One aspect of the President’s administration that mystifies me, and which I don’t think gets as much press as it really should is his opinion on the Space Program and/or NASA (Arguably, the two are not the same). Despite the fact that he basically killed Project Constellation and Orion last month, the Dems are pretending this was a good thing, and us Republicans seem to have our priorities elsewhere. Why else would we not be screaming about it?
As most of you probably already know, the Flying Coffin we call the Space Shuttle is due to be retired this year. The follow-up spacecraft, the “Orion,” was trapped in slow-track development due to budgetary issues, and general NASA tomfoolery; and wouldn’t be flying until 2015 at the earliest. (Though obviously, given NASA’s record in such things, it’d be reasonable to add two to three years to that.)
What this means is that we’d have - at the least - a five year break during which we, the United States of America, *THE* leader in Space Exploration - will be unable to put a man in space. Unless, of course, we buy a ticket on a Soyuz or a Shenzhou. Ok, so this sucks, and it’s entirely due to the shortsightedness of NASA, and Congress, both of whom obviously intended to keep the shuttles flying forever. But five years isn’t forever, right?
Wellllllllll, you know, we’ve got this Democratic administration intent on being a sort of revividus of the Carter years (During which we also had no manned space program), so it might well be. Back in the Campaign, Obama clearly stated that he intended to “Postpone” the development of the Orion for five years, in order to free up money for social services. That’s five years above and beyond the already-ludicrously-long development schedule. What that means is that the US wouldn’t have manned spaceflight capability for *a full decade!* Ten years during which space would belong to the Russians and the Chinese, and (possibly) to India and the EU, both of whom have made some noise about developing their own manned programs (My money’s on India doing it, and the EU getting distracted by shiny objects and forgetting about it). The problem here is that a postponement of this long is effectively the same thing as a cancellation of a program we’ve already spent billions and billions on.
By miring it in development for such a long time, the likelyhood of *Ever* getting it off the ground diminishes massively, and, of course, it’ll be ludicrously obsolete if/when it ever does get off the ground. This decision has mystified even Congress, which, it it’s democratic majority days of the first year, you’d expect to rubberstamp anything The Big O suggested, excepting Healthcare, of course. This didn’t happen. Obama put together a commission to study options *Other* than Orion/Ares, and then they made a proposal to congress. Even Democratic senators didn’t quite follow the reasoning behind this. “I don’t see why we can’t just follow the plan we all voted for a couple years ago,” one Congressman said afterwards. Even among liberal democrats, I’ve found the more educated ones oppose the president’s weird opposition to Space. The hoi polloi seem to think the money should be freed up for preserving traditional chair manufacturing techniques, or programs to support
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Comments
27 June 2009
20 min 8 sec
We are not even Vikings, it’s like we looked over the top and peeped our pants at the sight of the unknown land before us. The Vikings at lest tried to colonize what they found they just failed because of the little ice age. We did not even try it’s as if Ericson sailed to Newfoundland and did not land but just turned around at the sight of the new land and went home. That is what we did with the Moon and now we are afraid to sail out of sight of land and really sail the deep.
27 December 2008
26 min
Oh, that's easy: I can explain the President's plan in one sentence: "We're not going to Mars."
On the one hand, I find it a bit heartening that he's at least admitting it (After a fashion), since Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton had absolutely no interest in going there, but pretended they did. George the First seemed to be interested in revitalizing our space program, but rolled over on it pretty quickly. To be honest, the only president who seemed genuinely enthused about space since Kennedy was George Bush The Second, and now his political adversaries are slapping that down just out of spite.
So on the one hand, I'm glad they're not jerking us around anymore. On the other hand, I am, of course, blisteringly angry that it is now a mater of political importance for those in power to turn us in to vikings, forsaking the new world because of a lack of imagination.
27 June 2009
20 min 8 sec
NASA Chief says Mars is the target but the congress does not buy it.
http://www.space.com/news/nasa-budget-senate-hearing-100223.html
Both democrats and republicans question how we are going to Mars with no new spacecraft in the pipe line.
27 December 2008
26 min
The USAF had a space program of sorts, but so did the Navy and the Army (The Army being the largest and most effective of the bunch), but there was no attempt to coordinate their efforts, and no solid reasoning as to why space was important. Von Braun was with the Army program at the time, operating out of Huntsville, Alabama.
In 1958, following Sputnik, the US Government took the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics ("N.A.C.A."), gave it dominion over all spaceflight concerns, and renamed it NASA.
27 June 2009
20 min 8 sec
No one was in charge because there was no space program per say. All the branches of the armed forces had there own missile programs and as a part of it they all had ideas for a satellite program. The idea before Sputnik was that in 1958 the USA would orbit a satellite for the International Geophysical year. The chose of which program was not made at the time in ’57 when the USSR launched Sputnik I.
The USA satellite had a secrete agenda; Eisenhower wanted to get an international precedent that an object in orbit did not violate a counties air space. Unknown by all the services missile programs was a CIA project to orbit a spy satellite by 1960, this was Corona.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(satellite)
When Sputnik was launched all political hell broke lose and Eisenhower was forced to try to get a satellite of our own in orbit. He gave the job to project Vanguard a civilian program funded by the Office of Naval Research. He wanted the launch to be on the surface a civilian one because the Sputnik was launched by the USSR military.
Vanguard failed in a spectacular fashion on national TV; in the UN the USSR offered to help the USA in a launch as an underdeveloped nation. Now in a panic the White House asked who could get something in orbit quickly. The Air Forces Atlas was placed on a crash program but would not be ready even for a test launch for a year.
This is now were Von Braun comes in. Since the end of WWII he had worked for the US Army and by 1955 had developed the Redstone rocket. A year before Sputnik Van Braun tried to get permission to launch a satellite. The White House ordered that under no circumstances was any program to orbit anything. Van Braun had a Redstone first stage and a centaur second stage prepared to launch a satellite and placed them in storage, he told the Army it was a storage duration test because the Redstone was going to Germany as an intermediate range missile.
At the same time a Doctor Van Allen at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories had secretly built Explorer I for Van Braun’s rocket. When the White House called Van Braun said he could get a satellite in orbit in three months. Van Braun and Van Allen with there teams save face for the USA and started us into space. In 1958 Von Braun’s Huntsville Alabama test site and the Jet Propulsion Laboratories became part of the new NASA.
NOTE: I was wrong Vanguard was the chosen program for a satellite in 1957-58.
24 July 2009
16 hours 45 min
Didn't the USAF use to be in charge of the space program before NASA was created? Either way, I can't think of anyone better equipped to handle it.
27 December 2008
26 min
Oh, hey, if NASA loosing manned spaceflight means the USAF gets it, sign me up right now!
27 June 2009
20 min 8 sec
The political play is the only one that makes sense because congress both dems and rep have said they will fight the killing of the program. Now I am assuming there is some logic to this, if there is only a belief that space is bad on the part of the POUS then all bets are off.
The only other possibility is that the White House truly believes that privatizing space is the future but I really don’t buy it from a democratic administration.
There may also be a move by the USAF to take control of space.
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0911/24otv/
27 December 2008
26 min
Well, he's got nine months until he's officially a lame duck. As it stands, he's merely an ineffectual duck at present.
To be honest, the only thing he knows how to do - it seems - is campaign (Another similarity with Carter), I'm not convinced the whole "Bargaining Chip" thing is something he'd come up with.
27 June 2009
20 min 8 sec
From a political stand point what the administration has done with the Constellation program just does not make sense. The party in power almost always loses seats in congress in the midterm elections. By killing this program Obama has given a big boost to the republicans in the states that will lose jobs.
Now why would the Obama White House piss off democrats and republicans with this move? I believe he is going to use this as a barging chip in congress to get his programs passed. In fact I believe their will be a full court press to get heath care and cap and trade passed this year.
There is talk that Obama will be a one term President, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan make it unlikely he can get re-elected. Instead of wasting all his political capital on trying to get re-elected like Carter did he is going to try to get things passed before the window closes on him and he become a lame duck President.
To get the democrats to play ball in an election year they look to lose big in Obama has to get tuff. The administration has until August to get things passed, after that it is full election season and the President will be side lined.
Obama is playing for history and he will use all the political tricks to get his legacy programs passed.