In an article at PopMech about Orion, Scott Horowitz sets up a classic strawman:

By relying on existing technology, the design would allow for more efficient construction, narrowing the gap between the shuttle's retirement in 2010 and the next manned flight. But it also stirred a hot debate within the aerospace community. "NASA's attitude seems to be that Apollo worked, so let's just redo Apollo," says Charles Lurio, a Boston space consultant. Burt Rutan, the mastermind behind the rocket SpaceShipOne, likened the new CEV to an archeological dig. "To get to Mars and the moons of Saturn, we need breakthroughs. But the way NASA's doing it, we won't be learning anything new."

Scott Horowitz, NASA's associate administrator for Exploration Systems, defends the agency's approach. "Sure, we'd love to have antimatter warp drive," he says. "But I suspect that would be kind of expensive. Unfortunately, we just don't have the money for huge technological breakthroughs. We've got to do the best we can within our constraints of performance, cost and schedule."

Emphasis mine. Note that neither Lurio or Rutan were calling for "antimatter warp drive." Neither were they calling for unaffordable "huge technical breakthroughs," as far as I've ever heard. They were simply asking for something that would be worth the many billions being invested in it. Instead, NASA sets up the false choice that it's either Apollo or Star Trek, and continues, in its attitude, to keep us mired in a world of high cost and low productivity in space.

Whats new?

NASA has been playing this game since the space shuttle. They always through up an "impossible choice" vrs theirs to illustrate how reasonable they are!

What was the Tshirt from the Cape "Get with the Program"...

This same old cycle was how NASA killed off the ISF, and everything else related to their "ideal" space station. They killed OPtion C that way.

Now they are doing the same thing going with this return to the Moon...and up until now it has always flown.

Will it now?

If you want to read some idear of how stupid the rules regarding human flight are go to the AMSAT board and read what it took to get two very tiny Naval Academy payloads on the shuttle or a tiny one on the space station...

and you wonder why few people do that sort of stuff.

The testimony from the CAIB was pretty clear. NASA runs itself in human spaceflight different then every other industry that operates complex equipment..and as a result they dont operate it all that competently or efficiently.

And for some reason space advocates "cheer on".

Robert

I fail to see how Scott Horowitz using a little sarcasm about Burt Rutan's likewise unserious statement is "setting up a strawman."

A strawman argument implies setting up a false argument that the other side never posed themselves--you quoted Rutan saying "We need breakthroughs." Horowitz responding that breakthroughs are nice, but unnecessary for accomplishing the VSE, is therefore responding to Rutan's argument, not setting up a separate strawman.

Beyond that, it's stupid to suggest that NASA sets up a strawman in an article written by Popular Mechanics. Authors, not sources partially quoted, set up strawmen.

I'm starting to suspect you think a "strawman" is "an argument I think is invalid."

No, Tom. A strawman is a weak argument (that no one has made) set up for the purpose of being knocked down, as though someone actually did make it. That's exactly what Scott Horowitz did, if that quote is accurate. I have no reason to disbelieve it. It's exactly the sort of thing that I can envision him saying.

Things may be slightly more subtle than they appear, Rand, but the net result is the same.

It was the author of the piece that juxtaposed my and Rutan's comments with Horowitz's remarks. I don't know if the author specifically spoke to Horowitz for comment, but I do clearly recall Horowitz making just about the same comment about criticism at a press conference a few months ago.

Net effect is still a strawman - and NASA dishonesty.

Rand, Charles,

Perhaps I'm too far out of the newspace loop to know which background argument you're both referring to as a strawman, and this post doesn't clear it up for me.

Please clarify. What is the argument that you claim NASA (Horowitz?) is refusing to engage?

Is it that we don't need breakthroughs? I would think both of you (and in fact anyone in newspace) would agree with Horowitz that technological breakthroughs are not necessary for exploring the moon.

Is it that "Apollo on steroids" costs too much for what we get for it? Okay, that's a judgement. Griffin has directly engaged that issue on multiple occasions, and come to a different conclusion. No strawmen there, just a difference of opinion.

Is it that there's an alternative approach that NASA is refusing to consider? I think Griffin, Horowitz, and others have made multiple statements about the alternatives.

Perhaps there's an argument I'm missing here. Where's the strawman?

Tom, you don't seem to be reading my post. I explained what the strawman is. I'll do it again, just for you, since no one else seems to be having trouble with it. It is the notion that people who think that we can do better than Apollo on steroids are proposing that NASA instead develop warp drives. I know of no one who takes that position, and there are many other possibilities than that false choice. NASA takes it as a given that we cannot reduce the cost of access to space. I, Charles and others vehemently disagree with that position, and think that redoing Apollo is a colossal waste of taxpayers' funds, and counter productive to the goal of opening up space.

If that's all you're referring to, then never mind: I assumed there was also serious point underlying your indignation at Horowitz's one-liner, which IMHO is clearly intended to be sarcasm and overstatement, not an official NASA position.

I don't presume to speak for NASA. Mike Griffin does, though. His x-prize speech about COTS pretty clearly refutes any idea that "NASA thinks" the cost of access to space cannot be reduced.

I assumed there was also serious point underlying your indignation at Horowitz's one-liner, which IMHO is clearly intended to be sarcasm and overstatement, not an official NASA position.

Whether it's a serious NASA position or not, it indicates an unseriousness about criticism of NASA's plans, and an unwillingness to honestly debate them.

His x-prize speech about COTS pretty clearly refutes any idea that "NASA thinks" the cost of access to space cannot be reduced.

Given how little money he plans to spend on it, and how much he plans to spend on business-as-usual and Apollo on steroids, he clearly doesn't think it a very high-probability outcome.

If $450 somethin' million isn't enough money to kickstart the industry successfully, that fact alone is convincing proof that the cost of access can't be significantly reduced.