Justin Kugler eviscerates his latest.
I find particularly bizarre the argument that we should be using the NASA budget to subsidize the Pentagon, but many supposed “conservatives” make it with a straight face.
Category Archives: Space
Bad News For NASA
Nate Silver has a post on the potential outcome of the debt-limit deal, in which he draws on public polling data from 2010:
The table below reflects the views of Democratic and Republican adults toward cuts in 18 areas of federal spending as derived from the 2010 General Social Survey. The scale runs from 0 (meaning that voters would like to see increased spending in that area) to 100 (meaning that voters would like to see spending cuts).
His post is mostly about defense spending, but note the category that is number three in terms of preferences for cuts — “space exploration.”
Four points.
First (the trivial one), it’s not a recent poll, but I’m not aware of anything that has happened in the past couple years that would change this, with the possible exception of the Shuttle retirement, and potential unhappiness about that, particularly given the nonsense and hyperbole that it represents “the end of US human spaceflight” (if not the end of all human spaceflight, US or otherwise). On the other hand, I don’t know the methodology.
Second, there is no weighting for the amount of spending. I haven’t seen the poll questions, but I’d be willing to bet that prior to being asked about their priorities, the respondents were not informed of the size of the thing they wanted to cut. For instance, there are no doubt many people who think that we spend as much on NASA and foreign aid as we do on defense, and if I thought that was the case, I’d want to slash them, too. The reality, of course, is that both NASA and foreign aid are a tiny fraction of the money that we spend on defense (as is appropriate). I think that when asking question like this, the polling should be done in a manner that would be reflective of how a rational decision maker would do the cutting, taking into account both the utility of the activity, and the effect of the cuts on the budget (that is, all other things being equal, a larger budget is worth expending more political capital to cut than a tiny one). Like Willie Sutton’s explanation as to why he robbed banks, we should go to the high-ticket items because that’s where the money is. Which means, of course, that entitlements should be first on the chopping block, whereas they are one of the lowest priorities for cutting according to the polling.
Third, in addition to being one of the top three (at least among Dems, though it’s high among Republicans, too) it was one of only two items on which there was a majority of two parties in favor of cutting (the other was foreign aid, with even higher numbers). Defense was favored for cuts by the Dems, but not by Republicans. (As a side note, Republicans don’t seem to be interested in spending cuts in general — there are very few categories that got majority support from them. This is a partial explanation for the rise of the Tea Party.)
Fourth, like all such polls, it is flawed in how the question is framed, and that is particularly the case with the space question. Without taking the time to dig into it, I am assuming that the respondents were simply presented with that list as worded, and asked if they favored cutting the item. Such a poll will only give impressionistic results and, like the issue of how much is spent in each category, is highly dependent on the individual’s interpretation of what the words mean.
I could write a long essay on this (and I actually am, as a chapter for a book), but “space exploration” is such a nebulous phrase as to be meaningless for making public-policy decisions. It’s just short hand for whatever NASA is doing, most of which has nothing to do with “exploration,” nor should it if one reads the agency’s charter. I wonder what the responses would be if instead of whether or not they were being asked to support space “exploration,” they were asked to support space “development,” or space “technology,” or space “industry”? And told how much we are actually spending on those things, with a pie chart compared to the others?
Justice Is Served
Joe Fragola has backed down from his BS FUD:
“Since SpaceX filed its lawsuit … the Parties have been working collaboratively to resolve the matter. Regarding the underlying facts, Dr. [Joseph] Fragola investigated a rumor regarding the performance of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle during its most recent launch. Through email communications with both NASA and SpaceX on June 8, 2011, Dr. Fragola confirmed that the rumor was false in that no Falcon 9 engines failed and the first stage did not explode,” SpaceX and Valador said in a joint statement. “There was independent NASA tracking and video of the flight, and subsequent debriefing with NASA, indicating no such failure, indicating no such failures or explosions.
…Fragola, who is based in New York, makes his living as a safety expert. He was a member of the NASA Exploration Systems Architecture Study team that selected the Ares 1 and Ares 5 rocket concepts for the defunct Constellation Moon-return and Mars landing program.
Emphasis mine.
In a just world, he would be unable to make a living as a “safety expert.”
Our Space Journalism Award
As some of you may have heard, I was presented with an award for New Space Journalism on Saturday night. As I said when I accepted it, I thought that it was a grave injustice, so I let the teddy bears, or dogs, or whatever they are accept it instead. The thing that I like about these guys is that they are brutally honest, whether when discussing venal politicians in space districts or space-journalism poseurs. It can sometimes be a problem, though, as you’ll see.
I have to admit, it was a little embarrassing. Don’t kids just say the darndest things?
I’m still looking for all the women I supposedly get. And if any rocket scientists out there can recommend a materials-compatible lubricant for the suggested procedure, I’d appreciate it.
[Update a few minutes later]
For those people worried that she really won’t do any more videos, don’t sweat it. Sometimes the talent can be temperamental, but I’ll calm her down. I’m thinking I’ll buy her a cute little poodle skirt and a pair of pom poms, so she can cheer for SLS. She’ll love it.
Rah.
Jack Marburger
I agree with Paul Spudis that he was one of the few people in the Bush administration who really understood the purpose of the Vision for Space Exploration, and was able to articulate it. Unfortunately, he either didn’t recognize how much Mike Griffin was perverting that vision, or didn’t have sufficient clout to do anything about it.
“Halfway To Anywhere”
Everyone knows the famous quote from Heinlein. Does anyone have an actual attribution/citation for it? Or is it apocryphal?
But She’ll Have Many Product-Endorsement Deals
Lisa Nowak has been given an “other-than-honorable” discharge from the Navy.
More NewSpace Coverage
I don’t have time to live blog it, but others are, and here’s the Twitter feed for the event.
More New Space Coverage
Clark Lindsey is covering it, as is Doug Messier (who is sitting on my left — here’s another post on the suborbital session).
New Space 2011 Begins
Jim Muncy is the first speaker, to open the conference; he is be introducing first Pete Worden, director of NASA Ames, who will introduce Lori Garver, Deputy Administrator.
Critical time for the opening of space from the home planet. Every generation thinks of itself as a critical time, but there are times when humanity is going down a slow-moving river and times it is riding rapids. Things are more critical and challenging right now, not because of any particular things that it going on, but the totality. Debate over what kind of program is part of it, first Dragon flight is part of it, work going on Mojave and Mesquite, Texas and Colorado party of it. Have friends inside and outside of NASA as committed to this frontier revolution as we are, including Pete Worden, who has been associated with more successful technology programs than anyone he knows.
Worden: Agrees with Jim that it is perhaps the most exciting time to be involved with the space program. Has great confidence in our society and thinks that the goals that SFF has been pushing are being adopted. On the verge of humanity’s permanent expansion into the solar system and beyond. Will only happen once in history, and this country is leading it, with the help of technologies being developed by NASA, but it will only happen if the private sector is involved. Sees that happening, and proud to be helping make it happen. Noting that Ames was part of the NACA, and wants to see NASA carry on in that tradition. Introducing Lori Garver, as long-standing friend and colleague, and now his boss and leading in many of these areas.
Lori notes that the notion that she is Pete’s boss is comical — Pete has never had a boss. When she and Pete met at National Space Society the goal was to create a space-faring civilization. NASA only has a subrole in that, but we are all involved in doing it. Proud that we have a space station that has been permanently occupied for over a decade, and that’s the beginning of a space-faring civilization. NASA’s role in expanding beyond is important, but not as important as what everyone else here is doing.
Telling the story of being in a cab with Rick Tumlinson on the Hill, when he told her that NSS was too beholden to NASA and the industry, and that he was going to start a new organization (twenty years ago), and the organization has come a long way since. Throwing away her speech that they wrote for her because she is with family. What they asked her to talk about was what was happening inside the agency about commercial space, but is instead going to give a policy sense of how that fits in to the new direction. Wants to return to the NACA role, in which NASA doesn’t compete with the private sector, but helps create and open new markets. But their job is also to expand farther, to reach for new heights and learn new things to benefit humankind. Includes aeronautics, space science and earth science. In her view, humankind has to expand and settle to survive.
NASA wants to nurture suborbital, and worked hard to get CRuSR program going to help reduce the costs of getting to and from suborbital space, as a stepping stone to reducing costs to orbit. If fewer tax dollars can be used on launch, more resources available for payloads.
Orbital space flight is a key market for NASA, to help bring down those costs. NASA is doing their own research on station, but need to open it up to others, and NASA not necessarily the best to recognize what’s most valuable.
85% of NASA’s dollars have always gone to the private sector — only difference is how they want to spend it, to encourage more private investment and innovation. Not just commercial crew. Sabotier is how they get water on ISS, and they negotiated a contract that was based on how much water they get. Now anchor tenant for cargo and crew on ISS, which will reduce costs both for the taxpayer and for non-government users.
Telling story of when she was a consultant to Fisk Ventures, interested in working on microgravity research on ISS. Invested millions of his own money, and worked with NASA for over two years to get a cooperative IR&D agreement. By the time he actually flew, the experiment was on Columbia… Will want to call him again when they can get the time down from two years to two weeks.
Noting that the new direction is not political, that it’s ridiculous to think that Obama did this to help himself next year. Would have been politically easier to maintain the status quo, even though it was headed over a cliff.
Has bipartisan support for new direction with NASA authorization bill. NASA’s job isn’t settlement, but NASA will be able to help much more as we do it.
Thrilled to be at Vesta now. Why an asteroid as the next human destination? To go to Mars, need to develop long-duration technologies, more affordable than another lunar mission. Not about setting goals and dates that cannot be met. But can we go in 2025? Just got a briefing from a company yesterday that said 2019.
Grew up wanting to leave the planet, and has attempted it on her own, but that’s not why she does it. Glad to be part of the march of civilization, and as Pete said, to be here at this unique time. ISS is good, but not enough, but we will go further. It is a challenging time. We don’t get to pick out times. What’s it like to be at NASA now? It’s a tough time to leave such an amazing program as the Shuttle and set our sights on the farther horizon. Can’t pick your time any more than you can choose when your kids will be teenagers. You have helped get us to this point, and thanking for all the work to date.
Muncy: How can we help?
Placing what we’re doing in the larger picture is important. Get into debates about what the rocket will look like, but the important thing is how to do this without wiping out the budget. Yes, people lose their jobs during change, but we need to show that we’ll create new jobs, not on the back of the American taxpayer. New course in space is to be successful not just for time being or next five years, but longer term.
Muncy, as she leaves the stage: “In case you don’t know, Lori is a true revolutionary.”
[Update a few minutes later]
Too busy to take notes now, but the conference is actually being streamed at SpaceVidCast.