WP: Bush's Space Plan in Danger

[kskiska]

Shuttle Program's Deficit May Mean Far Fewer Flights

Thursday, November 24, 2005; A01

A large deficit in NASA's troubled shuttle program threatens to seriously delay and possibly cripple President Bush's space exploration initiative unless the number of planned flights is cut virtually in half or the White House agrees to add billions of dollars to the human spaceflight budget.

Sources familiar with ongoing negotiations between NASA and the White House say the administration has no intention of spending extra money to deal with a shortfall that some space experts say could exceed $6 billion from 2006 to 2010, when NASA plans to retire the shuttle for good.

The source of the deficit is the travail that has plagued the shuttle program since the Columbia disaster in 2003. After a single flight by Discovery this summer, the orbiters -- grounded for 2 1/2 years after Columbia -- are out of action again until at least May while engineers work to make them safer.

(snip)

The impasse has put the future of Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration" in doubt less than two years after it was announced. Without extra money, experts say, NASA could have trouble developing a new "crew exploration vehicle" by 2014, as originally planned, let alone fulfilling Griffin's wish to fly it by 2012. The dilemma is also fueling an odd confrontation between the administration and Congress, where once-wary lawmakers now appear willing to provide the extra funding even as the White House backs away from its own initiative.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/23/AR2005112301970.html

[Canuckistanian]

1. Good! Keep Nasa in turmoil until a new President can be elected.

Then an intelligent strategy can be implemented. Don't spend ANY money until the visionaries are give their due.

Too bad about the next 3 years, though. Important work could have been done.

[edbermac]

3. Too bad; I'm a fan of the space program.

The second Neil Armstrong made his footprint on the lunar surface, Congress started cutting NASA's budget. If they kept pouring money into the program, we'd have bases on Mars and the moon; which is a lot more beneficial for humanity than turning the Middle East into George Bush's personal parking lot...

[Canuckistanian]

10. That point was made in'69

And I still agree with it.

[leesa]

29. Space warfare is more beneficial for man , How???

I'm glad the war industry didn't get this little wet dream.

[stevedeshazer]

2. The whole "Bush to Mars" thing was bullshit anyway

We've been marching backward on this since at least 1972.

[tanyev]

22. I was really hoping he would personally lead the mission....

[ShockediSay]

4. Americans are starving to death

without food stamps, dying without medicare/medicaid attention, suffering the loss of any equality of opportunity due to student loan cutbacks, and this cowboy is worried about outer space?

SEND HIM THERE!

[Hypatia82]

17. In all fairness...

NASA is a huge jobs program. Not many places for aerospace engineers to work besides NASA. Problem is NASA gets treated like a red headed stepchild. Also the problems you list could be fixed with people helping people.

[Nevernose]

30. NASA gave us CAT scans & kidney dialysis

We should be worried about space, and the technology we've developed as a result of our attempts to explore it. I can't even remeber all of the things we've gotten as a result of space exploration (not including technological distractions like NASCAR engines and Tang).

The problem with the Rhinestone Chimp is that he has no plans for space expolration, just attempts at some kind of bizarre public-relations hand-holding exercise that has scientists across the world (people trying to make the wolrd a better place) shaking their heads in disbelief

[Miss Chybil]

5. Moonbase to Bush. Moonbase to Bush. Reality Sucks, Bush.

Get used to it.

[truthisfreedom]

6. the wilt house is shrinking away from everything bush has ever done...

eventually he'll backpedal on the tax cuts as well.

[PSPS]

7. You mean people actually took bush's "proposal" seriously?

[stevebreeze]

8. without the space program none of us would be posting here.

There would be no microcomputer chips. The baby boomer's among us surely remember how big and clunky the original calculators were. The space program was instrumental in bringing down the size and weight of computer chips. We went to the moon with 16K of memory. The pace program is the only government program to put forth the kind of technological progress it has, with the exception of war. Given that kind of choice we should be spending a lot more on the space program.

[Gasping4Truth]

24. Any sources to back that up?

I think the manufactures of computers had enough economic incentives of their own to keep making their products smaller and smaller, that they need not worry about the advantages of their technology to some government-funded program.

[stevebreeze]

26. the vast majority of the early advances were before computers were

available to the general public. Computers are just one aspect, the led is also a product of the space program, and what would we do without Tang?

[AngryAmish]

28. Where can I go to get some Tang?

[Nevernose]

31. Laser in the optical mouse, and indrectly ARPANET

Besides the optical mouse, which is certainly convenient, an argument could be made that since NASA and control of near space was integral to preparing for a nuclear war, and ARPANET came out of that same struggle, then space exploration was indirectly responsible for the creation of the modern Internet(s).

Okay, so it's a weak argument. Sue me. :)

[Demeter]

33. Then You Have No Understanding of the Economics Of Engineering

The military is the first customer, and pays through the nose, enabling the company to cover the costs of development and debugging and setting up manufacturing. The corporate business comes next, at a slight improvement in price as economies of scale grow. Then the off-shore Asian firms buy one or two, so they can reverse-engineer and make it cheaper for consumer use.

[phaseolus]

9. The thing I always wondered about Bush's space plan is...

...what was in it that he wasn't telling us?? Since the 60s there have been secret little military things buried in the space program that we don't really hear about, and it's probably a necessary evil on some level -- but I don't trust *this* crowd not to make it into something that's pure evil.

[Canuckistanian]

12. I think they believe there's oil on the moon

They think every planet's got a soft, creamy, center, just waiting for the Halliburton Space Agency.

[phaseolus]

13. Heh. Seriously, though, I think they're worrying about the Chinese space

...initiatives.

Any administration should look at that situation, and perhaps take steps to make sure that we're suddenly not a superpower and someone who might concievably hate us in the future is.

But you just gotta suspect that *this* administration, and future ones like these clowns, would try to use space supremacy as a way to put a boot up everyone else's asses for their own amusement and crush them all later, and that would be evil.

A good administration with real leaders, competent leaders like we had through much of the 90s, if they saw a space weapons race on the horizon, would work like hell to get a treaty in place to make the Apollo program philosophy a worldwide reality -- "We came in peace for ALL MANKIND." Most Republican administrations, demonstrating the competence and leadership we've seen for the last 5 years, would take us down the road to destruction and the end of civilization.

[Canuckistanian]

15. I say, Godspeed, Taikonauts!

And I don't think that Shrub gives a gnat's worth of attention to Nasa's Space Program.

He's probably forgotten what he said yesterday.

[sadiesworld]

18. It's better than oil...

it's Helium 3.

The Chinese have announced that they will launch 10 rockets by 2017 to go after the Helium 3. My guess is that the US Space Program has been officially offshored to China and * is just engaging in a bit of pre-emptive CYA.

[bicentennial_baby]

11. Mars, bitches!

[Bigmack]

14. I firmly believe (with my tinfoil beanie in place)...

... that Bush's whole speech on space exploration and a return to the moon was to alter the Google search for "Bush Moon".

Before his speech, if you googled those words, you got the whole Rev. Moon connection with Bush and the various whackjobs like Falwell.

Afterwards, the first 5 pages of search were for Bush commenting on returning to the moon.

You can't convince me that * understands the advantages and drawbacks of space travel, much less gives a rat's ass. And funding?... forget it!

I think Rove planned the whole thing.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Maeve]

21. Shhh! You'll embarrass him!

You know..."tell the truth and shame the devil" ?!?
:evilgrin:

[Vinca]

19. I'm for funding it if we can vote on the astronauts!

So long, Dick. Bye bye, Shrub. Condi . . . zip up your flight suit and make room for Messrs. Frist and Delay. Pickles, you want to go? Ta ta. Now where's that Mehlman? :rofl:

[Polemonium]

20. no corporate profits in space, screw the space program

Screw it all except private defense contracting. :shrug:

[Prisonerohio]

23. I think Bush's plan all along is to trash the space program.

I mean really the space program has been dead for a while, but his plan is the final nail in its coffin. There is a large group of people who voted for him simply because they have the fantasy that we will one day go to mars and Star trek will come true or something. At the same time he is trashing all the real science being done for a plan that will take a decade to come about. That the plan is already failing doesn't surprise me at all. That was Bush's plan all along. End the space program and fund the money to the new wars. You don't actually think if they end the space program the money will go to the people do you. I think there are a lot of good benefits to going to mars, there is no way its going to happen.

[wordpix2]

25. i think BushCo's Mars plan was tied to his Star Wars plan, you know, sneak

the controversial space missile busters' very expensive r&d in with the Mars program, which in BushCo's minds is less controversial

[AngryAmish]

27. Lets hope so

Who benefits from space exploration -- big companies. Let them pay for it.

[Maggie_May]

32. Can we say

we are broke! I wish they would stop with bullshit and just say it. When the kids come to you ask you for some new gadget and you don't have the money. The answer is "I am broke."

[VegasWolf]

34. The next people on the Moon will be Chineese. nt