Space advocates best realize that the Obama years are a time to regroup manangement, jettison shuttlera and commercialist deadwood, truncate old Cold War planning (ISS et al.,) streamline organizations, clarify goals for planetary and HSF ops, focus on those goals, and prepare to hit the ground running in the next administration– Hillary’s. For this one has been a deep diosappointment to space advocates who know the long term commitment such goals and technologies require.

Following in the wake of three decades of the success of the Russian Progress simply demonstrates ‘commercial’ is a follower, not a leader in this field, Ron. Decades behind. Lofting a satellite was accomplished in 1957 by the Russians– and in ’58 by Americans, Ron. SSober And, of course, it is HSF that matters. and in case you havent noticed, NewSpace has failed to even atempt to launch, orbit and return anybody from LEO. False equivalency does not create parody for NewSpacers, Ron. In the long run, NewSpace is a dead end. LEO is a ticket to no place, going in corcles, no where, fast. Tick-tock, tick-tock…

Newt Gingrich, Moon President, as SNL ao aptly labelled and lampooned him, preached to his students years ago that NASA should have been disbanded after Apollo ended. Gingrich has virtually no has no credbility any more– much like the organization that has now hired him to make pointless noise to sell commercial time– CNN.

Only enough to mount the next ‘large’ mission (don’t use the word ‘flag ship’ for a least another 20 years – thanks NASA/JWST mis management), which if I understand correctly will be the WFIRST/NRO mirror mission.

I’ve already heard some young astrophysics lament the predictable future of Astrophysics and wonder if they should leave NASA and go work for ??????

Of course, its pretty clear, given Keplers stunning success, that the next Decadal Winner, in 2030 will be an Exoplanet mission. So, others in AP will have to wait till 2030 for any hope of their next great observatory….which given how long it takes to develop technologies and develop the mission, handle expected over runs and independent commission findings, won’t be launched till 2045 ish .

Egad.

Of course, all of this is lost on Congress, who can only view NASA’s credibility through the lens of the JWST fiasco. Perhaps, in 2019 or 2020, if JWST is successful, and is re writing history books again, Congress/OMB will forget the $8B price tag, and look to fund a large aperture AP mission…

NASA’s budget has nothing to do with the completion of JWST. Nor probably does SMD’s. The Astrophsyics Division budget, on the other hand, is somewhat precarious. It has not escaped attention that by removing JWST from the Division, some $600M/year hasn’t been put back in the Division. NASA Astrophysics controls LOTS less money than it used to, even though JWST is a mission about astrophysics.

The question is whether the AD will get that money back under it’s control when JWST is successful. Many would say that’s unlikely. So who gets it?

Astrophysics missions are seriously handicapped by the need for size. Astrophysics is largely about faint things, and faint things need light gathering power. Light gathering power means big telescopes, and big telescopes mean many many dollars. Yes, there are relatively economical scout missions like Kepler, but those just find the targets you need to look at with large telescopes.

It’s hard to understand this, with the impressive prospects for JWST, but NASA astrophysics is in a really hard place right now. All NASA and NSF science is suffering these days, but astrophysics has the abysmal cost impact of JWST hung around it’s neck, so it’s in much worse shape than the others in the long run.

“…purged of the commercialist bug- when HRC is elected three years from today.”

You sound so… quaint when you say “commercialist bug”, as if commercial enterprises are going to become a thing of the past.

That is your problem. You think non-government activity in space is the exception, when the clear trend has been that government activity is the exception. Even our military is buying more and more commercial space services and commercial hardware. And, of course, every DoD/NRO payload is launched on a commercial rocket, which won’t change.

If anything commercial space services have already passed the barrier where they can be suppressed. Commercial Cargo is an unqualified success, and the economics of it are undeniable. Commercial Crew is unlikely to be stopped at this point to, because even if Congress zero’d out the funding SpaceX would still create their crew transportation service, AND Congress would giving them a virtual monopoly on U.S. business.

And it’s been pretty apparent that you have a “thing” for HRC, but what is Hillary supposed to do to change that? Do you think a study group that takes 1.5 years to come up with “proposals” is going to change the political situation between Republican’s disliking Democratic Presidents (ESPECIALLY those named Clinton), and the normal pork politics of NASA?

One of these days you’re going to leave your basement and step into the light, but until then you are going to continue to be hopelessly out of touch with reality…

““This is a good example of what’s wrong with the current political system,” Gingrich said. “I gave a serious speech in Florida at the Space Coast outlining a very bold strategy. … I got savaged by two of my competitors, Romney and Santorum, who deliberately distorted the speech. I got ridiculed by ‘Saturday Night Live.’”

Gingrich, who now hosts a show on CNN, writes in his newest book “Breakout” that Washington is a city full of “prison guards of the past,” who are slowing the pace of innovation in fields like space exploration.

He specifically calls for redirecting government funding from NASA to the private sector, where he believes projects can be more efficiently funded and implemented.

“The one period of glory in NASA was the first nine years when they weren’t a bureaucracy yet … and they haven’t gotten back to that excitement, that adventurism, and won’t,” he said. “So, I would take most of the NASA budget, and I would turn it into prizes for private sector.””

Out of this world: Why Gingrich wants to go to space and says GOP turmoil is healthy

If the question was pork or prizes … I would go the prize route.