7 thoughts on “Center For American Progress”

  1. From the article:

    But if the United States is to remain the world’s leading spacefaring nation, it must first build a new national consensus on space exploration.

    This statement is as wrong in its presumption as it is in its conclusion.

    If you assume, by saying the US is a spacefaring nation, that it has the capability of sending people into space. This hasn’t been true since the shuttle was retired. Therefore there is nothing to “remain”, it was lost. Now we (the US/NASA) have the potential ability with SLS/Orion to do a total of four flights into space sometime beginning around 2018 or beyond. Well three technically if you dedicate the first mission as an uncrewed test mission. And at roughly one year apart between flights that makes the US a spacefaring nation for the years 2018-2021. If you assume the given NASA budget. AFAIK there is nothing in there to support building the additional engines needed if you wish to go beyond the 4 flights that will expend all the existing SSME stock.

    Given that the premise is wrong it doesn’t follow that a national consensus on space exploration is needed or even required.

    We didn’t mount a massive campaign to achieve national consensus on aviation back in the 1920s and yet today it has largely supplanted rail travel here in the early 21st century.

    In fact trying to sustain such a consensus over the time period needed to mount a Mars mission has never been attempted before and is not only likely to fail, but in the long term it will be counterproductive because of all the resources and time that will be wasted. It’s time to put a lot of the New Frontier fallacies and fantasies away….

    In the end, an ambitious program of space exploration—both human and robotic—would provide an opportunity for the United States to demonstrate that it remains an optimistic, future-oriented nation.

    If your primary goal is proselytization, having a thriving economy providing good jobs for our children would provide a better opportunity to demonstrate to others a reason for optimism for the future.

    1. If your primary goal is proselytization,

      NASA’s sudden, “We’re going to Mars!” PR campaign has been rather creepy. It comes across as trying to build up some cult-like follower based ideology.

  2. I agree with the article, it is financially feasible, although perhaps the word financially should be removed because they are using a definition related to business.

    How can it not be feasible when NASA’s budget is so small compared to the entire budget? There is room there for NASA to take from other government programs. Oh, but why take from another program when you can just run the printing press a few more hours every night? And perhaps, NASA’s priorities could be changed through revisions to their charter so they could receive the same funding but spend it differently?

    Whether it is financially feasibility or affordability, it matters not. These words are not good descriptors for the context that government run space based activities take place in. The government isn’t a business, NASA isn’t a business and it wrong to think of them that way. Activities the government engage in need neither be affordable or financially feasible because the dollars to fund them come from ideological competition and not market competition.

    No one is looking at the IRR and calculating one in this context is impossible.

    1. Activities the government engage in need neither be affordable or financially feasible because the dollars to fund them come from ideological competition and not market competition.

      An interesting observation. OTOH Space Exploration competes very weakly when grabbing for the zero sum dollars collected from tax revenue. Put it up against practically any government entitlement, or any research program run by the NIH. To put it another way, would you rather have boots on Mars, or health care for seniors or a cure for cancer? That’s why it’s so important to grasp at the consensus narrative. It gives political cover for the indefensible.

  3. I endure the occasional CAP press release on my current discussion forum of choice. What I find most annoying about them is the cluelessness and bias that goes into each press release, whether it be lauding drugs in Cuba or companies that decide to pay everyone $70k salaries (with of course, the expectation that everyone else should follow suit, like Walmart is ever going to be able to duplicate that feat). So now they’re advocating money-no-object big space missions to Mars – no surprise there although they’re starting to sound like a bunch of LaRouche sleeper agents.

  4. Doesn’t anyone remember that the current man to mars thing was started under the great Republican Bush 2?

    Oh that’s right Bush 2 must be a leftist Rino.

    It was a part of his Re-Imaging American Space Leadership phase. Which was also part of his Let’s Not Have NASA Looking at that Global Weather Business week.

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