House Passes NASA Authorization Bill 149
simonbp writes "The US House of Representatives has just passed the Senate version of the FY2011 NASA Authorization Act. This bill is a compromise between Obama's proposed budget and earlier House bills. It cancels Ares I in favor of commercially-operated crew transportation to ISS, adds technology development funds, and keeps a version of Orion and a new heavy-lift 'Space Launch System' to both be operational by 2016. The timing of this bill was crucial to keeping key NASA personnel and contractors from being laid off."
Budget or 'plan'? (Score:4, Interesting)
So does this bill include a realistic budget to actually accomplish these goals or is it just "oh yeah, we support NASA 100%" political pandering? Last version of the bill I read about included keeping the shuttle program going with no additional launches and no additional funding, just moving money from some other NASA program and pay people who won't be doing any real work.
Great (Score:4, Interesting)
Nasa gets less that 1% of the budget, while Medicare, Social Security and Welfare get 57%, Defense gets 19% and the interest on the debt is 5%.
Do you see the problem here?
Re:Budget or 'plan'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty much everything at this point is political pandering when NASA is involved. When was the last time you saw NASA have real support, either in the media or on capital hill?
Re:A constant problem in NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
The basic problem is this: Projects in NASA take longer than a president will be in office.
The basic problem is that commercial (practical uses) and scientific (pure investigation) exploration shouldn't be tied. Furthermore, space exploration/investigation shouldn't be tied to a government.
NASA should separate into practical and scientific. Then, after the ESA and other space agencies have done the same, the scientific divisions should join in a United Space Agency (with a different name, but you know what I mean).
Re:Budget or 'plan'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, until someone in office has the vision to budget for the development of a non-chemical launch technology space travel isn't going to become routine anyway. Even massive funding into a new rocket isn't going to be the kind of game changer that you're looking for, we need a launch loop [wikipedia.org], space elevator, laser rocket [wikipedia.org], or at the very least a nuclear rocket [wikipedia.org] to finish the jump to being a truly spaceworthy species.
Re:A constant problem in NASA (Score:5, Interesting)
There were only two reasons that the USA reached the moon:
1) the president that announced the initiative had been popular and was assasinated. That happening made him a national hero and they did it for his legacy. Saying anything negative about JF Kennedy was politically unpopular in the 1960's, and no politician wanted to be the one accused of causing NASA to not reach the moon by 1970.
2) the "space race" against the Russians. Once the race had been "won", there wasn't any emphasis on continuing...no matter how valuable the science and research was.
The public lost interest. If it hadn't been for the drama of Apollo 13, the project would never have made it to 17 missions. It's a shame the program ended since those astronauts are/were among the bravest and smartest people alive.
Just my $0.02.
-JJS
Re:NASA is dead (Score:5, Interesting)
Pardon me, but from the timestamp on your comment its obvious that you didn't read shit about this bill before posting some inflammatory garbage that only helps bring down the SNR here.
The facts are the NASA was dying under Bush. Constellation was 100% unaffordable and on top of that falling behind with delays and budget overruns. Neither Clinton or Bush properly planned for the post space shuttle era. Obama is now tasked to keep NASA alive via privatization of easy launches to the ISS and building a new capsule and rocket for an asteroid mission 15 years from now. Its not 1967. Private industry can handle lofting meatbags to the ISS. Government should be doing what private industry can't.
This bill is a very interesting look into how our times have changed. Yes, it would be nice if it had more money attached to it, but we kinda spent our cash on tax cuts for the rich and two wars under Bush. You can't have nice things if you keep going into debt over war and cuts for people who don't need them.
Re:Badastronomy blog on bill (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's an analogy. Ask a kid if he can get supplies to wash a car and wash it for $5, and tell him to get it all done in an hour. He says he can do it. Now give him $2.50, and expect it to be done in an hour. When the kid doesn't deliver a clean car in an hour and says he needs more money, call him behind schedule and over budget.
Breaking with that analogy and stepping into the real world, now let's say that you tell a company that you can do an easier job for less money than one of their contractors that has a different outcome. You still are not accomplishing the original goal, just like SpaceX is making one hell of a low earth orbit vehicle, but it's not headed to the moon. So it doesn't save money, it changes the scope of the mission.
Obama has nothing to do with the originally planned 5 year gap, you are correct. However, the new plan has an undetermined gap in launch capability, let alone extra-low-earth-orbit capability. I'd take 5 years over undetermined, especially when considering Congress' tendency to not support things over status quo when it comes to space exploration.
I'm not agreeing with the bill to be sure... it seems like a jobs bill designed to build a rocket for the sake of busy work, then scrap it when there's nothing to put on top of it. However the lack of concrete goals in Obama's plan makes me leery of it, because it is so easy to say "we'll get to that tomorrow" if specific goals are not set to begin with.
Re:NASA is dead (Score:3, Interesting)
Huh? How is it dead? NASA has money, they have goals, and a start on an idea of how to make manned exploration affordable and sustainable.
Constellation was never going to fly. It had to get through a few more administration changes before getting to the moon, and if past performance is any indication, the budget was going to grow more, and the target dates were going to be pushed back. 2030 is a long way off.
In its place we get a competitive market for Gemini class vehicles to reduce the risk of ever facing a spaceflight gap again, a push for a more affordable heavy lift vehicle that while I think is misguided will keep the politicians happy, technology development to make BEO missions 5-year projects instead of 20-year projects, and most importantly, a restatement of the goal that NASA should always have had: To facilitate the settlement of space, through trying to reduce dependence on the Earth, building LEO infrastructure, and focusing on in-space resource utilizatoin.
As a spacecraft engineer who has been viscerally opposed to working on anything in the past NASA HSF environment, I'm looking forward to what comes up in the next few years.
Re:Great (Score:1, Interesting)
Not to point out the obvious, but those "smiling" people killed over 4000 of my countrymen and your friends.
Oh, and we can't bomb Iran because the Ayatollah can just dial up the violence anytime he wants in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Laffer Curve has only two defined points, 100% taxes and 0% taxes. That anyone can believe that the US, with one of the lowest tax burdens of any nation is on the rightward slope shows either ignorance or deceit.