Fact Checking on Campaign Promises

I strongly disagree with their conclusion that "however the appropriations process plays out, the president has lived up to his pledges as he made them."

They say so themselves when they say "[the] change of plans clearly breaks Obama's promise to "endorse the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars."

Moreover, Obama has proposed a plan with no targets for humans, which is a clear contradiction of his statement above.

This is not a campaign promise kept, it is one clearly broken and one that will likely cost Obama dear in the critical I-4 corridor of Florida when and if he runs for re-election. Given that the job losses in the area are going to be steep, with little if any prospect of them coming back, it is most unlikely he will receive support even from voters who were friendly to him.

That said, he seems to forget that as goes Florida so go elections in the quadrennial presidential sweepstakes. He has created a mess for himself there.

Obama has put out a budget proposal, NASA is still working up the plan details. All indications are that it will have targets. The NASA administrator has said exactly that. There is no question that NASA can make pretty slides if that's what you require for it to be as "real" as CxP.

Nobody was getting men to the moon by 2020.

... and it's a SHAME. People were promised new missions to the Moon. This decade we celebrate 50 years since the first landing on the Moon - an acheivement that will not be repeated.

People are asking the question WHY. Why people don't go to the Moon anymore?

They already know that the "lack of funds" argument is not an excuse. Because it's a lie. Hell, Obama will spend thousands of billions of dollars on war, Iraq occupation and this costs multiple time the budget of NASA. This is not an excuse not to give some modest $3 billions of dollars in addition to NASA to accomplish new missions to the Moon.

I'm puzzled about this. It doesn't look like he made a promise. He said he "endorsed the goal" of returning to the Moon by 2020. That means he thought it was a good idea. But what his select committee found after he was inaugurated was that the program developed to achieve that goal wouldn't. What's more, the cost of such a program to achieve it was not easily affordable. So I interpret his "promise" as endorsing a plan that could do it. Turns out there wasn't one.

What kind of promise would have been credibly considerable as having been broken? Well, one in which he said "I promise to make sure that Constellation gets whatever it needs to get us back to the Moon by 2020." But he never said that.

It seems that not supporting a failing program (where I count a successful program as one that is on schedule and on budget) is counted as breaking a campaign promise. That's fairly odd. May he break many more such "promises". Seems like PolitiFact is playing fast and loose with words.

The irony is that President Obama had plenty of faster and cheaper space architectural options that could have gotten us to the Moon before 2020 if he had done what the Augustine Commission had recommended and raised NASA's annual budget by $3 billion.

Why President Obama would risk loosing Florida and place Congressional Democrats in Florida in a situation where they could also be voted out of office for such a tiny amount of money is almost unbelievable.

However, since President Obama has yet to even speak about the NASA budget, he still has a chance to reach out and confer with Congressional Democrats who have a lot more interest in our space program than he does and reach some logical compromise.

Marcel F. Williams

Fool me once.

Obama wanted to win Florida then, of course he lied. LOL He never cared about it. Does anyone think this President actually was interested in what NASA does other then how it can serve him.

This is the guy that invoked Apollo only when it was serving to his agenda. If we can go to the moon, we can do the stuff I want too.
Never.. if we can go to the moon, we can return to stay and lead and go beyond, because we are America. America to him is HIS agenda. And it doesn't include returning to the moon. EVER!

Obama is foolishly betting that our moon program isn't that big a deal and he can win Florida again despite his broken promise and attempt to destroy human spaceflight at NASA.

Florida won't forget, I can assure him, and he won't be winning there again.
And the nation will not forget either.

This is bigger then some of your realize.

He has foolishly struck at a core definer of our nation...
Spaceflight at NASA

".. if we can go to the moon, we can return to stay and lead and go beyond, because we are America."

Wow. Because we are America? I always wondered why the Moon was so important. I might have thought it would have been for a reason that addressed real national needs, but hey, we got stars on our flag! Core definer of our nation, eh?

You need to pull back on that stick a bit, CessnaDriver. You're coming in kinda steep.

Are you going to be jumping on your chair next, shouting "FOLLOW ME!!!!"

> The irony is that President Obama had plenty of faster and cheaper space architectural options that could have gotten us to the Moon before 2020 if he had done what the Augustine Commission had recommended and raised NASA's annual budget by $3 billion.

This is false, and you should probably read chapter 6 of the Augustine Report again. Even the totally unconstrained case, which involved an annual budget boost of $5-$7 billion, would not have had an initial lunar landing until after 2020, with construction of the lunar base starting some years later. Lunar return under "only" an additional $3 billion a year was sometime in the mid/late-2020s.

"...endorse the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020"

If you consider that we were not going to make it to the Moon by 2020 no matter how much money you appropriated to NASA, it's hard to consider this a broken promise.

It depends on what the definition of "is" is.

I disagree the reason we went to the moon in the first place is because congress threw a bunch of money at NASA( per the Russian American race of the 60's). I live in Florida and we will be affected by this and I know a lot of people who felt a little more than jilted when that budget was released.Yet trying to blame an administration or one person isn't a healthy direction to take.Look at all the administrations previous to this one. Our Space program and its many agencies have been the red headed step child of congress and every administration since they canceled Apollo 18 and 19.

The Augustine Commission placed additional financial burdens on the-- directly shuttle derived scenario-- such as a continuation of the space shuttle program for at least 5 years ($3 billion per year) plus an extension of the ISS program after 2015 ($2 billion per year). So they inflated the cost of the directly shuttle derived scenario by at least $25 billion. The development of the Altair lunar lander cost about $11 billion maximum and an EDS cost about $2.5 billion.

I should note that both the DIRECT folks, NASA, and our Mars First friend, Zubrin, have argued that the Augustine numbers are highly inflated.

Additionally, the Augustine Commission erroneously argued that it would require three SD-HLV flights per manned lunar mission when both NASA and DIRECT scenarios require only 2 launches.

Marcel F. Williams

This is all so very disappointing in the grand scheme of things. Why are we allowing this major backpedaling to remain unchallenged. We are in need of private space access but must maintain a government LEO access at least. Hitching a ride with the Russians or space x to a outpost that we have paid 100 billion for is unacceptable. Paying for rides from the rescued/failing Russian space agency that we bailed out is unacceptable. Does the rest of the world live in 30 second news bits? Am I one of the few remaining angry old Turks? Wake up sheep! This is our legacy and future that we are letting these fools throw away. If the architecture needs to be readdressed, (as I think it does), then fine! Cancellation after the promise of continuance just to get a few legitimate votes is reprehensible and most un-statesmen like! This man in the white house and his henchmen belong in irons and on bread and water.

I End With A Quote From Billy - that sums up this mess of a life I now have among the foolish mortals:

"You see it's time for you to go home - to your lives and your children. It's time for me to be dead for a little while. And then live again. I give you the Tralfamadorian greeting: Hello. Farewell. Hello. Farewell. Eternally connected, eternally embracing. Hello. Farewell."

Nuff Said,

Carl
Surfduke

Fred Sanford says "Our Space program and its many agencies have been the red headed step child of congress and every administration since they canceled Apollo 18 and 19."
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Reposted for the sad truth it is.

CharlesBoyer, CessnaDriver, carl hewitt-
Consider the possibility that Obama might not be playing politics to win votes in Florida. Perhaps he's trying to do what he thinks is right for the country, not for any one state, but for the long term future of the USA. What a concept.

Despite being involved in one of our country's greatest endeavors, there seem to be so many of us in this crowd balancing Obama's "yes we can" with "no we can't". Disappointing.

Paul,

Can you tell me how re-directing NASA helps the long term future of the USA?

The way I see it, he is not reducing the NASA budget. So he is not helping balance the budget.

He is not helping employment, because the "more money, more jobs" doesn't necessarily hold true in the short term and I am not sure it holds true in the long term. Because the more money is going to commercial companies who want to help their bottom line and not necessarily employ more people.

NASA is not going to produce anything significant for the money.

So, where is the net plus here?

People are asking why? Really? Who? The public didn't care about going back to the moon and they're only mildly more interested in the subject now that Constellation has been canceled.

Obama has spent "Thousands of billions of dollars on war, Iraq occupation"? Ignoring your vastly inflated numbers, don't you think it might be more appropriate to lay the blame on that particular problem with Bush?

With regard to other comments, if Obama asked for an extra $3B a year for NASA, do you really think Congress would have fulfilled that request in the current environment? Do you really think it would have cured all of Constellation's woes? Not to sound overly rude but seriously... are you guys that naive?

Fred Sanford's post is 100% spot on. It's also worth adding that a vast majority of Congress that actively supports NASA does so out of self-interest (money and jobs = reelection) rather than enthusiasm for the exploration of space.

One more comment on what is good for the USA

If I were to take the "commercial space" folks at their word, I would object to the current budget in a different way.

Commercial should make things more efficient and reduce costs, right?

OK lets help reduce the deficit by cutting these areas:

Center Management and Operations $2.2B, don't need that for an efficient commercial organization, cut that to $.5B. There, I just saved $1.7B on the federal budget.

Agency Management and Operations $.8B That should be coveredin the $0.5B above. There, now I am up to $2.5 in savings.

ISS $2.7B. Lets cut that in half. The commercial market will fill in the support of the station because that is where the market is, right? Now I am up to $3.8B in savings.

Space and Flight support $1.1B, cut it in half. SpaceX is leasing their pad and they seem to be able to go it alone. Total savings, $4.3B

Astrophysics and Heliophysics. No market for this $1.7B. Lets cut it.

There, I have saved the country $6B in on year. In 5 years that is $30B.

Isn't that the approach the commercial space folks are supporting? We don't want to save jobs, we don't want waste. they are enfuriated by Constellation spending money yet apparently the real areas of government waste are overlooked.

The opposition to Constellation is a farce. It is all about "I want something different than you want." It has nothing to do with what's best for the NASA budget.

I don't necessarily support this, but isn't that what the "commercial" folks really want?

Agreed. As a Space Shuttle engineer who will lose their job after STS-134, I fully support this new direction and hope it passes Congress fully intact.

HSF cannot be held hostage for the sake of preserving jobs. I may lose the privilege to support HSF directly for the time being, but I will find my way back.

I still want details on an HLV, but this R&D push alone is worth it. We need that technology to enable HSF beyond the Moon.

~HotShotX

"heck...if we can put a man on the moon...(YES WE CAN!)...OH NO HE DIDN'T!!!!!

"""I don't necessarily support this, but isn't that what the "commercial" folks really want?"""

The touted advantage of commercial crew and a commercial HLV (that is based on a similar architecture) is that your launch costs are reduced. Augustine gave it the highest marks for that (option 5b).

Less money spent on rockets = more money spent on payloads. Exploration is about payloads.

That's the argument in a nutshell. You may disagree but that's the EELV/spaceX argument as I understand it.

Paul...

"Perhaps he's trying to do what he thinks is right for the country, not for any one state, but for the long term future of the USA. What a concept."

No. He's using it as a jobs program and foreign policy tool.

Make no mistake, he serves himself and he alone on this.

He doesn't care about human spaceflight ok?
He cares how to remake NASA to serve his agenda.
It is screamingly beyond obvious.

> We don't want to save jobs, we don't want waste. they are enfuriated by Constellation spending money yet apparently the real areas of government waste are overlooked.
> The opposition to Constellation is a farce. It is all about "I want something different than you want." It has nothing to do with what's best for the NASA budget.
> I don't necessarily support this, but isn't that what the "commercial" folks really want?

No, it is safe to say you are wrong... (very wrong)

This extremist hatefulness thing isn't helping you guys... (or anyone else)

I think Obama assumed at the time that the Constellation program was sound. After assessing the situation, he realized how it was a house of cards waiting to fall just like everything else he inherited from his idiot predecessor. You Obama-bashers need to take your head out of the sand, turn off your talk radio, quit listening to sychophant talking heads, and check some facts. You have no substance and no data to back your claims. Just a bunch of name-calling, misrepresentations of fact, and outright lies.

RC, I'm not sure extremist hatefulness was in my post. And, I don't think I am "very wrong."

1. I am strongly for smaller government. In fact I am probably more conservative than most here.
2. The supporters of this budget "claim" that this budget is a triumph for capitalism, stimulating markets and getting government out of large space ventures.
3. The "commercial" folks also indicate that NASA can't manage their way out of a paper bag. And therefore the line for Commercial Cargo is a triumph.

If I look at most of the other government entities, their administrative budgets are on the order of $1.5 billion or less.

NASA's administrative budget is on the order of $3B. If the commercial folks really want effective administration on commercial to thrive, is not the desire then to reduce NASA's administrative capacity to something more effective? Why are there no protests for that?

So, after taking that argument to its logical conclusion, I will counter that the "commercial" faction is getting something worse than what we had before. With the 2011 budget, I do not change NASAs Center budget at all, yet we are giving them less to do (commercial companies will handle everything, right?). Therefore, by percentage, we now have a larger government workforce overseeing less. It seems counterintuitive to the commercial is better argument.

So I have two reasons to be against this budget:

The budget is maintaining the NASA workforce to oversee less while sacrificing contractor employees for no real reason. This is keeping big government in place under the guise of commercialization and to the detriment off the commercial workforce.

The second reason (and I know some won't buy this and I am saying it philosophically and not economically) is that I view NASA and their accomplishments not as a means to subsidize commercial ventures but as a means to show that the US is on the forefront of HSF and exploration. At 0.5% of the total US budget, I don't see that this is a high price to pay for people to be able to dream.

Finally I just want to show these numbers:

NASA budget in 2007 dollars:

1958 to 1971 (getting to the moon) $224B
1970 decade (downsize and upsize to Shuttle) $144B
1980 decade (shuttle and start of ISS) $143B
1990 decade (ISS assembly, X-33) $166B
2000 decade (OSS, Constellation, Shuttle/ISS Operations) $162B

It would seem to me that, in the grand scheme of things, the development of Constellation, even while constrained by Shuttle and ISS budgets hasn't been too out of family with the budgets of the past decades.

So we are going into another decade and will likely spend $160B or more, yet we won't have much to show for it except the attempt to develop a commercial market and the death of US access to LEO. We are also throwing away 5% of the budget spent in the previous decade on Constellation for what?

Yeah... because all of the members of Congress, governors, mayors and state legislators from Florida, Alabama, Texas and Utah are supporting NASA and Constellation for the purest of reasons and not politics.

Please grow up.

@ possum

I agree with this statement almost entirely:

"You Obama-bashers need to take your head out of the sand, turn off your talk radio, quit listening to sychophant talking heads, and check some facts. You have no substance and no data to back your claims. Just a bunch of name-calling, misrepresentations of fact, and outright lies."

However, it should read:

"You Constellation-bashers need to take your head out of the sand, turn off your Huffington Post radio, quit listening to sychophant talking heads, and check some facts. You have no substance and no data to back your claims. Just a bunch of name-calling, misrepresentations of fact, and outright lies."

There, I think I fixed that for you, now it is a PERFECT statement.

As for Obama's real view on NASA, it was pretty obvious when he came to Houston during his campaign and of all places in the world he could have chosen to make such a horrible statement, he said in Houston: "Let's face it, the Space Shuttle Program never inspired anybody". Well I can think of 10s of thousands of engineers who beg to differ.

"Just a bunch of name-calling"

Hmmm

"Idiot predecessor"
"Sycophant talking heads"
"Obama-bashers"

And,

Were there any facts in your post that I could check?

If the president is so proud of this disaster he has created, where is he? This guy loves to give speeches that talk in soaring rhetoric. If he is really proud of this stepchild where is it, he should stand up on his haunches and crow from the highest building about what triumph it is. That's not going to happen, is it? I really believe, this is a plan by him, his science advisor, and the rest of the "best and brightest"to get rid of what they consider to be a silly waste of money. I remember in the inaugural parade, his people had the lunar rover positioned dead last in the review. Wouldn't want too many of the American Public to see it. If that wasn't pregnant with meaning, nothing was. Ugh! He stood there, smiled, waved and pointed. Probably thinking... stupid dreamers. If you look back at his moves over the past year, it is all painfully obvious the low regard he holds for the exploration of space. Let's see how thrilled you Obamanauts are 3 years from now. He had a choice you know. If he didn't like the program of record, he could have exchanged it for one of the very good options Norm & Company gave him, and then a bargain basement price to. No, he didn't do that. He just tossed it all in the commode, and left us with the outline of a plan that is long on adjectives and short on specifics. It is the equivalent of Thomas Jefferson telling Meriwether Lewis to just forget the whole thing, we're passing on the Louisiana Purchase. What a terrible decision! One of many we seem to be making lately. I'm 54 years of age and I want to know, where has my country gone? How pathetic. As a nation, our leaders have decided for us that we can't accomplish in 15 years what our father's did in 7. Now that's change I can believe in.

For those of you who remember, very early on the statements on Obama's website were to the effect that the space program should be postponed for 5 years to better fund education in the US (regrettably a promise unbroken).

During the campaign his speech here in Titusville was a 180 degree reversal. Now after elections we see another reversal. Clearly that speech was subversive, made to garner votes and nothing more.

There are protests and petitions being circulated in Cape Canaveral to impeach Obama. There are T-shirts aptly being sold here on roadsides - "He lied."

I think you hit the nail on the head as well as did Fred. Most of the people who post here are space geeks, I am a self admitted one. But reality and my life experiences prove that NASA is not some entity rising above all the other concerns and needs for this country. I believe Obama decided, with the help of many others, that in this present environment the course he has proposed might be more fitting of the resources available and the reality of where the previous course was headed. You may like of dislike it but can't deny hard choices had to be made, not just the desires of the space geeks.