Category Archives: Political Commentary

Political Commentary, Space, Space and Campaign 2008

Reason #254

36 Comments

…why I am a libertarian, but not a Libertarian:

In a column in today’s Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Billy Cox notes that Hoagland’s presence stands in contrast to efforts by Libertarians to tone down UFO talk within their ranks. Joe Buchman, running for Congress in Utah as a Libertarian, told Cox that state LP officials are “fuming” over Buchman’s push to declassify records that he believes would prove evidence of… well, something to do with alien life. “At least I won’t be the biggest nut case at the convention now,” Buchman said upon learning of Hoagland’s talk.

The party does tend to attract a lot of nutballs. I can’t take seriously a party that takes Richard Hoagland seriously enough to feature him at its convention.

Political Commentary, Space

The Fundamental Problem

32 Comments

Jeff Foust and Charles Miller talk about the real issue with space–the fact that we still can’t afford to get there on any useful scale.

On a related note (though it’s not obvious that they’re related, other than the fact that both pieces appear in today’s issue of The Space Review), Greg Zsidisin wonders whether we are going to repeat the Apollo debacle.

Well, that depends on what you think “the Apollo debacle” is.

If I read him correctly, Greg seems to think that it was abandoning the Apollo hardware and its capabilities and replacing it with the flawed concept of the Shuttle:

It’s déjà vu all over again, of course. Shortly after Apollo 11, NASA triumphantly presented its funding list of “next logical steps”. These included human Mars exploration, Moon bases, and a large space station in Earth orbit serviced by a reusable “space shuttle”. At the time, the US was engaged in the costly, divisive Vietnam War, while the economy was beginning a big slide that would result in double-digit inflation in the early ’70s.

With the race against the Russians having been won, and a decidedly anti-technology attitude settling in, Congress and President Nixon readily pulled the plug on everything but the shuttle, which nevertheless struggled for funding and support. The vehicle that emerged was a highly compromised version of what had been envisioned, and sure enough did not bring the vastly cheaper and more routine space access promised.

The Apollo infrastructure, meanwhile, was almost entirely discarded. We lost the Saturn launch vehicles, their engines, most of their directly associated manufacturing and launch capability. This, despite the huge cost and effort it took to create them.

The problem is that “the next logical steps” weren’t necessarily all that logical, but they did fulfill the von Braunian vision (which is what it was based on). In a sense, the Shuttle was the “next logical step,” but only in the sense that it was an attempt to make space affordable–something that Saturn never would have done, had we continued it, as so many now nostalgic for that era would prefer. In fact, such misplaced nostalgia for large expendable rockets is at the heart of the cargo-cultish approach of ESAS–it is an attempt to return to the glory days, when we went to the moon, and the whole world watched.

The mistake of Shuttle was not in seeking CRATS (Cheap Reliable Access To Space, which is essential, as Foust and Miller point out). It was in the approach taken to do it. And in that, I don’t mean a reusable system. It was in thinking that it was a task for a major government, Manhattan-Project-style initiative on the scale (or even on a smaller scale) of Apollo, in which the government would develop, build and operate a fleet of vehicles (of a single design) to handle all of the nation’s (and hopefully, much of the world’s) space transportation needs.

No, it was no mistake to set as a goal the dramatic reduction of costs, and increase in routine access to space, which was in fact the original goal of the Shuttle program, and why, despite its many successful flights with useful accomplishments, it was an utter failure programmatically. It should still be the goal, but we have to take a different approach, and not just technically, (again) as Foust and Miller point out:

Any new initiative to achieve CRATS must address the repeated national failures (Shuttle, NASP, X-33, X-34) to achieve CRATS. Instead of trying the same old thing over again, and expecting different results, a new initiative would address the core reasons for the failure, and provide some ideas on a new approach.

Unfortunately, the core reasons for the failure lie at heart in our overall approach to, and thinking about spaceflight. I’ve often noted that we got off on the wrong track half a century ago, when space technology (at least for human spaceflight) became an expression of technical ability in a race between two Cold Warriors, rather than a utilitarian development for commerce and national security. In so doing, it created a mindset on the subject from which it is difficult for most policy analysts, let alone the general public, to escape. It also created a politically potent iron triangle between NASA, the contractor community, and the Congress that makes it difficult to implement new or innovative policy solutions, because the success of those rent seekers is not contingent on actual progress in space. As long as the contracts continue, and the jobs remain in place, and the lobbyists make their political donations, it doesn’t really matter that much whether or not the human space program is expanding humanity into space, or making us a spacefaring nation, because those goals are not nationally important.

The good news is that there is pressure from outside that system to force change. One, as is noted in the Foust/Miller piece, is the growing awareness in the military of the vulnerability of our space assets, and that the only real solution to this is responsive space, not just in terms of access, but also in terms of replacement systems. One of the several ways in which NASA has completely flouted the recommendations of the Aldridge Commission is to propose an architecture that contributes almost nothing to national security. Another way, equally if not more important, is that it contributes almost nothing to nurturing private space enterprise.

Even ignoring all of the technical problems with it, these two factors are probably what will doom it. When the budget crunch comes, unlike the Shuttle, NASA will be unable to call on the Pentagon to come to bat for it. And while private space companies will continue to support the Vision for Space Exploration in the abstract, none of them have any motivation to support ESAS itself. Particularly when there are much more lucrative, and less fickle markets, as they start to satisfy private desires to go, and ignore NASA’s continued emphasis on a voyeuristic program that allows us to watch a few civil servants go to the moon while we foot the bill.

I have long said that NASA’s approach is essentially socialist, but I realize now that I’ve been wrong in that assessment. Since reading Jonah Goldberg’s book, I’ve slowly come to realize, over the past few months, that a much more accurate phrase for it is fascist (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Chair Force Engineer recently came to the same conclusion:

In order to justify the enormous expense of the space shuttle borne by the American taxpayers, and to get the flight rate up to levels which would make the vehicle economical, the shuttle was used to launch commercial payloads during its early years. The thought of a government-funded, government-operated vehicle launching commercial payloads should be anathema to freedom-loving Americans. But the shuttle served its need as “the moral equivalent of war.” After all, the Russian efforts to duplicate the shuttle capabilities with Energia-Buran helped to bankrupt the Soviet Union. And the shuttle & space station continue to serve as symbols of national pride, promoting the religion of the state.

Exactly. We are supposed to contribute to the glorious State’s Space Program, and be content to watch the chosen Representatives of the State, our Celestial Gladiators, go out into the cosmos for us. That is the von Braunian vision (hey, anyone remember where he got his start?), and Mike Griffin (who I’m pretty sure sees himself as von Braun’s successor) is eager to continue it. And it doesn’t help that neither he, nor any of his other OSC compadres–Tony Elias, Bill Claybaugh, Doug Stanley, et al–even believe that CRATS is achievable. It’s a convenient belief, of course, if one wants to build big rockets at taxpayer expense. But we shouldn’t fool ourselves that it has anything to do with classically liberal American values. Or becoming a truly spacefaring nation.

Fortunately, we are reaching a point at which we will no longer be able to afford such grand visions of “One NASA” (Ein NASA, Ein Volk, Ein Administrator), and will instead be focused on actual mission needs by the military, and commercial desires of people who actually want to do stuff in space, with their own money. At that point, perhaps, the Cold War will finally be over for the one agency that, like a few Japanese soldiers on remote islands, who hadn’t gotten the word, even into the sixties, continued to fight on well past its end.

[Update about noon eastern]

OK, maybe Mike Griffin isn’t von Braun’s heir:

Werner Von Braun’s body was found in China this week after making the trip from D.C. No, he wasn’t exhumed, he just churned in his grave until he augured all the way through after an unidentified visitor paying respects whispered to him graveside about the latest hare-brained scheme to make ARES 1 lift off and fly right.

OK, so it’s not simple or soon. But as noted at the link, if it never flies, at least it will be safe.

[Late Monday evening update]

Based on his comments, Mark Whittington apparently hasn’t read Jonah’s book, despite the fact that he attempted to review it.

From the first edition, pages 210-211 (my annotations are in square brackets, and red), “Even Kennedy’s nondefense policies were sold as the moral analogue of war…His intimidation of the steel industry was a rip-off of Truman’s similar effort during the Korean War, itself a maneuver from the playbooks of FDR and Wilson. Likewise, the Peace Corps and its various domestic equivalents were throwbacks to FDR’s martial CCC. Even Kennedy’s most ambitious idea, putting a man on the moon, was sold to the public as a response to the fact that the Soviet Union was overtaking America in science…”

“What made [Kennedy’s administration] so popular? What made it so effective? What has given it its lasting appeal? On almost every front, the answers are those elements that fit the fascist playbook: the creation of crises [We’re losing the race to the Soviets! We can’t go to sleep by a Russian moon!], national appeals to unity [They are our astronauts! Our nation shall beat the Soviets to the moon!], the celebration of martial values [The astronauts were all military, the best of the best], the blurring of lines between public and private sectors [SETA contracts, anyone? Cost plus? Our version of Soviet design bureaus?], the utilization of the mass media to glamorize the state and its programs [No Life Magazine deal for chronicling a bowdlerized version of the astronauts’ lives? Really?], invocation of a “post-partisan” spirit that places the important decisions in the hands of experts and intellectual supermen, and a cult of personality for the national leader [von Braun? “Rocket scientists”? Not just Kennedy Space Center, but (briefly) Cape Kennedy?].”

Bold type mine (in addition to red annotations).

Nope, no fascism here. Nothing to see here, folks.

Political Commentary, Weird

An Omen?

1 Comment

As Halperin writes, you can’t make this kind of thing up:

Hillary Clinton enthusiastically picked a filly named Eight Belles to win the Kentucky Derby and compared herself to the horse. Eight Belles finished second. The winner was the favorite, Big Brown.

Eight Belles collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line, and was euthanized shortly thereafter.

Like Mark, I too have no other comment.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, does Hillary! live in a permanent state of denial and fantasy? Mickey makes a good case.

[Mid-morning update]

Speaking of denial, Jim Geraghty explains (once again, for those who continue to miss the point, or obfuscate it with straw men) that the issue with Wright is not the concern that Obama secretly shares his views (though that is certainly a possibility). It’s the judgment, stupid:

In Wright, Obama saw what he wanted to see. He wanted a wise, shrewd, kind, funny, educated man who could show him the ways of the world (and Chicago politics), one who perhaps went a little too far every now and then, but who was overall a good person.

Instead, we see that Wright is a toxic figure, arguing that blacks and whites have different brain structures, that the American government created the AIDS virus for genocidal purposes, that U.S. policy can accurately be called terrorism, that the U.S. Marines can be compared to the Roman soldiers who tortured Jesus, who calls Italians “garlic-noses,” who calls the Secretary of State “Condoskeezia” and “Con-damn-nesia”, etc.

Here’s where the example of Wright is truly disturbing when contemplating an Obama presidency. If Barack Obama looked at Jeremiah Wright and saw only what he wanted to see… how sure can we be that he wouldn’t look at say, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and see only what he wanted to see?

Also, as a bonus, some psychoanalysis based on Obama’s book. So now both Hillary! and Obama are put on the couch in this post.

Political Commentary

He’s Got His Number

I think that Victor Davis Hanson has diagnosed the situation spot on, and it’s good news for Republicans, because it means that a) Obama is almost a lock on the nomination and b) there’s no way he can win the general election. Particularly since Hillary! will do everything she can to prevent it, as long as her fingerprints aren’t on it.

…privately they acknowledge:

–that their candidate made a devil’s bargain with a racist to create an authentic black persona in order to jump start a political career in Chicago;

–that their candidate was so inured to de rigueur anti-American speech from his church days, black-liberationist friends, assorted reverends, and former radicals like Ayers, that he never really thought things that Wright said were all that big a deal — hence his deer-in-the-headlights approach to the initial scandal and serial hedging. After all, in Obama’s adopted world, his church really isn’t “particularly controversial;”

–that their Obama messiah is hardly a new politician, but instead a very gifted and charismatic actor, who, in skillful fashion, can talk about utopian politics but then backstep, hedge, and get away with more than anyone since Bill Clinton in his prime in 1992 (one of the reasons that those two dislike each other so is that they are so much alike) — and that is not such a bad thing after all.

Yes, I can easily imagine letting such talk pass, while not necessarily agreeing with it, accepting it as well within reasonable discourse. I remember doing it a lot in college.

But I grew up.

Political Commentary

He’s Got His Number

I think that Victor Davis Hanson has diagnosed the situation spot on, and it’s good news for Republicans, because it means that a) Obama is almost a lock on the nomination and b) there’s no way he can win the general election. Particularly since Hillary! will do everything she can to prevent it, as long as her fingerprints aren’t on it.

…privately they acknowledge:

–that their candidate made a devil’s bargain with a racist to create an authentic black persona in order to jump start a political career in Chicago;

–that their candidate was so inured to de rigueur anti-American speech from his church days, black-liberationist friends, assorted reverends, and former radicals like Ayers, that he never really thought things that Wright said were all that big a deal — hence his deer-in-the-headlights approach to the initial scandal and serial hedging. After all, in Obama’s adopted world, his church really isn’t “particularly controversial;”

–that their Obama messiah is hardly a new politician, but instead a very gifted and charismatic actor, who, in skillful fashion, can talk about utopian politics but then backstep, hedge, and get away with more than anyone since Bill Clinton in his prime in 1992 (one of the reasons that those two dislike each other so is that they are so much alike) — and that is not such a bad thing after all.

Yes, I can easily imagine letting such talk pass, while not necessarily agreeing with it, accepting it as well within reasonable discourse. I remember doing it a lot in college.

But I grew up.

Political Commentary

He’s Got His Number

4 Comments

I think that Victor Davis Hanson has diagnosed the situation spot on, and it’s good news for Republicans, because it means that a) Obama is almost a lock on the nomination and b) there’s no way he can win the general election. Particularly since Hillary! will do everything she can to prevent it, as long as her fingerprints aren’t on it.

…privately they acknowledge:

–that their candidate made a devil’s bargain with a racist to create an authentic black persona in order to jump start a political career in Chicago;

–that their candidate was so inured to de rigueur anti-American speech from his church days, black-liberationist friends, assorted reverends, and former radicals like Ayers, that he never really thought things that Wright said were all that big a deal — hence his deer-in-the-headlights approach to the initial scandal and serial hedging. After all, in Obama’s adopted world, his church really isn’t “particularly controversial;”

–that their Obama messiah is hardly a new politician, but instead a very gifted and charismatic actor, who, in skillful fashion, can talk about utopian politics but then backstep, hedge, and get away with more than anyone since Bill Clinton in his prime in 1992 (one of the reasons that those two dislike each other so is that they are so much alike) — and that is not such a bad thing after all.

Yes, I can easily imagine letting such talk pass, while not necessarily agreeing with it, accepting it as well within reasonable discourse. I remember doing it a lot in college.

But I grew up.

General Science, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Show Me The Science

8 Comments

Jim Manzi reviews Expelled. He’s not impressed.

And John Derbyshire is appropriately dismayed by Jews like David Klinghoffer and Ben Stein latching on to this anti-science schtick:

One of the best reasons to be a philosemite in our time is sheer gratitude at the disproportionate contribution Jews have made to the advance of Western civilization, and to our understanding of the world, this past two hundred years. The U.S.A. dominated the 20th century in culture and technology, to the great benefit of all mankind, in part because of the work done in math and science by the great tranche of pre-WW2 immigrant Jews from Europe.

Now you have joined up with people who want to trash the scientific enterprise and heap insults on one of the greatest names in intellectual history. For reasons unfathomable to me, you and Ben Stein want to sneer and scoff at our understandings, hard-won over centuries of arduous intellectual effort. Don’t the two of you know, don’t Jews of all people know, where this anti-intellectual agitation, this pandering to a superstitious mob, will lead at last? If you truly don’t, I refer you to the fate of Hypatia, which you can read about in my last book (Chapter 3), or in Gibbon (Chapter XLVII). Your new pals at the Discovery Institute no doubt think Hypatia got what she deserved.

Civilization is a thin veneer, David. Reason and science are bulwarks against the dark.

The mistake that these people make is to equate science with atheism. It is true that, as science advances, and more scientific explanations are put forth, much of the need for God, at least insofar as an explanation for natural phenomena, is removed. But then, that’s the nature of natural phenomena–if they require the supernatural, they are by definition not natural.

But it doesn’t follow that a belief in science in general, or evolution in particular, requires atheism. Many (including Manzi in the link above) have pointed out numerous examples, going back to Aquinas, of the compatibility of rationality and reason, and theism. Stein and Klinghoffer would return us to the dark ages, even if they don’t realize it.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary, Space

It’s Not Just A Bad Idea, It’s The Law

There’s a long piece on the the current state of space law over at the ABA Journal. I only have a couple issues with it. First, I don’t know what they mean by this:

Even though the United States eventually outpaced the Soviet Union by putting men on the moon in 1969, the space race continued until the early 1990s.

No, the space race was essentially over by 1968 or so, once the Russians realized that they weren’t going to beat us to the moon, and instead rewrote history to pretend that they’d never even been trying. There was no urgency or racing after that–had there been, NASA budgets would have been higher, and schedules faster. So I don’t know what this sentence means, unless it just a vague reference to the fact that progress, such as it was, continue on both the US and Soviet side, until the fall of the Soviet Union.

On ITAR, I strongly disagree with Pam Meridith:

“I think the hysteria over ITARs is out of proportion,” says Pamela L. Meredith, who co-chairs the space law practice group at Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasen­berger in Washington, D.C. “They’ve been around for a long time now, so people have had time to adjust.”

No matter how much “time people have to adjust,” it still adds time and cost to projects, and prevents many from happening altogether. And it has a disproportionate effect–like most regulations, big space businesses (who despite leftist mythology, are no fans of capitalism or free enterprise) don’t necessarily dislike ITAR, because they can afford to meet the requirements, and they represent a barrier to entry to smaller businesses and newcomers, who generally can’t. (Though there’s also no question that it’s cost Boeing a lot of satellite business.) And as a perfect case in point, consider Mike Gold at Bigelow (in a long, but quite interesting interview):

Res Communis: Can you comment on a company’s cost of implementing ITAR?

Gold: Yes, absolutely. Paying so much for export control is a bit like being asked not just to dig your own grave, but to jump in it as well. Our best estimates are that we pay roughly $130.00 per hour, per person, for every hour that a government official monitors us or reviews our documentation during the day, plus overtime, which can add up on overseas trips. What amazes me is that when we travel to Russia for meetings, we sometimes travel with not one, but two government officials, monitoring every word we say. Then, across the table from us are the Russians, all great folks, who came out of a Communist system, and they have no explicit monitors. If we were to have brought someone down from Mars to attend our meetings, and asked them which of these two nations represented the free country, the Martian would point to the Russians. The U.S. holds itself out as the bastion of freedom. But when I am sitting there at those meetings I have to wonder: which is the free country? Now again, this is a problem of policy not personnel. The monitors we get are often good, smart people, who can even be quite helpful at times. However, what I want is for these monitors to be able to spend their limited time and resources focusing on military sensitive technologies that really matter rather than wasting their efforts on us. The Russians basically do this. They have the unique policy of protecting information that is actually sensitive. They don’t care about metal coffee tables. It makes a lot more sense. And, in regard to the financial costs, you know, the KGB may have spied on you back in the Soviet days, but at least they had the courtesy to do it for free. It is unfathomable to me what we have to pay for export control review and monitoring.

Res Communis: You do cover their travel expenses also?

Gold: Absolutely, including airfare and hotel. Specifically, in 2006, the year of the Genesis I campaign, we paid over $160,000 in monitoring fees alone. In 2007, when the Genesis II launch campaign took place, we paid the government nearly $150,000 for monitoring and reviews. Thanks to Mr. Bigelow’s generosity and commitment, we’re able to afford such fees, but there are a lot of small companies that can’t. This is why the ITAR has stifled innovation and stunted development in the American aerospace sector. The ITAR should be re-named “The Full Employment for European and Foreign Aerospace Workers Act.”

Res Communis: As between a new space company like Bigelow and the big aerospace corporations, is the ITAR burden disproportionate for the new companies?

Gold: Everyone has problems with it, but a large, well established company is better able to absorb the expenses and can pass the cost on to their customers relatively easily. Anecdotally, I have spoken to a number of friends and colleagues at small aerospace businesses and start-ups. They tell me that they don’t even look at international collaboration because they know they can’t afford to work through the export control problems without a hoard of attorneys. Frankly, it took a lot of work and diligence and a little bit of luck on our own part to have been able to survive the ITAR gauntlet with just myself, my deputy, and some limited support from outside counsel.

And because Bigelow is wealthy, and willing to foot the bill, he can afford it. Most startups aren’t in this position. This is just one of the many ways that federal policy has been disastrous, and continues to help bind us to the planet.