Congress, NASA, White House

On the importance of a NASA authorization bill

While Congress is back in session this month, few observers expect they will spend much, if any, time on the topic of a new NASA authorization bill. There are too many other issues for members to deal with, from foreign policy to a continuing resolution to keep the government funded; moreover, the differences between the versions of the bill approved over the summer by the House Science Committee and the Senate Commerce Committee appear to be too great to be reconciled, even if the full chambers are able to pass their versions. One recently retired Congressional staff member, though, emphasized this week the importance of such legislation to create policy and more sustainable funding for NASA.

“Right now, I think we are at the tipping point,” warned Jeff Bingham, who retired from the Republican staff of the Senate Commerce Committee last month, during a session Thursday at the AIAA Space 2013 conference in San Diego. NASA has been getting squeezed by flat or declining budgets the last several years, he noted, but has continued to try and continue all of its major programs. “We’re at the point, with the kinds of numbers you see particularly on the House side for 2014, I don’t think NASA can play these cards that way very much longer… You’re going to have to cut something. There’s something major that’s going to have to go.”

That’s where authorizing committees and their legislation step in, he argued. “It’s the responsibility of those committee to look at programs in their jurisdiction and say what should NASA be, what should NASA do, how should NASA do it,” he said. That policy should not be set solely by the White House, he added, but done collaboratively with Congress. “To do space right, you need ‘X’ kind of money,” a figure that should come from the authorization process and work its way through both the administration’s budget request and the budget allocations set by House and Senate committees.

The differences in the current House and Senate authorization bills are not evidence of NASA policy becoming more partisan, though, Bingham said, but instead an artifact of the bigger debate between the parties on fiscal issues. “It was actually hard to find areas in the policy substance in the Nelson bill that needed change or improvement,” he said, referring to a review he did of the Senate authorization bill introduced by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). “If we can get past the money issue, then I think you’ll see that apparent partisanship dissolve.”

One area where there is, perhaps, a policy difference between the Republican-led House and the Democratic-led Senate is NASA’s new asteroid initiative, highlighted by plans to redirect a small asteroid into lunar orbit. Both the House authorization and appropriations bills block that program from starting, while the Senate’s versions contain no such prohibition. The initiative “has a negative view in the House partly because the House didn’t really, in my view, look at what it was really all about,” Bingham said. “I think they mistook it, or chose to mistake it, as the new announcement of the Obama vision” and thus attacked it.

The White House hasn’t helped matters, though, Bingham added. “Their rollout on projects and activities has been miserable,” he said. “Part of it is that they don’t see the value in interacting with Congress effectively.” Bingham said he’s hopeful the asteroid initiative does survive Congressional debate on the 2014 budget. “I thought it was a good story,” he said, referring to a panel presentation on the effort by NASA officials at the conference the previous day. “I hope it can, but I don’t know.”

As for an authorization bill, Bingham is skeptical that a bill will pass, despite his earlier discussion of its importance. “What’s most likely is that we won’t have any action taken on NASA programs and policy,” he said. The policy provisions of the 2010 authorization act, he reminded the audience, remain in place even after the end of this fiscal year. “There’s a fallback position that nothing new this year is better than anything new that we have a hard time passing.”

95 comments to On the importance of a NASA authorization bill

  • Guest

    I propose that Mr. Bingham’s personal launch vehicle should be the first thing to go.

  • amightywind

    You’re going to have to cut something. There’s something major that’s going to have to go.”

    I’ve been saying this for a long time. I just can’t grasp the resistance to reform. It is 5 years after a major structural reset of the economy and NASA (and much of the rest of the government) don’t know it.

    The initiative “has a negative view in the House partly because the House didn’t really, in my view, look at what it was really all about,” Bingham said

    No. The GOP looked at the plan and hated it, just like commercial face. I wish the left would stop pursuing the fallacy that they can turn the GOP to their position if they just spin it differently.

    • Ferris Valyn

      You do realize that Mr. Bingham worked for Senator’s Jake Garn, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Ted Cruz before he retired? (I wouldn’t be surprised if he worked for others, but those are the ones I know).

      • Coastal Ron

        Ferris Valyn said:

        You do realize that Mr. Bingham worked for Senator’s Jake Garn, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Ted Cruz before he retired?

        Don’t confuse Windy with facts – he likes to live in his fantasy world, which explains why he says things like “I just can’t grasp the resistance to reform.” He finds it hard to believe that Republican’s have been as much to blame as other politicians for the state that NASA is in.

  • Vladislaw

    “Right now, I think we are at the tipping point,” warned Jeff Bingham, who retired from the Republican staff of the Senate Commerce Committee last month, during a session Thursday at the AIAA Space 2013 conference in San Diego. NASA has been getting squeezed by flat or declining budgets the last several years, he noted, but has continued to try and continue all of its major programs. “We’re at the point, with the kinds of numbers you see particularly on the House side for 2014, I don’t think NASA can play these cards that way very much longer… You’re going to have to cut something. There’s something major that’s going to have to go.”

    SLS and MPCV …

    This is exactly what I have been alluding to, some members will stop supporing the space state’s pork because alternative commercial systems are coming online. That pork premium will start shifting to other big pork projects that will take precidence. As more states clamor for infrastructure funding it will hard to justify infrastructure at NASA when commercial will do it cheaper.

    • Hiram

      “There’s something major that’s going to have to go.”

      Well, I’m guessing the “something major” won’t be a project. It’ll be a date. You can kiss 2017 goodbye for the first launch of SLS. See, that way you preserve both the fantasy of a “goes anywhere” HLV under NASA control, and also the pork that supports it. Everyone is happy, except those who are watching the calendar.

      This was going to be the end-run on Constellation, of course, before Obama stuck a fork in it.

      • Vladislaw

        I disagree, congressional members will now say my state/district doesn’t get any of that pork from NASA .. but my state/district could use pork-X … since there are commercial alternatives now for rockets.. you can not defend your pork anymore .. therefore I vote to have your pork moved to MY state/district.

        • Hiram

          Pork doesn’t work that way. Pork is an expression of congressional power and influence. The way it works is that the pork goes to my district, if you want to keep your legislation alive. So says the majority members in the House CJS Approps, from Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Maryland. So if I, in Ohio or Montana vote to have your CJS pork moved to my state/district, it’s stand-up comedy. Defense of pork has little to do with smart policy. It has more to do with the hammer I hold over your head.

  • Dark Blue Nine

    It’s thanks to Tinkerbell parochialism by staffers like Bingham in the 2010 NASA Authorization Act that we now have ginormous projects like SLS and MPCV that are so out-of-bed with budget reality and that “something major” is now “going to have to go”. Bingham is one of the key architects of this debacle. Instead of giving the audience lengthy lessons in hypocrisy, he should have been admitting where his legislation got it wrong and offering options to remedy his train wreck.

    I can’t believe some small part of my taxes went to pay this hypocrite’s congressional salary. Ugh…

    • Bennett In Vermont

      “Bingham is one of the key architects of this debacle.”

      That’s how I remember it too. A plague on his house. Figuratively of course.

  • Coastal Ron

    Jeff Bingham was quoted as saying:

    NASA has been getting squeezed by flat or declining budgets the last several years, he noted, but has continued to try and continue all of its major programs. “We’re at the point, with the kinds of numbers you see particularly on the House side for 2014, I don’t think NASA can play these cards that way very much longer… You’re going to have to cut something.

    To a certain point, it’s not the amount of money that matters, but how it’s spent. If a significant amount of money is going to be spent on government-owned assets that “push the boundaries of need”, and there is no real known need, then you’re going to have what the Augustine Commission called “a mismatch of goals and resources.” Such is the situation with the SLS, since there was no funded payloads that required an HLV, and there is not enough room in the budget to build any while the SLS is being developed.

    In a constrained budget environment, the goals have to be moderated by the available budget. And the goals also have to be moderated by the available technologies, which NASA has stated their technology cupboard is pretty bare. The Obama FY11 budget proposal wanted to address the lack of exploration technologies, and those technologies could have been used with existing launchers to do modest space exploration.

    But as long as Congress, the Administration and the space community can’t agree on a roadmap for the future, NASA will continue to wallow in a morass of conflicting goals and inadequate funding.

  • Jim Nobles

    If something major is going to have to go it probably won’t be Commercial Crew. Commercial Crew isn’t major enough. Plus most of the money for it has already been spent or will be by the time something happens. And the Commercial Crew program is actually producing decent results at a reasonable price.

    SLS needs to go. It’s the biggest crippled pig in the barnyard.

  • I personally told this to anyone who would listen in 2011. We were at a tipping point in 2011 but no one wanted to listen… we could have re-DIRECTed if you will and done something special… however, there was a cost.

    A political cost.

    Now everyone is starting to realize we really cannot afford what we “want”.

    There are a lot of interesting quotes in this. All I can say is when the congress puts the space program before politics, then we will succeed. Until then, you get people running around acting surprised at the reality that has been slapping the taste out of our mouths for the last four years.

    We are broke – we cannot afford SLS.

    Respectfully,
    Andrew Gasser
    TEA Party in Space

    • A_M_Swallow

      There are two versions of the SLS. The smaller 60 tonne payload version can launch anything NASA will be building in the next decade. The larger version can wait until we go to Mars.

      In my opinion the budget of Project Morpheus needs guarding. Given a push the team can produce a prototype cargo lunar lander with a payload of about 5 tonne in approximately 3 years. That is sufficient to say build a Moon base. The prototype design will need changing to handle space radiation but NASA knows how to do that.

      • Great – name one that is funded?

        You can’t. Senator Nelson can’t. Windy can’t. Mark R. Whittington can’t. The House Science Committee can’t.

        How much is the development of the rocket going to cost again?

        This is a textbook case in business of economics in how NOT to design a program.

        VR
        RE327

      • Coastal Ron

        A_M_Swallow said:

        There are two versions of the SLS. The smaller 60 tonne payload version can launch anything NASA will be building in the next decade.

        The smaller one is 70mt, not 60mt.

        And it’s not really a matter of ONE payload, but that there is not FAMILY of payloads that need an HLV anywhere in NASA’s future.

        That is what is being ignored by the politicians, is that there is NOTHING that requires an HLV in the absence of the SLS – the SLS is the only demand for HLV sized payloads, otherwise NASA would likely be building ISS-sized modules that leverage existing factories, tooling, transportation and other infrastructure.

        That’s what a trade study would reveal, if there ever there was a future NASA program that was big enough to merit a trade study.

        But since the SLS requires so much money to develop, there is not enough left over to build payloads so the SLS has something to do once it’s built.

        Given a push the team can produce a prototype cargo lunar lander with a payload of about 5 tonne in approximately 3 years.

        With what money? It’s taking NASA $16B and 15 years to build an upscaled version of the Apollo capsule, and that doesn’t include the Service Module. And you think an upscaled version of the Lunar Lander can be done in 3 years? Not without unlimited funding, and you know how likely that is.

        Also, considering that the last Morpheus land crashed, and that it is a development program for a bunch of untested/unperfected technologies, you wish is more in the realm of fantasy than reality.

        • A_M_Swallow

          The first Morpheus has been replaced. The replacement is happy to fly up and down its tether. This month JSC plan to test take off and landing.

          The project started in July 2010 and has produced a single engined vehicle. This includes the main methane/LOX engine. I am simply allowing the same 3 years to produce a multiple engine version. (See Falcon 1 to Falcon 9.)

          Finger in the air cost estimate.
          First lander was 25 full time and 60 students for 3 years plus $7 million materials.
          Assuming twice the man power and 10 times the material cost
          2 * ( 25 + 60/4 ) * 3 years = 240 man years
          If a man year cost $200,000

          Estimate = 240 * $200,000 + $7,000,000 * 10 = $118,000,000

          So I estimate about $120 million for an Earth based pre-prototype.

          Things will get a lot more expensive when launch vehicles have to be purchased to sent items to the Moon. Developing a manned rover to act as the cabin is a separate project.

          • Coastal Ron

            A_M_Swallow said:

            First lander was 25 full time and 60 students for 3 years plus $7 million materials.
            Assuming twice the man power and 10 times the material cost…

            You are not taking into account complexity, which is not linear, and the additional testing that has to happen at sub-component, component, and system levels for real flight-quality vehicles.

            A better metric is to look at what NASA has already built and flown that is close in size and complexity.

            Things will get a lot more expensive when launch vehicles have to be purchased to sent items to the Moon.

            That depends on who you use. A Falcon Heavy can place 21.2mt to GTO for $135M.

    • Andrew French

      How ironic that you and Lori Garver seem to be saying the same thing. Perhaps this is less a partisan issue thank a pork issue.

      • Lori Garver is a hero. She is the one person who was at the administration who had a spine and could articulate the vision. People purposely avoided her because she would, rather politely mind you, explain why we had to go the “commercial” route.

        Space is non-partisan and we have been saying this for three years.

        Not our fault people are shallow and don’t want to listen.

        And swallow I am not sure where you are getting your estimates from. I can point to the FY2013 NASA budget and tell you that there are no payloads. Moreover, Morpheus is not a payload. It is a concept that was originally developed by ‘Dillo.
        Just stop.
        VR
        RE327

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Anyone who thinks that SLS is going to get cancelled is dreaming. We’ll see a slip of a year or two. I do think the asteroid snatch mission is on the block, however. It has a conspicuous lack of support everywhere but the upper echelon of NASA and the White House.

    • Coastal Ron

      Mark R. Whittington said:

      Anyone who thinks that SLS is going to get cancelled is dreaming.

      Uh huh. I’m sure you said that about Constellation back in 2009, right?

      We’ll see a slip of a year or two.

      That will happen anyways, and likely is already happening for all the dates past the 2017 test flight.

      I do think the asteroid snatch mission is on the block, however.

      Which would be more bad for the SLS than for anything else – if someone doesn’t find a real reason for why we’re spending $30B on the largest rocket in the world – besides pure deficit spending – then there will be little reason to save the SLS when it starts getting attacked by those in Congress that have an alternate use for the SLS budget (either inside or outside of NASA).

      It has a conspicuous lack of support everywhere but the upper echelon of NASA and the White House.

      Well that’s not unusual these days considering how little consensus there is in the space community. If politicians can’t be guided by consensus, then they fall back to pork – which is all the SLS is.

      • Hiram

        “Which would be more bad for the SLS than for anything else – if someone doesn’t find a real reason for why we’re spending $30B on the largest rocket in the world – besides pure deficit spending – then there will be little reason to save the SLS”

        As noted above, I think Whittington got this one right. SLS will cut annual costs by just being strung out. (Yeah, eventually maybe it’ll then die from utter boredom …) Now, SLS was in the budget long before ARM showed up, so if ARM disappears, there is really no assurance that SLS will disappear as well. Launching a big hab to L1 or L2 is another easy option and that, in fact, was more or less the plan for SLS before asteroids got attractive. SLS is a generic vehicle. It’s being built to do great things, IN PRINCIPLE, especially to demonstrate prowess at producing large flames. The rationale for SLS is all hand-waving. Hands will continue to wave, and Congress will continue to delude itself. I still think that SLS will eventually be able to afford launching a hundred tons of concrete. Congress will come up with some way to rationalize that, and we’re good to go.

        • Egad

          Launching a big hab to L1 or L2 is another easy option and that, in fact, was more or less the plan for SLS before asteroids got attractive.

          But the ARM was seized upon because NASA didn’t think the money needed to develop a deep space habitation was going to be available. It probably is true that, for the foreseeable future, it’s ARM or nothing for SLS. Of course, as others have pointed out, “nothing” is probably just fine with SLS’s key Congressional supporters.

          http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/bay_area/news/nasa-fy-budget-proposal-aims-to-fund-asteroid-research/article_b182735f-e01b-5257-a1ce-1fb2baf0dbdc.html

          For Dr. Ellen Ochoa, Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), the initiative is a creative strategy to further JSC’s mission given the current funding situation.

          “We have proposed a new strategy in which to explore asteroids,” she said during a presentation before the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership Wednesday (April 17). “The main progress we have made is the development of Orion (NASA’s Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle) and the International Space Station. Those are two critical capabilities to get to an asteroid.”

          Going forward, scientists would also need to develop a habitation module that would allow humans to live in deep space for months at a time, Ochoa said.

          “This [i.e., ARM] is an ambitious challenge; but we like it because it doesn’t require development of another new human spacecraft which would mean a lot of new money. In the current fiscal environment that’s probably not going to happen,” she said. “It also takes advantage of work we are already doing in three different areas and provides that next destination for human exploration.”

          • Hiram

            “But the ARM was seized upon because NASA didn’t think the money needed to develop a deep space habitation was going to be available.”

            Fair point, but a deep space hab need not be a “new human spacecraft”. In fact, Boeing has proposed using retired ISS elements to start such a habitat. That’s what makes it “easy”. In terms of technological capabilities, there really isn’t a lot of R&D required here. Our developed expertise on ISS (ECLSS, AR&D, power, comm, etc.) maps directly onto cis-lunar hab development. It doesn’t map directly onto Mars, nor even onto ARM. In fact, what we’ve learned on ISS is *vastly* more relevant to a cis-lunar hab than it is to an asteroid mission.

            No, Ochoa’s problem is that “destination” means a rock to her, as it does to many others.

            • Ferris Valyn

              The problem is there isn’t money for such a station. Yes, it doesn’t require substantial development. But the situation, as it stands with SLS makes such an option untenable.

              • Hiram

                But development of such a station wouldn’t happen for a decade. A Lagrange point hab doesn’t need SLS to be flying by 2017. So push the SLS timeline to the right a few years, and use the annual saving for development of a real payload with a sustainable justification for it. Yes, that means that Orion is also up a creek without an early SLS, so better push that to the right as well.

                The situation, as it stands, is that the goal is to fly SLS in 2017 (and do nothing of consequence when it does).

              • Coastal Ron

                Hiram said:

                A Lagrange point hab doesn’t need SLS to be flying by 2017. So push the SLS timeline to the right a few years, and use the annual saving for development of a real payload with a sustainable justification for it.

                If only we could make that an option. Alas, as long as the SLS lives, nothing else will.

                Without the SLS we could have an ISS-based EML station within 5-7 years, and with existing/near-term commercial cargo and crew vehicles we could probably support it on a continuous basis.

                But alas, as long as the SLS lives, nothing else will happen…

              • Hiram

                Well, “we” can’t make that an option. My point was that Congress could make that an option without hitting the porkers too hard. It is a politically credible strategy. Hardly an optimal one, but let’s not ask Congress to be optimally sensible.

              • Coastal Ron

                Hiram said:

                My point was that Congress could make that an option without hitting the porkers too hard. It is a politically credible strategy.

                Not as long as the SLS supporters have their way. There isn’t enough money.

                I do agree that it’s a sensible plan, but it’s not a likely one given the current political circumstances.

    • Matt

      Agreed, Mark. And I’d throw in the Keck Institute at Cal Tech: they were the ones-not anyone in the Administration, mind, who came up with this idea. The Administration leapt on it like a lion onto a gazelle.

  • Egad

    “If we can get past the money issue, then I think you’ll see that apparent partisanship dissolve.”

    Other than that, Ms Lincoln, how did you like the play?

    “Their rollout on projects and activities has been miserable,”

    Sort of a continuing theme with this Administration. I tend to like what they want to do, but they really suck at presenting it.

  • mike shupp

    Interesting, but it seems to boil down to “We’re going to keep kicking the can down the road, and eventually the can is going to look different.” Gee, how surprising!

    My guesses: (a) SLS (or more accurately, funding for the SLS) isn’t going to go away quickly. Congress really does think the country needs a heavy launch vehicle, even if there’s not much for it to do, and no alternative is on the horizon. Handwaving about lighter LVs and in-orbit propellant depots isn’t going to change this perception. Likely, small schedule slippages will push development a year or two to the right, but we’re talking a couple of months here, a couple of months there, not show-stoppers.

    (b) If money is really a pressing matter, COTS and Commercial Crew will be chopped. Not eliminated, since that wouldn’t look good in the evening news, but reduced. I can imagine NASA being told to cut back to one COTS supplier, not eventually, but Right Damn Now With No Shill-Shallying, and a line item cut to say 250 million bucks to make the point, rather than the 5-800 million NASA keeps asking for.

    (c) Mid-Atlantic Launch range might be cuttable, despite its recent success in getting LADEE off to the Moon. Dryden could go — we don’t need it for landing any more shuttles, the military can test and fund its own unmanned lifting bodies, and we’ve got Ames for anything else requiring aircraft. The savings wouldn’t be great, but this would look good for people who want NASA to close down some centers. It’s a wonderful political gesture for a forthcoming budget cutting, tough on deficits, properly business-like Republican administration, in other words — one which manages to kick the can down the road for a few more years without changing it too much.

    d) Other cost-savers: deorbit ISS in 2025 or even 2022, forgetting this talk about keeping it till 2028. Better yet, loud promises to deorbit ISS, combined with the COTS reduction mentioned above. On the unmanned side, take the most recent decennial recommendations for space science and a pair of scissors and cut out one mission a year for the rest of the decade. Tell your constituents you’re eliminating waste and unnecessary government. Tell planetary scientists they’re lucky to get what you’re giving them, and if they don’t like it they can go to France or Russia. Also, just about everything involving weather or climate monitoring can be eliminated.

    Nothing else seems likely without a major change in the kick-the-can philosophy, and I can see the can being kicked along under Democratic or Republican administrations, with or without future budget cuts, for another 12-15 years. I don’t think the US government as a whole is willing to make major changes publically; I don’t think it’s in a mood to step up to anything new; I don’t think it’s possible to eliminate major centers as long as Congress and the White House are divided.

    And I don’t think things improve if one party manages to get control of the Presidency and both houses of Congress. To Republicans, cutting NASA back (while singing paeans to entrepreneurs who will do such much better in bringing the wonders of space down to earth) is always going to look like a good deal. Democrats will always be lumbered by constituents who think pretty pictures from Hubble are wonderful but bigger projects in space need to be put off until we’ve built heaven on earth, and isn’t it Just Awful that the contractors who stand to make big bucks on these frivolous manned space programs (Boing and Lockheed Martin and Aerojet, etc.) look so much like the vile corrupt agents of Satan who are always making big bucks on unnecessary and undesirable military progams (such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin and Aerojet, etc.)

    Maybe the Prohibitionists will sneak into power at last and make the sort of wonderful improvements we all want. But, human nature being what it is, we’ll probably find something else in their program to object to.

    • James

      Many a NASA administrator has attempted to close Wallops. Well at least Goldin tried till Babs Mikulski read him her riot act. Most Wallops employees live in Md. Don’t look for shutting down the Wallops Launch Range. Much of what has been built up their the past few years isn’t NASA money anyway

      • mike shupp

        James: “Much of what has been built up … isn’t NASA money anyway”

        Better and better! We can eliminate a NASA center, and proclaim Monday, Wednesday, and Friday that this is a Really Big Deal, and then point out Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday that this isn’t actually a Big Deal. (Sunday, of course, we can give NASA a rest.) The politics are just freakin’ wonderful!

        Bear in mind that stuff I can see happening isn’t always (or even very often) stuff that I would like to happen.

    • Coastal Ron

      mike shupp said:

      Congress really does think the country needs a heavy launch vehicle, even if there’s not much for it to do, and no alternative is on the horizon.

      Well let’s be clear about this – “Congress” as a whole is pretty much doesn’t care about the SLS, and it’s really the small part of Congress from Florida, Texas and Alabama that do. As to whether they think we need an HLV, I don’t even think those that pushed for the SLS are knowledgeable about it to know one way or the other, but their business and district constituents certainly want the work.

      Not eliminated, since that wouldn’t look good in the evening news, but reduced. I can imagine NASA being told to cut back to one COTS supplier…

      While you may be right on this, here would be two reasons why you could be wrong:

      1. Commercial Crew has consistently been the one NASA program that Obama has fought for.

      2. Boeing would lose out if there was a reduction down to just one provider, and Boeing doesn’t like to lose – especially when they have had to put their own money into the program. I think Boeing would lobby their Congressional supporters to keep the program funded enough so they can continue to participate.

      Other cost-savers: deorbit ISS in 2025 or even 2022, forgetting this talk about keeping it till 2028.

      It certainly is not a given that the ISS will be extended past 2020. I think it will depend on whether a bottoms-up review of our space exploration needs is done before the decision is made, since the ISS is critical for developing the technologies and techniques we’ll need for future human exploration.

      If the decision is made to end the U.S. government participation in the ISS, my hope would be that the U.S. Government turns their part of the ISS over to a private U.S. consortium.

      As to the rest of the budget cut talk, Congress is more likely to just reduce everything, and punt the big decisions down the road. That’s what they are good at.

  • Alex M

    Bingham sounds like a used car dealer frustrated that his customers can no longer afford to repair the lemons he sold them.

  • Some of you may be following NASA’s attempt to lease Pad 39A to a commercial company. (If not, here’s my latest article.) They were close to a 15-year deal with SpaceX when Blue Origin filed a complaint, so it went to bid. SpaceX is ready to use it now, and Blue Origin admits it has no need until at least 2018. But Blue Origin says they will manage it for NASA until then and let competitors use it.

    Yeah, right …

    Blue Origin’s bid was backed by a letter from ULA.

    About a week ago Florida Today broke the story that Blue Origin had filed a protest with the GAO, even though a decision hasn’t been announced.

    Five Senators sent a letter to Charlie Bolden also protesting the process. Click here for the letter. It surfaced last night in an NBC News article by Alan Boyle.

    Patty Murray (D-WA), who represents Blue Origin, was one of the signatories. The others all represents SLS contractors. David Vitter (R-LA) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) have Michoud with Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has ATK. James Inhofe (R-OK) would appear to have no SLS connection, but I checked OpenSecrets.org and it turns out that Boeing was his #1 campaign contributor over the last five years. Why? He’s the minority ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

    The SLS porkers are out in force.

    Some of you dreamed of the day when we’d have SLS and Falcon Heavy side-by-side at 39A and 39B. It’s clear that some are scheming to assure that never happens. Read the letter and have a good laugh at the end where the senators claim 39A must be preserved as a backup for SLS at 39B; it’s the same nonsensical argument as claiming that SLS is a backup for commercial crew.

  • Unfortunately, we are in a position where political leadership has prioritized the asteroid mission under the falsity of suggesting that “Mars is easier than the Moon”. Establishing a permanent human presence on the nearest celestial body has been dismissed by the President on the foolish pretence of BTDT.

    Combine the abnegation of leadership at the top, with greedy corporate insiders who readily deceive gullible members of Congress by assuaging their egos, and we have the situation that we have. The bureacracy of NASA has been effectively instructed to fail at human spaceflight, despite stated intentions to the contrary, and regardless of current robotic successes.

    Perseverance, in these circumstances, does not further.

  • Martijn Meijering (@mmeijeri)

    The advantage of SpaceX using LC-39A is that SLS doesn’t get to use it, but the downside is that we’re stuck with the enormous costs of LC-39. And the porkers will use this as an excuse to say it isn’t really SLS that’s so expensive, because look! SpaceX needs LC-39 too. LC-39 should be abandoned and preferably destroyed, not shared with SLS.

  • Martijn Meijering (@mmeijeri)

    Unfortunately, we are in a position where political leadership has prioritized the asteroid mission under the falsity of suggesting that “Mars is easier than the Moon”.

    An asteroid mission is easier than both Mars and moon though, so it’s a good precursor step. The stupid thing is using an HLV for it.

  • Hiram

    Unfortunately, we are in a position where political leadership prioritizes missions on the basis of what is easiest than on the basis of how ultimate goals are to be met. Of course, we have no well defined ultimate goals (even putting humans on Mars is hardly well rationalized). That lack of ultimate goals for human spaceflight is what’s stupid and, I guess as a result, it’s back to what’s easiest, eh?

    Sounds to me like at least the poorly defined ultimate goal here is using SLS. It’s that simple. Seems to me that strongly justifies using an HLV!

    • mike shupp

      The problem is, we do have an “ultimate goal” for spaceflight: what Jeff Greeson refers to as “Settlement.” I.e., putting colonies on the Moon and neighboring planets and spreading human civilization across the solar system, perhaps ultimately extending to the stars.

      And while this likely strikes most folks here as desirable, to the people who run the country it looks … problematical. For one thing, space settlement is apt to be expensive — like several hundred billion bucks per year expensive, all of this ripped out of the federal budget. It’s open ended, since people won’t be satisfied until we’ve spread out as far as the Oort cloud, so this drain on the budget would go on for centuries. It would create huge political problems internationally, as the US and Europe and China and Russia tried to establish claims on the planets and all the left out nations screamed about a New Age of Imperialism. There’d be huge political problems domestically as well, since there are both conservatives and liberals who don’t like space spending now, and some of them will be fractious because the money isn’t being spent on their goals, and some of them will wave their guns and start screaming, and God only knows where that ends.

      Please consider that these are not wild assertions — it’s a reasonable guess that the English spent 1-2% of their GNP on exploration and colonies back in Elizabethan Age, for example, and the counterpart of that today is 150 to 300 billion bucks per year. We do have merchants willing to pay such taxes. We are not going to find friendly natives to seize and sell into slavery. We are not going to find spices mixed in the sands of Mars. We are not going to mine the asteroids for steel and uranium and ship metal back to Earth, because we haven’t run out of metals on Earth yet and they aren’t so expensive as to justify interplanetary mining and anyhow, making things out of metal just isn’t that important a thing in modern economies. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll pull Helium-3 out of the atmosphere of Jupiter for fusion power generation, but that’s generations off at best, and fusion seems to have some problems of its own anyhow. And so on.

      You get the idea, I trust. So if you’re in the White House, or Congress, or OMB , or at the State Department, or the Pentagon, the odds are you can see that a manned space program might be useful some day in some way, so we should keep NASA’s HSF programs going, but at the same time the day we really need spaceflight isn’t here yet, and God willing, it won’t appear for many many years, so the important thing to do is to just keep spaceflight alive at some affordable level until it becomes necessary. Thus, kick-the-can-down-the-road programs.

      • mike shupp

        Oh sigh! Oh sigh! We do NOT have merchants willing to pay such taxes.

        I don’t want to come across as wholly negative. I’d dearly love to see space settlement. I think we can build colonies which are self-supporting, which grow and expand to form new nations out on the planets, in which ever increasing numbers of people lead rich, satisfying, productive lives. I think from the standpoint of such colonists and history such colonies will seem economically sensible and even prudent investments. But the colonists THEN are not the politicians NOW, who cannot look beyond the immediate costs.

        Consider the English colonies in the Americas as of the 18th Century. The Americans were happy enough to be where they were. Their lives were steadily improving as their population grew and their commerce expanded and their settlements pressed ever westward. They were in good shape. They were part of the English economy. They were helping enrich the merchants of Norfolk and the manufacturers of Leeds and the shipping magnates of Barbardos and the yeomen of York and Lancaster. Everyone knew this! Economists like Adam Smith wrote books about this. But to the people who ran the English government, who had to find money for the Navy and Army and customs officials and who worried about the spreading influence of the French and the Spanish and the sneakiness of Dutch merchants, the Americas were a cost. A financial drain. A great economic problem, for which economic solutions must be found!

        And we know how that turned out.

        • Hiram

          “The problem is, we do have an “ultimate goal” for spaceflight: what Jeff Greeson refers to as “Settlement.”

          Baloney. You can do better than that. Show me where the word “settlement” ever appears in NASA authorization or administration space policy. Show me where it is EVER called out as a national goal. Rotten baloney. I’m disappointed.

          Settlement is YOUR goal, not the national goal. You have some work to do. (It’s also probably my goal. But that counts as little as it does for you.)

          The real problem is when people make up national goals out of whole cloth.

          • mike shupp

            [Shrug] Take your beef up with Greeson. His argument is that settlement looks hard, and probably is hard, so politicians are unwilling to be honest about it for fear of failure. But that it’s policy nonetheless because no other sort of policy makes sense with continuing manned spaceflight, and you occasionally get glimpses of this, as when John Marburger talked about bringing space “within our economic regime” back when he was Bush’s Presidential Science Advisor. [/Shrug]

            • Hiram

              We’re not talking notional policy. We’re talking national goals. You’re just making stuff up if you confuse the two.

              As to Marburger, what he said (and I will use quotations properly), was a notional policy of “whether we want to incorporate the Solar System in our economic sphere”. The answer is sure, why not? But why does that need human space flight? Shrug away.

              You know, the single most important reason for human space flight is colonization and settlement. That’s a fact. Our enormous and rapidly increasing capability in robotics and telerobotics guarantees that. But that reason doesn’t make settlement a national goal. A national goal is something that leadership buys into. As you should know, “fear of failure” has nothing to do with anything here, as long as you don’t set any dates for accomplishing settlement. The question is whether settlement of space is a direction we want to pursue. But no, our leaders won’t even venture to say that.

              • Ferris Valyn

                How do you develop the solar system to such a scale that it is incorporated into our economic sphere without humans on site?

  • Hiram

    “How do you develop the solar system to such a scale that it is incorporated into our economic sphere without humans on site?”

    On a timescale of a century or two, with the trajectory of our robotics capabilities (which is astounding, to say the least), there is no reason why that can’t happen. Humans aren’t getting any more capable. It gets harder when those robots are outside cis-lunar space, but within cis-lunar space our telerobotic capabilities already exceed what the Apollo astronauts were capable of, and we routinely use telerobotics for commercial mining, bringing at least Canadian and Australian mining sites into our economic spheres. Human space flight technology is applicable to, and driven by, exactly one thing — human space flight. Telerobotic technology is applicable to a vast commercial and defense market. So the technology drivers for the latter are much greater. But the one thing those robots will NEVER do is settlement and colonization. Now,if the purpose of colonization and settlement is resource development, we may have a problem. If, on the other hand, the purpose is species preservation, then we’re good to go.

    • Ferris Valyn

      You are talking about capabilities, but that really isn’t enough. You also have to have a reason to use that capability. Why would you deploy large scale tele-robotics to the moon? For mining? who would use it? Are you talking about shipping it back to earth? If so, that seems a very unlikely scenario.

      I’ll grant that for planetary protection, telerobotics can be enough, but that isn’t incorporating the solar system into our economic sphere.

      Finally, why does species preservation allow for a better sales job than econmoic and resource development?

      • Hiram

        Paul Spudis and Tony Lavoie have it all worked out for the Moon. But they were doing it as a pathway for colonization of the Moon. Doesn’t have to be about that.

        Using telerobotics for mining the Moon — who would use it? Geez, anyone who wants lunar water for in-space propellant. Yeah, anyone who wants He3 as well. To collect, I guess, since we don’t know how to use He3.

        That’s exactly right that species preservation does not allow for a better sales job than economic and resource development. That’s why Congress won’t touch it. I never said that it would allow for a better sales job. What I said was that with optimal telerobotics, using humans for economic and resource development would not make for a good sales job.

        Yes, I’m doing some handwaving about telerobotic and autonomous robotic capabilities. But as I said, the trajectory of that work is so steep, it is dangerous to ignore the possible potential. A hundred years ago, we barely had telephones (turn the crank, and talk loud). Look at us now. That trajectory is driven by commercial applications. Doesn’t need space investment to make it happen. It’s going to happen anyway.

        • Coastal Ron

          Hiram said:

          Using telerobotics for mining the Moon — who would use it? Geez, anyone who wants lunar water for in-space propellant.

          Which right now is no one. And really, it’s not a matter of where you want to fuel up your rocket at, since there are economic issues at play here. How much does it cost to set up propellant production on the Moon, and how much time? That is the weakness of that plan, since during the 17 years it takes to set up such a production facility, customers are signing long-term supply agreements with the terrestrial sources they’ve been using during that 17-year period.

          And I’m not aware of anyone that has been able to guess what the ROI would be for a private version of such a venture, which is why Spudis argues the taxpayer should pay for it (which doesn’t make the ROI positive, just hides it).

          Typically the first use for local resources is local use, which because the Earth is not short any particular mineral or element that has a current use, means that the best market for lunar mining will be for use on the Moon.

          I think that will happen some day, but it will be a while, and part of what will determine that is whether the SLS and MPCV continue to be a distraction for NASA.

          • Hiram

            “Which right now is no one. And really, it’s not a matter of where you want to fuel up your rocket at, since there are economic issues at play here.”

            I agree entirely. Let’s not get off topic here. What was being discussed was whether human space flight was required to develop space resources. I said no, and I meant that technically. Those resources could be developed robotically. You don’t need humans on site to do the job. But the point you’re making is an excellent one. Human space flight is required to develop space resources because if you don’t have busloads of humans heading for Neptune, you don’t need those space resources. There is no job to be done! So we’re addressing the word “requirement” from different directions.

            And, yes, even if you have busloads of humans going to Neptune, it’s hardly clear you need those space resources to send them there either. I am NOT advocating lunar ISRU. Just pointing out that if you wanted lunar ISRU, you don’t need people there to do it.

            • Ferris Valyn

              But if you don’t have a reason to develop something, then fundamentally, it won’t happen. And what you are talking about is a technical capability. The Marburger quote was “whether we want to incorporate the Solar System in our economic sphere,” which is fundamentally different than having a tele-robotic capability to capture and deliver lunar ISRU to someplace that has the technical capability. It is about a fundamental reason to go to space.

              So, back to my original question – How do you develop the solar system to such a scale that it is incorporated into our economic sphere without humans on site? Not in a technical sense, but at a strategic level such that there is a pull and a push for people to spend their time and money to develop space, large scale, in a way that doesn’t have large numbers of people to sell to in space?

              • Hiram

                Yes, I was just referring to technical capability. But that’s correct, that Marburger’s quote may have implicitly presumed humans venturing in large numbers out into the solar system. But Marburger certainly never offered that vision explicitly. Why not? This was my original point, that sending large numbers of humans out into the solar system for colonization and settlement is not a national goal, and has never been expressed as such. That goal is commonly presumed, but never stated. That being the case, what goal was Marburger defending when he made that statement? Oops.

                Now, there are those who believe that the Moon holds riches that would have great value on the Earth. Dennis Wingo and his ilk in particular. Platinum group metals, He3, etc. Might be, if you could retrieve them economically, but we can’t. You’re saying that Marburger was sidestepping Wingo’s argument entirely?

                It is certainly our intent to include deep underground oil and gas reserves into our economic sphere. But maybe we have to wait until we can send humans down those holes before we can actually do so, no?

                Boy, Marburger sure was saying a lot that he didn’t say.

              • Ferris Valyn

                I’ll grant he never offerred his vision explicitly. But the fact remains that high level people, including presidents, have multiple times referenced either settlement, or situations which require settlement, as part of our national purpose in space.

                As for why not – in my honest opinion, the space community (or at least a non-substantial portion of it) is terrifed about talking about space settlement (which is part of the reason they didn’t actually defend Newt’s speech last year)

              • Hiram

                “But the fact remains that high level people, including presidents, have multiple times referenced either settlement, or situations which require settlement, as part of our national purpose in space.”

                Reference, please? Let’s stick to presidents. Newt is a “high level” person, whose level commands mostly laughter.

                But yes, everyone is terrified of the topic of space settlement. Curious, for something that is being pandered as a national goal, and may turn out to be the main rationale for human space flight.

              • Ferris Valyn

                President Obama speaking at KSC in 2010

                “Fifty years after the creation of NASA, our goal is no longer just a destination to reach. Our goal is the capacity for people to work and learn and operate and live safely beyond the Earth for extended periods of time, ultimately in ways that are more sustainable and even indefinite”

                That is settlement.

                (Regarding Newt – for a short while, he was seen as a front-runner for the Republican Nomination. However, in the context of what we are talking about, I was more referring to how almost no one in the space community defended his speech in Florida, which is a real shame and very telling)

              • Hiram

                Oh come on. That doesn’t even come close to endorsement of “settlement” or “colonization”. The prospect of humans beyond the Earth for “extended periods of time” is a regular mantra. You can send a couple of blokes out there “indefinitely”. That’s not settlement. It’s banishment.

                Though, you know. What he described comes pretty close to what we now have on ISS.

                If Obama was talking about colonization and settlement of other worlds, he would have been more specific.

                Try again.

                Newt, front runner for the Republican nomination? Yep, that was before he endorsed lunar statehood. That took care of him.

              • Hiram

                P.S. A President who says that we don’t need to go to the Moon again “because we’ve done it before” is interested in space colonization? Give me a break! You’d think that if he wanted to do space colonization, that’s EXACTLY why he’d want to go back.

              • Ferris Valyn

                I disagree – going out into space sustainably and indefinitely results in settlement. ISS resupply, while great and wonderful, isn’t practical for sustainable and indefinite.

                Further, he didn’t say we don’t need to go to the moon. He said,
                “Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before. Buzz has been there. There’s a lot more of space to explore, and a lot more to learn when we do. So I believe it’s more important to ramp up our capabilities to reach — and operate at — a series of increasingly demanding targets, while advancing our technological capabilities with each step forward”

                That isn’t saying that we aren’t going back to the moon. What that is saying is that NASA isn’t going to be primarily focused on the moon, particularly for exploration. And frankly, exploration should not be the primary focus in going back to the moon – lunar spaceflight should be about development. In other words, its a rejection of going to the moon Constellation (or Apollo) style, not no going to the moon, period.

                Settlement may not be an explicit goal, but there are enough statements about items that require settlement in presidential speeches, in national statements, and in previous NASA authorization laws, that, while its not an explicit goal, it is an emergent goal of this country.

                Final point, regarding Newt – part of the reason I’d argue that his lunar statehood speech hurt him is because the space community didn’t rally to him. If it had, or at least the Republican part of the space community, had rallied to him, I think it could have been different.

              • Hiram

                “Settlement may not be an explicit goal, but there are enough statements about items that require settlement in presidential speeches, in national statements, and in previous NASA authorization laws, that, while its not an explicit goal, it is an emergent goal of this country.”

                But that’s what this discussion is about. I don’t believe there are such statements that REQUIRE settlement. You have yet to show me a convincing one by people who express national consensus or leadership. I’m not sure what an “emergent goal” is. Is that a goal that we’re too embarrassed to make explicit, maybe? You can only ask people to work towards “explicit” goals.

                That’s right. Obama wasn’t saying we weren’t going back to the Moon. What he said was that going to new places was a priority. That doesn’t sound like space settlement as a priority.

                I’m sorry, but it’s going to take more than pretending to rationalize this. I think it’s a real shame because, as I said, I think the only credible rationale for human spaceflight is colonization and settlement.

                As to Newt, you think the space community rallying to him would have changed popular opinion about him? No, popular opinion would have seen crazies defending crazies. The “space community”, such as it is, has ZERO impact in determination of national policy. What Newt needed was for other political leaders to rally to him. But none wanted to touch it with a ten foot pole.

        • Ferris Valyn

          I don’t deny the capabilities of telerobotics and the like, but huh? Whats the market for pulling stuff off the moon if we don’t have or aren’t planning on putting large numbers of people in space? Whats the ROI?

          From my perspective, Coastal Ron kind of really makes the relevant points.

  • Kevin Pollpeter paper on the China’s military goal’s in space. Space could well be the next Tibet, the ultimate high-ground. US is in space race with China already, but like the trade war we don’t seem to be really noticing.
    Chinese Vision of Space Military Operations

  • Pollpeter’s 2008 book on China Space:
    Building for the Future: China’s Progress in Space Technology during the Tenth 5-Year Plan and the U.S. Response

    The synopsis:
    The Chinese government is using space power to increase its influence at home and abroad and hopes to leverage the political, economic, and military benefits of space to become a great power. The ambivalent nature of the U.S.-China relationship, however, assures that over the long term China’s rise as a space power will present challenges to the United States. Militarily, China’s improved remote sensing capabilities and launch tempos require the U.S. military to prepare to counteract China’s use of space in a potential conflict over Taiwan. Commercially, China’s lower labor costs and mercantilist approach to space could establish China as a competitive market force. Politically, U.S. diplomats must recognize the role Chinese space activities plays in diplomacy and be prepared to ameliorate cooperative activities that impinge on U.S. national security. Despite these drawbacks, cooperation with China cannot be ruled out. Cooperation can improve scientific research, increase safety, and make an opaque program more transparent, but should not directly improve China’s military or commercial capabilities. Consequently, the U.S. response to China’s rise as a space power should take a balanced approach in which challenges are managed and opportunities exploited.`1

    • Coastal Ron

      sftommy said:

      The Chinese government is using space power to increase its influence at home and abroad and hopes to leverage the political, economic, and military benefits of space to become a great power.

      In order to have influence, you need to show that you can do something that is better than your competitors, and the Chinese are years away from that. As of now everyone knows they are using licensed versions of Soviet-era hardware, and they haven’t quite figured out how to bend aluminum to make their Long March 5 rocket. They are still trying to show competence in doing what other countries did decades ago, and are a long way away from showing leadership.

      And how is that supposed to translate into “influence”? Do the countries of Africa care? The countries of Asia?

      This is what’s known as “an unproven assertion”.

      Commercially, China’s lower labor costs and mercantilist approach to space could establish China as a competitive market force.

      You are a couple of years behind reality I’m afraid.

      First of all low cost labor is not really a factor in aerospace. And China is no longer the low cost center in the world. For instance, China now buys it’s shoes from Vietnam. Even Apple says making iPhones in the U.S. would only cost a couple of dollars more. What China has is scaleability for commercial manufacturing, and that is not a factor in aerospace at this time.

      The other issue you raise is “mercantilist approach to space”. Other than the market for launches and building satellites, there is not much else for China to use that supposed “mercantilist approach to space”. And last I looked the U.S. and Europe lead on satellite manufacturing, and China has already said they can’t compete against SpaceX.

      Whoever wrote that is wrong.

      • Vladislaw

        That was written in 2008. In five years china has had 2 human launches for a total of 6 people in 5 years and a lunar launch. American launched 73 humans into space on the shuttle, plus paid to have others launched on soyuz. We have operated occupied a Space Station continously for over a decade (they have still not even launched the first components for theirs yet), we have launched to asteroids, and outer planets and several to mars.

        I just do not see it. I have been hearing this for almost 2 decades, hell even Mitt tried to get some traction making the claim. By the time they have a complete space station and occupied for a year, we will have over two decades of experience and have domestic commercial access and destinations.

  • mike shupp

    I think trying to come up with capital-R Reasons for space settlement, in the form of absolute necessities, is probably a waste of time. We’ve got enough people on Earth already, we’ve got enough surface area for them to live on, we’ve got enough resources to carry us for a good long time, we know how to give them generally comfortable lives, etc. We don’t NEED spaceflight, let alone space colonies.

    Consider, for example, the English in 1600. As they viewed things, they had a “species survival” problem — they had a small nation in terms of land, a small population outnumbered by France and Spain and other powers, moreover they were Protestants surrounded by unfriendly Catholics. They were beset by paupers, whose incessant cries for food and labor beggared the public treasury. Their economy knowledge told them prosperity was dependent on trade, and the most advantageous trade was with dependent colonies. Even the weather could not be trusted, for about 1550 the earth entered a cooler period (now called the Little Ice Age) which lasted for 3 centuries or so.

    So the English established colonies helter skelter about the globe, with the idea of increasing their numbers and wealth and safety. And as we can see now, it was completely wasted effort. What the English actually needed they could have found at home — improved science and technology, improved notions of agriculture, improved standards of public health, reforms in banking practices, and above all, social transformations such as widespread literacy, religious tolerance, and increased democracy. And when they got these things in the 19th century, they did indeed become rich and powerful and plenteous. No doubt their extensive colonies were a source of much pride, but in actual fact, they were a weakness — a tremendous drain on the homeland’s military strength, as demonstrated throughout WW I and WW II, on down to the formation of the Commonwealth in the 1960s.

    So the English didn’t NEED to expand. That they did has provided us with some interesting history to read, various picturesque sights to admire, and certain intellectual satisfactions, but arguably we could have 7 billion happy and prosperous individuals on earth without their efforts. Similarly, post-WW II history demonstrates that German prosperity never depended on increased living space (“lebensraum”) despite what their economists told them in the 1920s and 1930s.

    And I can even speculate that the United States would have just done fine if there had been no Louisiana Purchase, no Mexican War, and we had remained bounded by the Ohio Valley and the Mississippi. Perhaps we would have escaped the agonies of Civil War. And as for resources… can anyone here truthfully say their life has been improved in any fashion by the gold of California or the gold of the Yukon or the pitchblende of Arizona? Do we now require a space program? Absolutely not! We can follow the path of the English: increase our stores of science and technology with federal spending, benefit the public by improved national health care, strengthen our public school system, redouble our efforts to clean up the environment, reform our tax code to eliminate federal debt and combat poverty, join the world-wide effort to alleviate global warming! Can’t we all agree that these simple obvious measures will do more to increase our wealth, our happiness, and even our prospects for survival than any amount of gallivanting about the solar system?

    Let’s look further. Did the discovery of a New World so much for the Spanish? Basically not — the Spanish exploited the wealth of the Americas well into the 1800s. but economically and militarily they were a spent force before the 1700s. Arguably easy access to gold ruined economic development in their homeland. And before that… Well, did stone age humans actually need to cross the Bering Straits 15 thousand years ago? Did equally primitive human societies has reason to transport themselves to Australia 50 thousand years ago? Or from Africa to the Middle East and beyond perhaps 100 thousand years ago? Couldn’t our CroMagnon ancestors have stayed on where they were and existed in tolerance and equity with the noble Neandertals of Ice Age Europe and the Denisovian denizens of Asia? What after all did they require to provide their wealth? Rocks. Are our supposed needs really more substantial?

    • A_M_Swallow

      mike shupp wrote

      … Well, did stone age humans actually need to cross the Bering Straits 15 thousand years ago? Did equally primitive human societies has reason to transport themselves to Australia 50 thousand years ago?

      Yes. The stone age humans needed new land to hunt, if they did not find it they starved. Their parents and cousins were hunting the existing land.

      Hunting and farming have gone from the primary economic activities of people to a minor one. Towns used to support the farmers, now farmers support the cities.

  • mike shupp

    Now, to side with the Angels rather than Devils, let’s admit English colonization efforts ultimately served desirable purposes (from their viewpoints, anyhow). English merchants did enrich themselves and others with American trade. Literal armies of fighting men came from Australia and New Zealand and India and Canada to fight in England’s European wars during the 20th century. Even the long lost colonies calling themselves the United States found cause to join Britain’s defense, not one but twice — and that effort was far from meager.

    And the English paid us back. Not just with trade, though that was substantial and mutually beneficial. They took our side in our wars. They gave us Jane Austen and Charles Dickens and the Beatles and endless newspaper stories of Princess Diana and Kate Middletown. They gave us the fruits of their scientific knowledge, from Charles Darwin to Richard Dawson, from Rutherford to Klaus Fuchs, from Priestly and Dalton and Faraday to Tim Berners-Lee. Their central bankers dealt with our central bankers. Their inns were hospitable to our tourists. Some Americans acquired a taste for Scottish liquors (and Scottish marmalade), and some learned to eat oatmeal for breakfast, and our affluent classes mimicked taking tea in the afternoons.

    There are good things to be said about the French, as well. And the Spanish. It’d be no stretch to find some praise for Australia and other far-flung patches of Englishness — most Americans can even find some affection for alien Canada, and are disappointed when the love is not quickly reciprocated. Mexico has its strengths, as does Brazil, and how long will it be before we forgive Argentina for the Falklands War and Evita?

    And on and on. Is it necessary to press the point that we find valuable here is not the sameness of human identity but the opposite, the diversity, the differences of custom and history. Misery and poverty and ignorance and disease look the same everywhere, but they do not attract us, they are not what we aspire to experience. Wealth, broad landscapes, far-reaching hopes, a deep cultural heritage — these excite our attentions and fuel our own aspirations.

    But it’s the 21st century. Perhaps we know ourselves too well, or have bound ourselves by early limitations or habits we cannot recognize by dint of their very familiarity. Perhaps we need new lands to live in, new frontiers to press against, new environments, even new methods for meeting the demands of life, and thence new histories, new societies, new human richness.

    And where shall we find new lands and new opportunities? The oceans are already well plumbed. The Antarctic is off-limits for many purposes. Other unoccupied lands are intemperate for human visitors or agriculturally barren. As a source of novelty, the earth seems practically exhausted.

    Really, what is left but Space?

  • Hiram

    “Really, what is left but Space?”

    That’s a historical purview, where “exploration” was about going to places we could plant feet. In fact, your examples are all dragged out of history. Ain’t the case anymore. Grow up. Welcome to the 21st century. There are new frontiers and new opportunities all around us.

    What if we don’t need new lands to live in? Settlers everywhere were never really looking for “new frontiers and new opportunities”. (Except to pillage other cultures, perhaps.) Maybe that’s how they justified it to themselves. Don’t be deluded by that storybook rationale. What they were really looking for was escape from oppression, and probably food as well. The other fact about national exploration is that it usually results in other nations and even other cultures. That is (and this is profoundly important to Congress), space exploration is about species survival, not national survival, and the latter is what Congress gets paid to worry about.

  • Guest

    space exploration is about species survival, not national survival, and the latter is what Congress gets paid to worry about.

    I take issue with a lot of what you are saying. Space exploration is about wasting money that could be better spent on more important endeavors, and if congress is supposed to be concerned with national survival they are doing a rather poor job of it. The development of reusable launch systems is more about species survival, and the commercial sector is just about to take care of that little problem. Space exploration, given what we know about what has to be done for species survival, is an extremely poor investment of space development funds at this late stage of the process. That is the whole problem here, people in power (academic and government) completely disconnected with reality and clinging to obsolete paradigms of the past.

    • Coastal Ron

      Guest said:

      The development of reusable launch systems is more about species survival, and the commercial sector is just about to take care of that little problem. Space exploration, given what we know about what has to be done for species survival, is an extremely poor investment of space development funds at this late stage of the process.

      I take issue with a lot of what you are saying.

      Lowering the cost to access space – no matter how it is done – is only one of the many things that need to happen for species survival. In fact, it could be argued that you don’t need to have reusable launch systems, since that’s just an economics issues, not a technical one (we have no shortages of aluminum and lithium here on Earth).

      ISRU would be a much more important issue, as is radiation and gravity mitigation techniques and technologies. If species survival was the goal. Which it currently isn’t.

    • Hiram

      “Space exploration is about wasting money that could be better spent on more important endeavors, and if congress is supposed to be concerned with national survival they are doing a rather poor job of it.”

      Thumbs up to that one.

      “The development of reusable launch systems is more about species survival, and the commercial sector is just about to take care of that little problem.”

      Huh? No one who is developing reusable launch systems is doing it for species survival. Get a grip.

      “Space exploration, given what we know about what has to be done for species survival …”

      We know nothing, zilch, nada, about what has to be done for species survival. As many have noted, humans transplanted to other worlds where they can’t interbreed with those left behind may guarantee species survival for a few generations. But that’s about it.

  • Guest

    Lowering the cost to access space – no matter how it is done – is only one of the many things that need to happen for species survival.

    I am arguing it is the first and thus the most important. Luckily for you it is already more or less is in the queue. Unfortunately for you, it obsoletes almost everything you think you know about space development, including your beloved EELVs.

    • Coastal Ron

      Guest said:

      I am arguing it is the first and thus the most important.

      Well you can argue that all you want, but that doesn’t mean you are right.

      If the survival of the species is at stake, then lowering the cost to access space is more of a “nice to have” compared to all the other things we need to master in order to survive and thrive beyond Earth.

      We can build and launch rockets today, but we don’t know how to live on Mars today – see the difference? Rockets of any cost is not the most important issue.

      Unfortunately for you, it obsoletes almost everything you think you know about space development, including your beloved EELVs.

      I don’t know who you think I am, and what you think I have said in the past, but it’s obvious that you don’t have a clue. I’m serious about this, and I’ve pointed this out to you many times, so I’m concerned you’re not seeing the problem you have.

      As I’ve said many times, I support those companies that are lowering the cost to access space. Right now that’s SpaceX, but if someone else comes along and does a better job of it, then I’ll advocate for them.

      And if we want to talk about the consistency of what each of us advocates for, is this the week where you go back to advocating for Congress to spend more money on the SLS, or was that last week? It’s so hard to keep up with what YOU advocate for… ;-)

  • Guest

    We can build and launch rockets today, but we don’t know how to live on Mars today – see the difference?</i:

    Er, no I don't. I don't see what living on Mars has to do with the survival of Earth's biosphere either, and I never implied anything about it. So essentially, debating with you is crazy.

  • Wow, look at all the members of Congress who stood up to the porkers trying to block the lease of LC-39A:

    http://images.spaceref.com/news/2013/lc39ltr.pdf

    From a Space Coast perspective, I’m shocked that Bill Posey took a stand.

    • I looked at the letter in more detail. It’s signed by all 27 members of Florida’s House delegation, Republican and Democrat. Wow.

      • Coastal Ron

        That is remarkable. I guess the bottom line is that they don’t want anything to delay the government getting lease payments – and they don’t seem to care whose money it is.

        • Unlike the porkers, who are doing it to ensure more campaign contributions from the OldSpace triplets (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, ATK), most of these congresscritters have no skin in the game. What does a representative in the Panhandle or Key West care about KSC?

          Someone finally decided that enough is enough, and organized a response.

          It would have been nice to get Senators Nelson and Rubio to sign off, but that’s the other congressional house.

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