"Words, words, words" - that's what the cartoon character Butthead used to mumble when adults were speaking to him, and it all sounded like one big blur. It leapt to mind again, when I was trying to grasp what President Obama was saying about the big, new plan for NASA, and why it was such a gosh, darn great idea. I know he means well, but it sounded like just so many words, words, words.
And why? Because the proposed annual budget for NASA is only $19 billion ... and do you know what we spend in Iraq every single day? $7 billion.
That's right. Three days from now, we will have spent on Iraq the entirety of next year's budget for NASA, and then some. Obama's proposal to increase the budget of NASA by $6 billion over the next five years, really says that in half-a-decade, NASA will receive one more day in Iraq. (Yes, try to contain your enthusiasm.)
Come to think of it, maybe that should be the new monetary unit in Congress. "I'll vote three-weeks-in-Iraq for the great state of Alabama, if you vote for two-days-in-Iraq for my pet project."
Before this editorial turns from words, words, words into numbers, numbers, numbers - it's the numbers that tell the tale on what is and is not commitment from the US government. And despite the rhetoric, this new NASA plan is basically no commitment at all.
Plenty of observers have already noticed that the Obama plan abandons the return to the moon and ostensibly redirecting funds to science and the goal of Mars. To do this, the big plan is "investing in ground-breaking research and innovative companies" ... OK, let's go back to Business 101 and The Role of Governments 102.
Business can surely attempt daring feats, but they need return on investment. The return has to happen within the life of the company (and its available funds) and that is all part of management of risk. When you're talking about propositions which require science yet to be discovered and technology not yet developed, that is big-time R-I-S-K, all in capital letters. And yet, our nation's space future - humanity's space future - is supposed to rely on the necessarily narrow reality of business propositions?
Now one small part of all this rings true. It's been time to retire the Space Shuttle fleet for some time, and we know how to build them now. If the numbers work out, and there's a market for getting to near-space, this has now become a previously-solved problem. It can and should be done by private companies. Yet if there is not sufficient business to be had - or for some other reason, the economics don't work - the government has to step in and fund it. Simply because society needs it. Kinda like the post office.
Which gets us to The Role of Governments 102.
When we as a society know that we need to go in a daring new direction, but the science is new or emergent, and the technology has never been built, that's when government needs to step in and spend money. And why? So that innovation can occur. So that the science can be corralled. So that at least one working engineering prototype can be built.
In fact, governments must support new directions with investments in cutting-edge science and technology in ways that enable many approaches by many people and groups simultaneously. This means the research money for science and technology must go - as it has always done - to universities and institutes, traditional aerospace companies and new "innovative companies", and heck, even to promising individuals. We don't know what will pay off. Or when. Or how. But experience shows us that it will.
Former President Kennedy's 1961 speech has been thrown around with great abandon in recent days, but his words can still lead us: "I believe we possess all the resources and talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshalled the national resources required for such leadership. We have never specified long-range goals on an urgent time schedule, or managed our resources and our time so as to insure their fulfillment."
So, listen up. Develop a sense of urgency and a respect for the benefits we gain from going to space ... without knowing what those benefits will be. Even if he knew precisely what was going to happen, how far would JFK have gotten had he described to Congress a world of cell phones and laptops, YouTube and Google, wireless and texting - for the seeds of all that technology trace directly back to the communications tech required for the Apollo program.
Demanding usefulness as a precondition for any NASA budget is wrong-headed thinking; demanding cutting edge innovation, paradigm-shifting scientific, breakthrough technologies - that's the ticket! What will result will no doubt amaze and astound.
Let's invest three-weeks-in-Iraq every year for the next 50 in NASA -- the world as we know it will become a very tiny place in a very big universe.
Ah, Galant words Gene, but apparently lost on the blowhards in Congress and a generation that's lost its guts when it comes to exploration. A generation that sits back and watches China, Japan and India ramping *up* their manned space flight programs while we'll soon be relying on *Russian* rockets to get U-S astronauts into orbit. It's pathetic. JOHN KENNEDY must be spinning in his grave. NASA gets about one-half-of-one-percent of the federal budget. Name any federal program that's produced a better dollar-for-dollar return.
As others have pointed out, your figure for the burn rate in Iraq id probably about an order of mag high - worthy of a correction. This in no way ameliorates the insanity or waste of that unjustified occupation.
Precisely. This is the nature of innovation.
For the most part the President's plan is okay, but I hate that he shortchanged the moon. Constellation, as shown by the Augustine Commission, needed revisions, not outright cancellation. I could see the reason why Ares had to go, but a lot of what the President called for was already being done on that program.
And to say we've "been there" is like saying I've been to Europe because I've been to Boston. Also, that rationale, as Paul Spudis argues, implants the end of the program from the start. What happens when we get to Mars or an asteroid: Been there, don't need to go again. It's a "Flags and Footsteps" mentality.
Having said that, I'm glad funding has been increased and R&D is stressed.
The President shroud pick up his pen and sign a National Security Finding which states (in brief) that it is of vital security to the USA to have direct access to space and near earth environs for United States manned spacecraft. This would open the same cookie jar of black budgets that we've been using to pay for our questionable wars. A manned space craft and suitable booster could be ready in two and a half to three years, if we apply to "National Security" the same ardor that was there during Apollo. Rather than the four to seven years which leave the US at the not so tender political "mercies" of other Nations who will (naturally) always put their interests foremost.. Frankly, I wonder which White House "Genius" came up with a plan that said it's somehow "manageable" for the US not to have a manned program for most of a decade!
" $7 billion. "
"As of February 2010, around $704 billion has been spent based on estimates of current expenditure rates[1], which range from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) estimate of $2 billion per week to $12 billion a month, an estimate by economist Joseph Stiglitz."
wikifact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War
But Eisenhower was right!
"Now one small part of all this rings true. It's been time to retire the Space Shuttle fleet for some time,"
Moira, Moira, Moira! With recertification and continued vigilance, it would have been quite possible to continue flying the shuttles up to their lifespan ~100 flights each. No scientific or technical reason exists to quit the program. The shuttle was cancelled for political and economic reasons: to pay for the bloated white elephant of Constellation and, barring a Congressional Miracle for the Shuttle Standing Army (200 mill/month for two years), these 1970's state of the art spacecraft are heading for a museum near you.
Dr Griffin and exPresident Bush a grateful Nation 'salutes' you.
"and we know how to build them now. "
Alas as the X-33/VentureStar demonstrated you don't. What's more you can't even build an "Apollo on Steroids!" That intellectual expertise withered on the vine.
But hey the Russians still know how to build R-7s!
Pozhaluista tovarisch!...
Stop wasting NASA money on redstate pork, and spend it on unmanned space science: then you'd be talking.
However, the path from the Earth's surface to Low Earth orbit and the space station is more like a milk run now. Several countries and companies have shown they can do it. In this case, the government IS the customer which can provide a profit motive and can create competition to greatly reduce the cost of getting into orbit, and at the same time, increase the safety and reliability of the trip.
If done this way, a huge amount of money will not have to be spent by the government in developing and operating what the private companies can do a better job at. Then, NASA can take all that money and develop equipment to do real deep space exploration and development. If the annual operational costs come down enough, we could afford to explore both Moon and Mars. The potential to find life under the surface of Mars makes a manned expedition there a very important goal for
Time to move on, and set a new course for NASA.
PS I'm not sure Neil wants to be buried there but I am sure that there will be some.