Primary space politics

cIclops · 2008-03-03 08:02:33

NASA's popularity rises as vote nears - 2 Mar 2008

On the Republican side, Arizona Sen. John McCain told the Chronicle that he has been "very enamored by Mars ... since I was a child." He calls investment in manned spaceflight very important, but at the same time, he feels that NASA needs to do a better job of prioritizing.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he, too, wants to close the gap and notes that an extra $2 billion for NASA would shorten the gap by two years.
Even Lake Jackson Rep. Ron Paul said the United States could be using extra funds now being spent overseas to increase funding for NASA.

Maybe someone can offer McCain free lifetime membership of the Mars Society! This would be a good move for Zubrin ... did anyone else notice McCain watching Zubrin spellbound as he presented Mars Direct to him way back?

Obama supports closing the five-year gap by developing the Orion ship (and the Ares I rocket) as soon as possible, said campaign spokesman Nick Shapiro.
"We support replacing the shuttle and minimizing the gap. We also support delaying steps to take missions to the moon and Mars," Shapiro said. "One of the many ways we're paying for the education is delaying the mission to Mars."

No comment.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2008-03-03 16:02:46

My italics.

Right....

I'm not really a fan of the guy but perhaps he is 30 times smarter than GW, heck even Gary Bauer, Huckabee and John Kerry sound 30 times smart than Dubya. For all the time George was governor of Texas not once did Geroge visit the space center to voice his support for their missions.
We get an Oil cowboy from Texas into Washington and Oil prices jump from 32 dollars to 93 dollars - should any of us be shocked ?

Again I might agree with some of his sentiments on space because you can have passion for NASA but some people do have priorities before Mars and aren't blindly in love with the red planet. I admit to sometimes having blind love for Mars while others will argue Earth first, fixing our economy, improving education, getting care for the war vets, fixing the housing crisis etc.
About that Jupiter rocket, maybe he's a bit of a NASA historian. It was a well known rocket back in the 50s and 60s backed by von Braun, its launched helped get the first satellites and first chimp into space without risking human life. I think he's got a point with his statement about missions that could be better if not conducted with manned flights. NASA used to truck payloads into orbit with Shuttle, the whole process would have been so much better and cheaper had they just made use of a modified ICBM or an EELV. the Russians, Europeans and Chinese carried out micro gravity experiments using robotic Un-manned Labs, like Foton, Biolab, FSW but NASA had to insist on launching Space Lab inside the Shuttle putting astronauts at risk when they wanted to do some lab work. In the month of February they finally paid the price in blood with Space Shuttle Columbia.

I agree that at this moment McCain sounds like the best person for Mars, I am concerned about McCain's overall record because there are some areas of the US Presidency he could turn into a disaster.

cIclops · 2008-04-07 06:25:37

Obama’s modest proposal - 7 Apr 2008

If elected President, Senator Barack Obama plans to delay Project Constellation for at least five years, putting the saved money into a new $18-billion-a-year education program that would, in essence, nationalize early-education for children under five years old to prepare them for the rigors of kindergarten and beyond.
Why single out the space budget to cut for this program? “NASA is no longer associated with inspiration,” Obama told a campaign rally audience in March. The silence from space advocacy groups in response to this policy, made public in November, has been deafening.

If NASA is no longer associated with inspiration, perhaps Mr Obama can tell who is?

Commodore · 2008-04-07 07:41:03

Obama’s modest proposal - 7 Apr 2008
If elected President, Senator Barack Obama plans to delay Project Constellation for at least five years, putting the saved money into a new $18-billion-a-year education program that would, in essence, nationalize early-education for children under five years old to prepare them for the rigors of kindergarten and beyond.
Why single out the space budget to cut for this program? “NASA is no longer associated with inspiration,” Obama told a campaign rally audience in March. The silence from space advocacy groups in response to this policy, made public in November, has been deafening.
If NASA is no longer associated with inspiration, perhaps Mr Obama can tell who is?

Obama is. He going to bring CHANGE!

Think about it.... CHANGE!

cIclops · 2008-04-07 08:16:12

Change yes, that's all you'll have left in your pocket after his new taxes. Should be lots of jobs for all those failed college students in the kindergartens. They can teach the next generation all about Star Trek and how boring real space travel is, yes so inspiring.

cIclops · 2008-04-14 00:39:08

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.

April 11, 2008, Columbus East High School - transcript

Grypd · 2008-04-14 16:37:57

Obama’s modest proposal: no hue, no cry?

[url=http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1105/1]Obama’s modest proposal: no hue, no cry? (part 2)
[/url]

If elected President, Senator Barack Obama plans to delay Project Constellation for at least five years, putting the saved money into a new $10-billion-a-year education program that would, in essence, nationalize early-education for children under five years old to prepare them for the rigors of kindergarten and beyond.

Why single out the space budget to cut for this program? “NASA is no longer associated with inspiration,” Obama told a campaign rally audience in March.

I suspect since im not a USA citizen I can post this and let the debate rage without being thought of as involved clandestine politics.

America faces a serious cut in its ability in space and with the retirement of the baby boomers a sudden reduction in its ability to spend money. A 5 year delay may well turn out to be a lot longer when NASA has to deal with other more pressing demands.

Commodore · 2008-04-14 21:04:52

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.
April 11, 2008, Columbus East High School - transcript

Well theres the shining example of leadership were looking for.

Of course what he really means is he's going to piss it all away on the same intercity school programs that have worked so wonderfully before, and anyone who says otherwise is a racist, but he'll appoint someone to reject any actual advancement for humanity.

cIclops · 2008-04-15 04:58:03

To be fair there was no hint of racism in Obama's response to this question unlike his subtly racist remarks on other topics. Bottom line, he'll cut NASA's funding for "manned" space exploration. Maybe he's planning to return to kindergarten to learn better Newspeak.

Terraformer · 2008-04-15 10:35:04

Lol.

How old is Barack Obama? I don't think anyone under 40 can say they grew up with the Apollo programme, which is why I'm asking.

cIclops · 2008-04-16 03:17:42

How old is Obama? That's an easy question to answer - he was 11 years old when Apollo 17 returned. He was living in Indonesia until he was 10, so it's not clear how much he would have known about the space program.

Interesting stuff about his mother Ann Dunham:

Dunham has been described by her friends as "a fellow traveler... We were liberals before we knew what liberals were," and as "the original feminist".
Barack was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Ann was 18 at the time.
In an interview, Barack Obama referred to his mother as "the dominant figure in my formative years... The values she taught me continue to be my touchstone when it comes to how I go about the world of politics.

Ron Carlson · 2008-04-19 15:25:04

I heard B. Hussein "Less Than Zero" Obama say he was 48 years old on TV last night.

Ron Carlson

cIclops · 2008-04-20 02:18:19

Curious, can WP possibly be wrong or did Obama also have an adult moment? If he was born 4 Aug 1961, he must be 46 today.

Maybe the stress of the campaign is aging him.

Spaniard · 2008-04-26 16:26:26

You should have vote to Kucinich. ;-) Now it is too late.

Commodore · 2008-04-26 21:39:28

You should have vote to Kucinich. ;-) Now it is too late.

Were electing a President, not a first lady.

cIclops · 2008-04-27 09:14:01

I'll try to resist making that old joke about what a great first lady Bill Clinton would make.

Commodore · 2008-04-27 12:28:00

I'll try to resist making that old joke about what a great first lady Bill Clinton would make.

If you have to resist out loud, you've already failed.

cIclops · 2008-04-29 06:01:25

Sen. Bill Nelson: White House race holds key to future of space program - by Robert Block - 29 Apr 2008

VIERA - Florida voters could hold the key to the future of NASA's plans for human spaceflight and, with it, the fate of the Kennedy Space Center, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson told Brevard County commissioners and nervous space-industry officials and workers Monday.
"The next president is going to decide a lot [about the space program]," Nelson said during a presentation to a daylong county space workshop. "And East-Central Florida has an opportunity to influence the next president because, at the end of the day, Florida is going to be important this November."
Nelson, who flew aboard shuttle Columbia in 1986, was joined by Washington lobbyists, labor leaders, local business leaders and the Space Coast's two congressional representatives, Dave Weldon, R-Indialantic, and Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, in a discussion of the problems faced by KSC as NASA prepares to retire the shuttle in 2010 and lay off thousands of workers.
The workshop was called by the county to help chart a strategy to deal with the looming job cuts and the gap in human spaceflight between the last shuttle flight and the first launch of the next generation Constellation rockets and capsules in 2015.
There were few answers, however, beyond continuing to look for ways to attract more commercial space business to the region and to secure additional funding for NASA to speed up Constellation.
Nelson said that Floridians need to press their case on the presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Clinton was the first candidate to outline support for "robust human spaceflight" and is seen as NASA's biggest booster of the three. But there are questions on how committed she is to the Bush administration's plans for exploration to the moon and then Mars.
McCain recently worried space supporters by backing a plan to freeze all federal discretionary spending -- including NASA's budget -- except on defense and homeland-security programs.
Obama supports human spaceflight but wants to use money from NASA to fund education reforms.
Former congressman Bob Walker, now a lobbyist working for Brevard County, told the workshop that all the candidates were starting to question whether NASA's choice of vehicles to go back to the moon -- especially the Ares rocket that has been dogged by political and technical difficulties -- was a mistake.
Nelson said he thinks "basic politics" could change the way the candidates view the space program.
Florida is a vital swing state, and the Interstate 4 corridor is the swing region. Kennedy Space Center and the entire Space Coast, which is largely dependent on NASA-related jobs, is the eastern anchor of that corridor.
"These candidates are going to be here and we need to work 'em over," Nelson said. "We need to tell them what's been wrong thus far and how to change it. . . . We need to explain how you win the state of Florida."
Lynda Weatherman, president of the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast, told the commissioners that space experts from her group had recently met McCain and Clinton campaign directors and were scheduled to meet with Obama's people in Chicago next month. The commission is to soon draft policy papers for each candidate that show how support for human spaceflight benefits their main campaign planks.

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-04-29 12:29:07

NASA is not the Education Department. I don't see why NASA money should be used for Education reform anyway. Education is primarily a state responsibility, any additional monies the Federal Government provides is extra, and I wouldn't want our education system to be so centralized as to be run by the Federal Government in any case. We have an education department at the Federal level anyway, though some people question the need for a Federal Education Department, any federal money for education should go through there and not through NASA. NASA's primary responsibilities are to explore and to develop technologies, educating children does not fall under their purview.

cIclops · 2008-04-29 15:02:18

Education should primarily be a personal responsibility. The more government gets involved the worse it becomes.

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-01 09:47:33

Funding it and running it are two different things. What government should do, and I mean mostly local government, is to take the education dollar and give it directly to the parents so they can decide where to send their children to school. The whole idea of government run schools is ludicrous. Just like the food stamp program, if you receive food stamps, you don't go to a government run store to buy your food, you go to a privately run supermarket. Too many people are attracted to the idea of government run this or that. The think government does things better. I think if you need government to redistribute, then government should do exactly that, and it should not get involved in the process of actually providing the goods and services it pays for. The more money that goes for excessive benefits and unnecessary jobs for government workers, the less money comes back to you in the form of government services. I'm sure the poor person in need of food stamps doesn't appreciate all the benefits and perks workers in the agriculture department get while shuffling papers and doing other unnecessary work with money that gets siphoned off from that which would otherwise buy food.

cIclops · 2008-05-01 10:31:20

McCain recently worried space supporters by backing a plan to freeze all federal discretionary spending -- including NASA's budget -- except on defense and homeland-security programs.

McCain did say he would freeze all discretionary spending, but did he specifically mention that NASA was included or was that part fabricated by Robert Bock?

McCain should be pressed on this. As he believes the scientists that tell him there's a global warming crisis caused by burning fossil fuels, he ought to believe the NAS and space scientists that say NASA's programs are also in crisis because of a shortage of funding.

Commodore · 2008-05-01 16:00:09

Funding it and running it are two different things. What government should do, and I mean mostly local government, is to take the education dollar and give it directly to the parents so they can decide where to send their children to school. The whole idea of government run schools is ludicrous. Just like the food stamp program, if you receive food stamps, you don't go to a government run store to buy your food, you go to a privately run supermarket. Too many people are attracted to the idea of government run this or that. The think government does things better. I think if you need government to redistribute, then government should do exactly that, and it should not get involved in the process of actually providing the goods and services it pays for. The more money that goes for excessive benefits and unnecessary jobs for government workers, the less money comes back to you in the form of government services. I'm sure the poor person in need of food stamps doesn't appreciate all the benefits and perks workers in the agriculture department get while shuffling papers and doing other unnecessary work with money that gets siphoned off from that which would otherwise buy food.

You can throw all the money in the world, really, it's been attempted, at education, but if you can't instill discipline in the class room and make the curriculum useful, it won't amount to a hill of beans. The teachers unions have a lot to do with it. The greatest reason to abandon public schools is because they are failing, if you fix them I think the equality and sense of community they create make them the obvious choice. Sure some other schools will offer different options public schools won't but I think the schedules can be structured to make room for them.

Public educational infrastructure for all ages is the cornerstone of a free and prosperous republic. We just have to make sure people learn, and it doesn't turn into a glorified baby sitting service.

Tom Kalbfus · 2008-05-02 10:55:31

Funding it and running it are two different things. What government should do, and I mean mostly local government, is to take the education dollar and give it directly to the parents so they can decide where to send their children to school. The whole idea of government run schools is ludicrous. Just like the food stamp program, if you receive food stamps, you don't go to a government run store to buy your food, you go to a privately run supermarket. Too many people are attracted to the idea of government run this or that. The think government does things better. I think if you need government to redistribute, then government should do exactly that, and it should not get involved in the process of actually providing the goods and services it pays for. The more money that goes for excessive benefits and unnecessary jobs for government workers, the less money comes back to you in the form of government services. I'm sure the poor person in need of food stamps doesn't appreciate all the benefits and perks workers in the agriculture department get while shuffling papers and doing other unnecessary work with money that gets siphoned off from that which would otherwise buy food.
You can throw all the money in the world, really, it's been attempted, at education, but if you can't instill discipline in the class room and make the curriculum useful, it won't amount to a hill of beans. The teachers unions have a lot to do with it. The greatest reason to abandon public schools is because they are failing, if you fix them I think the equality and sense of community they create make them the obvious choice. Sure some other schools will offer different options public schools won't but I think the schedules can be structured to make room for them.
Public educational infrastructure for all ages is the cornerstone of a free and prosperous republic. We just have to make sure people learn, and it doesn't turn into a glorified baby sitting service.

My point is public education doesn't require public schools to provide it. The education is public if it is provided for by public funds. Those public funds don't necessarily have to go directly to public schools.

The government, for example provides Pell grants to students wishing to go to college, the college they go to isn't necesarily a public college, it could be a private college. The government sends you the check and you sign that check over to the educational institution of your choice to provide that education. The colleges still compete for that tuition because you decide where to send it. At the Elementary School and Secondary School level, the government has already decided what school you can send your children to, that is if you want the public funds to pay for it, the public school doesn't have to compete for that money, it already has it, taken right out of your pocket through taxation. You do have school boards and you can in part decide what is taught and paid for, but a school is best managed when it has to compete for your dollar, so I'd rather public funds be put in your pocket and that you decide which school you get to send your child to and how he or she is educated. The Parent, after all, usually knows what's best for his or her child, not the school system.

dicktice · 2008-05-02 11:51:21

I'll try to resist making that old joke about what a great first lady Bill Clinton would make.

Wrong. It's "First Laddy,"not "First Lady," in the case of the Clintons--since it's not a same-sex marriage.

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#26 2008-03-03 08:02:33

Re: Primary space politics

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