Obviously not all think that way. Changing the course of action for a large massive body is not easy and putting a new face on NASA isn't either. The below article has some ideas that might be of interest.
- LRK -
---------------------------------------
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1443/
The Apollo Model: Stronger than Obama
by Taylor Dinerman
August 2, 2010 at 5:00 am
Perhaps the primary goal of the Obama administration's 2011 budget NASA proposal was to kill, once and for all, the Apollo Moon mission model that has determined the way the US space agency operates for nearly the last 60 years.
The so-called compromise proposal that unanimously passed the Senate Commerce Committee on July 15th gutted most of the Obama proposal. The House version does even more damage to the administration's proposal. While the Bush era Constellation program would seem to be dead, at least in name, its substance has survived for at least another year. There is a lesson here, not only for those who would reform NASA, but also for those who want to reform any reasonably sized government agency.
The first lesson is: Do not ignore Congress. NASA as it exists is the product of decades of Congressional action. Reformers may believe that they know what the agency needs, but without Congressional support, they have no hope of making a difference; all they can achieve is to demoralize and confuse their workforce.
Second, do not think that a study committee can substitute for in-house policy development. The Augustine Committee included some of the best minds in the US space industry, but it must, in the end, be regarded as a failure. Its conclusions seem to have been based on arbitrary budget assumptions. To many in Congress and elsewhere, its report was pre-cooked and was largely designed to undo the progress made by Mike Griffin towards a return to the Moon.
NASA's relationship with the Moon is the key to understanding its institutional bias. This is not simply due to nostalgia for the glory days of Apollo, but is based on an understanding of the strategic "geography" of the solar system. Our planet's satellite, thanks to its position and its small size, makes it an ideal base from which to explore the solar system, and, if necessary, to dominate the Earth. It has been described as a "Gibraltar Point" possession, which entails control over access to and from the surface of the Earth to the rest of our celestial neighborhood. Neither the US nor anyone else has plans, at present, to build military bases on the Moon, but that may change. A US civilian base on the Moon would be a strong deterrent to such a development.
These facts have long been built into the DNA of US space policy. Abandoning the Constellation Moon plan aroused in the Congress, and in parts of the US space industry, a fear that we were giving up that deterrent in favor of a vague, unfocused set of promises that could later be discarded at little or no political cost. The "Compromise" plans that have come out of the House and Senate are by no means satisfactory, but they give NASA a solid foundation on which to develop a future plan to return to the Moon if a future President or Congress wanted to make that commitment.
snip
------------------------------
Jeff Foust writes about Griffin’s critique of NASA’s new direction at the Thirteenth Annual International Mars Society Convention in Dayton, Ohio. I have a included a few biased snips. You should probably read the whole article to get the full picture.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://www.thespacereview.com/
Griffin’s critique of NASA’s new direction
by Jeff Foust
Monday, August 9, 2010
Former NASA administrators are not generally known for being outspoken about space policy after their tenures running the agency. They tend to go on to other pursuits, often outside of space entirely, rarely holding forth on NASA in any public capacity. Sean O’Keefe focused his attention first on running a university, LSU, and more recently as an aerospace executive, emphasizing the “aero” more than the “space”. His predecessor, Dan Goldin, was NASA administrator for nearly a decade but virtually dropped out of sight afterwards, beyond the odd situation in late 2003 when he was selected to become president of Boston University only to have his contract bought out immediately before he was to take office.
Mike Griffin, however, is not content to remain quiet during this period of upheaval in space policy. The administrator who oversaw the formation and initial development of the Constellation architecture—most notably the Ares 1 rocket and Orion capsule—is clearly not happy to see the White House and even Congress willing to dismantle part or all it in favor of a new approach to human space exploration. Speaking Friday at the Thirteenth Annual International Mars Society Convention in Dayton, Ohio, Griffin made perhaps his strongest criticism yet of the administration’s plans, as well as described what he thinks a space program should do.
snip
Griffin also suggested that the plan didn’t put much thought into the decision to defer a human return to the Moon in favor of a mission to a near Earth asteroid by 2025. The made that choice, he suggested, “apparently without realizing that the delta-V to get to almost all asteroids is higher than the delta-V to get to Mars” with similarly long travel times and limited launch windows. “In a number of ways reaching asteroids can be harder than reaching Mars.”
He was skeptical of the plan’s emphasis on “gamechanging” technologies to enable human space exploration. “Any time I develop a new technology I potentially change someone’s game,” he said. “Without a plan, I don’t know what game, I don’t know if it’s the game I ought to be changing, or if it’s a high-value game or a low-value game, but I’m going to change something, so it’s pretty easy to promise that I’ll do gamechanging technologies.”
snip
Griffin summarized his opinion of the White House plan for NASA in a single sentence: “We’re not going anywhere and we’re going to spend a lot of money doing it.” He referred to a 2007 essay he wrote for Aviation Week where he concluded that the agency actually received more inflation-adjusted funding in its last 15 years than it did in its first 15. “The US space program has not accomplished as much in its last 15 years as in its first 15 years, given more money,” he said. “So, if you like that, you’ll really like the next decade, in which we do almost nothing and spend just as much.”
snip
Griffin had more specific concerns about relying on commercial providers without any sort of government backup vehicle. One is the worry about the loss of access to space should a commercial provider have an accident. “How does the provider stay in business?” he asked, if the damages created by the accident exceed the value of the company. He also noted that if only a single commercial crew provider emerges, it could charge NASA exorbitant rates since the agency would have nowhere else to turn. “How do we protect ourselves from monopoly pricing?”
One solution he had to those concerns was to continue development of a government human spaceflight system, one that would be a backup if a commercial provider had an accident—or never entered service at all—of and also protect against monopoly pricing if there’s only one provider. “If there’s a government capability, then we’re okay,” he said.
snip
------------------------------
And what is NASA's 2010 budget, something iike $18.6 billion and for 2011 $19 billion. We are excited about where $6 billion is to be re-distributed.
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/
http://news.softpedia.com/
By Tudor Vieru, Science Editor
July 24th, 2010, 07:24 GMT
Forget all of that and come back from recess to vote on $26 billion to save jobs.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://thehill.com/homenews/
Pelosi calls on House to return next week to move $26B state aid package
By Russell Berman, Alexander Bolton, and Julian Pecquet - 08/04/10 08:44 PM ET
Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw lawmakers’ summer plans into chaos Wednesday, announcing the House will interrupt its six-week recess and return to Washington next week to act on Medicaid and education funding for states.
Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the news via Twitter, saying, “I will be calling the House back into session early next week to save teachers’ jobs and help seniors & children.”
Pelosi made the decision in consultation with congressional leaders following the Senate’s morning vote to move forward on the $26.1 billion aid package. The Senate is expected to pass the bill Thursday.
A K Street lobbyist said the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pushed Pelosi to call back the House for the vote. States would have to lay off thousands of teachers if Congress doesn’t approve the money by the end of August.
Schools have laid off teachers in significant numbers throughout the year. Senate Democrats fear a delay in state aid could lead to additional firings.
“With an indication the funds are coming, we hope that states and school districts can plan accordingly,” said a Democratic aide. Pelosi seemed to acknowledge the importance of the education money in her tweet when she wrote the return was “to save teachers’ jobs.”
The House will hold its vote on the package Tuesday.
snip
------------------------------
Space may be the place, then again, the money is controlled by those here on Earth.
- LRK -
Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.
The Apollo Model: Stronger than Obama
by Taylor Dinerman
August 2, 2010 at 5:00 am
Perhaps the primary goal of the Obama administration's 2011 budget NASA proposal was to kill, once and for all, the Apollo Moon mission model that has determined the way the US space agency operates for nearly the last 60 years.
The so-called compromise proposal that unanimously passed the Senate Commerce Committee on July 15th gutted most of the Obama proposal. The House version does even more damage to the administration's proposal. While the Bush era Constellation program would seem to be dead, at least in name, its substance has survived for at least another year. There is a lesson here, not only for those who would reform NASA, but also for those who want to reform any reasonably sized government agency.
The first lesson is: Do not ignore Congress. NASA as it exists is the product of decades of Congressional action. Reformers may believe that they know what the agency needs, but without Congressional support, they have no hope of making a difference; all they can achieve is to demoralize and confuse their workforce.
Second, do not think that a study committee can substitute for in-house policy development. The Augustine Committee included some of the best minds in the US space industry, but it must, in the end, be regarded as a failure. Its conclusions seem to have been based on arbitrary budget assumptions. To many in Congress and elsewhere, its report was pre-cooked and was largely designed to undo the progress made by Mike Griffin towards a return to the Moon.
NASA's relationship with the Moon is the key to understanding its institutional bias. This is not simply due to nostalgia for the glory days of Apollo, but is based on an understanding of the strategic "geography" of the solar system. Our planet's satellite, thanks to its position and its small size, makes it an ideal base from which to explore the solar system, and, if necessary, to dominate the Earth. It has been described as a "Gibraltar Point" possession, which entails control over access to and from the surface of the Earth to the rest of our celestial neighborhood. Neither the US nor anyone else has plans, at present, to build military bases on the Moon, but that may change. A US civilian base on the Moon would be a strong deterrent to such a development.
These facts have long been built into the DNA of US space policy. Abandoning the Constellation Moon plan aroused in the Congress, and in parts of the US space industry, a fear that we were giving up that deterrent in favor of a vague, unfocused set of promises that could later be discarded at little or no political cost. The "Compromise" plans that have come out of the House and Senate are by no means satisfactory, but they give NASA a solid foundation on which to develop a future plan to return to the Moon if a future President or Congress wanted to make that commitment.
snip
------------------------------
Jeff Foust writes about Griffin’s critique of NASA’s new direction at the Thirteenth Annual International Mars Society Convention in Dayton, Ohio. I have a included a few biased snips. You should probably read the whole article to get the full picture.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://www.thespacereview.com/
Griffin’s critique of NASA’s new direction
by Jeff Foust
Monday, August 9, 2010
Former NASA administrators are not generally known for being outspoken about space policy after their tenures running the agency. They tend to go on to other pursuits, often outside of space entirely, rarely holding forth on NASA in any public capacity. Sean O’Keefe focused his attention first on running a university, LSU, and more recently as an aerospace executive, emphasizing the “aero” more than the “space”. His predecessor, Dan Goldin, was NASA administrator for nearly a decade but virtually dropped out of sight afterwards, beyond the odd situation in late 2003 when he was selected to become president of Boston University only to have his contract bought out immediately before he was to take office.
Mike Griffin, however, is not content to remain quiet during this period of upheaval in space policy. The administrator who oversaw the formation and initial development of the Constellation architecture—most notably the Ares 1 rocket and Orion capsule—is clearly not happy to see the White House and even Congress willing to dismantle part or all it in favor of a new approach to human space exploration. Speaking Friday at the Thirteenth Annual International Mars Society Convention in Dayton, Ohio, Griffin made perhaps his strongest criticism yet of the administration’s plans, as well as described what he thinks a space program should do.
snip
Griffin also suggested that the plan didn’t put much thought into the decision to defer a human return to the Moon in favor of a mission to a near Earth asteroid by 2025. The made that choice, he suggested, “apparently without realizing that the delta-V to get to almost all asteroids is higher than the delta-V to get to Mars” with similarly long travel times and limited launch windows. “In a number of ways reaching asteroids can be harder than reaching Mars.”
He was skeptical of the plan’s emphasis on “gamechanging” technologies to enable human space exploration. “Any time I develop a new technology I potentially change someone’s game,” he said. “Without a plan, I don’t know what game, I don’t know if it’s the game I ought to be changing, or if it’s a high-value game or a low-value game, but I’m going to change something, so it’s pretty easy to promise that I’ll do gamechanging technologies.”
snip
Griffin summarized his opinion of the White House plan for NASA in a single sentence: “We’re not going anywhere and we’re going to spend a lot of money doing it.” He referred to a 2007 essay he wrote for Aviation Week where he concluded that the agency actually received more inflation-adjusted funding in its last 15 years than it did in its first 15. “The US space program has not accomplished as much in its last 15 years as in its first 15 years, given more money,” he said. “So, if you like that, you’ll really like the next decade, in which we do almost nothing and spend just as much.”
snip
Griffin had more specific concerns about relying on commercial providers without any sort of government backup vehicle. One is the worry about the loss of access to space should a commercial provider have an accident. “How does the provider stay in business?” he asked, if the damages created by the accident exceed the value of the company. He also noted that if only a single commercial crew provider emerges, it could charge NASA exorbitant rates since the agency would have nowhere else to turn. “How do we protect ourselves from monopoly pricing?”
One solution he had to those concerns was to continue development of a government human spaceflight system, one that would be a backup if a commercial provider had an accident—or never entered service at all—of and also protect against monopoly pricing if there’s only one provider. “If there’s a government capability, then we’re okay,” he said.
snip
------------------------------
And what is NASA's 2010 budget, something iike $18.6 billion and for 2011 $19 billion. We are excited about where $6 billion is to be re-distributed.
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/
http://news.softpedia.com/
By Tudor Vieru, Science Editor
July 24th, 2010, 07:24 GMT
Forget all of that and come back from recess to vote on $26 billion to save jobs.
- LRK -
------------------------------
http://thehill.com/homenews/
Pelosi calls on House to return next week to move $26B state aid package
By Russell Berman, Alexander Bolton, and Julian Pecquet - 08/04/10 08:44 PM ET
Speaker Nancy Pelosi threw lawmakers’ summer plans into chaos Wednesday, announcing the House will interrupt its six-week recess and return to Washington next week to act on Medicaid and education funding for states.
Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the news via Twitter, saying, “I will be calling the House back into session early next week to save teachers’ jobs and help seniors & children.”
Pelosi made the decision in consultation with congressional leaders following the Senate’s morning vote to move forward on the $26.1 billion aid package. The Senate is expected to pass the bill Thursday.
A K Street lobbyist said the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pushed Pelosi to call back the House for the vote. States would have to lay off thousands of teachers if Congress doesn’t approve the money by the end of August.
Schools have laid off teachers in significant numbers throughout the year. Senate Democrats fear a delay in state aid could lead to additional firings.
“With an indication the funds are coming, we hope that states and school districts can plan accordingly,” said a Democratic aide. Pelosi seemed to acknowledge the importance of the education money in her tweet when she wrote the return was “to save teachers’ jobs.”
The House will hold its vote on the package Tuesday.
snip
------------------------------
Space may be the place, then again, the money is controlled by those here on Earth.
- LRK -
Thanks for looking up with me.
- LRK -
Web Site: http://lkellogg.vttoth.com/
BlogSpot: http://kelloggserialreports.
===========================================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
==============================
WHAT THE MIND CAN CONCEIVE, AND BELIEVE, IT WILL ACHIEVE - LRK
==============================
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