Robert Costa has a piece over at National Review Online, with the usual conventional “conservative” wisdom on the new space policy, complete with the Kennedy mythology. I may ask Kathryn (or Rich, who I guess is the editor there now) for space for a rebuttal.
[Update late afternoon]
The Corner has the transcript from the panel on Bret Baier’s show yesterday, with Krauthammer’s comments. It leads with the usual ridiculous hyperbole:
We are seeing the abolition of the manned space program.
That’s right, the extension of ISS, the development of a viable commercial human spaceflight industry, the development of needed technologies (neglected in the past administration) to affordably get beyond low earth orbit is the “abolition of the manned space program.” What is in the water that DC conservatives have been drinking?
And what it does is it ends our human dominance in space, which we had for 50 years. We have no way to get into earth orbit. We’re going to have to hitch a ride on the Russians who are charging us extraordinary rates and are only going to increase that.…
And that was the plan laid out by the Bush administration. But now that Obama is president, it’s terrible. As I told Rich Lowry and KLo via email, this is an important debate, and it has to be debated, but not in such a logic-free and fact-free environment. I’m very disappointed in Dr. K., who is usually quite perceptive on other issues.
With launch costs anything close to what they are, small is beautiful.
Rand – thank you for the work you have done in the last few months to use your connections in the media to spread the rational analysis of this plan to the masses. It is thankless work for probably no compensation and it no doubt opens you up to flamers and other idiots, but we on the ground very much appreciate the voice in our support.
I favor any political alliance that rearranges the spectrum. Naturally, then, it’s great that liberal Obama is actually taking space policy in the correct direction. But my fear is that this could take a bad turn. Imagine how easily Obama or another like-minded leader could say: private access to LEO, NASA gets the beyond. Or, there can be many launch platforms, but only 1 ISS – and therefore no Bigelow stations. Completely possible and very scary, and just as bad as ever. Especially because it would take crucial momentum away from space development. Ideally, you have got to build the infrastructure so that in situ access to resources is enough so that any operation in space is not dependent on the political/mercantalist whims of any one nation.
Thanks, but it’s not entirely without compensation. My pieces at Pajamas, Pop Mechanics, and AOL News are paid for, and not (generally) badly on an hourly basis. The problem is, I don’t get enough of that to live on…
What is in the water that DC conservatives have been drinking?
And that was the plan laid out by the Bush administration. But now that Obama is president, it’s terrible.
I’m very disappointed in Dr. K., who is usually quite perceptive on other issues.
You almost get the idea that some opposition to Obama is baseless opposition for its own sake.
When Obama addressed the GOP congressional caucus earlier this year he said:
Anti-Obama space activists like Rand have painted themselves into a similar corner. Obama is doing the right thing, and the only way the National Review, Charles Krauthammer, Fox News, etc. can make sense of it is to treat it as an attempt to undermine American greatness.
Do you really think you can convince them that Obama actually wants the U.S. to be the world leader in space exploration, and to have a vibrant private space sector? That he has hired some smart and well-informed people, and knows to take their advice? You’re asking them to admit that Obama has good judgement and staff and instincts in one area, but not in any others, and how much sense does that make?
Rand, I don’t for the life of me understand why you are trusting Obama to keep his word on his new plan. I don’t think he gives a tinkers damn about Space. He is doing away with Constellation because it was initiated by George W. Bush and one thing Obama cares very much about is being the “anti-Bush”. The guy has initiated socialist policies in most other areas of his governance, but here with the space program he is turning to commercial providers? Why do that? The only way that I think that it makes sense is that it breaks the back of “Big Space” and sets up “New Space” to fail when he ultimately throws them under the bus. That leaves the U.S. without a human spaceflight capability and Obama achieving one of his goals of making America “just another member of the world community”.
p.s. While I think it will be difficult to convince anti-Obama partisans of the wisdom of his space policies, I am glad and grateful that you’re trying, Rand.
Way to miss the point Jim….
I don’t carry any water for BHO ever, but even Hitler built the autobahns, so nobody can be wrong all the time.
Obama is right about this, and though I don’t agree with his choices re: objectives, that is a minor quibble that time will correct in any case.
I don’t know of any conservative who reflexively opposes an Obama proposal merely because it is coming from Obama. If it somehow makes you feel better, by all means, delude yourself to your hearts content, but it doesn’t change the fact that many people oppose many of Obama’s ideas ON THEIR MERITS (or lack thereof, as it were), and pretending otherwise is simply silly…
But then again, silly does seem to suit you…
slide on the slippery slope much Jim? You’re not seriously making the claim that because he has good instincts for space policy that he must therefore also have good instincts for health care policy, are you?
As much as it pains me, Jim is right in one way. But I see it as a negative for the Right, Jim just see’s it proof that we’re all just crazy.
We get nowhere if “we”, as the Right, say that we disagree with “X” policy or “Y” plan and it looks like it’s being said, JUST because it came from the current WH. Krauthammer is someone who is looked at like a leader of “we”, the Right, so he makes us all look foolish when he does something like this. And he is by no means alone on doing this kind of thing.
We can’t have people or groups with vast Right side of the Aisle followings, like CK and Fox have, start sounding like “WE” all now have Obama Derangement Syndrome.
“I don’t know of any conservative who reflexively opposes an Obama proposal merely because it is coming from Obama.”
Scott
Reagan spoke of a world without nuclear weapons but Obama’s work on START is being opposed by the Republican senators in bulk.
Bush-41 nominated Judge Sotomayor for the federal bench, the bulk of the Senate GOP opposed her when Obama proposed her for the Supremes.
Conservatives voted for converting budget surpluses to deficits but voted against Obama’s budgets.
You’re asking them to admit that Obama has good judgement and staff and instincts in one area, but not in any others, and how much sense does that make?
A lot of sense. Unless you’ll submit that my expertise in math carries over to winning this particular argument. My view is that Obama got lucky with Lori Garver on his staff (carried over from Hillary Clinton, IIRC). Further, this was an area with both significant real debate on the Democrat side (almost no one had ideological axes to grind) and a failed program. That last part made it easy to make some right decisions.
I’m not going to call it a great decision. We don’t know what will happen in the future or the consequences of some of these decisions. But it looks to me to be relatively very good compared to most of his decisions.
Do you really think you can convince them that Obama actually wants the U.S. to be the world leader in space exploration, and to have a vibrant private space sector? That he has hired some smart and well-informed people, and knows to take their advice? You’re asking them to admit that Obama has good judgement and staff and instincts in one area, but not in any others, and how much sense does that make?
That’s a bridge too far for me. I prefer to think of it as “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” As Rand put it awhile back (paraphrasing), “The only reason Obama got this right is that he himself doesn’t care about space, but some of his appointees do.”
Private space is good and desirable, but we mustn’t forget that Obama is a Marxist and he has declared total war against the free market. In every other case, he has demonstrated that he wants centralized government control over the economy.
Rand, have you ever asked yourself how it is that you seem to only agree strongly with the President on this one issue? How is it that you have an almost blind faith in his good intentions on this one issue and not others?
Perhaps you can convince me that the Progressive positions that John Holdren explains so well in his speech below is not in fact the underlying agenda that actually explains this policy? That America’s near term decline in HSF and other areas, inherent under this policy, is not a bug but a feature?
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/64073
While I understand that you believe, like Jeff Greason, that we need to take one step back (destroy NASA HSF + old tech) in order to take two steps forward (low Cost Advanced Tech + Commercial Space), is it not also possible that those in power advocating this policy really just want to take one step back?
Because like all good Progressives they believe that America must take a step back in order for other nations to have their ‘rightful’ chance to lead? After all it’s the rich that cause people to be poor in the Progressives world view. How is this worldview not transferable towards explaining how a Progressive would view one of the crown jewels of American Exceptionalism? Would a true Progressive really want to do anything that had even a chance of increasing America’s ‘self-inflated’ image of its heritage and culture?
A ‘self-inflated’ image that continually gets in the way of Progressives attempting to convince American’s that we need to move beyond the Constitution?
I agree with so many of your other positions but I think you like Newt Gingrich, have been fooled by the illusion of ‘commercial’ space.
Well said, Stephen. I’ve been defending Rand’s point of view on another blog, alone, and in the face of ferocious opposition.
But I don’t trust Obama any farther than I can throw my house, and that Holdren guy is creepy as hell.
“Do you really think you can convince them that Obama actually wants the U.S. to be the world leader in space exploration, and to have a vibrant private space sector? That he has hired some smart and well-informed people, and knows to take their advice? You’re asking them to admit that Obama has good judgement and staff and instincts in one area, but not in any others, and how much sense does that make?”
You can’t serious. You think this is the best Obama could do if you put a lot of effort into it. This whole thing is a second tier issue- if one is wildly optimistic. And he will drop it if there was anything else that distracts him [and there going plenty of that].
I think that Obama has much higher priority to spent your tax dollars on then on NASA.
He might be willing to get out of the way so the private sector could actually do something, but I wouldn’t count on it.
No this isn’t vaguely serious, he simply is trying kill something that has little public support. And doesn’t deserve any public support.
Probably biggest asset Obama has is his willingness of tossing something under the bus.
But what is more important as far as NASA is concerned is the guy he picked to run it- that’s mostly still a no show that this point- we will see if he is up to the job.
“Rand, have you ever asked yourself how it is that you seem to only agree strongly with the President on this one issue? How is it that you have an almost blind faith in his good intentions on this one issue and not others?”
I tend to view myself as conservative and generally think that Obama is leading America to fiscal and diplomatic ruin. I obviously can’t speak for Rand here, but I think I have a similar philosophy on this issue. For the most part the space policy is something that is being drafted by necessity, and because it is “not Bush”, there is considerable freedom of action here.
Am I placing “blind faith” on Obama? Heck no! I’m not particularly thrilled with putting the Orion capsule back into the mix, and the heavy lift vehicle is something that is also going to be needing some strong watching like a hawk least it go the way of Constellation in short order. It isn’t a perfect path, but it at least is a good change in direction and something I can live with better than the thought of splashing the ISS into the Pacific sometime in the next 3-5 years.
While this one move is useful for “new space”, there are a host of other problems with the Obama economic philosophiy that is going to negatively impact private spaceflight eforts. When companies like Armadillo Aerospace, Masten, or Unreasonable Rocket get out of the “small business” stage and get beyond the magic number of 50 employees (aka no longer a “small business”), other anti-business laws that have come down the pike in recent times are certainly going to dampen efforts to commercialize space. More significantly, what does it mean if “new space” can mostly only stay as “small businesses” due to this sort of tax policy?
Most of it is education, and this moment in time is a good an useful era to teach others about the potential of genuinely commercialized access to the final frontier of mankind. If this involves giving much deserved kudos to Obama for at least letting Bolden set a new policy and operating tempo at NASA, his administration should get the congratulations it deserves in this one case.
Nice try, Jim, but even the most fervent supporters of both Obama and the space policy agree that he and his “smart and well-informed people” bungled this strategy roll-out in an incredibly amateurish manner. I spent a fair amount of time with people on all sides of this issue at NSS this week, and that was the one thing everyone (including administration insiders) agreed on.
Rather than roll out a strategy in a smooth, orderly fashion, explaining it in depth and garnering support, they issued a budget that oh, by the way, has the potential of seriously damaging almost every U.S. aerospace company, and of destroying one completely. There is no evidence of great political savvy at work here — quite the opposite.
Because they are now doing rear-guard action, hastily back-filling with stuff that sounds made-up and unconvincing (because it is — no actual plan is in place yet), it is easy for people to take shots at it.
I’m surprised that the conservatives are taking so long to recognize the facts, but not surprised that they’re reacting to the announcement as they are. If one doesn’t probe too deeply, it looks exactly like what they say it does: an attempt to diminish the U.S. leadership in space. I am leaning toward the belief that that is what Obama considers it, since there is no evidence whatsoever that he believes the private sector can do anything on its own.
Regardless, the policy (not the programmatics, which haven’t been formulated yet) was crafted by people who do know what they’re doing, and is a step forward. I don’t think Obama thinks it is, but it doesn’t matter what he thinks. It may be the right thing, but it has been so poorly introduced that it looks very wrong — especially to the majority of people in the aerospace industry, who are the experts advising non-expert conservative commentators.
It doesn’t follow that Obama is actually infallible, and his detractors simply Obama NOT gates.
This is not “something Obama got right”, this is something the space movement got right. What the space movement got right was to keep its tent as big as possible, and to include people of all parties and ideological persuasions, and to keep lines of communication open across party lines. So that we had people paying their dues and doing grunt work in campaigns and parties for thirty years, so that one day some of them would rise high enough to influence policy. This policy came out as well as it did mostly because Lori Garver put in those decades working for, mostly, losing campaign after losing campaign. I remember her working for John Glenn’s presidential campaign. She worked for the Hillary campaign in 2008, and when that folded, she ended up in the Obama campaign. This was, I suspect, mostly because the Obama campaign didn’t even have a space policy or anybody on the campaign who understood the policies, and the stupid statements they were making were starting to impact them in Florida and elsewhere. But this meant that when the time came to make some decisions, there was somebody who understood the concepts of space development and settlement, and understood the arguments for having a full-fledged space sector of our economy, not just a government space program. She and others crafted a policy that fits the administration’s needs, since nobody in the White House cares about our concerns, Just as nobody in any previous administration has ever card about our concerns, including John F. Kennedy. That’s the way it works. We need people in every administration that will work effectively to advance the goals of a spacefaring civilization.
All of the other problems with this administration remain. What Garver is giving with this policy with one hand, Senator Dodd is trying to take away with the other. Hopefully, after November the power of Dodd and people like him will be curtailed.
This is the way a movement needs to work. Day in, day out, rain or shine, good administrations or bad, we need to be moving toward the goal. And that goal is not to guard NASA’s iron rice bowl, or be locked into the cost floor of a solid-rocket-motor launch system for the next fifty years.
The dinosaurs went extinct because they failed to evolve into something that could build a spacefaring civilization. Their brains had no neocortex. What’s your excuse?
This is a huge win for New Space. Which people should get the credit? Who hired those people, and who, in turn, hired those people? For example, I directly credit Leroy Chiao and Jeff Greason for the New Space aspects of Obama’s plan (right?), but who put them on the Augustine Commission? Lori Garver clearly deserves lots of credit for the New Space aspects of the plan – who in Obama’s campaign team realized that she was the right person for their team? If credit could be charted out as a tree, which people are at the leafs and which people are at the roots?
Jack,
I speak only for myself, but…
1) I thought Reagan’s comments about a world free from nuclear weapons were nonsense when he said them, and my opinion hasn’t changed. I am hardly the only one who believes that…
2) Bush-41 made some of the worst court appointments (does the name Souter ring a bell?) in the 20th century, and Sotomayor was one of them. Fortunately she replaces someone equally awful, so the end result is a wash…
3) Conservatives often voted in favor of massive spending increases (the ‘surpluses’ you refer to were on paper only), and for that they recieved only a small portion of the contempt that they deserve.
In all three cases, you seem to suggest that because some conservatives and/or the GOP (you are never really clear about which) supported policies of questionable merit, all conservatives and/or the GOP should support those policies (and other similar ones) in perpetuity. This is nonsense on stilts, but the logic is hardly surprising considering the source.
Obama has been wrong about 99% of the time, but on this issue, he is right. Perhaps it is inadvertent on his part, but I am inclined to give him credit for a good choice (or at least listening to people who made good choices), which is probably more than he deserves. If he makes good choices, he will get my support for those choices…that is the difference between myself and most liberals I have run into…
“Unreasonable Rocket get out of the “small business” stage and get beyond the magic number of 50 employees (aka no longer a “small business”), ”
I believe the SBA and other federal agencies defines a small businesses using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). So if you are a heating oil distributer a small business is 50 employess, a cigarette maker at 1000 employees and in the line haul train company at 1500.
It can also be defined financially. http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/serv_sstd_tablepdf.pdf
That is the SBA tables but I didn’t notice any “space” type companies listed. I wonder if anyone knows, relative to space companies, what is the guide for small business?
Extension of ISS, and commitment to HLV, do not “affordably get [NASA] beyond low earth orbit”; quite the opposite in fact. Yet many fans of the new policy insist that everything is peachy. I suggest they remove their rose colored glasses.
This is not “something Obama got right”, this is something the space movement got right.
Yes this is true, however, if FY2011 is enacted by Congress it will be because Obama had the spinal fortitude to push it through over Republican objection.
Just as ESAS shall forever be linked to Griffin/Bush, this new plan shall be linked to Barack Obama.
Those photos of Obama and Elon Musk shall become iconic and because of Garver and perhaps Whitesides, Obama shall be remembered as the NewSpace President.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/16/msnbc-space-reporter-no-nasa-workers-allowed-at-obamas-speech-yesterday/
Everyone seems interested in the new plan. Why am I not surprised at a tonedeaf presser? Maybe the white coats are fro doctors only?
vladislaw
Look n aerospace engineering and missile manufacturing, that’s robably 500 employees
As Rand put it awhile back (paraphrasing), “The only reason Obama got this right is that he himself doesn’t care about space, but some of his appointees do.”
That was before Obama put his personal image on the line by going to Florida and giving a page-one speech on the policy.
Ask yourself: what’s in it for Obama? It would have been so much easier for him to quietly tell NASA to keep plodding away on Constellation — he wouldn’t have had to find $5 billion, the Florida and Texas delegations would have been happy, and the general public wouldn’t notice that the promised Moon landing was receding in the distance. Obama has plenty on his plate, he didn’t need to rock the boat with NASA.
Instead he is spending political capital on an unpopular, but wise decision. I see that as being par for the course with Obama. As Congressman Tom Perriello (D-VA) has noted, the surest way to win Obama over to your view is to tell him it’s the hard, unpopular, but correct decision.
There is no evidence of great political savvy at work here — quite the opposite.
Agreed. Which makes the decision all the more remarkable, to my mind, because it obviously wasn’t made for political reasons (other than the meta-political reason that Obama believes good policy is good politics).
When companies like Armadillo Aerospace, Masten, or Unreasonable Rocket get out of the “small business” stage and get beyond the magic number of 50 employees (aka no longer a “small business”), other anti-business laws that have come down the pike in recent times are certainly going to dampen efforts to commercialize space.
Space-X is already in the no-longer-small category, and I don’t see these fabled “anti-business laws” holding them back.
The plan endorsed by Barack Obama is a pretty good one, much better than Constellation.
The trouble is … when has Obama kept any of his promises to do things that we (i.e., most of us who comment here) consider good? He’s long been a master of the bait-and-switch technique, and no matter what the policy reversal, it’s a case of “Let me be clear, I have always said that …”
Is there any evidence that Barack Obama has ever viewed the private sector as having a legitimate role in society? Why would he start now?
He could easily screw this up, in so many different ways. He wouldn’t even have to do anything active, all he’d need to do would be to stand back and not interfere while various regulatory bureaucracies had their way with the new commercial space enterprises. “I’m sorry Mr. Branson, Mr. Rutan, Mr. Musk, we can’t issue any flight permits until you people prove that your vehicles are safe.”
As Congressman Tom Perriello (D-VA) has noted, the surest way to win Obama over to your view is to tell him it’s the hard, unpopular, but correct decision.
Hmmm … “President Obama, we both know that the health insurance reform plan passed by Congress is fundamentally flawed and will cost the country an immense amount of money for little or no improvement in health care. Cancelling it now — before it does any harm — starting over, and doing it right would be the hard, unpopular, but correct decision!”
Instead he is spending political capital on an unpopular, but wise decision. I see that as being par for the course with Obama.
Which makes the decision all the more remarkable, to my mind, because it obviously wasn’t made for political reasons.
So, par for the course, and remarkable! Your disjointed prosthelytizing needs work.
Mike G in Corvallis:
[[[He could easily screw this up, in so many different ways. He wouldn’t even have to do anything active, all he’d need to do would be to stand back and not interfere while various regulatory bureaucracies had their way with the new commercial space enterprises. “I’m sorry Mr. Branson, Mr. Rutan, Mr. Musk, we can’t issue any flight permits until you people prove that your vehicles are safe.”]]]
You mean like the human rating requirements that will be a central part of the RFP for commercial crew, and are the reason the RFP won’t be ready until the end of the year at the earliest 🙂
You mean like the human rating requirements that will be a central part of the RFP for commercial crew, and are the reason the RFP won’t be ready until the end of the year at the earliest
Yes … Hypothetically speaking, of course.