Obama's Space Plan — a Conservative Argument 433
MarkWhittington writes "The Obama space proposal, which seeks to enable a commercial space industry for transportation to and from low Earth orbit while it cancels space exploration beyond LEO, has sparked a kind of civil war among conservatives. Some conservatives hate the proposal because of the retreat from the high frontier and even go so far as to cast doubt on the commercial space aspects. Other conservatives like the commercial space part of the Obama policy and tend to gloss over the cancellation of space exploration or even denigrate the Constellation program as 'unworkable' or 'unsustainable.'"
WSJ Debates the Pros and Cons of Private Space (Score:3, Informative)
Over at the WSJ, Peter Diamandis makes a case for private space [wsj.com], while naysayer Taylor Dinerman says he's seen this movie before, and argues the private sector simply is not up for the job [wsj.com].
Re:libertarian (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, because there is a shitload of private developed launchers that can bring cargo into LEO and beyond. Go libertarian!
SpaceX and Orbital immediately come to mind. Not to mention the Atlas rocket family.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Space exploration is conservative. (Score:5, Informative)
perhaps you've noticed that a huge chunk of the previous stimulus package went into just that
No, I haven't noticed that unless by "huge chunk" you mean 3%. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJAoR5GECKWo [bloomberg.com]
Re:libertarian (Score:3, Informative)
Private industry will continue to be in, not get into, space related projects when there's money to be made. Communication satellites are a good example, billions of dollars in private investment [cnet.com] are being spent on building and launching them. Of course that industry wouldn't have ever been possible if the USA and other governments hadn't developed the technology first.
But exploration and development of new technology are risky with too little chance of ever recovering the investment for private industry. The Obama plan is nothing more than an excuse to shift federal dollars to companies that are friendly to Hope and Change.
Re:libertarian (Score:5, Informative)
Atlas doesn't count, it was designed by the US Air Force.
It was designed by Lockheed Martin.
Conservatives? Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
Why are we even talking about what conservatives think? The GOP has amply demonstrated that it has no interest in governing the country in good faith. Their entire program is:
Any conservative argument needs to be critically examined in light of the question, "how does this allow the GOP to continue its looting?" Just look at Chicago economics, Reagan tax cuts, Bush's imperialism, and flagrant anti-union rhetoric. It's not made in good faith.
Conservatives have no interest in the real welfare of the country. This little spat about NASA is merely a disagreement among the foxes about whether to go through the front or the back of the hen-house. It should be an awfully strong hint that the rest of the world is governed by parties to the left of even the left here, and is going better for it.
Can we please stop wasting our time and giving attention to these right-wing lunatics and their pernicious ideas?
Re:libertarian (Score:5, Informative)
yah, the private banks do so well at giving us a future.
to go where ever we want, we need high-energy "rockets". Otherwise serious colonization does not work. In the 70s we were ready to go with nuclear drives. Now the russians are going to finally do it. I do not see a lot of private investment in anything really different. Pooh, we now all hear about the virtues of innovation, and as far as I can tell, this is something marketing is especially good at.
if you are a conservative type, something to consider is that India will be in LEO with men in 2012 and on rhe moon, with people, in 2020. oh, India is involved deeply with the russians on the nuclear drive.
on a more earthly thing, China currently has 64 high speed rail projects. 1000's of miles. The usa has 64 miles of medium high speed rail. Some people talk about high speed rail in the usa as capable of causing a 15% overall productivity increase.
and last I looked, 54 nuclear power plants were being built, almost all in asia. the usa has one, an old mothballed tva plant being brought up.
so who has the potential for a future?
anyway, here is a video entitled "the destruction of nasa" which is supposed to be very good
http://larouchepac.com/lpactv?nid=13392 [larouchepac.com]
'Man rating' is bullcrap (Score:4, Informative)
anyone who thinks that private enterprise can deliver a man-rated system in the near future is delusional.
So you're seriously claiming that a private company can't build a system which kills its crew less often than every fifty flights? Because based on the shuttle's record, 'only' killing the crew 2% of the time is what 'man rating' means to NASA.
And before you respond, you might like to consider that Delta already has about a 98% success rate over the last twenty years and so far capsules with escape rockets have a 100% success rate in saving the crew. Stick a capsule on a Delta with an escape rocket and you're already more 'man-rated' than the shuttle (and yes, I do know you would need some minor mods to ensure that the capsule could escape safely at all points during the flight).
Re:Types of conservatives (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong! Conservatives of all types constantly debate and fight among inner circles.
There are conservatives that do that. They'd be among those that have retained my respect. Sometimes they even manage to change my lefty-liberal mind about things.
Then there are those conservatives who only know how to attack anybody who disagrees with them. They do not concede that anybody can honestly and intelligently hold contrary views: people with opinions they don't like are liars, stupid, or both. And they will never allow such a person the label "conservative", no matter how many conservative opinions they have — at best they're "conservative in name only." Our own Pudge [slashdot.org] is a prime example.
From where I stand, this second kind pretty much dominates conservative political groups and media right now.
Sen. Shelby (R-AL) (Score:3, Informative)
Don't forget how Sen. Shelby (R-AL) behaved like a spoiled brat by placing holds on all Obama's appointees trying to extort $40B in pork. Any redirection of resources away from Alabama right now will help reduce pork long term.
Very misleading summary (Score:4, Informative)
"The Obama space proposal, which seeks to enable a commercial space industry for transportation to and from low Earth orbit
So far true, although there are other parts of the proposal.
while it cancels space exploration beyond LEO,
This is just plain incorrect. It cancels one particular program, which was widely regarded as badly mismanaged and possessing many inherent problems. The Constellation/Ares program also suppressed any research into technologies which weren't seen as immediately relevant to the specific lunar return scheme the former NASA administrator had in mind, with several perfectly good programs getting canceled to pay for the increasingly overbudget and behind schedule Constellation program. It replaces it with a plan initially focused on developing the technologies critical for sustainable exploration of Mars and the rest of the inner solar system.
has sparked a kind of civil war among conservatives.
Well, it's sparked a civil war between those conservative who either have a financial interest in the status quo or are stuck in a cold war-style lust for repeating Apollo. Other conservatives though, such as former House speaker (and National Space Society board member) Newt Gringrich, and former House Science & Technology committee chair Robert S. Walker, have enthusiastically endorsed NASA's new plan [washingtontimes.com], and consider it one of the few positive things to come out of the Obama administration.
Some conservatives hate the proposal because of the retreat from the high frontier and even go so far as to cast doubt on the commercial space aspects.
Uh, strawman much? This isn't a "retreat from the high frontier" -- NASA's getting a significant budget increase, and the new plan is much better suited for engaging in meaningful space exploration than the old one could ever have, even if it hadn't been going drastically overbudget.
Other conservatives like the commercial space part of the Obama policy and tend to gloss over the cancellation of space exploration or even denigrate the Constellation program as 'unworkable' or 'unsustainable.'"
They denigrate it as 'unworkable' and 'unsustainable' because it quite simply was. It had already spent $9 billion just to try to produce yet another medium-lift rocket (the US has had at least two medium-lift rockets already in regular operation for many years now), which only passed its preliminary design review several years late through some fairly blatant bending of the readiness/safety criteria. Independent analysis by the Augustine Committee found that the current program wouldn't even produce its medium-lift booster until 2017-2019, and wouldn't produce a lunar landing until sometime in the late 2030s. At that point all you'd have is an Apollo repeat without any new technological capabilities, since the plan was specifically devised to avoid any new tech development. That seems pretty much by definition 'unworkable' and 'unsustainable.' NASA's new plan is far superior by pretty much any possible metric, with the possible exception of not delivering as much money in the short-term to Alabama.