Harley Thronson and Dan Lester describe the history of the Future In-Space Operations working group. I hadn’t realized that it wasn’t a formal NASA activity. Which makes it all the more remarkable, because it’s one of the most valuable things that’s been happening for the past several years.
All posts by Rand Simberg
Benghazi
I think he is ashamed. Here’s what I’ve been assuming happened: It looked like our people were overwhelmed and doomed, so there was shock, sadness, and acceptance. But then the fight went on for 7 or 8 hours. The White House folk decided there was nothing to do but accept the inevitable, and then they witnessed a valiant fight which they had done nothing to support. It was always too late to help. It was too late after one hour, then too late after 2 hours, then too late after 3 hours…. When were these people going to die already? After that was all over, how do you explain what you did?
You lie, apparently. And I don’t think he’s ashamed at all. I’ve seen little evidence that he has any sense of shame.
Thoughts On Gun Control
Too much common sense from Robert Levy, so the politicians won’t pay any attention.
[Update a couple minutes later]
The public disapproves of Obama’s gun policies by 54-42%. Actually, they seem to disapprove of almost all of his policies. Think in particular about the 2-1 opposition to his deficit policy as he spouts his lies tonight. There was no majority who voted for Barack Obama. Those who put him over the top were voting against the demon Romney, per the Obama campaign strategy.
[Update a few minutes later]
This seems related: the war on drugs, overcriminalization and militarized police raids.
The Roots Of The Gun Control Movement
It wasn’t just to keep down the darkies, but also to protect and preserve the street gangs.
Works great in Chicago.
Global Warming Causes Asteroids, Part Two
Remember the idiot reporter on CNN? Apparently the “Science” Guy didn’t exactly cover himself in glory, either.
A New Space Policy Petition
While it’s conceptually appealing, this seems far too vague to be useful.
The Space Review
Happy tenth anniversary to Jeff, who is asking the big space policy questions for the next ten years.
[Update a few minutes later]
I have to comment on this:
“NASA needs to have more than one half of one percent of the federal budget,” Bingham said at the FAA conference last week, emphasizing he was speaking only for himself. That call has been echoed by others in recent years who have sought to at least double NASA’s share of the federal budget to one percent.
There is no magic “correct” percentage of the federal budget that NASA should get. Traditionally, it used to be about one percent, but the budget hasn’t actually declined that much. It’s now half a percent because of the monstrous budget growth in other areas over the past several years, and NASA didn’t keep up. NASA should get as much budget as it needs to accomplish its assigned tasks, regardless of the budget percentage. Of course, since some of its assigned tasks are wasteful and useless, like Jeff Bingham’s Senate Launch System, it could actually be doing a lot more with the money that it’s being given, if Congress wouldn’t force the agency to waste so much.
Commercial Space Transportation Regulation
In my book, here’s one of my recommendations in the conclusion:
The Office of Commercial Space Transportation (OCST), currently located within FAA and often referred to by its internal code designation as FAA-AST, should be taken from under the FAA administrator and reconstituted as a separate agency of the DOT, reporting directly to the Secretary of Transportation as do normal DOT agencies. The OCST was originally constituted as a special office within the Office of the Secretary of Transportation as an interim measure under President Reagan’s executive order of 1983, codified by subsequent legislation in 1984. It was moved under the FAA early in the Clinton administration as a result of Vice President Gore’s “streamlining government” initiative. Giving it independent status would both elevate the national importance of space transportation, and remove it from the routine-transportation, common-carrier-oriented safety environment of the FAA, which (as previously mentioned) lost its role in the promotion of the aviation industry in the wake of the ValuJet crash in the late nineties. Additionally, consideration should be given to relocating to such an agency various routine space-transportation-related infrastructure and operational responsibilities located in other agencies where they are peripheral to those agencies’ main purpose and function and often suffer from inattention and low priorities.
Dana Rohrabacher has read a draft, and I suspect that’s partially what’s behind this:
Rohrabacher said that it remained vital that FAA recognize that commercial spaceflight is still an emerging industry and not over-regulate it. He noted that the Office of Commercial Space Transportation was originally placed directly under the Secretary of Transportation, and only later moved to the FAA. “The culture of the FAA is based on a mandate to protect passenger safety,” he said, but argued that commercial spaceflight, being far less mature than aviation, requires a different regulatory philosophy. “That’s a very different mandate and a very different approach, but it’s necessary for us to recognize that if we are to be successful in moving the industry forward.”
Rohrabacher said that FAA was, for the time being, doing a good job treating aviation and spaceflight differently, but warned he would seek action to move the office out of the FAA should the situation change. “Ultimately, if that proves too difficult for the FAA to reconcile, we may end up having to move this whole job back to the office of the Secretary of Transportation.”
Sounds good to me.
As a side note, the congressman has provided me with a book blurb:
Mr. Simberg makes the compelling case that great deeds and great rewards require great risks, but NASA and my colleagues in Congress have become so risk averse in the arena of human spaceflight that we are incapable of accomplishing great deeds. America must have the stomach to let explorers and settlers willfully take on the kinds of risk necessary for opening the frontier of space to settlement under the rule of law. If we continue to overvalue that risk, or prohibit those who would willfully undertake it, then other nations, with no respect for human life, will be more than happy to fill that void. Left unchecked, the well-meaning, but misguided, group that promotes “safety at all cost” will continue to establish hard ceilings that we can’t break through, require the expense of immense amounts of time and money, and will ultimately cost us our preeminence in space. We must not cede the high ground of space to those who do not believe in freedom. And we must respect the freedom of those individuals who are willing to put it all on the line to head over that next hill – even when that hill is in space. Mr. Simberg’s book Safe Is Not An Option handles this sensitive issue with skill, grace, and tremendous insight.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
Vice Chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology; and former Chairman of the Space Subcommittee
I have several others as well, which I’ll put up at the book’s web site, perhaps this week.
That Didn’t Take Long
Paul Damphousse is out at NSS. As Michael Mealling notes, it really is a profoundly dysfunctional organization, not just because of its structure, but because of the tension between the constituencies within that has existed ever since the L-5/NSI merger in the eighties.
Obama’s Latest Scheme
He wants Congress to fix the sequester he suggested with the new taxes he’s wanted all along.