Bush's space plan a political hoax

Florida Today ^ | January 30, 2004 | Alex Roland

[hgro]

NASA is a bloated bureaucracy that has been squandering money for too many years. The sooner its closed down, the better.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

When the Chinese are done destroying all our defense satellites from their moonbases, we'll wish we had done something.

[jpsb]

who is arguing for doing nothing? The plan NASA laid out, will not happen. You just can't start from scratch time and time again. The shuttle is our best manned space craft, built on it. Don't throw it away for the promise that maybe in 8 or 10 years we might have a replacement. Congress is has proven time and time again that it will cut NASA funding forcing redesign after redign until you get crap like the ISS.

[okie01]

Why would I sense that most of Roland's objections are political? That he's ag'in it 'cause Bush is for it? And that, had Clinton proposed such a 'bold venture', Roland would've led the cheers.

I'm not qualified to comment on the engineering feasibility or budgetary accuracy. But, somehow, I doubt that Roland is, either.

Whether he's right or he's wrong, there is a strong aroma of political bigotry about his article.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

I think you missed most of this thread. There's a number of posters who'd kill the space program given the opportunity.

The space shuttles have been in redesign ever since they were built. All of the concepts proved to be beyond current technology. And the shuttle is still way too expensive.

The truth is that our military is the only organization with a plan for space and it's classified. The rest of it is to allow the private sector to pull in more scientists and advance space technology.

It's time to put the kiwi B into production and bring back the space plane that was developed in the 1950's.

Hoo hoo hoo!

[jpsb]

It's time to put the kiwi B into production and bring back the space plane that was developed in the 1950's.

kiwi B?
1950's space plane? X-15?

[XBob]

57 - "After the loss of Challenger (which I helped to launch from the C-9 console, BTW), Rockwell offered to build a replacement shuttle at no cost to the taxpayers and pay the government for launch services if NASA would let them carry whatever payloads they wanted."

Well, you got me on that one - I was in Texas and California during that period (86-87), and somehow missed that nifty piece of info. Thanks.

[XBob]

49 - "Ten years with the Shuttle program, huh? Some highly important managerial specialty, no doubt. Guess what? Emptying the wastebaskets doesn't count."

Curious. Both Snopercod and I individually, and personally impacted our space program - and our contributions made a difference. Enough of a difference that we are aware of many of the real probems of NASA and the space program. And if you have followed our postings for the past year, you would know that.

What did you do to make you so knowledgable?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Engines are here:

nukes

The space plane itself was on the cover of Popular Science sometime in 1998 or 1999. The article included the picture of one that crashed in Australia. The local papers at the time concluded it was a UFO because the US government moved in and made the evidence go away. ;)

[anymouse]

Gerard O'Neil's work (actually T. Hepinheimer's book about O'Neil's work) inspired me to pursue a space carrier back when I was in high school with no particular direction prior to that. Who would have thought that I would end up helping build a real space station (even if it doesn't rotate :).

What irks me though is that I designed a practical O'Neil (or rather Clarke) style rotating space station and an innovative heavy lift rocket to haul up the station's components nearly 20 years ago as my college senior project. I had hoped that we would be flying such a 3rd generation rotating space station by now. I wonder how many more decades will go by before we get to that point?

[snopercod]

I haven't been able to find anything on the Internet regarding Rockwell's offer to build a replacement for Challenger. But I found a really great website in Finland SPACELOG that has a lot of information that I didn't know. There was a second company that offered to privately finance a replacement shuttle. Or maybe the two offers were the same one - Astrotech would finance, and Rockwell would build. From their October 1986 file:

-The Reagan Administration's decision to suspend the Space Shuttle and all but delete its commercial flights cause enormous difficulties for some entrepreneurial firms. The Center for Space Policy, who did several optimistic commercial Shuttle/space station market forecasts in 1983-85 and had been involved in several private ventures, is reducing its staff and shifting its emphasis toward military space programs instead.

-Another company who has been hard hit is Astrotech, who are planning an orbiting power station, materials processing, a reusable upper stage, a satellite processing facility near Kennedy Space Center and a proposal to privately finance a new Shuttle Orbiter. Astrotech's satellite processing for Shuttle customers earned some profits in 1985, but the facility has been empty since January 28. The company has been unable to pay its bank loans, and the SEC holds up an Initial Public Offering that would have raised additional investment.

-Orbital Sciences Corp. is devastated when NASA decides to delay the first Shuttle flight with its Transfer Orbit Stage by two years, to 1992. "It would be devastating if they slip the contract for two years. I don't know how we'd survive. If they decide to buy it later, I don't know who they'd be buying from. The program will go haywire," says OSC vice president Scott Webster.

-Webster is critical of the government's commercial space policy, saying that it has been distrorted to apply to those who are not commercial innovators. He cites American ELV manufacturers, who remain suspicious of the Administration's promise to prevent NASA from launching commercial satellites on the Shuttle. They are awaiting a list from the White House of commercial customers to be launched on the Shuttle by 1992. Manufacturers of expendable launchers warn that they will not be commercially viable if more than 15 satellites remain on the Shuttle launch manifest.

-NASA's FY 1987 budget contains a record $10.4 billion, including an extra $2.4 billion Challenger appropriation from the Department of Defense. The bill includes $2.984 billion for Shuttle production (including $2.1 billion for the new Orbiter) plus $1.868 billion for operations. The Station receives a full $410 million, but only $260 million may be spent unless NASA meets the congressional requirements regarding international access to the Station.

I didn't realize the Reagan initially refused to authorize a Challenger replacement, and only did so as a dedicated military vehicle to be based at VAFB.

The end result of all this was that NASA killed off all commercial space companies that were in competition with them. The Transfer Orbit Stage would have been a money-maker. They could have retrieved geo-synchronous satellites and brought them back for repair.

[XBob]

71 - "I didn't realize the Reagan initially refused to authorize a Challenger replacement, and only did so as a dedicated military vehicle to be based at VAFB. "

I don't know exactly what happened, but I do know that there was a big fight, and there was to be no replacement for Challenger, then, behind the scenes, something happened, and suddenly it was approved. I have always assumed that Rockwell pulled in one of its markers that NASA owed it.

===

You also wrote - "The end result of all this was that NASA killed off all commercial space companies that were in competition with them. The Transfer Orbit Stage would have been a money-maker. They could have retrieved geo-synchronous satellites and brought them back for repair."

I did get involved in some of that a bit, and I found several major problems - NASA and washington politics.

But I also found that they were hiring only 'experienced' people for these commercial companies. My brother got involved in one of the Spaceport studies. Anyway, as a retiring senior space engineer, he was paid for 18 months work to write a 5 page paper, and never had to report to work, except for a 'progress report' about once a quarter. He was astounded. Basically, they only had 'experienced' managers and administrators in these 'private' companies, who were only experienced in the NASA contractor way, spend more money - to make more money - it's cost plus.

In other words, the culture guaranteed commercial failure.

[XBob]

71 - From your link - May 1986

"-China's Ministery of Astronautics forms a six-member team to investigate what type of Space Station participation the country might undertake. The Chinese also propose that the US develop an upper stage for its Long March 4 booster. "

As Bush has never proposed supporting an old (shuttle orbiter) or new launch vehicle beyond 2010, I wonder if this plan is still in progress?