OSTP Space Conference: Ignoring the Locals

Brevard County, FL is registered 65%-ish Republican and the rest are mainly conservative Democrats and Libertarians. Pres. Obama couldn't win the county in 2008 and he's got no chance in 2012. Even if he were "friendly" to us, he'd likely still lose our vote. It's also very unlikely Rep. Kosmas would be re-elected, regardless of circumstances. She only won the seat because 1) she wasn't "another Bushie" and 2) the incumbent was being investigates (since been exonerated). I think the White House has written off the county and its residents. The political and monetary capital (to the Democrat party) can be better spent elsewhere in the state, i.e. can buy more votes elsewhere for the same price. Honestly, I don't think they see any benefit in giving the Space Coast anything. I think they're incorrect, but I believe that's how they see it. A lot of people will tell me I'm wrong, but then I would ask for just one small scintilla of evidence that the Space Coast matters to President Obama. I can't find any.

KSC isn't just about Brevard County... It feeds multiple counties in the Area including Orlando (which is mostly democratic). It also have influence in many other parts of the state as well including the Miami area.

I think the White House has written off the county and its residents. The political and monetary capital (to the Democrat party) can be better spent elsewhere in the state, i.e. can buy more votes elsewhere for the same price.

The same thing goes for Alabama and Utah. Why should the powers-that-be give a whit about these areas? They're fundamentally hostile to the Administration and contribute nothing to its power base.

"I would ask for just one small scintilla of evidence that the Space Coast matters to President Obama"

Well they are part of the United States of America who President Obama was elected to lead. I would hope that they would matter to him.

I would ask for just one small scintilla of evidence that the Space Coast matters to President Obama

I would ask for just one small scintilla of evidence that the American Space Program matters to the "Space Coast."

Mr. Cryer,

I really try to avoid getting personal here but your post is so over-the-top I must ask, are you some kind of troll or what?

The primary impact to the Space Coast came with the close out of shuttle-around 5000 jobs. There are some additional people who were going to go to Constellation - probably 1000 or so - who are affected by the CxP cancellation. Some of these will probably transfer to comparable commercial crew or launch complex work under the new approach.

Given that the Constellation program was anticipated by Augustine to have the first flight in 2017, it's cancellation is not the real problem. Florida politicians could have and should have taken significant steps to put real offsets and mitigation in place five years ago, when there was time to get things in the pipeline. Like maybe when Jeb Bush was governor and George Bush was president? Why are we hearing about shuttle extension from Republicans only after all of the lines have been shut down?

As President Bush's OSTP Director John Marberger stated at the Cococa Beach hearing of the Augustine Commission, the unsustainable Constellation approach was a major departure from the "go as you" pay approach of the Vision. Obama's policy is much more of an implementation of the VSE than Griffin's Constellation approach.

Weather or not you agree with all that he's done, you have to agree that Obama is not afraid to take action. Also, he has expressed in the past how much he supports human space flight, and has even been called a 'nerd'. These two facts together make me believe he may try and top Kennedy's challenge to land on the moon when he visits Florida in two weeks. It's the perfect setup to announce a new, bold challenge.

I for one will be disappointed if all he does is echo the things Bolden has been saying since the budget roll-out.

I find it unlikely that even a majority of the jobs lost at KSC at shuttle shut-down will be offset by new jobs at the commercial outfits. Most of them have all the staff they need and, if they recruit HSF specialist technicians (life support, etc.) I would doubt that it would be more than a few hundred at most.

I don't think that President Obama will resist if Congress comes up with its own plan (so long as the overall price-tag doesn't change). However, I cannot see any motivation on his part to want to change his existing policy, such as it is, on his own initiative.

It will be very interesting to see the reaction from the Florida Space Program!

It's a different story at JSC. All of the shuttle folks (not counting those that retired or left as part of nominal attrition) were going to work on Orion. With it's cancellation you will loose that whole experienced workforce which will have to be rebuilt from scratch again if we ever restart exploration again. ISS experience won't help because it isn't dynamic enough to give experience for things like ascent, re-entry, orbital insertion, rendezvous and the unique flight control techniques required. NASA will be totally dependent on commercial crew to do BEO and will have to pay through the nose to get them to do it (no market).

"ISS experience won't help because it isn't dynamic enough to give experience for things like ascent, re-entry, orbital insertion, rendezvous and the unique flight control techniques required."

Similar prob with ex-ISS'rs that worked CxP at KSC-lack of ground launch, integration, landing, etc. expertise.

@spacearium: Every vote in Florida counts for Prez elections, county lines don't matter.

So, besides both CxP & Merchant7 being very bad ideas, both do next to nothing for KSC. So any "how great it art", (pick your Merchant7 or CxP it) speeches won't sway anybody there.

anyway, the Soyuz quality probs seem worse than Shuttle extension:

Concern about quality control
...Yuriy Solomonov, has complained for years about the quality of engineering support from contractors. He recently told a reporter that a string of recent failures was “payback for technological imperfection and in a number of cases for overt slovenliness associated with non-compliance with technological discipline.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36119843/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Commercial plus 21st Century Launch Complex may be equal to what Constellation might have been at KSC - nothing new proposed so far would meet the level of shuttle employment.

There is definitely a need to preserve institutional knowledge - especially hands on - at JSC and KSC.

It's more of a hiatus; while we wait until the rehashed - how many times since 1958 - research comes up with "newtech" LV's. These are supposedly liquid-based and will not be hardware until at least 2020. Time enough for escalation of costs such that at the point of no return...comes cancellation- again! In the meantime the # of people - as Old Navy pithily pointed out - with the requisite experience inexorably diminishes upping the expense still further as - like SPACE X - they repeat all the old mistakes...

Darmok, I'm not sure that we even want to get KSC back to the level of shuttle employment. ETO costs too much money. We need to transition to systems that do not require armies of support personnel on the ground.

We've been doing that for decades in other American industries. The aerospace industry needs to be doing the same.