Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Space History, Space Science, Technology and Society

The Faux Issue About Ted Cruz And NASA

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A good analysis from Hank Campbell, with a little history for those ignorant in the space-science community.

I love cute robots on Mars and pretty pictures from Hubble but keep in mind that politicians and their staffers see beyond that. They know we could have cute robots and pretty pictures while spending a whole lot less money – and we wouldn’t lose a single NASA employee. Though advocates claim we will “lose leadership” in some area or another if we don’t spend more money than some other country, that argument does not work with politicians, who see how badly money can be misused – when it is the pet projects of their political opponents, anyway.

I don’t care what Ted Cruz thinks about global warming, pollution is bad whether he thinks so or not, and Senator and now President Obama said he thought vaccines might be causing autism, but did anyone in science not vote for him in 2008 because of that? If you about care climate science, don’t worry about NASA, worry about the new chair of the environment committee, Senator Jim Inhofe, who denies climate science outright.

If you do care about space science, Cruz is a good choice. Just like Cruz’s opinion on climate change, that science media happens not to like Republicans is irrelevant to how well someone will do at NASA. He’s likely to be better for space science than the people we have had under Democrats, including the space advocate (and space-farer) Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who insisted that extending the life of the glorified space-going UPS trucks known as the Shuttle Program was somehow necessary for science – a porkbarrel agenda that would have starved out actual space science programs – and did nothing at all about President Obama canceling Constellation in his home state. Nelson has to be careful criticizing the President ‘or the Republicans win’ but Cruz is not handcuffed by common party registration. If he has presidential ambitions, helping NASA will help him in Florida and some common sense about funding will be welcome to the public and a lot of NASA employees and scientists who can’t criticize the President. As I have discussed about the James Webb Space Telescope and its eternal cost overruns, every time a high-profile NASA project hemorrhages money, it’s the less-publicized but more scientifically valuable projects that bleed.

NASA needs someone who is not going to sign off on projects hoping they will become too big to fail. It’s better for the public and it’s better for science, because all those experiments that only need a few million dollars can then get it, rather than being told to wait for next year because an old program no one is excited about is delayed and over budget once again.

Unfortunately, he’s bought (or at least seems to have bought) into the SLS BS. But he’s a smart guy, so he may be educable.

10 thoughts on “The Faux Issue About Ted Cruz And NASA”

  1. A good lesson to all who would be tempted to become “one issue voters”. A candidate (or even elected official) who effectively advances 90% of your goals while opposing one goal deserves support. Depriving that effective person of support due to the issue “du-jour” (particularly a stupid, media-driven issue such as flag burning, binders full of women, dogs on the roof, dogs on the menu, dogs under the Downs-toddler’s feet…) is only going to get your a panderer as a replacement.

    I have my problems with Cruz (one of my own two senators, by the way) And he is nowhere NEAR the 90% mark on the “supports the goals of people like me” list. But he’s somewhere in the mid-50th to low-60th percentile on that list of goals, and I see few better in current field or distant horizon. (Scott Walker is NOT going to the US senate anytime soon, and certainly not as an advocate for Texas.)

    For those for whom “space is the place”, Cruz is the dude.

  3. Business Insider says Cruz’s space policy will be “epic.”

    http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-ted-cruzs-epic-plan-for-nasa-2015-1

    Note, however, all of this debate is taking place within the traditional framework of “Space == NASA.”

    What no one has commented on: Cruz has said that his first priority is renewing/updating the Commercial Space Launch Act. Which will have more effect on space development than anything that might happen with the NASA budget.

  4. Despite small-government rhetoric, elected official promises to get lots of federal money for his district. In other news, a man was bitten by a dog.

    I’m not optimistic that he might change his position on SLS. He’s running for president, and he won’t want to annoy Florida.

    I’d say this whole Tea Party thing has been a complete bust as far as anyone hoping for a more commercially-oriented space policy is concerned.

    1. It’s the usual. There’s Dana Rohrabacher and there’s the rest of them.

      The Democrats in California have been coming around too since SpaceX has been around but its still in their own fiefdom’s interests they are doing it even if it is the right thing to do.

    2. If you put your partisan feelings aside, you might actually find out what Ted’s position is before you go Full Huffington on it.

      I spoke to him about SLS for the first time back in 2012. When other space activists wouldn’t even bother because he was “a fringe candidate” who had “no chance of winning the nomination.”

      How many times have you talked to him?

      “Lots of Federal money for his district”? What exactly are you talking about?

      You do know that Ted represents Texas, right? Do you know where SLS is being built? (Not Texas.)

      Do you know where Orion, which Lockheed originally promised to build in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is actually being built? (Not Texas.)

      Do you know that NASA rejected Sierra Nevada’s DreamChaser, which would be assembled partially in Fort Worth and land in Houston, in favor of the much more expensive CST-100 capsule from Boeing? Do you know where CST-100 is being built? (Not Texas.)

      Do you know about the cutbacks at JSC, due to the transition from the Shuttle program to SLS/Orion?

      Please show me where you think NASA is spending lots of money in Texas (as opposed to Florida, Alabama, Colorado, etc.).

      1. “If you put your partisan feelings aside, you might actually find out what Ted’s position is before you go Full Huffington on it.”

        Cruz makes his position on Orion/SLS abundantly clear on own his own website: “SLS and Orion are critical to our medium- and long-term ability to explore space, whether it is the moon, Mars or beyond. Absolutely I support them.” This is what I was reacting to.

        “Lots of Federal money for his district”? What exactly are you talking about?

        You do know that Ted represents Texas, right? Do you know where SLS is being built? (Not Texas.)

        Do you know where Orion, which Lockheed originally promised to build in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is actually being built? (Not Texas.)

        Do you know that NASA rejected Sierra Nevada’s DreamChaser, which would be assembled partially in Fort Worth and land in Houston, in favor of the much more expensive CST-100 capsule from Boeing? Do you know where CST-100 is being built? (Not Texas.)

        Do you know about the cutbacks at JSC, due to the transition from the Shuttle program to SLS/Orion?

        Please show me where you think NASA is spending lots of money in Texas (as opposed to Florida, Alabama, Colorado, etc.).”

        Orion is managed by JSC and is one of JSC’s major activities. That other locations may be getting more NASA pork is irrelevant: Cruz is now on record as supporting pork for JSC. And his support for SLS is reasonably construed as support for pork for JSC, because Orion and SLS are tied together at the hip: if one dies, the other likely will too. Actually, this just makes the whole thing more egregious: he’s not just in favor of wasting federal dollars in Texas, he’s in favor of wasting several federal dollars elsewhere for each dollar wasted in Texas.

        None of this is terribly surprising. But it is a little bit disappointing; I had held out a slim hope that some Tea Partiers in Congress might live up to their rhetoric. Sadly, I don’t know of a single one who has.

  5. Cruz makes his position on Orion/SLS abundantly clear on own his own website

    You believe what politicians say on their websites? Kids say the darnedest things. 🙂

    Orion is managed by JSC and is one of JSC’s major activities.

    Not really. The Orion management office is fairly small, relative to the size of the center. A lot of people around JSC seem to *think* it’s creating a lot of jobs, but the reality is otherwise.

  6. To be sure, politicians are not famous for talking straight. But Cruz’s statement of support for Orion/SLS seems unusually clear and unequivocal. Let me turn it around: are you expecting to back away from Orion/SLS?

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