Leadership, Vision, and Space Exploration

Are there alot of folks out there thinking when Obama comes to Kennedy next month he's going to announce some significant change to his plan that will miraculously save thousands of jobs at the Center ? I hope not. Why would he send Bolden out to the lions day after day saying 'here's the plan, we're sticking to it' only to come to KSC and say something different ? That would make Bolden look terrible. Its also hard to believe that after Obama just shoved a trillion health care bill through Congress with very few compromises that he would now compromise on major components of his space policy.

And once again (and its been said over and over), NASA can simply not afford to keep flying shuttle, keep ISS operational, and development a Shuttle "replacement" to the point that its operational--all at the same time. That would take billions upon billions worth of plus ups to the NASA budget. Though it appears alot of folks think differently, the space program can't always be based on saving jobs at KSC.

The tower may become a lightning rod because most people had been selling the idea that NASA was sitting on its laurels for constellation, and not actually building big things.
If the program falls through then I doubt they'll leave this structure as a monument to all that was left undone. His opposition might use this rusting backdrop as a podium come 2012.

I think the changes at NASA are going to find themselves on a timeline soon, for similar reasons.
Is Obamas conference on the 15'th going to be an actual meeting of the minds or just him coming down from on high to tell the children they should behave and do as he says?
...quickly, before the public starts to lose confidence in him.

"Is Obama going to offer any sweeteners when he goes to central Florida"

Obama *is* the sweetener!

The article title is inaccurate. "New space strategy"?. There is no strategy under the Obama plan.

I believe space strategy should include "thinking outside the box" technologies such as aneutronic fusion propulsion in order to make more affordable the exploration of space.

The strategy is that it is "1935" not "1905" in airplane terms. Time for the space-equivalent of air mail and general transportation, not barnstorming or basic development.

...but between 1935 and the present day, government did not set aside its role in aircraft development.
Some of the biggest leaps in capability were not only sponsored by public money but headed by the very best goons we could hire, conscript, train or outright capture at gunpoint to do the job.

Fast expansion into any field means keeping all options open. Be it by the book, the point of a sword, or with a briefcase full of cash.

Agreed. Except we'd need to get to the moon first for the He-3.

> Boron is available in the Earth's crust and helium-3 is available in the lunar regolith, both are relatively plentiful if compared to tritium.

I hold very little hope for what President Obama will say. Months ago, I said here that I would believe nothing Obama (Or McCain) had to say. That still holds. I watch for the results. I'm sorry to say I can no longer be the optimist I once was. Tell me in a year's time that everyone who we still need to have a Manned Spaceflight Program (No matter what stickers they slap on it.)still has plenty of work, and I'll believe what the politicians say. Until then,manned space flight sadly remains what it has been since the end of Apollo. That is say disposable to a poisonous political and fiscal climate, and disconnected from a generation of the public who has lost interest in everything we have done, might do, and will do, provided that leadership rather than politics is allowed to carry the day.

If the attitude in 1820 was similar to the present attitude towards a return to the moon, the proclaim would go:

We have already sent Lewis and Clark into the western wilderness, they left flags, therefore, there is no point in returning let alone establishing an outpost.

The current "program of record" no longer had the budget for an outpost.....and probably not even a lander.

"I hold very little hope for what President Obama will say." Roci

Let's not forget that Obama was recently here on the Space Coast during the '08 campaign. What he said to us then turned out to be almost 100% fabricated untruths.

Do not look for any earth-shattering miracles from this guy on April 15th.

Let's not forget that Obama was recently here on the Space Coast. What he said to us then turned out to be nearly 100% lies.

I do not expect anything in the way of earth-shattering events to come out of this visit.

quite impressive relating to generation and control of produced power, but little beyond an ION/MHD type power transfer and conversion to Rocket thrust. Is there sufficient Ve and appropriate MR for Earth-Escape trajectories? At 2G constant acceleration, one can expect to incur some 9000+fps drag and 'g' losses in achieving just the minimal Vesc.

The budget for the lunar program was supposed to come from retiring the shuttle after 2010 ($3 billion a year) and the retirement of the ISS after 2015 ($2 billion a year). So The Constellation budget last year was $3.4 billion. So $6.4 billion a year ($32 billion over the next 5 years) That should have been plenty of money to develop the Orion and the Ares I (an expensive architecture that I oppose). And this would have been raised to $8.4 billion a year after the ISS retirement. That's $42 billion over the next 5 years which would have been plenty of money to develop the Ares V core vehicle (again an expensive architecture that I oppose) and the Altair lunar lander.

Problems with funding the Constellation program only arose when when politicians decided that they didn't want to retire the Space Shuttle in 2011 and the ISS program in 2016.

Marcel F. Williams

"Problems with funding the Constellation program only arose when when politicians decided that they didn't want to retire the Space Shuttle in 2011 and the ISS program in 2016."

But I think the problem there is you'd have gotten Ares 1 / Orion after 2015 (no place to go) and the Ares 5 and Altair sometime after 2020. So basically nothing to do and no place to go for ten years. (Even with the space shuttle canned in 2010 and ISS canned in 2015, Augustine was quoting Ares 1 / Orion in 2017+; Ares 5 and Altair in the mid and late 2020's respectively). And with this plan, by dumping the space station really early you've effectively killed all the prospect you had for stimulating any private sector spaceflight.

It is incorrect to conclude that since Constellation is not a viable development program, that the planned Lunar outpost and potential industrialization is invalid.