In his column in the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill on Wednesday, Josh Marshall argues that the new Bush space policy is just one example of several new proposals that are designed “for short-term political gain, regardless of the consequences”, ranking alongside a new immigration policy and the prescription drug plan. An excerpt:
The clearest example was the plan to send men to Mars. This wasn’t a real policy proposal.
The whole thing was never even meant to happen. It was supposed to be a campaign sound bite to give a running start to the State of the Union roll-out and a bullet point for the president’s onward-and-upward-with-optimism reelection theme.
Had this been a serious proposal, it would have required a vast national effort costing, in all likelihood, hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet when it didn’t strike a chord with voters or the Sunday shows, it got tossed aside without a second thought. It wasn’t a policy proposal. It was a political ploy.
And the White House cut it loose so unceremoniously that that unlovely reality was impossible to miss.
There are a couple of problems with Marshall’s analysis. First, there is no hard evidence that the space policy has been “tossed aside”. Some people, such as Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), have tried to argue that because Bush didn’t mention the plan in his State of the Union address last month, the plan must be dead or dying already. Given that Bush devoted about 20 minutes to the plan during a speech six days earlier at NASA Headquarters, bringing it up again in the SOTU may have simply seemed redundant. Moreover, the changes required by the policy are already underway at NASA, as illustrated by its FY2005 budget request.
The second problem is that space is a fringe issue to most Americans. The number of people who care passionately about space is very small, much smaller than people who care about prescription drug plans or immigration policies. Thus, the presence—or absence—of a new space policy is unlikely to sway the minds of more than a few voters. There are a lot of other topics that Bush could promote that could provide more short- or long-term gain than a new space policy, which he and/or his advisors are doubtlessly aware. It seems unlikely Bush would have put much more effort into this plan initially regardless of the public reaction. The absence of a concerted effort to promote the plan doesn’t necessarily mean the plan has been dropped.
The other problem with this analysis, of course, is that a Mars mission needn’t cost hundreds of billions of dollars — in fact, I would argue that given the history of the Space Exploration Initiative, had such a spending proposal been made, it would have signified a lack of seriousness on the President’s part better than anything else.
I would agree with Jeff here that we can already see the changes this policy was designed to bring in the FY 2005 budget and the reaction from NASA administration. It’s encouraging to see things like planetary exploration budgets going up, or NASA challenging itself to get a lunar mapping mission launched by 2008 (http://www.space.com/news/moon_mission_040205.html).
We can only hope that, once this round of funding has passed through Congress safely, that either a) Bush gets re-elected and continues this policy, or b) his successor is enlightened enough to see that what amounts to a tiny budget increase for an agency that represents less than 1% of the federal budget will pay off spectacularly for both America and the world at large.
I think comments such as these, and those made by bitter left-behinds such as Alex Roland don’t reflect an assessment that the plan is dying so much as it reflects on the individuals’ desire to have a hand in actually killing it. They seek to be the hands that make their own prophecies come true, mostly for no other reason than that they hate Bush. They’re not about to let the technical and cost facts stand in the way of their irrational hatred and transparent politicism. That said, I do think the President needs to make reference to the new policy again soon, whether or not it’s a full speech or a talking point, to demonstrate his continued commitment. Unfortunately, only footprints on Mars will likely have any chance at being enough to shut these morons up.
Unless President Bush recruits people such as Bill Nelson to be his ally for America’s space vision, I do not understand how this vision will survive the 2009 transition of power.
John McCain’s support will be critical as well. McCain’s statement that “Vision without strategy is illusion” is rather powerful political rhetoric.
The best way for President Bush to prove he is serious about his space initiative would be to do whatever politcal horse-trading is needed to line up as many Democratic Senate & House co-sponsors as possible.
Josh Marshall hackery
The Marshall piece is not a serious analysis of the merits, or lack, of the new Bush space policy. The complete omission in Marshall’s story of the fact of the Columbia disaster and the floundering of NASA is telling. If Bush had done nothing at all in response, or made a Clintonian style non-decision to muddle through, that would itself warrant criticism. But instead Marshall attacks the president for having the balls to make a real choice.
Dumping the white elephant Shuttle and ISS was a real choice. Deciding exploration was the core mission of NASA was a real choice.
In fact I suspect that Bush, as an MBA type executive, made these choices because the issue was forced upon him. NASA was in crisis and something had to be done. So Bush made the decision and moved on.
I have no illusions that Bush is some kind of space exploration enthusiast, even though he does have a background in military aviation. But I do think the Bush style of blunt decision making is what is responsible for finally cutting though the thirty years worth of bureaucratic B.S. surrounding space policy.
I am worried though that the political venom level is so high now that if Bush is defeated, his replacement will kill manned space exploration just because Bush was in favor of it. The Marshall piece is just another example of the venom.
President Bush’s “background in aviation”? Now that is funny. I know he flew F-102s in the Air National Guard for a few years, but there is enough sketchiness to his military background as to cause pause.
Bush is about as curious about space and aviation as my mother is, which is to say not at all.
Phil: You answered your own question. Anyone who has flown F-102’s has a “background in aviation”, by definition. And his military background isn’t sketchy at all for anyone who takes the time to look it up. For example: http://factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=131
So much that has been written about Bush’s space plan is just knee-jerk hatred of Bush himself. It’s impossible for many on the left to judge this idea on its own merits.
Nat’l Guard or not, I’m inclined to take his service a lot more seriously precisely because of what he flew. The F-102 was reputed to be a very difficult, unforgiving airplane. Not just any moron can become a fighter jock and live for very long. They don’t just give away pilot wings and put you in a high-performance aircraft, I don’t care who your Daddy is. Same goes for Harvard MBA degrees.
If Bush wins in November, I think we can expect the new space initiative to move along more or less as Bush has outlined. Given his record, he will obviously leave the detail work to O’Keffe and others and take little or no direct involvement in the process.
When a new administration arrives in 2009, the program will hopefully be far enough along that it simply wouldn’t make any sense for it to be canceled, even if the new President wanted it to be. The Shuttle would be on the verge of retirement and the CEV would be undertaking its test launches.
By 2009, assuming that things go more or less according to plan, there would be no way of rolling back the program to the “LEO-only” pattern it has been in for the last thirty years. At least, not without ending manned spaceflight altogether. And while political support for NASA has not been that strong over the last three decades, I don’t think any President wants to be known as “the guy who killed NASA.”
On the other hand, if Bush loses in November, we might have an entirely different story. You’d only have one year of political momentum for the new initiative, which is not strong enough to ensure against the program being killed. Just look at what happened to the Super Conducting Super Collider a decade ago.
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