Category Archives: Business

Business, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

This Morning’s Space Hearing

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Here’s a story by Dan Leone, in which Mo Brooks makes an historical ass of himself:

One SLS supporter, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), said he was “astonished” that Bolden would claim the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama had nothing to do with the current gap in U.S. human spaceflight capability. Brooks’ district includes NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, which is leading the SLS effort.

“When the space shuttle was mothballed [in 2011], President Obama was president of the United States,” Brooks said. “He could have made the decision to continue to use the space shuttle, or to continue to keep it available in the event of an emergency. He chose not to.”

He had no practical choice, Congressman. The point of no return on the program was reached before Obama took office. The parts needed to keep it flying were already out of production, and the cost of restarting it would have been astronomical, if it could be done at all. It makes me weep to see such monumental ignorance from the people who are running space policy on the Hill.

But Dan misses what is, to me, the big story from the hearing. Interestingly, Brooks office released a transcript late in the day:

Congressman Brooks:… What would be the consequences to the operational capabilities of the Space Station if within the next year, Russia chooses to deny us access by no longer allowing us to hitch a ride on their rockets?

Administrator Bolden:…The partners would probably have to shut the Space Station down…

Congressman Brooks: If the Space Station is shut down for an extended period of time, say a few years more or less?

Administrator Bolden: I will go to the President and recommend that we terminate SLS and Orion…

Congressman Brooks: Let me make sure I understand the sequence of events from your testimony. You correct me if I err. If the Russians deny us access to the International Space Station, it’s your testimony that because of what services we provide to the International Space Station, you would have to shut it down. And if the International Space Station is shut down, you in turn would then see no reason to have the Space Launch System or Orion, so is it fair for me to infer that you would then recommend that those programs be shut down too?

They should be, regardless of what the Russians do. But this is stupid. We have invested over a hundred billion dollars in the ISS. It is only now starting to do any significant research. What Bolden is saying that he would abandon it, rather than risk flying without an abort system, even though we flew Shuttle without an abort system for thirty years. I’d like to think that he wouldn’t actually do that — that he’d decide to just ask SpaceX how soon they could start flying people to keep the program going. I hope that he was just bluffing to try to get Congress to properly fund Commercial Crew, because if he isn’t, it’s maddening. If he’s serious, it indicates that he’s completely unserious about spaceflight. And of course, someone should write a book about that.

[Friday-morning update]

Jeff Foust has the story now over at Space Politics.

[Mid-morning update]

Here’s another report, from Marcia Smith.

Business, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

Reusable Falcons

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Jeff Foust mined Gwynne Shotwell’s Space Show interview for some interesting nuggets. Here’s what I found interesting:

Despite concerns about US access to the ISS given current tensions with Russia and NASA’s current reliance on Soyuz, Shotwell said she didn’t think it was feasible to greatly accelerate the development of a crewed Dragon. “We proposed a pretty forward-leaning program” for commercial crew, she said. “I don’t want to say that we couldn’t speed things up: we probably could, but it would have to be in lockstep with NASA.” She added that SpaceX current believes it can have a crewed Dragon ready “a little bit faster” than current NASA plans for flights in late 2016 or early 2017. [Emphasis added]

I’m pretty sure that if NASA went to her and Elon and said, “we want to fly this year, and we’re willing to do it without the abort system,” they’d be able to do it.

Business, Economics, Health, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Real Existential Judicial Threat To ObamaCare

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Hobby Lobby is small potatoes compared to Halbig:

…the Obama administration fears that if consumers in 34 states experience the full cost of Obamacare, Congress will have no choice but to reopen the law. It has therefore offered numerous arguments in defense of its unauthorized spending and taxes – not because any of these arguments have merit, but because none of them do.

Nevertheless, a district court ruled against the Halbig plaintiffs based on a severely distorted view of Congress’ intent. The court wrote, “there is no evidence that either the House or the Senate considered making tax credits dependent upon whether a state participated in the Exchanges.”

On the contrary, the evidence is clear. The words of the statute themselves show that both chambers not only considered but approved that idea. The senators who enacted Obamacare routinely supported and enacted legislation conditioning health-insurance tax credits and other assistance on states establishing exchanges or taking other actions. The seven members of Congress most responsible for Obamacare – former Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee chairman Tom Harkin (D-Ia.), then-House Ways & Means Committee chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.), then-House Education & Workforce Committee chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and then-House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) – even admit in an amicus brief that conditioning subsidies on states establishing exchanges was part of the congressional debate. Finally, when House Democrats first read the Senate-passed bill – what we now call Obamacare – in 2010, they recognized that it conditions subsidies on states establishing exchanges, and complained that this feature would allow recalcitrant states to block those subsidies. In this instance at least, Congress knew what it was enacting.

This may be the part of the train wreck where it goes off the bridge into the gorge. And it will happen this summer, leading up to the election.

[Update early afternoon]

“What we have here is language that doesn’t seem malleable in any way, shape or form.”

I should note that when I wrote the first part of this post, I thought that the case was already before SCOTUS, but the arguments made this morning are apparently just before an appellate court. But it will probably go to SCOTUS as some point, regardless of that decision.