Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

Stormrage · 2006-11-08 18:47:48

Probably Democrat. Whats the democrat history on Space? So far all i know is that the democratic president JFK helped NASA and Republican Nixon nearly killed it.

GCNRevenger · 2006-11-08 18:53:52

To be fair though, JFK didn't push the space program for it to accomplish anything useful, except to show up the Communists who needed to be defeated on the battlefield of international prestige. Maybe to pump the US aerospace industry a bit too.

Rxke · 2006-11-09 10:34:02

If you google around there are white House tapes on which JFK explixcitly states he doesn't care much about space exploration, per se but just wants to beat the Ruskies.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2006-11-11 12:49:29

Probably Democrat. Whats the democrat history on Space? So far all i know is that the democratic president JFK helped NASA and Republican Nixon nearly killed it.

Yeah Nixon tried to burry NASA, Apollo was one of the great periods in manned exploration it was a proud and positive symbol for the USA. Nixon didn't agree with the cost of manned flight - this was a bad move as ending human spaceflight would be a powerful negative symbolic act, potentially indicating a lack of political will or economic capability. Current administration may not have done much for NASA either, just look at the fiasco with Hubble or the Bush policy to push Shuttle back to the pad only to halt the shuttle program by the end of 2010.

dicktice · 2006-11-11 18:14:06

It won't happen, with Griffen in charge. And to use the term "Vision" together with GWB is an oxymoron. The times they are a'changing, I do believe....

Mars_B4_Moon · 2006-12-10 06:22:30

Some negative press from the anti-manned space flight lobby

Don't colonize the moon
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la- … n-leftrail
A manned moon mission doesn't make sense.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-12-10 10:56:54

Some negative press from the anti-manned space flight lobby
Don't colonize the moon
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la- … n-leftrail
A manned moon mission doesn't make sense.

Why do anything? I'll net the LATimes would be happy if the US does nothing but contemplate its navel.
The Moon is a foothold into space and Mars is another one.

It would be easier to establish a colony on the Moon, the Moon is closer and our access to the Moon is contiuous, not like Mars where we have to wait for launch windows. People living on the Moon could have phone service, access to Satellite Television and the Internet with near realtime communication with Earth. All you can do on Mars, is send and receive e-mail, voice-mail and video-mail and wait for it to arrive. Martians have to wait for the planets to align properly before making any trips to Earth or to receive any visitors from there. The Moon is the nearest continuously available exterestrial body available for mining. Mars would provide a good roll as a supplier of hydrogen and other volitiles for the Moon. The problems of exposure to radiation and long travel times are less for trips to the Moon, and we can get their with relatively off-the shelf technology more or less derived from our Apollo experience. The Moon would open up the gates for Mars, as it would require us to develop launch technology that would be useful for the trip to Mars.

I don't see how we can just ignore the Moon and head directly to Mars. I think both activities compliment each other, and if we are forced into a choice between the Moon or Mars, our grip on either one would be tenuous at best.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2007-04-12 21:01:25

Space program needs to pick up pace

NASA Plan Cuts Moon Lander, Boosts Mars Rover

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-04-13 12:52:26

Probably Democrat. Whats the democrat history on Space? So far all i know is that the democratic president JFK helped NASA and Republican Nixon nearly killed it.
Yeah Nixon tried to burry NASA, Apollo was one of the great periods in manned exploration it was a proud and positive symbol for the USA. Nixon didn't agree with the cost of manned flight - this was a bad move as ending human spaceflight would be a powerful negative symbolic act, potentially indicating a lack of political will or economic capability. Current administration may not have done much for NASA either, just look at the fiasco with Hubble or the Bush policy to push Shuttle back to the pad only to halt the shuttle program by the end of 2010.

Was Congress full of Nixonians at the time?

I seem to recall that it was Congress that votes on all Appropriations including that of NASA, am I right in that?

Now the only way Nixon can cut off funds for NASA is by using his veto and having enough Nixonians in Congress to sustain his veto. So tell me, did Nixon ever promise to veto all appropriations bills that contained funding for NASA's Manned Moon Program? Or did Congress decide to do that all by itself?

I seem to recall also that Congress wasn't packed full of Nixonians, it was packed full of Democrats. Also in 1976, the Democrats gained control of both houses of Congress and the White House, did they restart the Moon Program? They spend money on plenty of other things, enough to cause inflation, but I don't seem to recall them restarting Apollo or even going in that direction a little bit. In fact the only time we didn't have a manned space program was during the Carter Administration, and Jimmy Carter was a Democrat. Ronald Reagan proposed the Space Station and The NASP, and Bill Clinton Cancelled the NASP in favor of the Space Station. I don't know why so many Space Enthusiasts hold the Democrats in such reverence. The pro-space Democrats are all but extinct, what we have now are surrendercrats that send their house majority leader over to the enemy in supplication to some dictator and terrorist leader, something John F. Kennedy wouldn't have dreamed of doing.

Grypd · 2007-04-16 10:13:56

NASA's plan to cut the Moon rover and other cuts have mostly been ordered to stop.

[url=http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070416_business_monday.html]Lawmakers Rebuff NASA's Plan to Kill Robotic Lunar Lander
[/url]

noosfractal · 2007-04-29 16:15:43

US snubs Russian request for joint moon exploration: space chief
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070429/sc … usspaceiss

The head of Russia's space agency Sunday said the US has rebuffed an offer from Moscow to jointly explore the moon, while announcing a separate contract with NASA for nearly one billion dollars for the International Space Station.

Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency that Russia had proposed pooling resources to explore the moon.

"We were ready to cooperate but for unknown reasons, the United States have said they will undertake this programme themselves," he said.
...

cIclops · 2007-04-30 03:13:43

also from the same article:

Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency that Russia had proposed pooling resources to explore the moon.

Russia has very little to "pool" with the $104 billion US program, NASA has said it wants other agencies to be involved with the Lunar Outpost .. perhaps the Russians would rather "pool" the US resources instead.

GCNRevenger · 2007-04-30 09:45:40

"Hey NASA, buddy, partner... listen, about that vital piece of hardware for the ISS we promised to contribute, as it turns out we can't afford it after all. Hey though, um, would you bail us out a half bil? ...Cause you know, it would be a real shame if your $100Bn space station got derailed."

"Hey NASA, buddy, partner... listen, about that vital piece of hardware for the the Moon missions we promised to contribute, as it turns out we can't afford it after all. Hey though, um, would you please bail us out a few bil? ...Cause you know, it would be a real shame if your $100Bn Moon program got derailed."

Different destinations, same scam. It worked pretty well on us last time, hopefully Griffin has the fortitude not to fall for it or be cowed into it by international kum-by-yah group-hug-ism.

noosfractal · 2007-05-03 14:26:32

Weldon: Democrats Set to Cripple Manned Space Program
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=22546

...
"It's increasingly clear that Democratic leaders have our manned space program in their crosshairs," said Weldon. Weldon noted that at the hearing to introduce his proposal Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA), who sits on the powerful Rules Committee, said he opposed the amendment because he was 'not convinced' of the need for human space exploration.
...

GCNRevenger · 2007-05-03 14:49:25

Press conference some time in the near future:

"Cause you know, Bush in his infinite chimp-like stupidity "cut" (read: didn't increase) NSF funding and instead spent it on some crazy hypra-patriotic/do-what-daddy-didn't mission to the Moon etc etc, which is of course just a subsidy for the aerospace industry and thus for Haaaaaaalllllaburton. We democrats will right this wrong and put a stop to Plan Bush(itler) and fund the NSF as much as it wants and stop this silly notion of space exploration"

I do find it pretty distressing that even the reps from Florida seem so non-chalant about throwing their own citizens and economy overboard to stick it to Bush, or at least more loyal to The Party than their own state.

RedStreak · 2007-05-07 12:49:06

More NASA banging here but slightly less negative than the smut we've been dealt: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1210

The only thing I think that could effect the VSE will be the views of the next President and how long our overseas wars will drag out.

GCNRevenger · 2007-05-07 13:35:22

Ha this is rich... this Saunders guy (which isn't even his name) is just oozing with Jeff Bell like defeatism, and has obviously drank a biiig cup of the AltSpace kool-aid.

"All big government agencies in NASA's position fail, its you know, historical"

This ignores some simple facts about NASA's new position, that first they have M. Griffin who has forced budgets to include fairly generous margins, Shuttle/ISS/etc were obviously just works projects for NASA engineers, and finally NASA now has a new way to motivate them... VSE will succeed, or else.

* NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (research on the edge to sustain preeminence)
* Red Planet Capital (commercial, entrepreneurial innovations to support the Vision)
* Lunar Robotic Precursor Program (scouting ahead for the astronauts' Moon base)
* Advanced Life Support (How to keep the astronauts well after we send them out there)
* Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (something for the International Space Station to do)

These are all things that should have been cut a long time ago. This is evidence that NASA is taking seriously the need to focus its resources, not evidence that it is gutting everything to save a sinking ship. The Adv. Concepts office has been a joke for years, trying to figure out how to make warp drive, there is no need for a robot mission to Shakleton Crater if we already know we want our base there, we don't need recycling LSS systems with Lunar oxygen, and who gives a rip if the ISS has "something to do" or not.

The bit about the A380 is pitiful too, its just a big airplane, nothing special about it. For that matter, sales for Boeing's 7E7 - a plane that doesn't even exist yet - have been high-flying over the A380's.

Then he peddles out the "AltSpace will save us!!!" lie

-Burt Rutan's little plastic toy didn't travel into space, it only went suborbital. SpaceShipOne is an oxymoron, whoever doesn't accept this is a plain old regular moron.
-Jeff Bezos's rocket is a toy miniature of another miniature for a rocket that probably wouldn't have worked due to the limitations of the laws of physics.
-Elon Musk still hasn't flown a rocket successfully, just a tiny little one with hardly a tonne of payload, despite three tries (two in flight, one basically scrapped on the ground).

For example, picture a future where you can tune into live video and sound from rovers on Mars; the Saturn moon Titan; or swimming in the oceans of the Jovian moon Europa. Imagine taking your turn at driving a lunar rover, remotely. Imagine booking a one-nighter in an orbiting hotel. Imagine the security from knowing that your home planet is under constant watch to protect its environment and to deflect incoming asteroids. There is plenty of good stuff from which to cast new, inspiring, and productive visions.

Pffft. Bootprints in red dust is what the public REALLY wants, if NASA shows that they really are going to do it this time, that we really do have a credible plan to get there, they'll come around... and scoff at something as trivial as "live video from the eleventh Mars rover."

Space hotels are still a pipe dream, and even then are firmly in the realm of the super-rich. Asteroid defense could only be accomplished with a heavy launch vehicle, which can only be justified by a manned flight program too.

space program continues its fatal trajectory, entrepreneurs are creating a new paradigm of human spaceflight. The thrill of space is being brought to the people rather than being the sole province of an elite astronaut corps

Ha, gee think he might be a little bit defeatist?

Entrepreneurs and paradigms, just pretty buzz words, where is the dang metal? Where is the proof that the "little guys" can overcome the huge challenges required for spaceflight that have to date required the big guys? Burt, Bezos, Carmack etc are all jokes in the face of the High Frontier of orbital manned flight. And even suppose they do, then space travel will be the realm of an elite corps of the super-wealthy, instead of an elite corps of volunteer astronauts.

Having the whole countries' future in space "drink the kool aid" is not a plan B.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2007-05-27 06:27:41

It won't happen, with Griffen in charge. And to use the term "Vision" together with GWB is an oxymoron. The times they are a'changing, I do believe....

NASA official grilled on destruction of meeting videos,
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?a … todaysnews

Statement of S. Alan Stern Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate National Aeronautics and Space Administration
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=24101

Will McCain's temper roast NASA a second-time ?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld … ?track=rss
...One bureaucrat who felt McCain's wrath was former NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, who was summoned by McCain in 1999, not long after a $125-million probe crashed on Mars because of confusion over the use of English and metric units. McCain's Senate Commerce Committee had oversight over NASA.
"McCain went ballistic the moment Goldin walked into McCain's office," said a participant in the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity because he still worked in the government arena. "He was shouting and using profanity, saying he was sick of NASA's screw-ups. It went on for a few minutes, and then he kicked Goldin out of the office."
Goldin started walking down the hallway but was called back to the senator's office by a McCain aide. "When he came back in, McCain started yelling at Goldin all over again. And then McCain kicked Goldin out a second time before he ever said a word," the source said.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2007-10-05 17:57:04

Writing the next chapter in space exploration

Mars: The next frontier?

cIclops · 2007-10-06 05:06:46

Mars: The next frontier?

Good article, thanks for the link!

For Quine and many others, all the robotic probes are a dress rehearsal for the real thing. "Before we send people, we need to know what the environment's like," he says.
He speaks as though it's an inevitable. He's not alone.
"We shouldn't think of it as a fairytale," Berinstain says. "The simple fact is, human beings go places they haven't been before, and as soon as they can. I don't know if it'll happen in 20, 30 or 100 years from now, but it will happen. There's no doubt in my mind about that."
For Zubrin, it's not we will, but we must. "To say we cannot accept the risks of humans to Mars would be to turn our backs not only on Apollo, but on Lewis and Clark, on Colombus, and everyone who took a chance to open up new possibilities to create the world we currently have," he says.
"For us to not accept that risk is for us to say we've become less than the people who got us to where we are today.
"And to me, that is something our society cannot afford."

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-10-06 08:33:57

Entrepreneurs and paradigms, just pretty buzz words, where is the dang metal? Where is the proof that the "little guys" can overcome the huge challenges required for spaceflight that have to date required the big guys? Burt, Bezos, Carmack etc are all jokes in the face of the High Frontier of orbital manned flight. And even suppose they do, then space travel will be the realm of an elite corps of the super-wealthy, instead of an elite corps of volunteer astronauts.
Having the whole countries' future in space "drink the kool aid" is not a plan B.

I'd welcome the Superwealthy in orbit, because that would mean that our space activities don't depend entirely upon the whims of Congress. I saw how they screwed the manned space program in the 1970s. I think manned space needs another leg to stand on besides government programs and elite astronaut corps. Personally I think alot of astronauts are way overqualified for their jobs. I don't think spaceships are that hard to pilot. Spaceships are expensive, so qualifying the astronauts is more a process of elimination to match the number of astronauts to the available spacecraft.

If we have the government corps of astronauts plus superrich tourists and private astronauts, that is progress over just government run space programs. It expands our launch capacities, and introduces commerical enterprise in manned space programs, and thus begins the process of finding more economical means of getting into orbit.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2007-10-21 07:02:26

Let's relight this candle - to the moon, Mars and beyond
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c … OSNRML.DTL

Given the tremendous external economic benefits generated by the U.S. space program, it seems beyond shortsighted that America is now merely limping toward the stars. Indeed, today, NASA's budget in real, inflation-adjusted dollars is a mere shadow of its former Apollonian self - even as China, India, Japan and Russia are rapidly increasing their expenditures and efforts on space exploration. Indeed, just this week, in what has been hailed as the "biggest moon mission since Apollo," Japan's first lunar space probe began to successfully orbit the moon and transmit pictures and data back to Earth. In the coming weeks, China will launch a similar lunar probe as part of the world's most ambitious space program - one that includes plans for a moon colony, missions to Mars, and a permanent space station. In 2008, even India is scheduled to launch its own lunar mission.
America's space indifference has hit our educational system extremely hard. In the current political climate, students no longer find excitement - or lucrative job opportunities - in an array of fields that have, at least until this point, arguably been the most responsible for keeping America's economic engine revving. In the absence of a robust space program, the number of students entering college to study engineering is in a multiyear decline. Instead, college-age students raised during NASA's doldrums of the 1980s and 1990s are far more likely to pursue a career in real estate or law or business. That's a big reason why, since the mid-1980s, engineering enrollment has dropped from 80,000 a year to fewer than 50,000 - despite an increase in the U.S. population. This decline in America's commitment to space exploration - and therefore its commitment to science and technology - will soon be reflected in a slowing rate of innovation, a fall in worker productivity, a reduced GDP growth rate, and a decline in government revenues.

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-10-21 07:19:15

Press conference some time in the near future:
"Cause you know, Bush in his infinite chimp-like stupidity "cut" (read: didn't increase) NSF funding and instead spent it on some crazy hypra-patriotic/do-what-daddy-didn't mission to the Moon etc etc, which is of course just a subsidy for the aerospace industry and thus for Haaaaaaalllllaburton. We democrats will right this wrong and put a stop to Plan Bush(itler) and fund the NSF as much as it wants and stop this silly notion of space exploration"
I do find it pretty distressing that even the reps from Florida seem so non-chalant about throwing their own citizens and economy overboard to stick it to Bush, or at least more loyal to The Party than their own state.

Like the War in Iraq, they want to end it, but they don't want to be blamed for our defeat or for China beating us to the Moon, so they'll try to look for some sneaky way to do this while keeping the halos above their heads, and no doubt the media is going to do all they can to aid and abed this. Why would Floridians vote for these people?

The liberals in this country are a bunch of dead weights when it comes to winning wars and space races. We'd be better off if we were a smaller country that did not include them.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2007-10-21 08:51:47

TomKalbfus you have your wires crossed yet again, the Republicans have traditionally been a party of non-intervention. Nixon's campaign was all about ending the Vietnam war, Dwight D. Eisenhower stood by and watched Israel fight it out during Suez. Israel didn't have American support then, Israelis had to depend on French bullets and British aircraft to back them up. Reagan he didn't like people who were hostile to the US but when Reagan came in he did almost nothing about Iran and whatever he did do it quickly became a mess. Bush is different, he's big on intervention and pre-emptive strikes but his Gung-ho go it alone attitude has been disastrous for the United States.

On the Space race issue, it was a Democrat called JFK and there was also Johnson who helped us win this race. Nixon on the other hand wanted to end US manned spaceflight but he settled for gutting NASA's post-Apollo plans instead. Bush Snr was a good leader he knew how far to push Iraq but gave us a poor Mars vision which was a red herring, with Bush Jnr making threats to veto his own VSE I get the feeling NASA is in for lean times

Tom Kalbfus · 2007-10-21 10:42:08

Nixon is actually a poor example of a Republican, a better example during that era was Barry Goldwater. Reagan modeled his politics after Barry Goldwater not Nixon. Nixon was actually a middle-of-the-roader, he wanted power and is not too different from Bill Clinton actually, the main difference was that the mainstream press was on Bill Clinton's side while they hounded Nixon out of office. If it was Bill Clinton behind Watergate, he would have got away with it, he would have swept it under the rug and the press would have turned its attention to other matters. Bill Clinton was not so big on the Space thing either, he continued the Shuttle program as it was through Reagan and Bush, he cancelled the NASP, and all plans for a manned mission to Mars. I think we could have afforded Bush senior's proposal, it was not more expensive than the Iraq War and rebuilding Iraq. Jimmy Carter had a Democratic Congress and Senate, it he really wanted he could have pushed a dramatic expansion of the Space Program, he could have ordered more Saturn Vs built, they still had plenty of Apollo veterans then. If Jimmy Carter really wanted we could have been well on our way to Mars by 1980, but he'd rather wear sweaters and lower the thermostat in the White House. JFK was pro-space, but that was a long time ago, JFK was also a patriot, he wanted to win the Vietnam War, and even made a speech about us bearing any burden, along with his Moon speech, JFK will forever be known for that, and it was not his fault that later Democrats betrayed his vision for democracy and tax cuts and turned their backs against Freedom as the Soviets got more aggressive. Even JFKs brother's betrayed his legacy, I've never seen Teddy Kenedy campaigning all that much for a return to the Moon or going to Mars, all he did was push more welfare programs and tax increases. RFK betrayed JFK's legacy by running as an "antiwar" candidate before he was assassinated by that Muslim extremist Sirhan Sirhan.

Reagan didn't do too much during his 8 years in office, at least Bush had the vision, but the Democrat-controlled Congress wouldn't fund it.

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#51 2006-11-08 18:47:48

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#52 2006-11-08 18:53:52

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#53 2006-11-09 10:34:02

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#54 2006-11-11 12:49:29

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#55 2006-11-11 18:14:06

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#56 2006-12-10 06:22:30

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#57 2006-12-10 10:56:54

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#58 2007-04-12 21:01:25

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#59 2007-04-13 12:52:26

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#60 2007-04-16 10:13:56

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#61 2007-04-29 16:15:43

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#62 2007-04-30 03:13:43

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#63 2007-04-30 09:45:40

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#64 2007-05-03 14:26:32

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#65 2007-05-03 14:49:25

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#66 2007-05-07 12:49:06

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#67 2007-05-07 13:35:22

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#68 2007-05-27 06:27:41

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#69 2007-10-05 17:57:04

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#70 2007-10-06 05:06:46

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#71 2007-10-06 08:33:57

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#72 2007-10-21 07:02:26

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#73 2007-10-21 07:19:15

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#74 2007-10-21 08:51:47

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

#75 2007-10-21 10:42:08

Re: Is the 'VSE' getting dimmer ?

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