Obama's Space Plan — a Conservative Argument

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.'"

libertarian

[TheSHAD0W]

Coming from a different point than conservative or liberal - NASA has always been a huge waste of money and ought to be deprecated. Getting private industry into the act is a good thing, in my opinion, although I'm not so sanguine about government subsidies. Also, while low Earth orbit may not be as grand a vision as going to the Moon, or Mars, or the asteroid belt, it's a good starting place of all of the above; let's get some infrastructure up there and we'll be able to go wherever we want.

Re:Space is critical

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Do you think that clear objectives just happen? What made NASA so successful in the 60's and 70's is that we were in a pissing match with the soviets, which implied a number of well defined propaganda goals to be achieved(manned orbit, man on moon, manned anything, pretty much) and substantial investment in launch systems. Politicians exhibited "leadership" only in that they stood up and said what the situation required. If you want to see political leadership(bipartisan no less) today, just look at the downright heroic efforts being put into the destruction of civil liberties, which seems to be the project that goes along with the "war on terror".

Space exploration has been largely aimless since then because it is largely pointless, except as a matter of pure scientific curiosity, and a more-palatable way of keeping aerospace corporations and engineers on welfare. The one slice of space work that isn't largely pointless, near-earth satellites of various sorts, has been humming right along. Everything else has sort of meandered; because it is competing for funds and focus with less pointless projects. There is a virtually infinite supply of projects that satisfy pure scientific curiosity(not that the public has much of that), and a very long list of projects with more plausible payoffs in the short and medium(and arguably even long) term. It's frankly surprising that NASA gets as much as they do.

Re:My private sector asteroid.

[astar]

an interesting moral position

I guess when you look at whatever you are using for currency, you see an intrinsic value in it. So much so, it justifies genocide.

On the other hand, our current economic problems, including apparently expensive entitlement programs, stems ultimately from the silly view that currency has intrinsic value. as far as I can tell, this, when argued competently, is some sort of psychological value thing, and I suspect is based on a rejection of the idea that the universe is lawful and knowable. all very peculiar. but maybe it is a genetic defect.

Re:libertarian

[phantomfive]

And this is an example of why the libertarian party never goes anywhere. It is like the Republican "I hate government spending" on steroids. Most Americans realize that there is a place in the world for government spending, and that it includes things like social security and public education and science.

Re:Space is critical

[twiddlingbits]

Space Station was cancelled, restarted, delayed, changed, funding cut, etc. in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and so on. There NEVER was a "clear vision" for WHY we neede ISS other than a place for the Shuttle to go. I worked on at least two iterations of "ISS". The moon mission was a side effect of the Cold War and somewhat a legacy of JFK. There was some really cool inventions that came out of the program and were commercialized and lots of technology invented that went on to be used for many years. Right now, the leaders in invention and technology for Space is in the commercial sector, but there is not a heavy lift MAN-RATED launch platform in the US commerical or NASA inventory at this time. There were some other alternatives that were proposed that were strictly heavy lift for manned missions but they were shot down for the Aries that was more "scalable" for many types of missions. This was a mistake as those other missions are being filled right now by commerical ventures like Atlas and Titan IV. Maybe it was a case of NASA wanted the whole launch "business" to itself like back in the 1960s. If the program was refocused on building a simple, efffective man-rated heavy lift launch vehicle (think Saturn V but modern) I think something could be ready in a few years. Granted we might have to "license" some engine technology from the Russians but it is doable. Spending more $$$ on R&D isn't going to progress anything. A TON of research was done in the 1960s and 1970s that can be reused, updated and put into practice, there really isn't a lot of NEW things the R&D money is going to invent. Just a different kind of "pork".

Re:Types of conservatives

[0123456]

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.

You appear to be confusing conservatives with liberals.

Re:Space exploration is conservative.

[phantomfive]

Furthermore, liberals and the Democrats (NOT the same thing)

For someone who demands such a nuanced interpretation of liberal/democrat, you sure seem ignorant of what the tea party actually is. The tea party is a group of people, some crazy and some not, who are united by a desire for a sound fiscal policy. They are not happy with the Bush era policies (the people who are happy with that are the die hard Republicans, not the tea partiers; not the same thing) They also like dressing up in costume, which, if you live in San Francisco at least, shouldn't be too foreign to a liberal. In fact, your very next quote sounds exactly like it could come from a tea party:

The bottom line is that the current budget has far too many massive mandatory expenditures (read: interest on the debt accrued during the past 8 years, Medicare [especially Part D], Social Security), two very expensive foreign wars (which just this past year went onto the books rather than being funded with supplementals... we're a lot more in debt because now we're actually counting ALL of the money we spend, not just half of it), and an enormous revenue shortfall.

Now, I am not a tea-partier, I am just someone who enjoys observing politics, which brings me to my next point, has anyone else noticed that liberals and conservatives are sounding more and more like each other? Not just this guy, but if you ignore the partisan fighting of congress in the last year, for example, and go back to the election, both McCain and Obama (and Clinton) had healthcare plans that were very similar. Same with Bush's and Obama's stimulus plans and auto company bailouts. I think it's also safe to say that almost everyone in the US resented being deceived about Iraq's WMD, and also that nearly everyone wants to stop terrorists from attacking the US if we can.

I have a theory that both parties have a strong motivation to emphasize our differences and divide us (they have to, why would you vote for one if you can't see any difference between him and the other), but in reality there is more similarity between Americans than there are differences between liberals and conservatives.

Re:libertarian

[FooAtWFU]

I'd like to hear about this purported 15% productivity boost which high-speed passenger rail would supposedly bring us. Last I heard about those studies, it was something like this regarding California's high speed rail...

The rail authority assumes that between 88 million and 117 million people will ride the trains each year. To put that in perspective, consider that the entire annual ridership of the Amtrak system, which includes 21,000 miles of routes and more than 500 destinations in 46 states, is less than 29 million. Amtrak's high-speed Acela Express service, which runs from Washington, D.C., to New York City to Boston, serves a larger and denser market than the planned California system and only commands a ridership of a little more than 3 million passengers a year.

http://reason.org/news/show/california-voters-were-railroa [reason.org]

Okay, okay, that's the Reason Foundation talking, and we know they're a bunch of libertarian loonies. But what about someone more sympathetic?

Even the pro-high-speed-rail California Rail Foundation found the project lacking, with its representative telling senators, "We can't believe any of the numbers presented in the business plan."

http://www.sacbee.com/politics/story/2484870.html [sacbee.com]

Re:libertarian

[timmarhy]

you do realise that getting a man on the moon was done by standing on the shoulders of 100's of inventions developed by private industry? NASA didn't invent the whole thing from scratch, sure they did some amazing stuff, but your comparison of powered flight taking 300 years to putting a man on the moon in 8 years is so flawed it brings tears to the eyes.

without people trying for powered flight for 300 years, NASA COULD NOT put a man on the moon.

Re:libertarian

[TubeSteak]

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.

Heh, even if the USA had the political/public will to build more nuclear plants, we couldn't.

Why? Because all the companies that manufacture the heavy steel reactor components are in Asia (plus one in Russia) and have their output already spoken for. To highlight the point, the largest manufacturer is planning to triple production by 2012... and all that output is spoken for too. The USA doesn't even begin to have the manufacturing or infrastructure necessary to produce/handle the enormous ingots and then forge them into one piece components (which don't have to be welded together and inspected till the end of time).

The rest of the world is advancing at full speed and the USA is getting left behind.
Worse, the manufacturing queue is measured in decades and we're at the end of the line.

Re:libertarian

[Teancum]

Why don't government contracts count as private sector?

What is missing here is the source of the R&D and how the rockets are being paid for. Most, nearly all of the rockets that NASA uses have been built and designed on what is called a cost-plus contract. In other words, all of the risk, all of the effort, and nearly all of the hard decisions were made by government employees. This is why government projects can go hugely over budget (including the Constellation program I might add) as the companies involved already have their profit in place. That is the "plus". Any costs that occur are held by the taxpayers, including performing major redesigns along the way.

I should add one more issue to consider with a pure "government contract": Any design is exclusive to the government and simply may not be used for any private citizen... at least not without a significant Act of Congress that explicitly permits its use elsewhere. In the past, there were investors who wanted to buy a couple complete Space Shuttles and had even found financing to build their own vehicle assembly building and launch pad facilities. They were simply told "No", they couldn't have them regardless of the price. It was exclusively the domain of NASA and NASA alone in terms of people going into space.

For something in the "private sector" to be genuinely in the private sector, the private company bears all of the R&D risk, all of the cost considerations, and the "government" is merely one of several different customers. That is the huge difference here, where these companies are quoting a figure, and are paid for delivery of goods. This is the huge difference between what has been offered in the past and what is offered now.

Under cost-plus contracts, there is absolutely no necessity to lower the cost of getting into space. Performance is the only driving issue, and if the project can be completed before the end of the current presidential administration. The Apollo mantra was "waste anything but time". That still, unfortunately, holds true even today including on the Constellation program, at least that is how it was operated.

Companies now have a legitimate reason to drive down costs with flat cost transportation services. A price is set, and companies can either make a bid to offer services or pass on the idea if they think it is to expensive. Competitive bidding may even start happening here, but more specifically if a company can drive down operations and development costs, that brings in extra profit to that company. The incentive to drive down costs is much more pronounced in this kind of purchasing environment.

That is the difference. If you or those supporting Constellation can't figure that one out, I can't help you any further.

Re:libertarian

[Teancum]

I'd have to agree. The environment of sending people to and from Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) should be considered a solved engineering problem. It was a tough nut to crack and certainly is a challenge for any group of engineers who want to tackle the problem. A graduate aerospace engineering student who successfully launches something, anything, into orbit on their design likely deserves the graduate degree (especially if they can do it cheaply), but it isn't something their professors ought to be congratulated for as ground breaking or Nobel Prize winners by accomplishing.

There might be room to try and drive down the cost of getting into space. That is something that isn't even on the agenda for NASA and hasn't been for some time. The DC-X program was promising, and hopefully the guys at Blue Origin might take some of the ideas from the project and make them worthwhile and practical. There have been some other ideas on how to lower costs, including the efforts by SpaceX to make a vehicle that worked even if it wasn't at the top peak of performance.

The engineering mantra can be best described as the following:

What ever you want, it can be made:

• Cheaper
• Sooner
• Reliable

Please pick only two of the above options!

I've had bosses insist on all three at the same time, and what they get is none of them happening or the "reliable" aspect gets thrown out the window. Apollo selected the Sooner and Reliable options, and paid dearly for it (4% of the U.S. Federal budget I should note). Not many companies have bosses that are patient to wait for results that may be cheaper in the long run but take some time to happen.

Some of the newer companies getting into commercial spaceflight are now trying to see if it can be made for cheaper instead of sooner. Unfortunately, there are always critics who complain because they are expecting the program to be operated with the mentality that the Apollo program was built. This includes the Constellation program and its supporters.

Re:libertarian

[MurphyZero]

Lockheed and Boeing both came begging during the development. Each launch may be a fixed price contract (I believe it is) but the development was definitely government funded/aided. Both the Atlas and the Delta Heavy have had a failure (if you listen to the companies, they were anomalies at worst.) That said, the Atlas really ought to have been considered by NASA 10 years ago for the Shuttle replacement. IF NASA had, we would have the Shuttle replacement today. THAT is why Griffin and NASA are very much to blame for the mess that NASA is in right now. Obama's plan may not be the best, but it does have a good chance of righting NASA.

Re:libertarian

[DavidTC]

The reason that Amtrak has such low ridership is a few things, all things where it should have the advantages over air, but we've managed to break it:

Amtrak has to inexplicably wait for freight to get out of the way, resulting in random delays. Freight often has priority thanks to idiotic railway agreements. With planes, passenger planes have priority, and there actually isn't that much air freight.

They've managed to turn it into airport style security and hassle, resulting in you having to get there early. The entire point of train travel is that you didn't have to do that, and hence you could actually get places faster than a plane. Can't anymore. As you cannot hijack a train, and if you wanted to blow one up, blowing up a packed subway car in the middle of the city would make a hell of a lot more sense than blowing up a half empty train in the middle of nowhere.

As these two problems are so stupid, I am forced to conclude that they are almost certainly deliberate attempts to break passenger rail. Laws could trivially fix them and cause no problems whatsoever.

And there are a few infrastructure problems that would be more work to fix:

They refuse to build the system in any sane way, requiring people to get into a town to get on the train. For example, if I want to get on Amtrak, I have to go to downtown Atlanta. Trains need to end in large cities, but you need to be able to enter the system on the outsides of said cities, so you don't have to deal with the fucking traffic of the town you're trying to leave.Yet again, another thing that should be an advantage of rail, totally ignored.

Sane setups would pick up additional car as they leave a town or assemble trains out of cars from suburbs, but heaven forbid Amtrak be designed with any sort of sanity.

Likewise, at least here, getting from the subway to the train is not as easy as you'd think. A sane system would have the two trains pull up parallel to each other, and you just walk across. Perhaps you could even purchase train tickets on the subway, or at least once you get across.

Here, you lug your bags up to a whole nother floor, stand in line to buy tickets, go through a security screening (Which I already mentioned is nonsensical.), file into the train as they check said ticket, and then take a seat. Instead of a 60 second process, it's at least ten minutes. (Granted, it'd be a while anyway, as you'd have to wait for the train schedule, but ten minutes gets added to each trip, on average. And running around trying to buy tickets is much more annoying than just sitting on the train.)

Buying tickets probably deserves a special mention. For some reason, we've gotten rid of the tried and true method of handing tickets, which was that you could buy your ticket on the train, usually before it got underway, but occasionally people would make it on without tickets and couldn't or wouldn't pay, and hence got ejected at the next stop. It was actually less work than getting on the subway. You just walk on, sit down, and a guy would come around and ask to see your ticket. You didn't have it, you paid cash then and there, or got off the train. It was a perfectly workable and reasonable system, and even better now that everyone has credit cards and can actually pay $70 randomly.

But suddenly, gasp, terrorism was all over the place, and now we have to fucking ID check and security screen everyone because they might decided to blow up a train by riding on it. (As opposed to, you know, driving a car into a passing train at a crossing. That would just make too much sense.)