New Space Policy Questions and Advice for Mitt
Interestingly, space policy has been much more discussed in this primary campaign than any other in recent history, largely because it is a topic about which one of the candidates, Newt Gingrich, is unusually enthusiastic and conversant. With the focus on Tuesday’s primary in Florida, a swing state in which space is an important issue to many on the Space Coast, it seems to have reached a peak in the last few days, though after Tuesday’s vote it is likely to recede into the background, with few remaining debates ahead, and none focusing on a space state.
On Wednesday, Gingrich gave an aspirational speech in Cocoa Beach laying out his vision for America in space, of a ten-billion-dollar prize for the first human on Mars, a lunar base by the end of his second term, and eventually a settlement of several thousand that might become a new U. S. state. As I noted here on Friday, this isn’t as crazy as it sounds to many, and Ken Chang at the New York Times wrote a similar story with the theme on Saturday that the primary barrier was politics, not technology or cost.
Nonetheless, Mitt Romney chose to ridicule it, continuing to come off (as he did in December) as a soulless, visionless technocrat. The last time he did this, I had some serious space policy questions for his campaign, to which he has (unsurprisingly) never responded:
In 2008, you said that you supported President Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration, a fundamental part of which was a manned lunar base. Now you criticize Newt Gingrich for the same thing, and imply that it is a frivolity. What happened in the interim to make you change your opinion?
…What would a Romney space policy look like? Given that you’ve elevated the topic in the campaign, I think that those of us to whom space is important deserve to know.
Well, in the debate on Thursday night, he continued to mock Gingrich’s expansive vision, demonstrating his penchant for “liking to be able to fire people”:
If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say, “You’re fired.”
But he also started to answer the last question, saying that he didn’t yet have a space policy, but that he was going to get one:
To define the mission for our space program, I’d like to bring in the — the top professors that relate to space areas and physics, the top people from industry.
Got that? Top. Men.
Well, true to his word, on Friday, prior to giving a bland and vague space policy speech at a Space Coast company, Governor Romney revealed a letter of endorsement from several notable space experts. The policy proposed is (like his speech) vague and anodyne, and one which, it could be argued, the current one under Obama satisfies. The group is led by Scott Pace, head of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University (and long-time friend and colleague of mine at Rockwell International back in the eighties). Others on the list are Mark Albrecht, head of the National Space Council under George Herbert Walker Bush; Mike Griffin, previous NASA administrator; Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon (almost forty years ago); and others. Interestingly, Dr. Pace is described as a “former Assistant Director for Space and Aeronautics, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.” For some reason, no mention is made of the fact that his most recent prior job was associate NASA administrator under Griffin. Several of the group, including Griffin and Pace, but particularly Cernan, have been quite vociferous in their opposition to the Obama space plan. Despite Romney’s claim to desire a greater integration of commercial companies into space endeavors, only one of his advisers (Eric Anderson of Space Adventures, and chairman of the board of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation) has any commercial space experience.
So, in light of this new information, and in the interest of continuing to improve him as a candidate should he get the nomination, I think it’s time for a new round of questions that reporters should be asking Governor Romney.
As noted above, four years ago you claimed to support the Bush space plan, which included a lunar base by 2020. Why is that now not an appropriate goal?
You have said that you think that the purpose of spaceflight is the following: “the ‘existential’ objective of understanding the universe and its effects on the Earth, such as climate or the possibility of a ‘catastrophic event’; commercial; the health and well-being of citizens; and defense.” Nothing on that list intrinsically requires having people go into space, and we already have a space budget for defense (about the size of NASA’s total budget) at the Department of Defense. Do you disagree with Dwight Eisenhower’s goal of NASA as a separate civilian agency? Do you disagree with John Marburger, George W. Bush’s science adviser, and instead believe that our species will remained confined to a single planet for the foreseeable future, and that we should devote no resources to opening up the rest of the solar system to economic development and settlement?
You claim to want to increase the efficiency with which commercial entities can be involved with the nation’s space activities, yet only one of your advisers has any experience with commercial space. How are you going to address this imbalance, which seems to raise the issue of the degree of your devotion to this?
You have as one of your policy advisers Mike Griffin, who was in charge of that lunar plan at the time you endorsed it. But it was on track to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, and it wasn’t for a “colony” on the moon — it was just for a small base, to be visited a couple times a year, at a cost of many billions per trip, making it an even bigger waste of money. So why on Friday did you hire someone who had been doing (and was fired for) something that you said was a firing offense on Thursday night?
Under Dr. Griffin’s NASA, he threw away numerous studies that the previous administrator had commissioned from industry to determine the best path forward, none of which recommended that NASA build an all-new rocket, and substituted his own plan while hiding for years the technical appendices needed to justify his decision (which when finally revealed, failed to do so). Associate administrator Scott Horowitz passed back and forth through a revolving door between the agency and an executive position at ATK, manufacturer of the solid rocker boosters that would power the first stage of Griffin’s (and Horowitz’s) giant rocket. Somehow, the company also at this time received sole-source no-bid cost-plus NASA contracts worth billions, dwarfing Solyndra and other DoE disasters in terms of waste of taxpayer funds. You have been decrying “crony capitalism,” so how do you justify being advised by an apparent practitioner of it? If you become president, will he become NASA administrator again? The voters, in Florida and elsewhere, deserve to know.
In 2009, industry veteran Norm Augustine’s panel investigated the policy issues of spaceflight quite thoroughly, and determined that Dr. Griffin’s plans were far over cost estimates and behind schedule, and slipping more than a year per year, wasting billions on an unneeded new rocket and an overpriced delayed space telescope, while starving of funds the vital technologies needed to reduce the cost of space transportation and operations. Are you aware of the Augustine report? Given that we already have a useful road map for opening up the solar system, why would you want to waste more time and money putting together yet another space-policy study that will be ignored because its results don’t comport with the need to distribute pork in the appropriate places? Have you considered adding Mr. Augustine, or one of his panelists, such as Jeff Greason (which would also make you look more sincere about interest in commercial space), to your group of space advisers, and mightn’t it be useful to at least read the report summary, to give yourself a better grasp of the issues, rather than just relying on “advisers”?
Finally, do you have any sense of how politically tone deaf it is to mock and denigrate aspirational visions for space in Florida (or anywhere)? Don’t you realize that it makes you come off as a hollow, soul-impoverished bean counter? Don’t you care?
There is no one more fervent than me in their desire to see that Barack Obama is a one-term president, but your space policy behavior, so far, is the first time I’ve seen any reason to give him another term.
World War I began with airplanes as toys, little more than large kites with small engines. At first they were used primarily for spotting troop movements and helping to aim the big guns — but by the end of the war they had improved tremendously, taking on all the military responsibilities of today’s air forces. As soon as the war ended, aviators and aeronautical engineers used what they had learned to build civilian aircraft and establish airlines. The next world war will do the same thing for space travel — in fact, denying one side’s access to space may well be what wins the war. Until then, talking about space is like playing around with motorized kites at the end of the 19′th century, not really all that relevant in the grand scheme of things.
What possible good can come from attempting to make a status quo progressive republican like Mitt into a “better candidate”? Even Soros has admitted that the only difference between the current progressive President and Mitt Romney is the people he brings with him; have you, like the rest of the republican establishment, capitulated entirely to the progressive agenda? Progressives do not explore anything but new methods for advancing their agenda. Right now that agenda is government-run national healthcare; not space programs. Replacing a progressive Democrat with a progressive Republican only serves to insure that the ruinous direction of our Nation’s government continues unabated; that Obamacare is not repealed; and America’s space program continues to hitch rides on Russian spacecraft.
Soros? An authority?
On progressives? Yes indeed.
Do you understand the difference between a lunar “base” and a lunar “colony” of 1000 residents?
Do you understand that Bush’s plan was empty, with no actual plan, no budget, no plan to make a plan or have a budget (IOW, identical to the Obama program)?
Do you understand the further difference in the fiscal outlook between 2008 and 2012? We don’t have the money, honey. It’s really just that simple.
i have been laying about watching scyfi flicks all day long, so i am an expert on space flight. i can tell you this without reservation: without a space program we are going to have to really lose a LOT of future plots for and jobs in space travel science fiction.
where would bruce (die hard) have been w/o a space shuttle to go out there and blow up an asteroid headed for our planet? and james bond, what about stuff like that? i guess we could just let future h.g. wells’ keep working at the whatever burger. who would be able to or need to throw around names like einstein, and tom hanks? we could quit naming our dogs names like apollo, or cats named atlantis.
if mitt really needs a space type project czar guy, i’m like always available dude.
Here is another dreamer who had fancy, expensive ideas about space that never came to fruition:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g25G1M4EXrQ
Do you understand the difference between a lunar “base” and a lunar “colony” of 1000 residents?
Yes, I do. Newt was proposing the former by the end of his term, not the latter. The latter was what he hoped would happen eventually, with private funds.
Do you understand that Bush’s plan was empty, with no actual plan, no budget, no plan to make a plan or have a budget (IOW, identical to the Obama program)?
Bush’s plan (to the limited degree it existed, it was more of a goal) was fine, until Mike Griffin screwed it up.
Do you understand the further difference in the fiscal outlook between 2008 and 2012? We don’t have the money, honey. It’s really just that simple.
And yet Congress continues to spend billions a year on NASA. On Mitt’s trajectory, it’s certain that it will continue to be wasted.
You hit the nail on the head. In the political era of self imposed limits on a finite world–limits to growth, exploding budgets, insufficient aggregate demand, resource depletion–why would the current elite so settled on further rationing out the fundamental decencies of life on earth risk their political control by opening up access to an infinite universe? That’s the stuff colonial revolutions and rebellions are made of.
And therefore we should spend more. Asinine.
Please drop this pathetic “we must advance humanity now” whinefest.
Mitt is right, no private venture is going to build a moonbase, let alone a moon colony, even if you offer a big fat prize. And while you continue to spin for Newt, he ACTUALLY suggested a colony that could apply for statehood, which is 13 thousand I believe. So, we can count that in the trillions. Of course we could pretend that a base would be much more practical. -Right, with only a few people it will be able to produce precisely nothing, but we can send a few pounds into orbit for several hundred dollars, so now all we need is hundreds of launches per year and/or a space elevator. You got one of those?
Queen Isabella, King Ferdinand, I implore you, don’t send this fool Christopher Columbus off on this expensive journey. It will never lead to anything worthwhile. What we need now is more food stamps and government agencies to replicate each other’s work.
Yes, and Spain was bankrupt by the time Phillip the 4th kicked the colonization into high gear. From spending a sizeable percentage of their GDP no less.
Talk about an ironic assist.
Mitt is right, no private venture is going to build a moonbase, let alone a moon colony, even if you offer a big fat prize. And while you continue to spin for Newt, he ACTUALLY suggested a colony that could apply for statehood, which is 13 thousand I believe. So, we can count that in the trillions.
Newt is not proposing that the government build a moon colony.
I never claimed Newt said that. But he did ‘clarify’ his proposal as a ‘moonbase’ the next day.
During the debate, I distinctly heard the words “90% private funding” and “statehood”. I challenged the likelihood of private funding happening, even with prizes. Also, his statement necessarily implies that the government will pick up 10% of the costs. Whether it’s a base that is dependent upon the solar system’s longest supply chain, or a colony which will someday grow large enough to host 13,000 citizens, it will be exceedingly expensive, and well into the hundreds of billions.
Whether it’s a base that is dependent upon the solar system’s longest supply chain, or a colony which will someday grow large enough to host 13,000 citizens, it will be exceedingly expensive, and well into the hundreds of billions.
What’s your point? New York City cost hundreds of billions. The issue isn’t what it costs, but whether or not there is a return. If there is, it will happen, if not, it won’t.
A moon based colony in the next 10 years, (what Newt is promising), is not even in the realm of possibility not to mention the cost to the tune of Trillions of dollars which we don’t have and would have to borrow. As a previous poster said, we don’t have the money. I agree with Mitt, If I were POTUS and someone came to me with that proposal in an official capacity in my administration I would say “you’re fired” on the spot.
A moon based colony in the next 10 years, (what Newt is promising), is not even in the realm of possibility
You are displaying (like many) a profound ignorance of what Newt proposed. All he proposed by the end of his second term was a base, the same thing that GWB proposed.
You drop a Bigelow Aerospace BA 330 on LUNA, bang you have a base. Newt was not talking about a couple thousand buildings. Drop one habitat module and you have a base… sheesh get real.
A base where a gallon of water will only cost several hundred dollars (to get it into orbit)
Let’s face it: Anybody that attacks the naturally developing course of the market is a statist. Anybody that begs for a government program to advance into space is a statist. Anybody that claims “but but but” and then rolls out a raft of all the technology that will be stimulated once the government pours money into technology ‘x’ is a Keynesian statist. Anyone that compares Mitt Romney to Gordon Gecko, and doesn’t mean it in a favorable way because that Greed is Good speech is just awesome, might as well be a smelly OWS punk defecating on a police car. Please, don’t let us stop you from rushing to the barricades to pull the lever for Obama, socialism, and utter dependency, because we’re going to defend capitalism with this election, and we don’t really have the time to worry that you moonbeam republicans can’t figure out the holes in your philosophy.
History reveals those who push and explore the frontiers reap unforeseen and unforeseeable benefits. Cost-benefit risk-reward analysis is useless in the realm of space exploration.
They also reap unforeseen and unforeseeable disasters, like Christopher Columbus and his crew bringing syphilis back from the New World.
Remember, the motivation for nations in the 1600′s through the 1800′s was PROFIT. Exploiting the rumored potential wealth of the New World in order to make Spain/France/England the richest, most powerful nation in “the world”. Such a short-sighted venture nonetheless has had profound effects on human history but is but a tick on the clock of the overall picture.
The motivation for going to the Moon was to beat the Russians there, as a show of force and technological prowess. We lost astronauts, they lost cosmonauts. We got there first, they quit trying. The expense was arguably justified or not. There was some peripheral benefit in the space program, namely digital technology which led to the computer age. Some of the technology was purpose-driven but I recommend that people here watch James Burke’s “Connections” as seen on PBS to get a better understanding of what drives technology and how it comes into our everyday lives.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=james+burke%2C+connections
His basic uptake is that things come about, more-or-less, in their own time by the virtues and vices of what came before. My uptake is that, as in the popular expression, “You can’t push a string”. With technology, you can a little bit but sometimes no matter how much money is spent or how smart the scientists, often it’s the passage of time that is most important. For example, Queen Isabella, if she wanted to go to the Moon, would never have been able to accomplish such a thing, even if she spent every ounce of gold she had.
Granted, the pace of technology has increased but things like cold fusion, the perpetual motion machine, artificial intelligence or even a stoplight that knows when you’re the only poor slob there, waiting for no apparent reason, are still out-of-reach. Doesn’t mean to stop working toward it though.
But what purpose would a moon base serve? What income would it generate? What would we learn? Do the costs of having one outweigh the benefit? Without the need to beat the Russians, and no apparent financial benefit, there doesn’t seem to be a need to do it. As big a fan as I am of space exploration, it’s hard to justify the expense. Probes and robotics are making leaps though and doing extraordinary things. The next Mars mission leaves next month with a VW-sized rover. This is cost-effective.
Sure, astronauts on Mars would be cool but not much more. On the other hand, I’d hate it if China put people on there first. So there might be something to it after all.
Sometimes a relevant technology is killed in its cradle due to generally pusillanimous attitude on the part of a society’s elite. Witness the way old Japan kept out gunmaking techniques from Europe and North America for several centuries, or the way the ancient Chinese failed to follow up on the explorations of Admiral Zheng He. The same thing happened to the United States in the early 1960′s when project Orion was abandoned in favor of the nuclear test ban treaty. Now that would have been the way to travel through space! There’s every reason to believe it would have worked as advertised, also.
Took the words almost right out of my mind. I’ve said the same thing when arguing this and being confronted with same cliché of using new world explorers as an example. They got to the new world, but they couldn’t have gotten to the moon. I’ve also made mention, as I too am a huge fan of space exploration, that it will happen when its technically feasible, and nothing will stop it when it is. I will agree, however, that at this moment, we are not pushing ourselves technologically, and very well are behind were we could be. That doesn’t mean that just saying “moon colony” will suddenly change that. As I said below, until we can build another refinery, nuclear power plant, pipeline, or even dam, I think we might want to put lunar bases on hold.
Blame the Solar System.
So far, we haven’t found anything in our Solar System that justifies sending humans to live on other celestial bodies permanently. We can certainly do it, if we’re willing to spend the money with no hope of a positive return on investment. But the U.S. is broke. We can’t afford any more ventures like that right now.
Today, we’ve already sent unmanned robotic probes all over the Solar System. We can learn whatever we need to know that way.
Columbus was hoping to find a shorter sea route to East Asia. He stumbled on the New World — a completely unexpected, unforeseen, and unforeseeable discovery. Initially his voyage was considered a failure and a waste. Subsequent voyages to the New World were gambles, as there was little reason to think the New World had any economic value at all. Only after much time had passed did the discovery of the New World reap many unforeseen and unforeseeable rewards for the Old World.
The benefits of pushing and exploring frontiers cannot be known in advance, just as the benefits of basic scientific research cannot be known. This makes cost-benefit and risk-reward analyses useless, which was my point.
But we do know that societies and cultures that have done these things have reaped great rewards. If the US does not do it, other nations will. There is good reason to believe they will benefit from unforeseen and unforeseeable rewards, and we will not.
Yielding space exploration to other nations is an indication the US is no longer a nation on the rise and most likely a nation in decline. Considering we are not broke and still the richest nation on the planet, considering the costs of space exploration relative to the nation’s GDP and the entire federal budget, it is an entirely voluntary decline. It is an issue of national priorities. It is an indication we would rather spend more money on things like the EPA, food stamps, and wealth redistribution rather than spend a relative pittance on pushing the frontier and exploring space. China is making a different decision.
Very good, solid points. I can’t help but agree. I think both arguments are valid, that the economic risk makes it not worth it but that the exploration of the unknown does.
I’m all for it on the one hand but against it on the other. It’s a conflict in my own mind that can cause me great angst if I let it.
For now, probes and rovers are fine. Sure, I’d love to see some of our astronauts set foot upon Mars or even on the moon again. But to what end? Just to say, “We did it”? Not sure if that’s the right motivation though I can’t think of anything better.
Your point about the US not being an active leader in technology though is spot on. And very sad and troubling as well.
Unlike scientific advances in other areas like medicine, technology can be accelerated. During the 1960s, Project Apollo was the consumer of a high percentage of all integrated circuits. ICs were invented in 1960 but they were difficult to produce in quantity and contained only a small number of transistors. Due to the needs of the military and NASA, R&D was accelerated and many breakthroughts happened. By the early 1970s, they were able to put tens of thousands of transistors into a single IC which was sufficient for the development of the first microprocessors. NASA and the military didn’t invent the IC nor the microprocessor, but they pushed the developments that made microprocessors possible. Today, the worldwide consumer electronics market dwarfs both NASA and the US military budget. Consumer electronics drive technological development and the government is a significant consumer.
you love affair with government programs would put a smile on Karl Marx’x face.
Afraid of the martians are we?
Wow, guess he should never have been allowed to go then.
Actually, evidence exists that syphillis and other diseases came to Europe before Columbus made his voyages. They’ve found this evidence by studying the bones of people who died decades before Columbus’s voyages that show conclusive signs of syphillis. On the topic of diseases spread by sailors, the inhabitants of the New World came off far worse than those of Europe.
I think the balance of the evidence still suggests that syphilis came from the New World.
And the Indian taught the white man to smoke.
Great like PJM isn’t doing enough already to “improve” Mitt Romney. Fake advice columns, suggestions on policy, what’s next, tips on how to style his hair more naturally? Getting Mr. Romney to “say” he’ll do this or that is not the problem. Hint: it’s Mitt Romney.
I hope all this was worth sacrificing your credibility, PJM.
I’m not adverse to the space program, I would hope we will continue to explore space, it has reaped huge benefits from a technological standpoint. However I can’t see the benefit of ramping up a program to place a colony on lunar soil at this time, the cost would be immense. We already know what is there and it’s not a hospitable environement for humans to live there, the science and technology involved would be cost prohibitive. We don’t have the money for such an enormous undertaking at this point in time.
@jeannebodine: “…Getting Mr. Romney to “say” he’ll do this or that is not the problem. Hint: it’s Mitt Romney….” I think Mitt said the other day – to the NASA folk, that he wasn’t going to stand there and make big, empty promises to them. He spoke in terms of developing a good reason to go to space, the Moon, whatever, not just out of hubris or of fear for the Chinese.
And to Rand Simberg, why don’t you take the snottiness out of this missive and send it to Romney? Why doesn’t the CEI put together a program, using some of that free enterprise space development work and hardware that you wrote about yesterday, and fold it into the plan? And maybe, Newt’s “prize” idea could be part of it. As far a NASA goes, I think they can be retired. If it’s part of government, today, then it’s basically worthless.
Honoring Vodkapundit, who was resting his liver, I watched Thursday’s Florida Debate consuming neither beer nor wine.
After watching Mitt describing how he would fire an executive who suggests a moon colony, you will see two problems this causes Mitt:
#1) How will Mitt fire Paul Allen, the 57th richest man in the world, Microsoft co-founder, sole investor in Burt Rutan’s Spaceship One which made the first private space flight?
#2) How will Mitt fire Sir Richard Branson, the 254th richest person in the world, founder of all Virgin Enterprises, one of which is Virgin Galactic which is turning the Burt Rutan Spaceship One into a paying passenger spaceship line.
Mitt lost the “moon colony” argument due to neither being current with technology nor knowledgeable about the history of settlement (e.g. Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and the 1850 Act of Congress establishing the Utah Territory).
Santorum, Mitt and Luap noR kept thinking old-school, big-gov’t NASA while Newt continues to think uber wealthy Paul Allen, the Northwest Ordinance, and the Utah Territory.
Preaching to the choir – Private individuals will settle space as they settled the North American continent. Not a dime of gov’t money need be spent; however, a legal framework, where property rights (Mitt might want to more aggressively defend such) can be established. Cause if Paul Allen or others want to spend their own money settling the moon, might they want some legal recognition of their property rights (e.g. possession is nine-tenths of the law)?
As a friend remarked yesterday, if Romney lacked the foresight to even ask about profits, he’d have done the former employee a favor.
And to Rand Simberg, why don’t you take the snottiness out of this missive and send it to Romney?
Other people, with more access to the Romney campaign than I have, are doubtless doing that. I’m just trying to generate media pressure on him to do so.
First, as a huge supporter of space exploration, is it really the Governments damned job, under the constitution, to “make” this happen? I agree, let them get out of the way and let private agencies do what they do, but I’m more interested in a president that will work on getting government out of the way, not worrying about what we do when it is. That is neither Newt or Romney. Newt was doing nothing but preaching to the choir ala Obama by talking about space in south Florida. Lunar or Martian colonization, as much as I love to read about it, is not on most American’s mind, nor should the government be trying to accomplish it. I’m glad Kennedy said what he said, and I’m glad we got to the moon, but let’s stop denigrating people who are skeptical. We don’t even have a LEO vehicle anymore, and we are talking about a lunar colony. Cart before the horse, I say. We can’t even get a refinery or a nuclear power plant built in this country due to the regulatory nightmares and political grandstanding. When those things are possible, I’ll start believing we have the will to step out beyond our world.
We don’t even have a LEO vehicle anymore, and we are talking about a lunar colony.
We have Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9. We have plenty of LEO vehicles.
Newt was not proposing a new government program to build a moon base. Quite the opposite. He wants to use a portion of the funding that NASA already gets as prize money to encourage the private sector to do it. There seems to be an awful lot of misunderstanding by the public on that point.
You’re absolutely right about refineries and nuclear power plants being strangled by regulation. But it’s not an either/or situation. Get the government’s boot off the neck of the private sector, and we can have refineries, nuclear power plants, and moon bases.
Perhaps I was not clear. Those are delivery systems for LEO and GEO satellites. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they aren’t used for delivering personnel into space. We no longer have the shuttle, or equivalent Low Earth Orbit Vehicle for even delivering our own astronauts to and from the space station. And, while SpaceShipTwo is a wonderful idea, and I fully support it, it has yet to fly one passenger into space. Even SpaceShipOne, which I love, was still sub-orbital. It’s a great start, but it’s not remotely close to a lunar delivery system.
Those are delivery systems for LEO and GEO satellites. Correct me if I’m wrong, but they aren’t used for delivering personnel into space.
Three is no reason they can’t be. Falcon 9 itself was designed to carry crew from the beginning.
I would be happy to see a lunar base on the moon–as soon as PRIVATE COMPANIES come forward with business plans to make money on the Moon WITHOUT being propped up by federal subsidies.
We look like hypocrites when we denounce the government subsidy of boondoggles like Solyndra, while we come forward with government subsidies of our own for our own fever dreams.
Obama insisted on funding boondoggles like Solyndra because he was mesmerized by his vision of “a green economy.”
Let’s not fund a boondoggle like a lunar base because we’re hypnotized by our own Star Trek-like visions of deep space exploration. We’ve already got one useless manned boondoggle in space–the International Space Station, which so far has produced nothing much in the way of commercial benefit.
Show me how a private company can profit from the Moon.
The Moon and Mars have existed for billions of years, and they will continue to exist for billions of years into the future. We don’t have to start a lunar base now if we can’t see any reason for it except to show we can. We could do it in a hundred years from now, or even a thousand years from now.
A good financial reason for a moon base? Before they could set up stagelines through the desert they had to find a place with water to set up stage stops. Without the stops they couldn’t make it through the desert. Most of the weight of our current rockets is fuel. It takes a lot of power to overcome the gravity on our little rock. The moon, not so much. Setting up a rest stop on the moon would make deep space exploration much easier. Sure, I doubt we could do this in only eight years and it would be even longer before we start out into space but the incentive is there.
The potential, even in just asteroid mining is great. Probes have proved the wealth is there, we just need to reach it. It has also been seen that many things we didn’t think possible are being accomplished in a weightless environment. All of this is the incentive needed if the government would get out of the way and let us get there. Even if the government has to provide seed money it would still be worth it.
Newt’s plan is workable, a prize to the first one there would set up the competition needed to get us to try. Once started, there would be no stopping us. First the explorers then the stage lines. From there the railroads brought the people to fill out our great nation. What if no one wanted to venture out into that desert to find water and set up way stations?
Space exploration is has had a profound impact on the human existence. It comes with an enormous tab, but that should not be the sole factor in determining the rich reward that is reaped by stretching the human mind for the purpose of greater achievement.
Taking the two main combatants out of the equation, space exploration could be discussed in a “best ideas, best blueprints, best efforts” for the future.
Watching the Newtonian Implosion vs. the Promney Stagnation, it is painfully clear that making EITHER of them “better” candidates is an effort in futility.
If anything, watching, listening and reading how these two go about “solving” problems is an instruction manual on how NOT to behave in a manner befitting the most powerful man in the world. Giving either of these two the type of power that requires sober judgment and equanimity in temperament, would be like giving a two year old a loaded gun.
Instead of sober, refined and elegant discussion we are treated to puerile rants, dirty tricks, assaults on each other, assaults on the free market, petty spitball fights and vindictive character assassinations.
If Gingrich and the Newtonian Imposion fan club want to teach Romney how to be a better candidate, and they think ridicule is a poor technique for advancing serious arguments, I would suggest that would have slightly more credibility if Gingrich didn’t launch unprovoked attacks on others by calling their first draft efforts “RIGHT WING social engineering”.
It also seems to me, that someone engaged in sitting on Nancy Pelosi’s love seat while stroking her knee in order to advance the Trojan Horse redistribution scheme of the global warming hoax…is doing more to advance “social engineering” than Paul Ryan’s serious efforts to impact something…you know…that is actually OCCURRING …here on earth.
I would also suggest that worrying about grandmotherly border crashers, while admirably compassionate, is “social engineering” that does NOTHING to address the concerns of the very non-grandmotherly gang infestation, drug running and governmentally assisted gun running…often by households with grandmothers who help hide the criminal behavior in their homes.
Someone who makes snap judgments and reckless and erratic pronouncements with language that produces collateral damage to the free market in the fight against the Marxist overthrow, who props up Freddie Mac in an attempt to disguise their efforts to “socially engineer” the real estate, housing, mortgage, banking and financial markets…has no place lording down how others should behave in solving or PRIORITIZING the monumental problems that face America today.
Building Jurassic Parks and beaming down lighting for highways, hauling federal judges before Congress and having sex on the moon, while demeaning serious efforts to fix a $16 trillion dollar deficit, unsustainable entitlements (runaway social engineering) is a failure of character, a failure of judgment, a failure of temperament and a failure of loyalty to the fight against the Marxists.
Compound that with a class warfare assault on success in the free market and one can make Gingrich a much better candidate by taping his mouth shut.
A man who wishes to “transform” America by the stroke of his pen and in defiance of the checks and balances built into our Constitution and backed by the will of the people is ALREADY in the White House. The enormous bloated ego that believes the President is a ruler, rather than a steward and servant of the people, is a dangerous gun that far too often goes off half-cocked.
THIS is the result of having a contest between two “B” teamers. Petty, vindictive, ego driven, brand destroying, humiliation.
This appeals to a certain type of internet commenter. Just not enough voters to win an election that could decide the fate of the world.
It’s pathetic to watch this. Once upon a time we conquered the frontiers of a new continent. Now we mock people who want to conquer the frontiers of space.
Let’s all stay home and surf the web for porn on our iPads.
As much as it sounds hip to make the equivalency argument, they are not remotely the same. It was technologically feasible, while dangerous, expand westward. It could be done by a community with their wagon trains. When our personal vehicles are capable of slipping Earth’s escape velocity, or frankly, even when a private craft can do it regularly, I’m sure the nature of human exploration and expansion will kick in, but for now, it’s no more realistic than for those same settlers to have established an undersea colony.
Whether you agree with the specifics of Newt’s plan or not, I think it is obvious he is the only one with any regard for the importance of space issues. Mitt talks about them like they are sugar subsidies or new train lines in Idaho. He doesn’t need to answer any more questions on his space policy, he doesn’t have one. He’s a hack. If you care at all about space, I think the choice is obvious.
For me Mitt’s ridicule of and attitude toward the issue of our Space policy and Newt’s proposals convinces me that he is a very pedestrian and provincial man, a man of limited vision; head down, eyes focused firmly on the mud beneath our feet, and unwilling (or perhaps afraid) to raise his head up and look up at the immensity and the stars above us.
Over the last century America has led the human race by developing the majority of inventions, medical procedures and drugs, and new technologies that have improved—if complicated—life on this planet for practically everyone. The American people are—or at least we used to be–what was termed in the 1920s as “projectors,” thinking about, speculating about, and exploring and forging our way into the future, dreaming up projects and new scientific theories, inventions, and processes that advance us, our economy, and our lives, and, along the way, have benefited and enriched the world in general.
Corny as it now sounds, Space is really the obvious ”Next Frontier,” that would provide an exciting and challenging outlet for our American “projectors,” inventors, pioneers, and explorers and their talent, energy, and vision, energize and expand our technological sector and the economy, while solving some of our resource and energy problems, and the glaring security issue of the entirety of the human race being stuck on our one, very vulnerable and fragile planet—check out all of the mass extinctions in Earth’s past due to meteorite impacts, when life was almost scoured off the face of the planet, and think of the prospects for our survival if a nuclear, biological, or chemical war should break out, or technological processes went very very bad; it would help if we had our “eggs” (i.e. viable breeding populations) in a number of separate “baskets” i.e. in orbit, and on the moons and plants of our solar system.
Thus, Mitt reminds me of those people who said that trains, and automobiles, and airplanes were nonsense, or that we could not fly in the air or who, earlier on, were saying that if a train or an automobile accelerated its passengers above a few miles an hour they would surely die.
Do we really want such a stodgy, bland man of no imagination, no vision, no spirit of adventure, and no guts—a man who will never, ever roll the dice, make a “risky” decision, or take a chance at Victory–charting our course through the massive problems and dangers the U.S. will be facing?
“We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation–anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wished to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of nature. We make the laws of nature.”
“But you do not! You are not even masters of this planet. What about Eurasia and Eastasia? You have not conquered them yet.”
“Unimportant. We shall conquer them when it suits us. And if we did not, what difference would it make? We can shut them out of existence. Oceania is the world.”
“But the world itself is only a speck of dust. And man is tiny–helpless! How long has he been in existence? For millions of years the earth was uninhabited.”
“Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness.”
“But the rocks are full of the bones of extinct animals–mammoths and mastodons and enormous reptiles which lived here long before man was ever heard of.”
“Have you ever seen those bones, Winston? Of course not. Nineteenth-century biologists invented them. Before man there was nothing. After man, if he could come to an end, there would be nothing. Outside man there is nothing.”
“But the whole universe is outside us. Look at the stars! Some of them are a million light-years away. They are out of our reach forever.”
“What are the stars?” said O’Brien indifferently. “They are bits of fire a few kilometers away. We could reach them if we wanted to. Or we could blot them out. The earth is the center of the universe. The sun and the stars go round it.”
Winston made another convulsive movement. This time he did not say anything. O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection:
“For certain purposes, of course, that is not true. When we navigate the ocean, or when we predict an eclipse, we often find it convenient to assume that the earth goes round the sun and that the stars are millions and millions of kilometers away. But what of it? Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?”
–George Orwell, “1984″
We need to jump over the moon, again, and stay there this time with an American base, incentivized with US dollars and achieved by Yankee and private consortium ingenuity. This is a space race with China for domination of the stratosphere and beyond. And it’s a race to establish a better eye in the sky and launching point to further explore what’s out there for edification and profit and to protect our solar rock and species.
Meanwhile, there is huge extractive and other technological spin-off pay-off for the capitalists and precious sociological/ psychic value, which Newt groks and Mitt can’t, in establishing a permanent lunar presence. Romney will be a conventional terrabot in my first sci-fi endeavor who gets elected to lead the USA to sensible, moribund mediocrity at the start of a Sino-lunar dynasty.
I hope our Alice in Wonderland Tea Party will keep feting the Man in the Moon Newt. America could use a party like that just now to beat back our spiritual and semantic impoverishment.
When mankind has finally directed its governments to prohibit the use of force against innocent individuals and a man’s action can be completely directed by his reason rather than government dictate, anything is possible including the commercial exploitation of space. But as long as governments are allowed to use force against the innocent to confiscate their earned wealth or regulate productive activities, the possibility of a new Dark Age is much more likely. Proposing the use of government confiscated wealth–even to raise money for a “prize”–for any goal, no matter how worthy it might seem, shows that this principle has not been embraced.
Newt wants to use some level of government force to acheive space goals and Mitt still wants to use (state) government force to acheive health care & other collectivist goals. Newt’s & Mitt’s effectiveness in blocking further statism is inversely proportional to the degree they wish to use statism to achieve any of their “conservative” or “national” goals.
I don’t think these guys get it anymore than 95% of the population. Kinda wears you out.
So let me get this straight, unless and until governments no longer use any type of force at all against citizens for any reason, until there is no government interference, whatsoever, with what any man might want to do, and until government ceases to levy taxes for any purpose, a new Dark Age is more likely to occur than the exploration of Space.
Well, let me just say that, by your comment, you have just proved the existence of aliens from a another planet.
Not “for any reason”. Government’s purpose is to prohibit (BY FORCE!) those who initiate force against others. Please note what I wrote: “Government force against INNOCENT individuals.” I thought most posters at PJMedia understood libertarian principles. Guess not. I really am worn out, now.
DC spends tens of thousands per second, 40+% of it borrowed money, and we are engaged in a discussion about moon colonies?!?! Moon colonies or Mars colonies are all well and good; but until we deal with 16 trillion in debt and 50+ trillion in unfunded liabilities, not to mention trillions in state and municipal debt and liabilities, you are truly fiddling while the barbarians break down the gates. Get a grip people! We’re looking at a deep contraction, perhaps a depression of historical proportions, and people are arguing over moon colonies! WTF?
DC spends tens of thousands per second, 40+% of it borrowed money, and we are engaged in a discussion about moon colonies?!?!
We (the US) have just authorized another trillion plus dollar increase in borrowing; that is the third such increase in the past five months. Did we rebuild the interstate highways with that money? Did we build nuclear power plants? Did we build an oil pipeline from Canada? Do you know (not think, but know) where all that money went?
The only possible option to pay off our national debt is through growth. I know, someone once commented that ‘a billion here, a billion there and soon were talking real money’. Well, now were spending a trillion here and a trillion there on nothing at all that promotes growth.
Newt’s prize of a few billion or even tens of billions or even hundreds of billions is pretty small potatoes by comparison. This money promotes real growth, real scientific advancement, real opportunities for real people to build real companies manufacturing real products which will bring about new resources, new adventures and real purposeful reasons for existing.
“The only possible option to pay off our national debt is through growth.”
It is impossible to pay off the debt/liabilities through growth. Growth plus tax increases can not pay off the debt for we can not grow fast enough (under ideal conditions) nor tax enough (because by increasing tax rates we stifle growth) to address the debt and unfunded liabilities conundrum that is the oncoming train wreck. That is a Catch 22. The only way out is balanced budgets starting FY 2014 and onwards. I say again, I’m not against moon colonies but seriously, is this the time for DC to invest in moon colonies?
As a conservative, the only space policy position I want to hear from the candidates is, “It’s not a constitutionally authorized function of the federal government”.
To paraphrase Madison, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of space travel, the money of their constituents”.
I think Jeff Greason would be a great adviser to any presidential candidate. It would also be a bad decision on several levels for him to get involved.
First, he has no time for such things this year. Building the Lynx and getting it flying are Priorities 1 through 100.
Second, the success of his company depends upon the government approving wet lease exports for the Lynx to Curacao and South Korea. Those efforts have been going well under the current administration. Becoming an adviser to Romney could hurt those chances down the road if Obama wins re-election and holds that against him. A polite “no thank you, I’m far too busy, but would consider serving in the future” to any such request from the Romney campaign, should one be forthcoming, poses no real downside risk.
I’m a bit surprised that Anderson, as chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, has jumped into the fray. CSF is composed of a broad range of companies with broad interests in front of the government no matter who wins in November. For the chairman of the organization that has supported Obama’s policies to endorse Romney and criticize the Administration in such a way might not play if the incumbent wins re-election. The Administration might not separate Eric advising on his own from Eric the CSF chairman. I know that Newt wouldn’t if he somehow wins.
Ahhhh, the smooth, velvet pitch of a corporate raider, microphone in hand, wooing the stockholders. A scene right out of ‘Wall Street,’ space advocates. Gordon Gekko would be so proud. “Presidents” don’t tell you how to get there, they point and say, ‘go there’ and direct the people who know how to make it happen to ‘make it happen.’
How many times does Romney have to telegraph in debates, statements and speeches that the only space he cares about is the square footage of his fifteen homes. If you’re a space advocate- NASA or NewSpace or a blend of the two- Romney is not your guy. And anyone in the space community along the Florida Space Coast who throws their political support to him deserved- or deserves- to hear his most decisive, definitive directive on ‘space’ as articulated in the recent debate: “You’re fired.” Romney is cut from the same cloth as Ivan Boesky, who famously quipped to his wife, “What good is the moon? You can’t buy or sell it.”
Content aside, the problem w/Newt is the messenger, not the message. A message, BTW, steeped in the high risk low-to-no ROI of NewSpace ventures, screwy prize schemes and back door efforts to tap public monies as a subsidy for ventures the private capital markets have not embraced, in an attempt to socialize the risk on the many to benefit a select few. We just went through that with banks.
Space is worthy of debate at the national level, but in this case, roundly lampooned across the cable shows by the youngish journalists, pundits and talking heads in Medialand who chortled on camera at talk of ‘moon colonies’ and ‘lunar bases,’ turning space advocacy into a punch line. You know, the mid-40 year olds; the ‘Joe Scarrborough’ generation. Scarrborough, an ex-GOP Florida congressman, openly chortled at Newt’s proposal qith his colleagues for hours on his MSNBC program, ‘Morning Joe.’ That kind of clownish ignorance is bad to see, whether you’re an advocate for NewSpace or traditional NASA activities. Walter Cronkite is rolling over in his grave.
People over mid-40, (i.e., boomers) have exactly ZERO credibility on fiscal issues. You are the generation that has maxed out my young kid’s credit card with your perpetual self absorption and limitless demands for free stuff. You’re flabby thinking gave us liberalism, which has marched from institution to institution with your generation at the vanguard. We can’t even win wars anymore and you speak of Nationalism? So we aren’t really laughing at you or at space travel. We’re just so shocked that you seem incapable of grasping how badly you have deep-sixed our nation that nervous laughter seems warranted when we hear “more more more” from a pandering moonbeam statist like Newt.
Launch a telescope into space and observe the very distant past? What an absurd notion!