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.

Unfortunately, I’ve been noticing some disturbing trends over the past day or so, particularly regarding the rumor floating around that James Oberstar might be selected to head up the Department of Transportation.  As Jeff Foust helpfully points out, people are jumping the gun on this.  It’s been interesting how many people snatched at this rumor as instant proof that Obama was going to screw commercial space.

Quite frankly that kind of attitude is the best way to guarantee that bad space policy carries the day.  The good news is that from what I’ve seen, the people who are actually close to the DC side of things are saavy enough to realize that even if their guy lost, that they ahve to find a way to work with the new team.  And that’s what the rest of us should be doing.  Criticism of bad moves is totally appropriate.  But jumping to conclusions and prematurely condemning actions that are still in the rumor phase as though they already had been made is silly.

What people should be doing right now, is trying to respectfully engage the new administration on issues like space policy.  Make your case, try to show some empathy and find common ground.  Don’t just turn your backs on them and then whine about the results.

Sure, there’s a chance that you’ll just be wasting your time, but it reminds me a lot of something one of our investors told me:  We were talking about a potential customer, and I was expressing skepticism that they would really be interested in working with us, since our stuff was somewhat dissimilar to what they’re trying to do.  He told me “Let them decide whether they’re interested or not–if you don’t at least ask, the answer is definitely no”.

We can’t control whether or not the Obama administration listens to us, but we can at least put the ball in their court by constructively engaging.

I saw this a lot in the Philippines while I was on my mission.  Lots of people I knew who put off getting formally married in order to increase their odds of getting a green card (the plan typically being that once they had one, they’d go back get married, and bring their family over).  Which, in case you couldn’t guess my feelings on the matter, I think was a particularly perverse incentive.

The frustrating part though for us in the commercial space industry though is that it means that it becomes nearly impossible to recruit foreign talent–even from friendly countries like Canada.  In order to legally share ITAR restricted information with someone, without permission from the State Department, they have to be either a US citizen, or at least a permanent resident (ie a green card holder).  As you can see from the chart, if a potential foreign employee doesn’t have a relative who is a US citizen or permanent resident, it can take several years between when they start working for you and when they get their green card.  Unfortunately, for aerospace work, an H-1B visa isn’t (as I understand it) sufficient to meet the requirements of ITAR, so you would have to employ the person for several years in some sort of position that didn’t expose them to ITAR-sensitive data.  Or alternatively you’d have to go through the process to get State Department approval to speak with your own employee.

All this just goes to show how self-destructive and short sighted both of these bureaucratic messes are.  Part of what made America great was its ability to attract and assimilate the best and brightest from around the world.  But in the case of Aerospace, not only is the government making it harder to speak with foreigners in general, but its also making it harder for US firms to actually hire away the best and brightest.  But I guess that’s what happens when scare mongering against the Scary Brown Other and trying to score cheap political points by sticking-it to those “treasonous libruls” takes precedence over promoting the security, prosperity, and competitiveness of ones own country.

While Jon is trying to keep the politics to a minimum out here in the Selenian Boondocks (and so I now owe him several space-related posts), this is a little something that you’re not likely to see through major news sources.

Libertarian candidate Bob Barr filed suit in Texas court to keep the candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties off of the Texas ballot (more).

It seems that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats bothered to certify their candidates for the ballot by the deadline legislated by…Democratic and Republican legislators.

Talk about karmic justice!  Both parties are of course kicking and screaming that they can’t be kept off the ballot just because they couldn’t bother to abide by the rules they created.  That would be mean and partisan and not fair.

Libertarians and other parties have to fight tooth and claw every single election to get their candidates on the ballot, and can expect no mercy when they don’t get everything properly put together.  The privileged parties, the Democrats and Republicans, however, apparently get privileged treatment.  Even though they’re very strict about enforcing the rules on others, they don’t expect to actually have to abide by said rules themselves.

Of course, one need only read the headlines to see where that has gotten us.

I have to admit that Mr. Barr has risen in my esteem by this act.  It is a crafty revealing of the basic hypocrisy of both the Democratic and Republican political machines.  It’s in the same spirit as Michael Badnarik obtaining a court injunction against the taxpayer-funded political presidential debate in AZ back in 2004 from which he was excluded even though he was on the ballot in all 50 states (IIRC, I think the Libs only got 45 states this time around).  Rather, he was ‘detained by authorities’ for attempting to serve the court order.  Imagine that, ‘detained’ for trying to enforce a respect for law.

I hope the suit is recognized, as it has merit just on the basic facts conveyed.  As far as I’m concerned, if they can’t respect our Texas laws, laws which they wrote, then they can be write-ins, just like the Constitution Party candidate is here in Texas because they didn’t get their paperwork right either. It’s not the Libertarians who will have excluded the candidates from the ballot – any fault would lay squarely with the Democratic and Republican parties and no one can say otherwise.

The obvious compromise is to allow the Dems and Reps on the ballot, but also allow all of the other parties onto the ballot as well.  This would really be the only fair solution.  Otherwise, I say let ‘em twist in the wind by their own rope.

Update: The Texas Supreme Court ruled today (09/23) to deny the Motion to keep the Democrats and Republicans off the ballot. No reason was given. Like the Nike motto, they “Just Did It”.

I find myself wondering why I should vote for anyone from either of these two parties for any position in government. They’re clearly not interested in serving the citizenry at large, only themselves, and I have no interest in being governed by those who think the rules don’t apply to them.

If we can’t count on the law being just and equitable (and those who ‘enforce’ it), then what can we count on?