This is no great surprise. President-Elect Obama is a known fan of FDR's public works program, so pumping billions into public-sector projects like NASA is almost a given. The big concern is to control where it will go. The various projects will need specific goals and measurable objectives or they will just turn into funding black holes.

Oh no, the creeping tide of government intervention is getting closer!

As a space enthusiast, even I recognize what the (new) Feds do not seem to recognize: that Space and NASA are not synonyms. We do have a vibrant commercial space sector (that operates geosynch comm sats for instance). That is the part of the space sector that needs encouragement, we do not need to (again) prop up a sagging government sector just so it can fail in four years instead of one.

Economic, innovation, and environmental goals can be met by a commercial sector that does not have to compete with a heavily subsidized government effort.

Let us hope that the spreading weeds of government "help" do not continue an inefficient space sector like it appears to be doing with the inefficient automobile manufacturing sector, etc.

We should fear the paralysis of: "it has been like this for years and we dare not change it now". But there have been many promises made to get votes...

Charles

So we should prop up the private sector, rather than pursue government programs in the national interest?

I'd rather let industry take care of itself.

You say:
"We do have a vibrant commercial space sector (that operates geosynch comm sats for instance)."
True - good on them.

"That is the part of the space sector that needs encouragement"
Um, why? I thought they were "vibrant." Stands to reason they don't need handouts, then.

In my opinion, we should be discussing what space programs are in the national interest, rather than engaging in this Government vs. Commercial debate which is essentially moot.

This will help repair some of the damage done to NASA by the budgetary neglect of the outgoing administration, but it is just a start. Our budget has done well compared to the past under Bush. But given the huge mandate of the VSE, we are actually worse off than before financially. We do need better direction as an Agency. I am for going back to the Moon, but we need to be doing the hard-core R&D that it will take to become a true space-faring nation. We need research into ultra-strong, super lightweight materials; advanced and robust thermal protection, and break-through advances in propulsion. These 3 elements can get us routine access to LEO. And as Heinlein said, once you are in Earth orbit you are half-way to anywhere in the Solar System.

Another area that the new Administration should consider for NASA is energy and the environment. NASA has developed considerable expertise over the last 30 years that could greatly contribute to the U.S.’s achieving sustainable energy independence. Most of this stems from the nature of human spaceflight itself, where energy management and environmental control are key aspects in the design of all spacecraft. The National Aeronautics and Space Act provides authorization to NASA to assist DOE in addressing the nation’s energy issues. Thus, President Obama could direct NASA to start contributing to an expanded energy and environment R&D program in very short order.

Such a role for NASA actually has an historical precedent. In the wake of Apollo, NASA helped the predecessor to DOE by making major foundational contributions in wind energy, solar power, batteries, and fuel cells. Many of the people who spearheaded these achievements still work at NASA, augmented with new talent in power generation and energy storage systems, advanced materials, instrumentation, advanced chemical processes, computational fluid mechanics and plasma physics. The potential for developing new commercially viable technologies is tremendous.

Bringing NASA into a national energy and environment initiative would send a clear message to the American people that the new Administration is serious about addressing the energy problem by committing one of the U.S.’s premier technical institutions to solve it. Such an approach would show that the new Administration is willing to adopt innovative, out-of-the-box approaches to address the challenge of energy and the environment. It also makes NASA more relevant to national needs and brings new technologies to the table in solving the nation’s energy problem. Bringing the NASA community (e.g., NASA centers, contractors and research universities) into the solution space also opens the door for further cultivation of green industry and job growth.

Hondo posted:

> So we should prop up the private sector, rather than pursue government
> programs in the national interest?

We have a LOT of national interests, do you agree to raise your taxes to support each one of them? And what if commercial enterprises could deliver the same national interest far more cheaply? Such as Burt Rutan flying into space with a "radical" new design ship - which can scale up by the way?

> I'd rather let industry take care of itself.

And compete against subsidized foreign companies on an "equal" footing? Also, Gov Richardson of New Mexico realizes that we need to not handicap our own businesses as we have done so often. You might read what he had to say on the topic.

> You say:
"We do have a vibrant commercial space sector (that operates
> geosynch comm sats for instance)." 
True - good on them.

>"That is the part of the space sector that needs encouragement" 
Um, why?
> I thought they were "vibrant." Stands to reason they don't need handouts,
> then.

Handouts such as years of NASA technology transfer? We have always had a goal of developing new technology to transfer to commercial enterprises. Why stop now? And have you heard of the "new" idea of offering prizes for the first instance of a commendable goal being accomplished? This is a handout?

> In my opinion, we should be discussing what space programs are in the
> national interest, rather than engaging in this Government vs. Commercial > debate which is essentially moot.

So we should go back to government ownership and operation of geosynch comm sats? And photo satellites? Should the government hold a monopoly on what someone decides is in the "national interest"?

A vibrant commercial space sector? Oh please.

Anybody who works in the space industry knows that telecomms satellites are always loss-making. In fact several of the big companies have renounced that market altogether. The people who really make money out of that are the service providers who play out competition to the full to buy satellites, and them beam us porn & football matches at a premium, plus ads every 15 minutes.

Commercial EO hasn't really taken on either, and anyway again the people making most money (or losing less) are the service providers, which is why Ball & al moved into this.

As for launchers, it could be claimed they make money, but only by sinking in development costs via the government.

Maybe you refer to the so-called New Space (Burt Rutan, Space X, Bigelow etc...)? Well these have yet to make money. And I wouldn't call them commercial since they all have a big suggar dady behind them doling out millions. More like philantropy.

In the business we have a famous saying: "How do you make 100 Millions? Easy, you start with 1 Billion and you invest it in the space industry."

A.

I would rather not spend trillions of dollars trying to prop up an economy that is going to fall down one way or another, but if we are we might as well put at least a few billion dollars to work keeping upper middle income, well educated people who might actually turn that money into something good working.

I am sure that commercial space companies will get their slice of the pie one way or another, but why not put the majority of the money to use on exploration and basic R&D? These are the things that ONLY government will do, and they are the type of thing that will yield long term growth. If you think private industry is going to sink $30B into a trip to Mars for the glory, you are badly mistaken. Ditto for establishing a lunar outpost even if there is some potential for for a commercial venture because the return is too low to justify the expenditure for at elast a couple of decades.

If we double NASA's budget we return it to about its historical average outside of the Apollo era. We can pursue aggressive, wide ranging exploration - manned and unmanned - while improving aviation and developing new spacecraft and propulsion systems. If we are going to spend the money anyway, I would prefer to spend $18B on this rather than minimum wage make work.

There's no point in pointing fingers at Presidents and Administrations for 'budgetary neglect' we've going on 35 years of so on that. There are now too many culprits to name.