Now, even though I’m pretty libertarian, I can at least empathize with the goal of not letting poor widows get screwed by unscrupulous privately-traded companies…but we put the people in the 90th and 95th and 98th percentile in this same category?  Sure, privately traded companies, and especially startups can be pretty risky–even in strong and growing industries.  But really these days, investing only in publicly traded companies is no guarantee that you won’t get screwed.  There are all sorts of ways investors are allowed to do financially suicidal things with publicly traded companies, but aren’t allowed to take any risks with privately traded ones, even if they’ve managed to build net worths of several hundred thousand dollars not counting equity in their primary residences.

I just wonder what the investment environment would be like if the accredited investment rules had a cutoff bar of $500k vs. $1M.  Not that it’ll ever happen, just surprised to realize how high of a bar current accredited investment rules really are for investment.

That is all.

This point was driven home to me talking with an India-born aerospace engineering student at the University of Michigan last week.  I was out there giving a talk on space entrepreneurship, and afterward this gal comes up to me to ask for help on what to do about work after graduation. She loves being in America, and doesn’t want to leave. She loves aerospace, and it has been her passion.  But wunderkinden in DC think that somehow preventing her from using her hard-won education to benefit our country is somehow protecting national security or protecting our borders. Conversations like this just make me sick inside. Here’s a talented young lady who wants to contribute to our society.  But because of a combination of stupid laws, that politicians aren’t willing to change for fear of looking “soft on defense” or “weak on immigration”, I bet there are thousands or tens of thousands of foreign-born engineering students facing similarly crappy choices.

I just think about my coworker Ian. Here’s an enormously talented GN&C engineer, who did amazing things at Masten, and is making a huge contribution at Altius. The only reason why he wasn’t screwed by ITAR and Immigration laws was because he was from Cuba, and due to Florida politics, Cubans have a much easier time getting a green card and eventual citizenship.  Had he been born on a different island in the Caribbean, it would’ve been official US policy to tell him to go take a flying leap and work for some other country.

I have to agree with @joestump’s tweet: “If Obama was serious about us out-innovating and out-building, we should be granting every law abiding immigrant w/ a degree legal status.”

In the end I was able to give this young lady a suggestion on how to proceed. I suggested that she find a job outside of aerospace (and outside of ITAR-covered technologies) that required similar skills to the job she wants to do inside aerospace. That way she could work for a few years until she could get green-card status, and then she could move back to aerospace. In her case it worked, but I wonder how often our shortsighted policies mean that we’re training engineers for foreign countries who would rather stay here and be Americans.

Something needs to change.

What was the general response to these claims? Most in industry other than the fanboys treated their claims with healthy skepticism.

Eight years later, even after that company successfully nails a picture-perfect launch and reentry, people are still skeptical that in the end their prices are going to end up much cheaper than anyone else. Heck, even I’m still wondering if they’ll be able to keep the prices they’ve been claiming once they’re really into routine and reliable operations–and I’m about as close as you can get to a koolaid drinkin fanboy without having spittle in the corner of my mouth.

Then there’s this other rocket group. Like the first one, they haven’t actually demonstrated the ability to successfully design and build new rocket vehicles. At least not within my lifetime. They also start making claims about how by implementing some key industry suggestions (this time those found on “Page 38″ of last month’s HEFT report) they can deliver a new vehicle for far less than past experience dictates. Unlike the first team though, this team does have a track record. But it is a track record of 30 years of consistently overrunning budgets and getting major projects canceled.

“But it will be different this time” they say. “If we use the suggestions on ‘Page 38′, we can dramatically improve on the affordability of developing new rocket vehicles.”

Now, it’s not that the suggestions on Page 38 are bad. They’re not. They’re actually pretty good. Just like “using the best practices from Silicon Valley” sounds good too. I’ll admit that I’m kind of curious how on a $20B project they’re going to “Model, test and fly early and often” or “Use small lean projects with highly competent empowered personnel”, or how a project that is more or less designed by Congressional committee is somehow going to “Push decision authority to the lowest level. Trust them to implement and don’t second guess (over-manage)” [Aside: if Congress really intended to allow NASA to do that last one, they wouldn't be specifying the size of the rocket, what hardware it can use, and which contractors they have to maintain contracts for]. I’m also somewhat curious of how many of the items on that list CxP managers would claim they were already doing…

…but leaving all of those specific details aside, I just don’t get why this second group of people gets all offended when the net result from industry is once again healthy skepticism. Especially given their past track record. When you’re trying to get people to entrust you with a multi-billion dollar project that all past experience and your management claim is unlikely to fit within budget or timeline, is it really that offensive when people have a hard time swallowing that somehow one powerpoint slide is going to change everything?

I mean, it is totally possible that like SpaceX, this new team is going to surprise us, and totally knock this SLS project out of the park. Heck, maybe they’ll even come in far enough under budget that Shelby, out of the kindness of his generous soul, will decide to put the savings into commercial crew or propellant depot development. It’s totally possible.

But is it really rude to be skeptical about this outcome?

I’m going to dignify this silliness with an attempt at a rebuttal.

First off, where are the Chinese and Russian space programs today, compared with ours?

China:

• Has barely started flying its first manned spacecraft in the past five years
• Flies only occasionally, with some years having no flights
• Is five years off from even having the same lift capacity as our EELVs
• Is thinking about launching a small space station sometime this decade
• Is at least semi-competitive on the international launch market, but still not a big player
• Does occasional robotic science missions beyond LEO

Russia:

• Has a good, fairly reliable human launcher they’ve been running for decades
• But can’t afford to fly that vehicle very much except when NASA is footing the bill
• Is operating a portion of a space station that is dependent on NASA for its continued survival
• Is doing fairly well on the international commercial satellite launch market
• Does occasional robotic science missions beyond LEO

USA

• Runs most of the ISS
• Will be funding multiple commercial launch providers, creating an actual manned spaceflight industry
• May see commercial orbital stations in the near future developed by domestic entrepreneurs like Bigelow
• Is investing in technologies and infrastructure like propellant depots that can greatly simplify BEO exploration and even commercial BEO transportation

I could go on.  I just have a hard time seeing how the country that’s actually trying to build up commercial manned spaceflight, and break new ground with technologies like propellant depots is somehow going to get overtaken in space by countries like Russia and China.

If it fails, commercial space people will switch back to “it was only a test” mode while to Ares-huggers, it will prove, prove, prove that all commercial vehicles (including those with existing proven track records) are all death traps. After all, imagine the national security risk of flying our astronauts on private launch vehicles! I mean, if we’re going to turn LEO crew transportation over to the private sector, we might as well all start learning Chinese and reading the little Red Book, cause them Commies are going to come and sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids.

Let’s turn to the Augustine Report itself for some information. On pages 83 and 84 they discuss implementing the Program of Record on entirely unconstrained budgets–ie if we gave the program the full funding it needs to execute, and allot it to move at the full pace it can realistically move at, what do we get?

• A $145B pricetag over the 2010-2020 timeframe, which doesn’t even get us to the point of having Ares V and the LSAM ready for operations, much less a moonbase.  This would require almost $5B extra per year–ie a 25% increase in NASA’s topline budget.
• An international space station deorbited within 5 years of its completion, during which time the only method of access would be by paying the Russian government for flights.
• A crew launch vehicle that becomes available two years after its first destination is deorbited, and whose operational costs have to be carried for over half a decade until we have any of the tools that would be necessary to actually use it for anything.  But don’t worry, we can spend $2B+ per year to send even fewer astronauts flying in even more useless circles.
• A seven plus year manned orbital spaceflight gap in the US.
• Almost no investment in long-term technology development (not much more than the current SBIR budget, and entirely focused on short-term Constellation needs, not on making future missions safer, more affordable, and more valuable).
• No stimulation of commercial industry beyond the CRS contracts which wouldn’t be extended since the ISS would be gone by 2016.  No investment or early market for commercial crew delivery
• No money to actually develop hardware for actually doing anything on the Moon, since almost all of the money will go to figuring out how to go there while maximizing employment in Shelbyville.
• No more robotic orbiters or landers for years to follow-up on the work LCROSS did.

But hey, at least if we do it this way, sometime 15+ years from now, we’ll have the ability to send 8 people to the moon every year at the cost of an “exploration” program that costs almost as much per year as NASA’s entire current budget!

If you assume that there are parts of NASA outside of Huntsville that actually matter (ie that NASA != Northern Alabama Space Administration), the situation gets even worse.  In order to fund Constellation at full speed without splashing the space station almost as soon as it’s completed, you would need $159B over that timeframe, which constitutes a $7B per year increase for NASA.  That increase still:

• Gets you a space station you can’t access without the Russians for most of its operational lifetime (why does Congress trust Russian commercial space more than American commercial space, btw?).
• Gets you no real investment in long-term technologies, ensuring that the cost, safety, and efficiency of manned spaceflight will be stagnant for another couple decades.
• Gets you no real investment or encouragement of the commercial industry (in direct contravention of the laws of the land and NASA’s charter I might mention).
• Gets you no more robotic follow-ons for LRO and LCROSS for over 15 years.

Compare this with the Flexible Path option that Mark likes to mock so much.  For less than half as much of an increase per year, you get:

• Robust ISS utilization through 2020, with multiple methods of providing crew and cargo delivery that aren’t all dependent on Russia
• Investments in commercial space that can help keep the US in the forefront of space technology and utilization
• Robust investments in high-payoff medium-term technologies like propellant depots, space radiation, space nuclear power, aerocapture and other EDL techniques, ISRU, and other high-payoff technologies that can vastly lower the cost of future exploration missions, allowing us to accomplish more for less and at lower risk.
• A manned lunar landing program that at most is only 3-4 years behind the current PoR, but when it gets there, it provides a much more affordable, more commercially and internationally interesting program, and has much greater capabilities once you get there.
• A manned spaceflight program that is much more capable of exploring the whole inner solar system, and not just doing a few flags and footprints landing on the Moon.
• A manned spaceflight program that builds on and leverages our impressive achievements in robotic space exploration.
• A program that in spite of doing a lot more looking, also allows a lot more touching of new destinations like NEOs and Phobos/Deimos, all on about the same timeframe that the PoR would at best be going for its first lunar landings.

Where I come from, we tend to think that getting a heck of a lot less while paying a heck of a lot more is usually the sign of a sucker.  I just wish that a few space pundits and public figures didn’t keep enabling Senator Shelby and his ilk from hijacking NASA’s budget to enrich his campaign contributors at the rest of our expense.

[Note: As an aside, am I the only one who finds Shelby's latest childish tantrum accusing the Augustine Committee of being compromised by biased by evil commercial lobbyists to be richly and hilariously ironic?  When it comes to lecturing people about the evils of lobbyists corrupting the political process for their own personal gain, Senator Shelby has about as much moral standing as Tiger Woods does when it comes to lecturing people about marital fidelity.]

Of course, with all the news going on about NASA lately, a couple of comments that appeared relevant stood out, like this one (emphasis mine in all quotes below):

It is characteristic of political arrangements that they go on long after an observer from Mars might think that surely their defects are so patent that they have exhausted their capacity for survival.

and recent comments by Senator Shelby and Senator Nelson reminded me of this one:

The Special Interest State could get along quite well when it simply nibbled at the edges of the society and economy, snipping off a benefit here and there, and when the number of victorious interests was limited. But the combination of moral entitlement, multiplication of claimants, and lack of limits on each and every claim is throwing them into conflict, and rendering unsustainable the ethic of the logrolling alliances that control it.

The guiding principle is that no member of the alliance will challenge the claims of any fellow member. But this principle has a limit, in that unlimited claims cannot help but impinge eventually on each other.

Referring to Democrats (though legitimately you could make this statement about most politicians of either flavor):

The groups regard the economy as a commons, and each is determined to loot as much as possible for as long as possible, regardless of the long term.

Lastly this concept has been on my mind a lot lately:

Rauch’s recommendation does not take account of the expansionist nature of the Special Interest State, however. If the evolution cannot be reversed, and the tendency toward expansion cannot be checked, and if at the same time the arrangements cannot expand forever, then we seem to have a paradox, because what cannot go on must stop. If the evolution cannot be reversed, and mechanisms of gradual adjustment are lacking, abrupt tectonic shifts are the only alternative. Change will not necessarily be violent, though that is certainly possible, but it could be sudden. If one characteristic of political arrangements is to continue longer than one might think possible, another is that when they change, they change with amazing speed.

Of course, as he pointed out, bad political arrangements have a zombielike ability to keep moving long after they should by all rights be dead. As someone once said, “there is a lot of ‘ruin’ in a nation”, and I think the same can apply to any entity. So, while I may be one of those who is so talented that he accurately predicts “nine of the past three recessions” so to speak, I think that people assuming that things will always be thus, because they’ve been this way for a while are eventually going to be rather surprised.

I quipped under the Bush Administration that “I wish those who keep insisting on failing to learn from history didn’t have the power to force the rest of us to share in their remedial lessons”.  While I have to admit I was actually pleasantly surprised with Obama’s actions during his first few days in office (regarding issues like torture, Guatanamo, and foreign policy), I get the feeling that this time around the block I’ll get to sit in on other peoples’ remedial economics lessons.

Now… it seems to me that because of inertia or vested interests, members of the elites always fail to recognize the eroding influence of a declining great power. Economists refer to Recognition lag when they discuss the time lag between when an actual economic shock, such as sudden boom or bust occurs, and when it is recognized by economists, central bankers and the government. A similar time lag may explain why so many pundits are continuing to demand and/or expect the Obama Administration to reassert U.S. influence abroad and “do something” about this or that (depending on one’s favorite foreign policy agenda).

Interestingly enough, in a foreign policy seminar I led a while ago I asked my students to conduct a content analysis of how the leading powers were covered by the major international dailies in the aftermath of WWII. They were astonished to discover that until the mid 1950’s both Great Britain and France (by then bankrupted economic and military powers) were described as “great powers” more times than the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Only in the late 1950’s was “great” being dropped as an adjective when discussing the Brits and the French and “super” was applied to the Americans and the Soviets. A example of recognition lag in foreign policy.

I’ve been saying for some time now, that there may be a similar analogy in space policy discussions–the politics behind Shuttle Derived Launch Vehicles.

For many years, people have pointed out that the main reason why the Shuttle is still flying today is mostly due to inertia, and because it provides lots of jobs in important congressional districts.  The implied belief being that this will always continue to be such, so it doesn’t matter if a Shuttle Derived vehicle makes any technical or economic sense, becuase “political realities” will always guarantee that NASA employs tens of thousands of employees and contractors in much the same way as the are today.

This is historically naive in my opinion.

Much as the UK and France had their influence decrease after WWII, there have been many changes in our nation’s political structure recently.  The belief seems to go that somehow the loss of power by the party of which Utah, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi are all part will not effect in any way the political calculus on how NASA will proceed from here.  That retiring or outgoing people in key senate and congressional committees don’t matter.  That Senators and Presidents will stick out their necks to defend the jobs of people who didn’t vote for them.

While it is possible that inertia might prevail, I think the reality is that the winds have already changed in Washington, and that it’s just a matter of time before more space advocates start actually realizing this.