Senators Blast NASA For Lacking Vision 319
An anonymous reader writes "A Senate science subcommittee clashed with NASA's chief on Wednesday, saying the agency and the White House lacked a clear vision and goal for the program. Skeptical senators told the space agency that it should not just talk about plans, but set out to do something specific. Lawmakers expressed a bipartisan opposition to the agency's plans and the initiatives of the Obama White House." Updated 23:13 GMT by timothy: Reader Trent Waddington contributes this video link to the hearing, if you want to come to your own conclusions.
Mars (Score:2, Informative)
Make a declaration that the US will land on Mars before this decade is out, provide the funding, and it can be done.
Re:NASA had plans... (Score:5, Informative)
The management at NASA and the special interests behind key areas kept pushing for Constellation due to it's huge R&D budget, despite the laws of physics which stated that it would never work with the designs as/is. And Obama pulled the plug on the dead-man-walking. It was obvious 5 years ago that this would happen, which is why NASA's engineers "moonlighted" and introduced the DIRECT launch design.
Here [directlauncher.com] is what they proposed. It could be ready from approval to launch within 36 months, as it is based on existing technologies *and* it has already passed PDR. If it looks familiar to you space nuts, you might remember it as the Regan-era National Launch System. Now it is called Jupiter.
Terrible article (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esCGYkVhhnY&feature=channel [youtube.com]
Watch the Senate Hearing yourself, a lot more interesting stuff happened.
Re:Commercialisation (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Playing to the votors (Score:5, Informative)
Cuts to NASA are completely and utterly pointless as far as balancing the budget. NASA's represents less than half a percent of the federal budget. You could run NASA at current levels for 4 years on what the F-22 project alone has cost.
Sen. Vitter's attack on NASA deputy backfires (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you who've watched the Senate hearing video [youtube.com] that QuantumG linked to, there's this rather bizarre part where Sen. Vitter (R-La) made some insinuations that Bolden wasn't actually involved in the planning, but it was all supposedly done by his deputy Lori Garver. The Orlando Sentinel has some follow-up on this, with sources reporting that ATK (one of the primary contractors on the Ares I rocket) had put up the Senator to make those attacks:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2010/02/senators-attack-on-nasa-deputy-chief-lori-garver-backfires.html [orlandosentinel.com]
The attacks on NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver spearheaded by Louisiana Republican Sen. David Vitter during a hearing on Wednesday on the 2011 NASA budget have badly backfired, according to a range of sources.
Vitter accused Garver -- who was not present at the hearing -- of orchestrating the cancellation of Constellation. He also seemed to suggest that Garver was running the agency, and not Administrator Charlie Bolden. Bolden later called Vitter's comment "unfair."
Not only were administration outraged by Vitter's remarks but several female civil servants and women executives in aerospace companies who have known Garver for years felt compelled to send their complaints to senate staff Wednesday afternoon.
Several sources on the Hill, in industry and inside the Obama administration blame rocket maker ATK, the developer of the Ares I rocket first stage, for putting Vitter up to the attack. Sources say that complaints have been sent to ATK and so far there has been no response.
In the meantime, members of the Senate and the House said they were going to refrain from any further personal attacks as they move against the White House's proposed 2011 budget for the space agency.
Re:The President has to lead (Score:5, Informative)
well, since you brought it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms [wikipedia.org]
under bush #1, national debt grew by ~12% (in one term!)
under bush #2, national debt grew by ~12%
under clinton, national debt was *reduced* by ~7%
next time keep your mouth shut. that will do more to further your cause.