So says Jeff Manber:
By all media accounts, including that of Augustine himself on the news shows, the officials were told that going back to the Moon or on to Mars is impossible at current budget levels. I’m happy about that—because it just seems to me that the Augustine panel’s report should focus not on another hardware project, but how the federal government procures space goods and hardware.
I’ve thought from the start that a government commission deciding which rocket should be built, or where the orbiting gas stations should be located, smacks of government planning at its worst. If all of Washington, including President Obama, can agree that despite investing $50 billion in General Motors, the auto czar has no place selecting the new models of automobiles, why should it be different for rockets or lunar modules?
For me, it was kind of a Cold War throwback to have watched as members of the Augustine panel have traveled around the country listening to engineers and industry executives talk up one launch system and bad mouth another, push for one new NASA program and throw cold water on another. Think “sunshine laws” meets a Politburo meeting.
Norm Augustine should report to the president that the problem afflicting our space program is not this hardware or that program, but the way we are spending our tens of billions for space.
Exactly.
[Afternoon update]
The Space Frontier Foundation says that Ares needs a death panel:
“Derivatives of proven commercial launch systems, and new ones under development, could meet any reasonable need for heavy lift,” said Foundation co-Founder, James Muncy. “The barrier is psychological: NASA will have to stop pretending it can design cost-effective launch vehicles and instead focus on exploration systems that fit on the launch vehicles taxpayers can really afford.”
Werb concluded: “The choice is clear. We can continue funding an overpriced, government space limousine, or we can kick-start a whole new industry that will reduce government’s costs and create new jobs. The tools of private sector innovation and competition offer our best and only chance to have affordable and sustainable human space exploration.”
Unfortunately, it’s not so clear to those who want to keep Huntsville green.
Not going back to the moon? Here’s some good news: according to AP “White House spokesman Robert Gibbs joked Wednesday that Obama would orbit the moon if he thought it would help get a deal on a bill Congress can vote on after it returns from summer break.”
Good idea, Jeff.
One of the first orders of business is to insure that the decision on whether the government buys space services or “builds”* systems in-house is to have the buy/build decision made by a different organization that the one that would do the building.
* Actually the government doesn’t really build anything related to space these days, it just contracts. But managing the contracts is a much bigger payroll-generator than managing a service puchase contract.
Manber doesn’t seem to understand that preventing the participating governments from giving preference to the launch industries of their own nations for ISS service would probably just hand an ISS transport monopoly to the Russians.
You know, I don’t care one iota about space unless we get low-cost commercial space transportation. As long as NASA continues to exist as the jobs program that it is, this will never happen and space will remain a complete waste of money and effort, as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t want a government-funded manned space program in any form. Like the Tokamak fusion program, far too much money has been pissed down this rat hole for the past 40 years. I felt this way 20 years ago and feel even more strongly this way today.