Is Obama-Bolden budget a tool to kill NASA?

[sftommy]

Just finished an article where Senator Sessions of Alabama characterized his meeting with Bolden as troubling and the administrations position as unyielding.

The spectre of slashing NASAs budget in retaliation is suggested as a possibility.
Which makes me think...

Is Obama a bad politcian trying to ramrod Congress with what he thinks is a good plan
or
is Obama a good politician setting up Congress to to cancel NASA for him?

 

[rockett]

It's not about the budget, that is just a tool. It's about conflicting ideas about goals and getting there.

 

[sftommy]

How then, can Congress fund NASA with any expectation of it's mandated goals not being circumvented? With lawyers?

Sure could diminish Congressional enthusiasm for NASA if there's nothing in it for them or their constituents,
and NASA leadership continues thumbing their noses at their Congressional supporters.

 

[rockett]

Obama is using a "technicality" to kill any further development on Constellation right now:

NASA Attempts To Cut Back Constellation on Friday June 11, @08:45AM
http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/06/11/1136243/NASA-Attempts-To-Cut-Back-Constellation?from=rss

That tells me he is determined to get his way regardless of what Congress thinks.

 

[kelvinzero]

If there were a conspiracy to cut nasa, it would involve congress also. I don't really believe in conspiracies, but I have a vague concern that both sides would accept a major reduction in budget if they could blame it on the other.

 

[rockett]

If there were a conspiracy to cut nasa, it would involve congress also. I don't really believe in conspiracies, but I have a vague concern that both sides would accept a major reduction in budget if they could blame it on the other.

Don't necessarily think it's a conspiracy so much as political sqabbling while things die on the vine...

 

[bdewoody]

There is a certain element in politics who have always thought that manned space programs are a waste of funds that could better be spent on welfare programs and socialized medicine. They incorrectly claim that the manned space program has provided nothing useful to the common man and that the money could be better spent on social programs. Now I believe they are skillfully using the various factions in the space community to destroy each other.

 

[rockett]

There is a certain element in politics who have always thought that manned space programs are a waste of funds that could better be spent on welfare programs and socialized medicine. They incorrectly claim that the manned space program has provided nothing useful to the common man and that the money could be better spent on social programs. Now I believe they are skillfully using the various factions in the space community to destroy each other.

Very nice summation! I have said the same thing myself, but not near as polished. I was at the Superconducting Super Collider when it was shut down by the Clintons for essentially that reason. This gave me an opportunity to observe what you are saying first hand.

 

[Gravity_Ray]

Just finished an article where Senator Sessions of Alabama characterized his meeting with Bolden as troubling and the administrations position as unyielding.

The spectre of slashing NASAs budget in retaliation is suggested as a possibility.
Which makes me think...

Is Obama a bad politcian trying to ramrod Congress with what he thinks is a good plan
or
is Obama a good politician setting up Congress to to cancel NASA for him?

Technically The Obama Administration is not "slashing NASA's budget". They are increasing its budget. They are "slashing" the Constellation program which was the best thing anybody could have done.

Meanwhile The Obama Administration has a semi-plan for NASA as far as I can tell. To have NASA develop a heavy lift rocket (very good) and go to a NEO (very bad). Develop the private industry to do most of the grunt work for them (very good). Getting away from the cost/plus way things were done by NASA (very very good). So in general I like the space policy, I just wish it was explained better to those idiots in Congress.

Here is a great article in Space.com that explains things better than the Obama Administration or Charlie Bolden have explained so far (and that’s really, really sad). I mean how is it that Carla Moskowitz can explain this administrations space policy better than this administration or NASA can? Maybe they should hire Carla to help them articulate what the heck they are going to do better.

http://www.space.com/news/nasa-obama-ne ... 00624.html

Meanwhile I’m just happy Constellation got axed. Constellation was so far behind schedule they would not have got anybody to LEO until well after the ISS was de-orbited. I mean people are all “sad” and “indignant” that we don’t have a US government manned space program right now! Meanwhile everybody knew since 2004 that we were going to have a gap in NASA manned space program once the Space Shuttle was retired (by the way it was the Bush Administration that cancelled the Space Shuttle). So where was all this outcry then from Senator Shelby (that good for nothing snake).

 

[sftommy]

Also agreed on bdewoody's summation,

There is a certain element in politics who have always thought that manned space programs are a waste of funds that could better be spent on welfare programs and socialized medicine. They incorrectly claim that the manned space program has provided nothing useful to the common man and that the money could be better spent on social programs. Now I believe they are skillfully using the various factions in the space community to destroy each other.

I count five states whose congressional delegations, generally, are among the strongest NASA supporters;
FL - 25 Reps, UT-3 Reps, AL-7 Reps, CO-7 Reps, and TX-32 Reps, plus their 10 Senators
How is this administration insuring their continued support?

Obama-Bolden seem to think Congress will give NASA the funding they want no matter how they treat the people of these states and their Congressional representatives. That expectation defies political wisdom and cast shadows of ulterior purpose.

Bolden's further legal-grasp at close down costs for the Constellation program makes every NASA contract now less attractive and harder to financially plan for, for companies large and small. This will mean closing costs will have to funded up front every time or figured into every contract bid. Will Congress fund a space program that has it's own cancellation costs built in? This is a bullet Bolden shot into every future NASA program.

 

[kelvinzero]

Also agreed on bdewoody's summation,

There is a certain element in politics who have always thought that manned space programs are a waste of funds that could better be spent on welfare programs and socialized medicine. They incorrectly claim that the manned space program has provided nothing useful to the common man and that the money could be better spent on social programs. Now I believe they are skillfully using the various factions in the space community to destroy each other.

I count five states whose congressional delegations, generally, are among the strongest NASA supporters;
FL - 25 Reps, UT-3 Reps, AL-7 Reps, CO-7 Reps, and TX-32 Reps, plus their 10 Senators
How is this administration insuring their continued support?

Obama-Bolden seem to think Congress will give NASA the funding they want no matter how they treat the people of these states and their Congressional representatives. That expectation defies political wisdom and cast shadows of ulterior purpose.

Bolden's further legal-grasp at close down costs for the Constellation program makes every NASA contract now less attractive and harder to financially plan for, for companies large and small. This will mean closing costs will have to funded up front every time or figured into every contract bid. Will Congress fund a space program that has it's own cancellation costs built in? This is a bullet Bolden shot into every future NASA program.

Well yeah, but listen to what you are saying.
(1) American support for NASA is really just a minority of states intent on pork.
(2) Closing down costs will now have to be included. Congress will have to decide whether it wants to spend the money it may actually cost, rather than find it cannot afford to stop pouring money into a bottomless pit.

I think there was a big problem, but I do think support for NASA does in the end come from legitimate motivations, such as technological excellence, education and pure science. In the long term political support does not create money, it follows it.

There will always be companies willing to compete for NASA money. The point with these new contracts as I understand it is that the companies take on a lot more risk for themselves along with a lot more control. If capitalism works, competition should keep them cheaper. I hope this keeps them very careful that NASA keeps to the letter of their payment, including termination costs if they are relevant, so there is no hidden penalty to the taxpayer for pulling out of an agreement when the contractor repeatedly fails to deliver on budget.

 

[rockett]

This seems relevant at this point

Commercial Space Advocates Demand NASA Budget Boost
http://www.space.com/news/commercial-spaceflight-nasa-budget-100623.html

 

[RVHM]

This seems relevant at this point

Commercial Space Advocates Demand NASA Budget Boost
http://www.space.com/news/commercial-spaceflight-nasa-budget-100623.html

Commercial Space Advocates Demand NASA Budget Boost ... so more can be assigned to seeding Commercial. :?

 

[kelvinzero]

The title misled me for a bit.. It sounded like they were saying "give us even more money because we are already over budget".. which would not be a good sign!

Actually they are arguing for the Obama plan, in response to the recent arguments against it. Both sides are now shaking astronauts at each other in an aggressive manner. Oops, one of the astronaut's heads just fell off.

hmm.. looking a bit further, they are saying a bit more:

The letter urged lawmakers to keep the $6 billion increase that Obama proposed for commercial spaceflight — and to "accelerate the pace and funding of NASA's human space exploration projects beyond Earth orbit."

"These twin pillars of human spaceflight are each crucial to the long-term health of our nation's space program," the letter read.

I wonder if they are implying an Orion just for BEO, using fuel depots and lots of commercial launches. They dont seem to be saying they want to do BEO crew also.

 

[Windbourne]

First off, Sessions has always been a total idiot.
Second, now the question is Obama of being the politician or idiot because Session wants to kill NASA budget?
Why does Session want to do that?
Because he is upset that NASA is not an on-going jobs program for HIS district.
Basically, Sessions is the type of politician that will happily destroy America to push his votes. The man is corrupt as they come.
We NEED NASA's budget kept up, so that we can get private space going including launchers and space stations, while NASA focuses on getting us OUT OF EARTHS ORBIT. Keep in mind that a good chunk of NASA's budget is to go to building means to build crafts in space such as Fuel Depot, etc.

 

[jerrycobbs]

As an Alabamian I'd have to say that I don't think Sessions is corrupt, in the sense of taking kickbacks under the table, etc. I just think he's the kind of fellow who has difficulty handling two-step instructions without taking notes. Very cut & dried, black & white kinda guy. Which plays well to the bud-lite-&-pro-wrestling sector of his constituency. In his narrow mind, Constellation=NASA=jobs at Marshall=good; anything else=change=bad. Of our two senators, Shelby is the more intellectual, which is really only another way of saying he can be trained if one has enough patience. I have noticed that in the past few weeks, with the successful launch of Falcon 9, Boeing's commitment to their own spacecraft which will likely be launched on their launcher (Atlas and Delta rockets are both built in the same Alabama factory), and the Obama Administration's attempts to clarify what has been a very fuzzy space policy, Shelby has subsided from a noisy bark to a menacing growl. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that Shelby might be very, *very* quietly assisting in the compromise efforts in Congress, while allowing Sessions to continue with the noisemaking.

 

[nleggett]

The Obama-Bolden budget bypasses the Moon. This choice will greatly reduce NASA's opportunity to make major progress in the coming years. NASA is an effective project shop when it has specific goals to accomplish such as establishing a lunar base. NASA is not as effective as an R&D effort developing technologies in general. For a specific example of this, take a look at their ion drive effort which bloomed briefly when it was given a specific space probe to build and launch. So pushing NASA to become a general R&D effort will weaken NASA over time.
President Obama has stated on the record before his election that he would like to slow down manned space flight and redirect the resources to education. I suspect that his proposed NASA budget is an effort to do this with a minimum of political consequences.
Unfortunately, his budget will cut off the opportunities to develop and use the Moon for scientific and industrial purposes such as conducting safely isolated advanced biotechnology research. Other projects such as the development and operation of natural vacuum electronics (thermionic valves and circuits using the fine lunar vacuum) will also be blocked. However, other nations and organizations will probably proceed ahead to use the Moon and eventually permanent Lunar habitations will be set up.
The Obama-Bolden budget will result in reducing American power in technology and will assist other nations in becoming the new space powers. It is somewhat similar to the Chinese emperor who cancelled China's major ocean explorations centuries ago. His budget has no real money for flights to asteroids and Mars orbits so it cannot be taken seriously as a pro-space budget.

 

[lorq]

"Is Obama-Bolden budget a tool to kill NASA?"

No.

 

[jerrycobbs]

There is a certain element in politics who have always thought that manned space programs are a waste of funds that could better be spent on welfare programs and socialized medicine. They incorrectly claim that the manned space program has provided nothing useful to the common man and that the money could be better spent on social programs. Now I believe they are skillfully using the various factions in the space community to destroy each other.

While there is truth to this statement, I would maintain that there are also those including myself, who see a need for both a robust manned space program and major reform of the health care system. The two are not mutually exclusive, and not everyone who sees the need to reform health care is intent on robbing NASA to do it (although admittedly there are some). Also health care reform does not automatically mean "socialized medicine" despite the implication in the use of the term, but that's an issue for another website--the issue is NASA, and the point is that to always characterize the argument as "rockets vs. welfare" is to paint with too broad a brush in my opinion.

 

[ALittleReasonPlease]

Obama's real purpose is to eliminate all American manned spaceflight. To believe it is actually anything else, one would have to accept the premise that it is possible for start-up commercial firms to recreate in 2 or 3 years what it took NASA $500B, 50 years, and some of the brightest minds the nation had to offer to develop in the first place. That simply boggles the mind. Further, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the commercials succeed--which I for one sincerely hope that they do. None of them even claim that their proposed vehicles can stay docked to the station for the requisite 6 months of a crew rotation. Thus, even if they could get a crew there, they would not be around to take them home again at the end of their stint aboard the station. That is the real reason that the administration revised its plan to have an Orion capsule docked to station at all times. Again, for the sake of argument, let's assume that NASA (foolishly) allowed crew launches on commercial craft that had to turn around and come home without them in a couple of weeks. The commercials could always launch a second craft to go get them in 6 months, but obviously at twice the cost. Further, the crew would be at risk of death should the station life support systems fail while they were there without a rescue vehicle. It should also be acknowledged that one or more commercial ventures could schedule launches every 2 weeks or so, carrying up one or two crew members at a time and taking home a different one or two crew members on the return trips. That would be a little cheaper than two shots per crew, but would still leave at least some folks at risk for not having a ride home when the big leak happens.

 

[BrianBoru]

I believe it is high-time that Americans demand a sunset clause on how a President can enact a line-veto,
and that no one person can have such an overbearing influence on how, when, and if, the nation's resources will be allocated and for what purposes.
No President should be able to dissolve an entity that has proven time and again, that it not only benefits Americans, but is the vanguard by which all other similar global entities, aspire to compare to.

 

[jerrycobbs]

To believe it is actually anything else, one would have to accept the premise that it is possible for start-up commercial firms to recreate in 2 or 3 years what it took NASA $500B, 50 years, and some of the brightest minds the nation had to offer to develop in the first place. That simply boggles the mind. Further, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the commercials succeed--which I for one sincerely hope that they do. None of them even claim that their proposed vehicles can stay docked to the station for the requisite 6 months of a crew rotation.

Hope you don't mind having your mind boggled just a bit-- First, it took NASA about 25 years to go from war-booty V2 missiles to boots on the moon. They were starting with nothing. No commercial entity today has to recreate what NASA has done, any more than a new car company has to start where Henry Ford started. Which is why SpaceX has already done exactly what you say--recreate in a few years what it took NASA decades to do from scratch.

Secondly, I suppose technically you're correct that none of the commercial companies are claiming to stay docked at the station for 6 months--since Dragon's proposed maximum mission lifetime is 2 years. No mention of 6 months anywhere on their website. Don't know where the 2 weeks idea came from.

Maybe Obama thinks NASA is just on the wrong course and needed a kick in the pants. Maybe he really doesn't care that much about spaceflight. Maybe he means well but has just handled the whole thing very clumsily. Truth is I don't think we know just yet. But I don't think he's politically stupid enough to try to kill an agency that is responsible for a huge chunk of American history and prestige, simply to shave a tiny percent off of the national budget at a time when we're running huge deficits in order to fight two wars and dig ourselves out of a recession. Love him or hate him, but give the man credit for political shrewdness or he wouldn't have become President. Killing NASA would be a fool's errand. Liberal or whatever, the man is not politically suicidal.

 

[rockett]

Maybe Obama thinks NASA is just on the wrong course and needed a kick in the pants. Maybe he really doesn't care that much about spaceflight. Maybe he means well but has just handled the whole thing very clumsily.

I think you were right when you said "just handled the whole thing very clumsily". Obama and Bolden have been backpeddling and doing damage control since February:
1. First came the Augustine Commission
2. Second came the Constellation cancellation (Feb 2010)
3. Then came vague references to "future technology"
4. Then "extend the ISS" (pressure from partner nations, Europe in particular)
5. Then came "Heavy Lift"
6. Then came "asteroid mission" and by the way "Mars too"!
7. Finally "we'll use Orion as a lifeboat"

This administration has never had a clearly formed plan to do anything with human space flight. Items 3-7 were only reactions to increased criticism and pressure from Congress, even from his own party. If left to their own devices, I suspect they would simply ignore NASA to focus on their other priorities...

 

[GeoDude]

All of this is sort of silly. If you really want an extensive space program the money has to come from somewhere. So where are we spending lots of money? What things are we doing that don't work and we should stop doing? I'll offer up a couple.

The Drug War; we spend more on interdiction each year than is made selling the stuff. In my mind that is a big waste of money. Legalize it, tax it, control it. Take some of the money and use it to treat addicts to actually get them off the crap and take some of the money to fund things like going to Mars.

Tax breaks for the exceedingly rich. Why give the upper 1/2 of one percent huge breaks on taxes? If you want a federally funded space program you need tax money. Plain and simple. In addition I thought it was "and that government of the people, by the people, for the people" and not "of the corporations, for the corporations." We've strayed from where we should be. Our government is us and should work for us and not none-people like multinational corporations. Its our money, it should be taxed fairly, all of us need to contribute, and it should help everyone.

There are others. I think everyone needs to ask themselves what do they want and be prepared to pay for it. If you really want a federally funded space program I suggest you should be willing to pay your taxes to support it. The practice of running up huge debts by cutting taxes and spending like there is no tomorrow that started with Reagan is what is going to kill the space program and is ruining our country in my humble opinion. I happily pay my taxes to support things that help all Americans, I'm not too happy about when it is wasted. What we have to do as Americans, as citizens, is learn about what is real, what is not, what works and what does not, and support the people who support what makes sense. Sadly too many people support those who say what they want to hear and not what is true. Those who stick there neck out to tell the truth are too often ridiculed. Stop blaming the politicians. You put them there!

Constellation was poorly conceived and destined to be an extraordinarily expensive mistake. Better to reinvest the money, figure out a better way, and move on. I want to see humans on Mars in my lifetime. Lets get to it and stop letting ideology get in the way.

 

[rockett]

The Drug War; we spend more on interdiction each year than is made selling the stuff. In my mind that is a big waste of money. Legalize it, tax it, control it.

I agree here, if for no other reason than to stop the violence by the Mexican drug gangs. Their primary income is marijuana.

Tax breaks for the exceedingly rich.

Not as large a sum as you might think, as compared to the national debt. A better target would be the wars and inefficiencies of the social programs (not the programs themselves, just the buerocracy that gets in the way of efficient administration).

Sadly too many people support those who say what they want to hear and not what is true. Those who stick there neck out to tell the truth are too often ridiculed. Stop blaming the politicians. You put them there!

Very true, however, I doubt if too many of us space enthusiasts approve of the majority of them much. Truthfully, we as a group are an extremely small minority. In general the "man on the street" could care less.

Constellation was poorly conceived and destined to be an extraordinarily expensive mistake. Better to reinvest the money, figure out a better way, and move on. I want to see humans on Mars in my lifetime. Lets get to it and stop letting ideology get in the way.

Constellation grew into a lot more than was originally envisioned, and there are parts that were worthwhile which may survive in the end. Notably the Orion and Ares V as the "heavy lift" Obama has agreed to. Ares I could easily be replaced by an existing booster that was man-rated.

As for humans on Mars in your lifetime, I certainly wouldn't count on it as long as NASA is politicized. Also factor in the lunar water discoveries that make the moon "low hanging fruit". Watch for another sea change when the current administration or Congress changes.

Ideology is the life blood of politics. If you really want that to change, work to change the players.