Fact Checking In Houston

Folks:

If you want "leadership" in space then you have to do it the same way America has been a leader in other sectors like aviation, electronics and medicine. You do this by creating an environment where American know-how can thrive and grow. America became what it is through the research and development of industry not from the "guiding hand" of government.

NASA is where it is today because it's budget has always been more then the rest of the worlds space agencies combined. You can do some great things with that kind of money. You can also do things that no sane business would ever consider or possibly succeed at. NASA succeeded because the government leveraged the innovation of industry, not the other way around.

In February the Chinese broke ground on a plant that they hope will produce 30 manned spacecraft a year! I don't think they care what it will cost them. They also don't have to worry about political squabbling and infighting. They are told what to do and they do it.

Name an company in America that could possibly produce 30 spacecraft a year (or equivalent launches of reusable craft) and you'd be an equal to where the Chinese will be in five years or so.

I think America can do better then that!

If America wants to be a leader in space then it's government must give it's industry unfettered access to it. Subsidize it... yes. Regulate it... yes. Otherwise government should stand off and watch what Americans do best, be industry leaders.

tinker

Sniping the NASA Deputy Administer in a public forum is career limiting, especially in an election year. Oh well, I'm sure someone warned him what not to say.

Speaking of getting the facts right, I have received complementary thank you emails from several of my Texas political representatives concerning my undying support for Constellation, especially from Rep. Olson, which, by the way, I never sent. Could these email campaigns possibly originate from the politicians, themselves, regardless of whether I and others took the time to get involved?

The fervor grows.

For the life of me, I can't understand the constant demonization of Lori Garver. While OMB has NEVER been a fan of either HSF or NASA itself, there's not one shred of evidence to back up any of Mr. Mitchell's assertions. Name calling is not a substitute for policy.

1. The previous president also went quite a while before appointing a NASA administrator.

2. Lest we forget, the new president took office in the midst of an economic meltdown. It would have been reckless to have not devoted so much attention to the economy. Given that, it's understandable that some issues and some government processes were given lower priority.

3. It would be a pleasant change if we disposed of the venomous accusations, fabrications, and insinuations, and instead dealt with facts known. If you want to know why it's so difficult for Congress to get things done for NASA, take a look at the exchanges, here, on NASA Watch: they've become the same sort of rancorous "discussions" that happen on the Hill and that grind progress to a halt.

"The previous president also went quite a while before appointing a NASA administrator."

Speaking of fact checking, Dan Golden was NASA administrator from April 1, 1992 to November 17, 2001. President Bush was elected in Nov 2000 and began his term in Jan 2001.

So your statement is incorrect as Bush appointed Golden who served from day 1 of the Bush administration.

Frank...I cannot believe I am defending Garver..

Garver is the subject of the attacks because from Bob Mitchell to Pete Olson to Vitter...none of them have the horsepower or the inclination to attack Charlie (Bolden). Bolden is very accomplished; (you know the resume).and even Pete (a Naval Aviator) knows that in a pooping contest Charlie will take him to the cleaners.

Garver is clearly a political operative (nothing wrong with that) she is linked to left of center Democratic politicians and she is a suitable stand in target (also there is a hint of sexism in it)...

The worst part of the politics is that most of the attacks on Obama's commercial program are coming from people whose mantra is usually "trust the private sector". So there has to be a reason why not to trust the entire affair.

One final point. In space districts human spaceflight is played up as a sort of nationalistic flag waver issue. I spend "some"time in my home (22 Texas) speaking on various topics at breakfast and lunch groups ..

the anti Obama spacepolicy groups have tried very hard to link Garver with a sort of "international" brand of politics that is not in fashion in "nationalistic" flag waving areas. What the pivot point of the argument (at least in 22 and I think I know where this is coming from) against Obama's policy is "the gap"...and the effort is to link Garver with that gap (of course that is false) based on her previous efforts with Goldin and the Russians. I've heard more then once "she wants us to be dependent on The Russians"

I assume when she took the job she knew that would be her role (lightening rod)...that is what subordinates do. It strikes me that the attacks are completely counter productive in real life.

Robert G. Oler

I hardly think the analogy holds water; particularly as that is SOP on Capitol Hill, and has been so since before 1787 - read the Federalist and Anti-federalist Papers to see what I mean.

On Capitol Hill it is a situation where Obama has changed direction at NASA; as virtually every President before has done previously. It happened with Bush-Clinton as well.

In fact with "Obamaspace" we're returning to that very era with "Commercialspace" tacked on. We'd been locked into stillborn R&D since 1971 and we're returning to that. Plus the R&D will be on the same old stuff too! Probably come up with the same old answers too: dressed up in the Emperor's shiny new suit of clothes I expect.

Frank
Perhaps it is easier to expose yourself to the term "sexist" rather than "racist"! Although having seen reports concerning the anti-social behaviour of your anti-socialist brigade. Vide treatment of your Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) ...one is not so sure. Alternatively although Ms. Garver has merely devoted her life to space advocacy; she has never wielded a slide rule in anger and therefore in the steely eyes of some your missile men fraternity: somehow not worthy of simple decent respect.

On an off topic aside (sorry Keith) the UK got a new Space Agency today! UKSA. Shame I was hoping for HMSS!

http://www.space.com/news/uk-launches-new-space-agency-100323.html

Bob seemed to miss the Altair, so he had no way to get people down onto the surface of the moon.

Unfortunately most of this situation, which is a real disaster, is of NASA's own making.

They needed to move out promptly and get a man-carrying vehicle in place prior to Shuttle's end. That was the one near term goal. They failed royally on that count. They have just now completed PDR, which means it took them 5 years and $10 billion just to figure out what they wanted to build. There was never a need for an entirely new rocket for launching the capsule, but NASA decided this to be a prerequisite, which means they wasted money and time.

NASA has also been investing heavily, people, time and money, focusing on the moon landers, the rovers, the spacesuits, thus wasting considerable time energy and money on things that were not needed for decades.

Yes, I fully agree, the nation is in a horrendous position, un-neccessarily. NASA got us there.

One of the reasons for the anger has been that the planned human spaceflight program was canceled with no real plan in place. NASA is still working on how this idea of commercial crewed space will work.

The fact that NASA was so unprepared for it is indicative of the Obama administration having decreed it and told NASA what to do. Garver's strong political ties to the administration are likely the reason for the comments of her involvement.

Because of this lack of details on this new plan, the unsupported claims of quick flight readiness of these new vehicles and the proposed dependence on this untried policy, many have rightfully laid the blame at those in the decision making progress. Bolden has made statements in public regarding this whole mess, but I haven't heard anything from Garver.

Yes, you're right. I had that timeline wrong. Still, timeline doesn't tell any story without context, does it? Put in the context of the state of the economy at the beginning of his term, it would have, as I said, been reckless for Obama or any president in that situation to do anything but focus intently on the economy.

The fact that the government has other programs and other responsibilities other than NASA seems to be lost here. I'd love to see NASA get the money that would be required to do everything it would like to do, but that shouldn't come at the expense--in terms of money, time, and attention paid--of more important programs.

May I just remind this audience that under the American system, neither the NASA Administrator or Deputy Administrator is responsible for formulating space policy. They are, collectively, responsible for its implimentation. The one single person who should be held accountable for the space policy, accountable if you like the policy or accountable if you don't, is the 44th president of the United States Barack H. Obama.
Period.
Paragraph.
End of story, ok?

Funny thing.....I'd never heard of this Mitchel guy until I saw alot of pretty strange quotes from him recently.....ones similar to these--attacking high level NASA managers in a way I've only seen from members of Congress.

Anyway, being curious, I checked into his background and it appears (from what I've seen) he doesn't even have a college degree, much less a substantial background in politics. Now I'm not saying everyone that doesn't have a college can't be successful or anything like that, but it does seem strange to me that all those extremely bright/educated folks at JSC would be depending on someone like this to lobby to save their jobs. Baseless attacks senior NASA officials with close Obama ties is no way to go about it---and just saying that maybe some educational background in political science or something would've helped.

That is being simplistic and a bit disingenuous. While the President does officially set policy he doesn't do it in a vacuum. He appoints cabinent members and other senior executives to not only execute policy but to advise him and provide recommendations. So either the President come up with this policy without any input from his administrator or choose to ignore his recommendation, which I find arrogant, or this plan was suggested by someone. Given that the administrator is still scrambling to come up with a plan after the budget was rolled out and given it's match up with Ms. Garvers previous positions I think it is entirely reasonable that people believe this is her plan (and most people at NASA do).

I am sure that the problems in the transition are discouraging...and it is a tough economy etc and everyone is banging away trying to keep their jobs...but here is what I dont understand about the protest down at KSC.

First, everyone knew the shuttle program was ending...and everyone knew about the problems with Ares1 and Constellation in general. It is one thing for an administration to come into office; take a program that is functioning either well or "OK" and say "wow we dont like the direction things are going we want to change".

But none of that was true with Ares 1. The program in specific and Constellation in general were all going "the wrong direction" in almost every metric. Norm Augustine is no real radical; no real wide eyed starship trooper...he is a pretty sound based person (sort of the David Gergen of space policy)...and even he could not figure out a way to save Ares 1 or Constellation in general without more money...lots of it.

Now none of this is the fault of the guy or gal who is "welding" or whatever...but it was well known. So I am curious why anyone thought it was a big surprise that the thing was "shaken" pretty hard?

Robert G. Oler

First off who/whom ever plan it is is irrelevant. As you point out there are lots of advisers in a Presidency and the President doesn't have to be the one with "the bright ideas" he/she just has to be the one who recognizes them.

Second, if it is Garver's plan I would be surprised. I have a piece published in the July 1999 Weekly Standard which agrees with this notion "a lot"...and at the time one of the loudest critics of the piece was Garver. I've been out of the space policy arguments for about three years (and on the other side of the world!) but...if this is her plan, she has really changed her notions of events.

Third...if one looks at the "path" of the Obama administration it seems this new notion "Meshes" quite nicely with the over all "course" that the administration is trying to chart out (at least in terms of "high tech").

But really the entire debate should stop at point one...what does it matter who came up with the policy? Obama has clearly adopted it. it is 'his'.

Robert G. Oler

Constellation had its own problems, but I'm not convinced the commercial world will be better. I've worked with plenty of COTS equipment and they make all kinds of promises, but we've had all kinds of problems making schedules and budgets because of COTS problems.

Perhaps this commercial path could be made to work, but this is not known and to cancel a workable path with Constellation with a nice idea is very risky and may make matters worse. You could very well end of spending more money than Constellation would take.

My impression of Constellation is that its problems were typical of development programs. If there were management problems, you fix those. This approach is to throw the baby out with the bath water. Do you really think these commercial programs will not have similar development problems?

At least we still have a destination to go to in the ISS with this new approach. Even if Obama loses the next election, what President is going to keep Constellation going for the decade or more between the previously-planned ISS decommissioning in 2015 and the availability of a lunar lander?

Congress didn't come up with the money to fund Constellation adequately when it was first proposed. I don't know why they seem to think we should believe it will happen now.

The sunk cost fallacy is just that. It is a basic principle of program management that you do not use sunk costs to evaluate future planning, especially when the variance is high. The requirements of the system have changed significantly from the original scope, enough that a serious re-evaluation should have come already.

Constellation was the implementation of the VSE, not an end unto itself.

"At least we still have a destination to go to in the ISS with this new approach."

It's life was only extended until 2020. And that assumes we can lift heavy spares to it. It still hasn't been demonstrated (since no plan has been put forward) that any of these commercial companies can have a spacecraft operational by 2020.

As I've mentioned before, LM or Boeing are more likely to have one ready the quickest, but no requirements have been defined on what the spacecraft must do, no RFP has been released, and no proposals have been submitted by contractors. SpaceX's rumored low bid ($600 million) seems to show them as the most riskiest and unreliable.