Or should it be “wither VSE and ESAS”?

My analysis on what the presidential election could mean for NASA’s current plans for human spaceflight, over at Popular Mechanics.

Bottom line: don’t expect “steady as you go…”

[Update late evening]

Mark Whittington has his usual (i.e., idiotic) response:

The problem here is that without a lot of those billions being spent not only on technology development, but operational experience, it will be a long time before private business gets us to the Moon, if at all. And we they do get there, they may have to have visas signed by the Chinese who will have beaten everyone there.

Yes, [rolling eyes] having to have visas signed by the Chinese to land on the moon should be our biggest concern. Not the fact that NASA has chosen an architecture that is fundamentally incapable of establishing a fully-fledged lunar presence and is unlikely to survive politically (and ignoring the fact that the Chinese are on a track to get a human on the moon sometime in the next century, at their current rate…).

I haven’t had time to read it yet, but Dennis Wingo has a long essay on NASA’s forty-year failure to close the deal with the American people. More thoughts when I have a chance to read, but some of the other folks here may be interested.

Lee Cary is concerned. I’m not, mostly because I don’t think that Obama has a chance in hell of winning, but also because I don’t believe that Ares/Orion is “the way forward,” so it’s hard for me to be very upset about either a delay, or cancellation.

Lee Cary is concerned. I’m not, mostly because I don’t think that Obama has a chance in hell of winning, but also because I don’t believe that Ares/Orion is “the way forward,” so it’s hard for me to be very upset about either a delay, or cancellation.

Lee Cary is concerned. I’m not, mostly because I don’t think that Obama has a chance in hell of winning, but also because I don’t believe that Ares/Orion is “the way forward,” so it’s hard for me to be very upset about either a delay, or cancellation.

In the comments section of a post public support for the space program over at Space Politics, a twenty something asks a damed good question:

Those who support the current lunar program often forget the opportunity costs. There are better ways to spend the same money on developing space. I’m 24 – with the current Constellation program plan, I’ll be in my mid 30s by the time we get back to the moon. If we operate the system for a decade or two after that, as is likely, all I can expect in my career is to see 4 people land on the moon twice a year. That is not exciting – nor is it worth the money. Maybe by the time I retire we’ll be looking at another “next generation system”.

What’s the point of any of this for someone my age?

Well, it’s been more than a couple decades since I was twenty something, but it seems like there’s even less point for someone my age. Why in the world does Mike Griffin think that anyone, other than those getting a paycheck from it, are going to be inspired by such a trivial goals?

Of course, as usual, we heard the typical chorus of “space is hard, and it will take a long time, and you’re doing it for your grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, or great-great-great…grandchildren.”

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There was nothing inevitable about ESAS, and it isn’t written in granite that government space programs must do the least possible with the greatest amount of money, and the money invested provide such a poor return in either output or future capability on which to build. It is likely that this will be the case, but it’s not inevitable. As I’ve said many times, we won’t have a sensible government space program until space (that is, actual progress in space, not jobs in certain districts) becomes politically important. The last time that occurred was in the 1960s, and even then, it wasn’t politically important to have sustainable progress–only a specific space achievement (and that only because it had almost arbitrarily become a technological gladiatorial arena).

Anyway, Jon Goff followed up with a good comment, and then a blog post on the subject:

If our current approach to space development was actually putting in place the technology and infrastructure needed to make our civilization a spacefaring one, I’d be a lot more willing to support it. Wise investments in the future are a good thing, but NASA’s current approach is not a wise investment in the future. It’s aging hipsters trying to relive the glory days of their youth at my generation’s expense.

Patience is only a virtue when you’re headed in the right direction and doing the right thing. If Constellation was truly (as Marburger put it) making future operations cheaper, safer, and more capable, then I’d be all for patiently seeing it out.

While Constellation might possibly put some people on the moon, it won’t actually put us any closer to routine, affordable, and sustainable exploration and development. I have no problem with a long hard road, just so long as its the right one.

Unfortunately, it comes back to the fact that we never have had that serious national debate about space, and why we have a space program, that we so badly need (and despite his wishy-washy words now, I doubt that it will happen in an Obama administration, either). As the Chesire Cat said, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.

Well, he still doesn’t have one, but there’s nothing particularly objectionable about these comments, as far as they go:

Q: What do you plan to do with the space agency? Like right now they’re currently underfunded, they, at first they didn’t know if they were going to be able to operate Spirit rover. What do plan to do with it?

Obama: I think that, I, uh. I grew up with the space program. Most of you young people here were born during the shuttle era. I was the Apollo era. I remember, you know, watching, you know, the moon landing. I was living in Hawaii when I was growing up, so the astronauts would actually, you know, land in the Pacific and then get brought into Honolulu and it was incredible memories and incredibly inspiring. And by the way inspired a whole generation of people to get engaged in math and science in a way that we haven’t – that we need to renew. So I’m a big supporter of the space program. I think it needs to be redefined, though.

We’ve kind of lost a sense of mission in terms of what it is that NASA should be trying to achieve and I think that we’ve gotta make some big decisions about whether or not, are we going to try to send manned, you know, space launches, or are we better off in terms of what we’re learning sending unmanned probes which oftentimes are cheaper and less dangerous, but yield more information.

And that’s a major debate I’m going to want to convene when I’m president of the United States. What direction do we take the space program in? Once we have a sense of what’s going to be most valuable for us in terms of gaining knowledge, then I think we’ll able to adjust the budget so that we’re going all out on what it is that we’ve decided to do.”

I’ve long said that we need to have a national debate on what we want to do in space, and why–something that hasn’t really happened since NASA was chartered, half a century ago, so I would certainly welcome such a debate in the unfortunate event of an Obama presidency.

My question is, though: why wait? Why not have the debate now, so we can decide who we want to vote for, at least for those of us for whom space is a voting issue (if not the only consideration). What would be the venue and framework for the debate? What does Senator Obama think that the potential options are? Will he be constrained by past thinking, of space as the province of NASA and astronauts, with billions of dollars flowing in its porcine manner to Houston, Huntsville and the Cape, or will he be open to both goals and means that are more innovative than we’ve seen from any previous administration, including the Bush administration? Will he be a candidate for “hope” and “change” for the high frontier?

Well, like all his other positions, he does offer “hope” and “change” for space with the above words, but not clue one as to what we should be hoping for, and what form the “change” will take. In other words, as on other issues, he continues to deal in platitudes, and is unwilling to take a stand, or even discuss potential options, for fear of alienating the voters, who he hopes will continue to view him as a political Rorschach test, and see in his space policy, as in all his policies, what they want to see.

So while I hope that if elected, we will have that national dialogue about space, I don’t have any high expectations either that it will actually happen, or that anything useful will come out of it, because he offers me no substance now.

Of course, even if he told me that he’s going to do all of the things that I’d like to see from a space policy standpoint, it wouldn’t be sufficient to get me to vote for him because a) I couldn’t be sure that he meant it, given his flip flopping on other issues, 2) his positions on other issues are too odious to allow me to be a single-issue voter on space and 3) even if sincere, there’s no reason, given his complete lack of executive experience, that he will have any success whatsoever in implementing them.

Still, I’d sure like to see that national debate.

Well, he still doesn’t have one, but there’s nothing particularly objectionable about these comments, as far as they go:

Q: What do you plan to do with the space agency? Like right now they’re currently underfunded, they, at first they didn’t know if they were going to be able to operate Spirit rover. What do plan to do with it?

Obama: I think that, I, uh. I grew up with the space program. Most of you young people here were born during the shuttle era. I was the Apollo era. I remember, you know, watching, you know, the moon landing. I was living in Hawaii when I was growing up, so the astronauts would actually, you know, land in the Pacific and then get brought into Honolulu and it was incredible memories and incredibly inspiring. And by the way inspired a whole generation of people to get engaged in math and science in a way that we haven’t – that we need to renew. So I’m a big supporter of the space program. I think it needs to be redefined, though.

We’ve kind of lost a sense of mission in terms of what it is that NASA should be trying to achieve and I think that we’ve gotta make some big decisions about whether or not, are we going to try to send manned, you know, space launches, or are we better off in terms of what we’re learning sending unmanned probes which oftentimes are cheaper and less dangerous, but yield more information.

And that’s a major debate I’m going to want to convene when I’m president of the United States. What direction do we take the space program in? Once we have a sense of what’s going to be most valuable for us in terms of gaining knowledge, then I think we’ll able to adjust the budget so that we’re going all out on what it is that we’ve decided to do.”

I’ve long said that we need to have a national debate on what we want to do in space, and why–something that hasn’t really happened since NASA was chartered, half a century ago, so I would certainly welcome such a debate in the unfortunate event of an Obama presidency.

My question is, though: why wait? Why not have the debate now, so we can decide who we want to vote for, at least for those of us for whom space is a voting issue (if not the only consideration). What would be the venue and framework for the debate? What does Senator Obama think that the potential options are? Will he be constrained by past thinking, of space as the province of NASA and astronauts, with billions of dollars flowing in its porcine manner to Houston, Huntsville and the Cape, or will he be open to both goals and means that are more innovative than we’ve seen from any previous administration, including the Bush administration? Will he be a candidate for “hope” and “change” for the high frontier?

Well, like all his other positions, he does offer “hope” and “change” for space with the above words, but not clue one as to what we should be hoping for, and what form the “change” will take. In other words, as on other issues, he continues to deal in platitudes, and is unwilling to take a stand, or even discuss potential options, for fear of alienating the voters, who he hopes will continue to view him as a political Rorschach test, and see in his space policy, as in all his policies, what they want to see.

So while I hope that if elected, we will have that national dialogue about space, I don’t have any high expectations either that it will actually happen, or that anything useful will come out of it, because he offers me no substance now.

Of course, even if he told me that he’s going to do all of the things that I’d like to see from a space policy standpoint, it wouldn’t be sufficient to get me to vote for him because a) I couldn’t be sure that he meant it, given his flip flopping on other issues, 2) his positions on other issues are too odious to allow me to be a single-issue voter on space and 3) even if sincere, there’s no reason, given his complete lack of executive experience, that he will have any success whatsoever in implementing them.

Still, I’d sure like to see that national debate.

Well, he still doesn’t have one, but there’s nothing particularly objectionable about these comments, as far as they go:

Q: What do you plan to do with the space agency? Like right now they’re currently underfunded, they, at first they didn’t know if they were going to be able to operate Spirit rover. What do plan to do with it?

Obama: I think that, I, uh. I grew up with the space program. Most of you young people here were born during the shuttle era. I was the Apollo era. I remember, you know, watching, you know, the moon landing. I was living in Hawaii when I was growing up, so the astronauts would actually, you know, land in the Pacific and then get brought into Honolulu and it was incredible memories and incredibly inspiring. And by the way inspired a whole generation of people to get engaged in math and science in a way that we haven’t – that we need to renew. So I’m a big supporter of the space program. I think it needs to be redefined, though.

We’ve kind of lost a sense of mission in terms of what it is that NASA should be trying to achieve and I think that we’ve gotta make some big decisions about whether or not, are we going to try to send manned, you know, space launches, or are we better off in terms of what we’re learning sending unmanned probes which oftentimes are cheaper and less dangerous, but yield more information.

And that’s a major debate I’m going to want to convene when I’m president of the United States. What direction do we take the space program in? Once we have a sense of what’s going to be most valuable for us in terms of gaining knowledge, then I think we’ll able to adjust the budget so that we’re going all out on what it is that we’ve decided to do.”

I’ve long said that we need to have a national debate on what we want to do in space, and why–something that hasn’t really happened since NASA was chartered, half a century ago, so I would certainly welcome such a debate in the unfortunate event of an Obama presidency.

My question is, though: why wait? Why not have the debate now, so we can decide who we want to vote for, at least for those of us for whom space is a voting issue (if not the only consideration). What would be the venue and framework for the debate? What does Senator Obama think that the potential options are? Will he be constrained by past thinking, of space as the province of NASA and astronauts, with billions of dollars flowing in its porcine manner to Houston, Huntsville and the Cape, or will he be open to both goals and means that are more innovative than we’ve seen from any previous administration, including the Bush administration? Will he be a candidate for “hope” and “change” for the high frontier?

Well, like all his other positions, he does offer “hope” and “change” for space with the above words, but not clue one as to what we should be hoping for, and what form the “change” will take. In other words, as on other issues, he continues to deal in platitudes, and is unwilling to take a stand, or even discuss potential options, for fear of alienating the voters, who he hopes will continue to view him as a political Rorschach test, and see in his space policy, as in all his policies, what they want to see.

So while I hope that if elected, we will have that national dialogue about space, I don’t have any high expectations either that it will actually happen, or that anything useful will come out of it, because he offers me no substance now.

Of course, even if he told me that he’s going to do all of the things that I’d like to see from a space policy standpoint, it wouldn’t be sufficient to get me to vote for him because a) I couldn’t be sure that he meant it, given his flip flopping on other issues, 2) his positions on other issues are too odious to allow me to be a single-issue voter on space and 3) even if sincere, there’s no reason, given his complete lack of executive experience, that he will have any success whatsoever in implementing them.

Still, I’d sure like to see that national debate.