Once again, cuts Commercial Crew and space technology, and pours more money down the SLS/Orion rat hole. I hope this can get fixed in conference.
Note that, as usual, the comments by Gary Church are insane. But “Windbourne”‘s comment raises an interesting question. If you did a secret survey of NASA employees, how many of them would support SLS?
An interesting, albeit meaningless question. However, if we are doing a poll, let’s add a number of other questions:
Do you support President Obama’s space exploration program that abandons the moon?
Do you think NASA should concentrate its efforts more on Earth science or on space exploration?
Is it the appropriate role for NASA to grant massive subsidies to commercial companies?
NASA does not provide “massive subsidies” to commercial companies. The notion that they do is insane.
Rand, this touches on a very important difference in point of view. For those who conclude that the SAAs are subsidies, the key attribute is that when those contracts are over the *company* is in control of the market segment they can win, not the politicians. It is control, by the State, that these folks desire. For them, that is the natural state of spaceflight. In particular, it is the essence, for many, of a “US Space Program”.
We saw it in the early 1980s, when the Reagan administration, having concluded that the government had long since got all they paid for from the Delta and Atlas programs, decided to turn ownership and control of them over to the builders, and allow them to sell launches privately. There was *lots* of objection, from Congress to the college campuses, that the government was handing the builders a huge subsidy. This was argued to be a subsidy even though the government had got every piece of equipment they paid for, and the tech used was *way* beyond any date where a patent held by the government would have applied. The key was that the wrong sort of people would now be in control of getting into Space, …private companies.
IMHO, if we were starting in 1915, when Goddard first sent his patent to the Navy Department, it is true that SAAs are far from the best way to allow a “spacefaring society” to come about. We are *not* in that place, however, but at the back end of a 100 years long push for government control, in which people have come to assume that government control of tech developments they pay for and then use is the norm, forever. The idea that government, having taxed money away from the private sector and used it to develop that tech in dispute, should *never* return control to the private sector, is firmly in place in many minds. Senator Shelby, abetted by people like Mark, obviously intends to keep things that way as long as he is in office. Failing that, and they will, they will cut commercial crew again and again, to do their utmost to make sure that programs they can take credit for are out front. That way they can mimic LBJ’s “right Stuff” quote “Look Whut Ahhhh Brought You!” for as long as they can, and as often as they can.
To me, this attitude is the best argument for Jim Davidson’s old battle cry, … “NASA, Delenda Est!” Mind you, I’m not there yet, but this congressional BS pushes me in that direction more strongly than anything else.
And of course, if you have *control* of the capability, you can make sure that the jobs and money involved in that capability never leave your district, no matter how inefficient or unaffordable it becomes.
It’s striking to see even Republicans fall victim to it. A lot of ’em are old boll weavils, though (Shelby especially), and they still have that New Deal pork mentality. Consider it LBJ’s legacy – he got Apollo (and thus the foundations of NASA’s facilities and contractor networks) in place by treating the entire thing like a new TVA.
Do you support President Obama’s space exploration program that abandons the moon?
As opposed to what? The Moon has already been abandoned. And I don’t see any movement to changing that anywhere in the US government. I include SLS in my consideration.
Do you think NASA should concentrate its efforts more on Earth science or on space exploration?
This is kind of like asking a vegan whether you want turkey or beef on that sandwich. I don’t see any particular value that NASA adds to either effort. They’re just a large cost multiplier at this point. I think that outweighs the captive revenue stream that NASA has access to. Obviously, NASA employees will disagree.
Is it the appropriate role for NASA to grant massive subsidies to commercial companies?
Of course not. But I find it interesting how you ignore that at least commercial space efforts are payment for progress or service while SLS funding isn’t (with important SLS milestones conveniently many years in the future). That makes the former much less of a subsidy or a boondoggle than the latter.
Mark, if you really were serious about manned space flight or returning to the Moon, you’d be backing private efforts. For example, SpaceX is getting close to launching the Falcon Heavy in the next year or so. That alone nearly obsoletes SLS due to a combination of low price and actually being something you can use in the near future.
A lot of the comments there reminded me of the Apollo vs Big Gemini capsule discussions in the 1960s. I hope Big Gemini wins this time.
As I suggested in twitter, if they want a new, ‘classical’ name for the SLS it should be “Priapus.”
Because it’s functioning _for_ its supporters, and _to_ the rest of us, exactly as that Greek god did…