Obama to kill Moon mission?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Question: Is there something more to it? I hate to say this but when someone starts wailing about not being trusted, it sets off a number of alarm bells.

Isn't Howeder now back? What does he have to say about this?

[Broomstick]

I have some thoughts on this:

1) Griffin refusing to let others "look under the hood" is a troublesome sign to me. Yes, a non-engineer has limited ability to evaluate highly technical parts of the program, but non-engineers approve his budget. He has to be able to communicate with those non-engineers. He wants to speak directly to Obama? Obama is not an engineer either. His attempts to stifle others connected to the program makes me wonder what he's hiding. Refusal to question, and refusal to look at alternatives, also has me very uncomfortable. It makes me want to replace him with some other qualified individual.

2) There really is a slice of people who really do believe we should NOT go into space, should not leave the planet, and satellites in orbit should be the extent of the space program. Lest anyone suggest these are religious nuts I will hasten to say that most such I've encountered are not - they simply believe that space is not worth the money and we should spend our time, effort, energy, and treasure on people down here on Earth. Some people do not even want planetary probes such as Sojourner and other rovers, much less manned missions. They're citizens, too, and they also vote.

3) Even if NASA is only a tiny slice of the budget it is perceived as expensive and politics runs on perception as much as anything else. If cutting NASA results the in the political capital to get something else done then NASA might be cut.

4) Personally, I'm in favor of continued space exploration, research, and development. I'm in favor of creating jobs. I am bummed that it looks like space is out of my reach for my lifetime, but I'd like to think we'll get there some day.

[CmdrWilkens]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a moonshot program be a major source of new jobs? If this really involves building multiple new one-use boosters, that's a pretty big construction project - one that can soak up all manner of personnel who might otherwise be shit out of luck. Yes, the cost will be high, but a lot of it is going to trickle directly back into the economy on a level where it can make a genuine difference.

And I don't think you can easily discount the morale aspect of such a mission. Even if it is a big feel-good project, hey, it's a feel-good project. America is going to need those if it's not to slink into a collective depression. At least it's better entertainment than X-factor...

Generally speaking almost all major government projects end up being a source of additional revenue that either keeps job that were in danger or promotes new jobs. Since that's just as true of any military expendiute as NASA money the critical question is whether or not the expenditure will spill over in to commercial development that unhooks the sector from dependency on government funds. I think investment in NASA has payed off with the commercial satellite market which has not yet fully uncoupled the launch industry from the government (that is while Boeing and Lockheed make money off the commercial launch business they really don' make enough to justify new heavy lift rocket designs without getting NASA money or DoD money).

The TVA is a great example of doing things right: The government spent a shitload of money setting everythig up and it created a whole bunch of jobs but once the work was done the TVA was an actual functioning entity that continued to offer jobs long after direct government support was withdrawn. Moreover the support industries that sprang up around the TVA helped give some life to a region where poverty was so abject that it more closely resembled subsitence farming in Africa than turn of the century farming in America.

[Lonestar]

Does this article reek of speculation to anyone else? I feel like Time magazine wanted to win its own little space race in finding "The way obama would let us down" first.

Indeed, allow me to quote from an article from last year, before the meltdown got underway(for the purposes of it being less speculative).

Space.com

"Barack Obama's early education and K-12 plan package costs about $18 billion per year. He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government. The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years"

So, it certainly seems as if Obama has been gunning for the program for a year.

[Ender]

Firstly, Obama's always been targeting NASA for cuts. It was why I initially wasn't a big fan of him. Delaying the new space shuttle replacement could be a death blow to our progress, so I hope it doesn't go through.

WRT to Griffin, here are some comments and investigation by Phil Plait of BA on the topic.

[Lonestar]

Firstly, Obama's always been targeting NASA for cuts.

Yes Ender, that was kind of my point in posting the space.com article. I saw the Space.com article way earlier in the year, before the Meltdown got well and truly underway, and opt against posting it then because people(on this board) were already saying "oh Obama is pro-nuclear, he just made those comments to satisfy the morons", and I had a strong suspicion they would respond to the article the same way(although I had hoped that was indeed the case).

Considering the dance some people are doing on this board, it looks like my suspicion was basically correct. We already have some posters trying to rationalize away the OP or Obama's decision to kill manned space in this country.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yes Ender, that was kind of my point in posting the space.com article. I saw the Space.com article way earlier in the year, before the Meltdown got well and truly underway, and opt against posting it then because people(on this board) were already saying "oh Obama is pro-nuclear, he just made those comments to satisfy the morons", and I had a strong suspicion they would respond to the article the same way(although I had hoped that was indeed the case).

Considering the dance some people are doing on this board, it looks like my suspicion was basically correct. We already have some posters trying to rationalize away the OP or Obama's decision to kill manned space in this country.

Lately I'd heard he was going to actually try to speed up the replacement for the shuttle, at least, so I was hopeful he was going back on his earlier stupidity with regards to NASA.

But to be fair, when have politicians ever made the space program the priority it deserves to be (aside from Kenedy of course)? Look's like Obama's just the latest in a long line to screw NASA one way or another, and with the current economic crisis, it seems that the space program is once again a convieniant scapegoat for those who want to talk big about saving money and reprioritizing without touching the things that are really sucking up cash (like deffense and social security).

In any case, Mr Obama will be getting a very concerned letter from this voter.

[Ford Prefect]

Space exploration is important; I think Constellation, especially Ares, is vital for the future. At the same time, the American education system was constructed by a pile of goats and it needs to be fixed. Broomstick's comment about the perception of NASA as being a financial blackhole is accurate, as I have heard several people claim that. Really, it's just pretty wild that the government is pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into banks willy nilly and Obama has been planning to scrimp and scrape from every corner of the budget. NASA is, in principle, a worthwhile sink for money. Frankly, I would much prefer to see money taken from America's ridiculously bloated military budget. In 2006 that budget could have spare twenty billion and it would still be over half a trillion dollars.

someone needs to let obama know that it is cool for him to be wildly irresponsible with government money

[Darth Raptor]

SUPPORT THE TROOPS, FROD

No shit, I would fucking disembowel the military budget right now. Especially the Army. Space exploration is the last thing we want to axe and doing so is pointless. That said, another moon mission is essentially a matter of national dick waving. There are so many other more worthwhile projects to be done in space. Foremost among them an economical means of getting *to* space.

[Junghalli]

Delaying the new space shuttle replacement could be a death blow to our progress, so I hope it doesn't go through.

As I remember from when this came up on SB a few months back, he doesn't want to delay the space shuttle replacement, just the moon return.

[Lonestar]

As I remember from when this came up on SB a few months back, he doesn't want to delay the space shuttle replacement, just the moon return.

He wants to keep technology stagnant by eradicating the Constellation program, which would give us a new launcher capable of a trip to the Moon, in favor of some kind of crew vehicle attached to Atlas or Delta. It's a step backwards(or a sidestep, perhaps) not forward.

[Illuminatus Primus]

How can America concentrate on advancing science with its space program to pursue this long-term investment if the country ends up in another Great Depression? You can't make great leaps and bounds when your people are in tent cities, eating from soup kitchens.

Once the economy is fixed, then you will be able to successfully pursue those great scientific endeavors and go where no man has gone before. That's why the massive leaps and bounds in science and technology, from the atomic bomb to space rockets, came after the financial crisis of the Great Depression, when everyone has recovered.

There are immediate needs, and there are future needs. If you can't meet your immediate needs, you won't be able to progress to the point where you're bothered by future needs because you won't have a future. How can you make a great success out of yourself later in life when, earlier on, you can't even afford food, clothing and shelter?

What exactly do you think got us out of the Great Depression? Massive public spending at a loss, to develop future technologies and industries. Furthermore, we continued to invest in our scientific-industrial complex even in the midst of the Great Depression, and that's why we had the edge we did in World War II. If we'd followed your advice then, we would not have been able to continue the Manhattan Project and other industrial leads. We were still building battleships through the 1930s to keep workers and suppliers afloat and to not have those industries dry up. Cut NASA to the bone, take the Shuttle program's engineers and support apparatus and cut it, and it is GONE. Those long-time career people who know that stuff will take up and move elsewhere. Look at what happened when we cut Saturn V in the 1970s.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The problem is, America is going to need every cent to keep the lights on. The Apollo project now is making the US able to sustain itself in the near future, not going to the moon. Much as I love space technology and any endeavour in science, being a scientist myself, you have to face reality. People won't give a shit about NASA when they can't afford to put food on their tables, and for all the analogies between now and the Great Depression, we're not really in the same boat. It's worse.

Of course, it's a big black and white fallacy to assume we should do one or another, because we often have people claim stupid things like "We shouldn't send probes to Mars until we've solved world poverty and hunger!" and in a way, I agree. But that means you've just gotten into a zero sum game and will never progress by the simple fact that humans fuck things up something awful. So long as we are who we are, you will never get a utopia forming, and in actual fact, pumping money into things people don't normally see any benefit from immediately allows us to have better futures, as has been seen constantly in the past, even from warfare.

The public will not see it this way. Never have. You will meet resistance, and Obama is not about to endorse a new shuttle or moon mission when the US economy is falling to pieces, along with the nation's infrastructure itself. I am mystified by the shock expressed by some posters. Have you only just noticed Obama is a politician and prone to following the game like those before? Witty slogans, a composed demeanor and a great education do not get one out of this game.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The problem is, America is going to need every cent to keep the lights on. The Apollo project now is making the US able to sustain itself in the near future, not going to the moon. Much as I love space technology and any endeavour in science, being a scientist myself, you have to face reality. People won't give a shit about NASA when they can't afford to put food on their tables, and for all the analogies between now and the Great Depression, we're not really in the same boat. It's worse.

Of course, it's a big black and white fallacy to assume we should do one or another, because we often have people claim stupid things like "We shouldn't send probes to Mars until we've solved world poverty and hunger!" and in a way, I agree. But that means you've just gotten into a zero sum game and will never progress by the simple fact that humans fuck things up something awful. So long as we are who we are, you will never get a utopia forming, and in actual fact, pumping money into things people don't normally see any benefit from immediately allows us to have better futures, as has been seen constantly in the past, even from warfare.

The public will not see it this way. Never have. You will meet resistance, and Obama is not about to endorse a new shuttle or moon mission when the US economy is falling to pieces, along with the nation's infrastructure itself. I am mystified by the shock expressed by some posters. Have you only just noticed Obama is a politician and prone to following the game like those before? Witty slogans, a composed demeanor and a great education do not get one out of this game.

If you're right, the paltry couple billion shoveled into NASA for the next budget will have made no difference next to everything else which is successfully going to compete for funding this upcoming FY. Essentially, we're fucked either way and the paradigm shift will not occur until its obvious the global system is collapsing. If I am right, than its funding that would have kept their head above water. We might as well bet on the positive because simply cutting NASA will provide no real benefits and no one is going to buy your macro view of where the world is headed until things get much, much worse.

[Admiral Valdemar]

If you're right, the paltry couple billion shoveled into NASA for the next budget will have made no difference next to everything else which is successfully going to compete for funding this upcoming FY. Essentially, we're fucked either way and the paradigm shift will not occur until its obvious the global system is collapsing. If I am right, than its funding that would have kept their head above water. We might as well bet on the positive because simply cutting NASA will provide no real benefits and no one is going to buy your macro view of where the world is headed until things get much, much worse.

It gets better, because if you start killing off such a niche industry as space development, you have to consider the costs of losing people with that experience in the field. That is the same problem we've found in nuclear power, where the anti-nuke sentiment from the '70s and '80s has led to not only less nuclear power being developed, but less in the way of training and work for those who pioneered the technology and its use. That kind of thing isn't bought quickly by a government injection of funds; you can't buy experience. When it's gone, it needs to be re-learnt, and likely with R&D slower than it could have been. Other industries, such as petro-geology see this same situation forming. When the old timers retire, you'll have a handful of graduates who are totally green and for all their fresh ideas, they'll be lacking actual experience in the field. So imagine that applied to something like NASA, and consider the number of advances NASA has brought to us over the decades. What they ask for, compared to the $7 TRILLION we've thrown at banking, is minuscule. The sad fact is, the financial system may already have totally collapsed now, because $7 TRILLION has been swallowed easier than a Penny Whistle by Paris Hilton.

[CmdrWilkens]

So here's the murkiness from WashPo's reporting. I've included just a snippet.

A major unknown is Obama. What he really thinks about the civilian space program is a matter of speculation. His attitude toward NASA evolved during the campaign. In November 2007, he raised the possibility of delaying Constellation for five years as a way of scrounging up billions of dollars for an education initiative. But with Florida playing a key role in the election, Obama came out in favor of an extra $2 billion in funding for NASA. In August he issued a paper explicitly endorsing a lunar mission by 2010.

So as Florida gained in his likely target column he got more onboard with the program but prior to that he held a view of takign dollars from the program. If its purely politics then the reitrement of Mel Martinze (and thus the likely entry of Jeb Bush into that race) woudl indicate that investment in NASA would be a political goal of an Obama administration. If democrats are seen as killign NASA then they can kiss any remaining chance at Martinez's seat (rated amongst top 3 pickups by just about everybody) goodbye. I don't think it would hurt them in 2012 but for 2010 the economic downturn adn the Feds pulling billions out of the local economy will be played up big in Florida.

i'd hate for that to be the reason to put an extra $2Bn into NASA but if it gets the job done I'm not going to complain. Still the article is correct, everybody is speculating right now and until Obama names an Administrator we likely won't have anything mroe recent than the August pledge WashPo mentioned.

[Coyote]

Isn't half his Moon Team putting in extra hours, unofficially, on a different Moon project that they feel is better?

(1)I don't know, and (2)What does that have to do with the price of beer?(no shuttle replacement, in-coming administration wants to kill moonshot)

It implies that Griffen's wonderful vision and oustanding leadership has some cracks in it. If this is the guy facing a revolt in the ranks of his own Moon-mission design engineers, isn't that, well, interesting?

I say it is worth looking under the hood, if for that at least.

As for Obama killing the Moon mission, I doubt it'll happen because there's too much invested already, and it is too high-profile. I can, however, see the Moon mission put on the back burner (in fact, nearly all space missions put on the back burner) because of the financial problem.

It is a political ploy, and not a very smart one, I admit. The money put into the space program in general, and the Moon misison in specific, is a paltry sum compared to just a regular review of Congressional pork spending, or some of the pits of monetary despair being shoveled onto the military. But the problem is, when people see "MOON LANDING" they immediately go "ZOMFG: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$". If Obama makes cuts in the military, then he's immediately a "anti-American/pro-terrorist commiepinkopussy".

[Lonestar]

It implies that Griffen's wonderful vision and oustanding leadership has some cracks in it. If this is the guy facing a revolt in the ranks of his own Moon-mission design engineers, isn't that, well, interesting?

You can have a good vision and still be an abrasive asshole, any number military revolutionaries qualify for that.

As for Obama killing the Moon mission, I doubt it'll happen because there's too much invested already, and it is too high-profile. I can, however, see the Moon mission put on the back burner (in fact, nearly all space missions put on the back burner) because of the financial problem.

"Delayed" to me means "indefinately put on hold." Delaying Constellation for 5 years means we(the US) would be without a manned space component for 9 years.

[Broomstick]

Right. Then China or somebody else will take the lead, humanity will still get into space, and the US will then try to play catch-up.

[The Original Nex]

Sorry if this is a necro, but this seems to pertain to the subject of this thread:

Obama Moves to Counter China in Space With Pentagon-NASA Link
Demian McLean Demian Mclean Thu Jan 1, 7:28 pm ET

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China.

Obama’s transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency’s planned launch vehicle, which isn’t slated to fly until 2015, according to people who’ve discussed the idea with the Obama team.

The potential change comes as Pentagon concerns are rising over China’s space ambitions because of what is perceived as an eventual threat to U.S. defense satellites, the lofty battlefield eyes of the military.

“The Obama administration will have all those issues on the table,” said Neal Lane, who served as President Bill Clinton’s science adviser and wrote recently that Obama must make early decisions critical to retaining U.S. space dominance. “The foreign affairs and national security implications have to be considered.”

China, which destroyed one of its aging satellites in a surprise missile test in 2007, is making strides in its spaceflight program. The military-run effort carried out a first spacewalk in September and aims to land a robotic rover on the moon in 2012, with a human mission several years later.

A Level of Proficiency

“If China puts a man on the moon, that in itself isn’t necessarily a threat to the U.S.,” said Dean Cheng, a senior Asia analyst with CNA Corp., an Alexandria, Virginia-based national-security research firm. “But it would suggest that China had reached a level of proficiency in space comparable to that of the United States.”

Obama has said the Pentagon’s space program -- which spent about $22 billion in fiscal year 2008, almost a third more than NASA’s budget -- could be tapped to speed the civilian agency toward its goals as the recession pressures federal spending.

NASA faces a five-year gap between the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 and the first launch of Orion, the six- person craft that will carry astronauts to the International Space Station and eventually the moon. Obama has said he would like to narrow that gap, during which the U.S. will pay Russia to ferry astronauts to the station.

NASA Resistance

The Obama team has asked NASA officials about the costs and savings of scrapping the agency’s new Ares I rocket, which is being developed by Chicago-based Boeing Co. and Minneapolis-based Alliant Techsystems Inc.

NASA chief Michael Griffin opposes the idea and told Obama’s transition team leader, Lori Garver, that her colleagues lack the engineering background to evaluate rocket options, agency spokesman Chris Shank said. Garver and other advisers declined to comment.

At the Pentagon, there may be support for Obama’s vision. While NASA hasn’t recently approached the Pentagon about using its Delta IV and Atlas V rockets, building them for manned missions could allow for cost sharing, said Steven Huybrechts, the director of space programs and policy in the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is staying on into the new administration.

The Delta IV and Atlas V are built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp., and typically are used to carry satellites.

Already Developed

“No one really has a firm idea what NASA’s cost savings might be, but the military’s launch vehicles are basically developed,” said John Logsdon, a policy expert at Washington’s National Air and Space Museum who has conferred with Obama’s transition advisers. “You don’t have to build them from scratch.”

Meanwhile, Chinese state-owned companies already are assembling heavy-lift rockets that could reach the moon, with a first launch scheduled for 2013. All that would be left to build for a manned mission is an Apollo-style lunar lander, said Griffin, who visited the Chinese space program in 2006.

Griffin said in July that he believes China will be able to put people on the moon before the U.S. goes back in 2020. The last Apollo mission left the lunar surface in 1972.

“The moon landing is an extremely challenging and sophisticated task, and it is also a strategically important technological field,” Wang Zhaoyao, a spokesman for China’s space program, said in September, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

Docking

China plans to dock two spacecraft in orbit in 2010, a skill required for a lunar mission.

“An automated rendezvous does all sorts of things for your missile accuracy and anti-satellite programs,” said John Sheldon, a visiting professor of advanced air and space studies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. “The manned effort is about prestige, but it’s also a good way of testing technologies that have defense applications.”

China’s investments in anti-satellite warfare and in “cyberwarfare,” ballistic missiles and other weaponry “could threaten the United States’ primary means to project its power and help its allies in the Pacific: bases, air and sea assets, and the networks that support them,” Gates wrote in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.

China is designing satellites that, once launched, could catch up with and destroy U.S. spy and communication satellites, said a Nov. 20 report to Congress from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. China’s State Council Information Office declined to comment on the nation’s anti-satellite or manned programs.

To boost cooperation between NASA and the Pentagon, Obama has promised to revive the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which oversaw the entire space arena for four presidents, most actively from 1958 to 1973.

The move would build ties between agencies with different cultures and agendas.

“Whether such cooperation would succeed remains to be seen,” said Scott Pace, a former NASA official who heads the Washington-based Space Policy Institute. “But the questions are exactly the ones the Obama team needs to ask.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Demian McLean in Washington at dmclean8@bloomberg.net .

Is this confirmation of Obama's NASA scrapping plans by breaking the Pentagon/NASA barrier or is it a repudiation of these reports? I can't really tell...

[MKSheppard]

I was about to post that. About time we're moving back to where airspace and space do not end in a clear dividing line, they are indivisisble from each other.

At the outset it should be recognized that air and space are indivisible. To resolve the somewhat meaningless question as to where air and space begin, the Air Force calls this medium "aerospace." Air and space can no more be separated than can the various depths of the earth's oceans. From an airman's viewpoint, aerospace represents a natural and normal extension of the environment he knows best.

And yes, why should NASA spend a lot on developing a SRB derived EELV when we can use the Pentagon's EELV program?

[Broomstick]

Maybe it's a way to keep us in space and progressing?

I have no objection to military involvement - during the heyday of NASA in the 60's they may have technically been civilian but all the astronauts were drawn from the military, as were a lot of other people. Civilian aviation certainly benefited from working with military aviation in the past, I don't see where working with military aerospace would be a bad ting.

[tim31]

Hell, up until the Saturns, every other manned mission got shot up on retooled nuke sleds. But I guess it comes down to how willing the 'research' organization of NASA is to compromise with the pentagon; pissing off Rickover didn't do Woods Hole and other sea explorers any favors in the past.

[Shroom Man 777]

We can get the Dyna-soar back and stuff! Military space planes!

It's totally cool. The military, with its Runaway Defense Budget, knows how to do stuff. We'll get more progress if the tech has applications that include killing people from space, aside from just collecting rocks on Uranus (heheh). Wasn't one of the Shuttles, like, leased to the DoD or something? The one that had one if its crew blinded by the Soviet Terra laser system.

[Coyote]

Well, didn't see that coming. I think it's a good idea. And a great way to get NASA out of the way of the commercial space business. NASA has been too spineless for too long; maybe making it an Air Force venture, or its own branch, will make things a bit more dynamic.

Although I do disagree with "making a distinction between the depths of the ocean", well, in truth, we do-- there's a difference between littoral-surface and littoral-submerged; general-surface and submerged; and the Deep Depths. All phases require specific, specialized vehicles with crews trained in different ways.