congress is seated, so it would be hard to cancel that. And I think commercial crew is probably okay, simply because I think the message has finally gotten through that cuts simply put us on Soyuz longer.

    More likely what would happen is that NASA would lose more money for research in new technologies, and robotic probes.

    The nightmare scenario would be the Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, and Romney in the White House. Then it comes down to the Ultra-Rich versus the Neocons versus the Tea Partiers — none of which gives a fig about NASA.

  • mike shupp

    Sorry; my fault for being unclear. Those “robotic probes” are pretty much what I meant by “high-visibility programs”. Sample return missions from Mars, rovers on Titan, observatories at 1000 AUs, etc. have a bit of glamour despite their lack of human crews; they’d cost billions or dozens of billions and take decades to be achieved — just the sort of thing a politician might attack to show Seriousness.

  • Robert G. Oler

    It is growing more and more unlikely that the Willard campaign will have a space policy…his campaign disarray grows almost daily. RGO

  • Das Boese

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ August 8th, 2012 at 7:51 pm

    The nightmare scenario would be the Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, and Romney in the White House. Then it comes down to the Ultra-Rich versus the Neocons versus the Tea Partiers

    Not much of a fight, at least until the tea party realizes they’re being duped. I’m not holding my breath.

    none of which gives a fig about NASA.

    Yes, but in that scenario, the fate of NASA really isn’t of much importance, is it? Between the likely war against Iran and the second great depression, I don’t think it would be more than a footnote.

  • And I think commercial crew is probably okay, simply because I think the message has finally gotten through that cuts simply put us on Soyuz longer.

    If that’s the case, why did they cut it again?

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