In Obama's America we don't Do hard

Josh Cryer · Post by **Josh Cryer** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 2:29 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah2NPfGR4dA

Welcome to Obama's America.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 3:05 pm

Josh Cryer wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah2NPfGR4dA

Welcome to Obama's America.

Yes, the place where the rooster takes credit for the sunrise.

SpaceX deserves credit. Obama? Not so much.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 4:17 pm

SpaceX deserves credit. Obama? Not so much.

Obama is the one who is willing to give them a chance.
I think that deserves some credit too. Most of the credit should go to Space X though, that is true.

Josh Cryer · Post by **Josh Cryer** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 5:16 pm

Diogenes wrote:Yes, the place where the rooster takes credit for the sunrise.

SpaceX deserves credit. Obama? Not so much.

Obama is funding CCdev (Commercial Crew Development). Bush let Griffen sit on his hands for 4 years refusing to initiate the option. If it was initiated by now we'd have maybe a 1-2 year gap in manned flight, now it's 4-5 years, thanks to Griffen. Bush had a good vision, but he appointed someone who let that vision fester and fall apart.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 6:36 pm

Josh Cryer wrote:
Diogenes wrote:Yes, the place where the rooster takes credit for the sunrise.

SpaceX deserves credit. Obama? Not so much.
Obama is funding CCdev (Commercial Crew Development). Bush let Griffen sit on his hands for 4 years refusing to initiate the option. If it was initiated by now we'd have maybe a 1-2 year gap in manned flight, now it's 4-5 years, thanks to Griffen. Bush had a good vision, but he appointed someone who let that vision fester and fall apart.

I'm not defending Bush. If I never hear the name "Bush" again in politics, that will be too soon. I think he is responsible for a bunch of crap we're having to deal with now.

I do think Obama's approach to defunding Nasa is a good idea, but I believe he is motivated more by wanting to spend that money on social programs than he is by being concerned with Nasa's mismanagement. (He's defunding the military too!) In other words, I think he did the right thing for the wrong reasons, and therefore it is an accident.

SpaceX has been working on their Falcon 9 since long before Obama was anyone of consequence.

Josh Cryer · Post by **Josh Cryer** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 8:35 pm

Diogenes wrote:I'm not defending Bush. If I never hear the name "Bush" again in politics, that will be too soon. I think he is responsible for a bunch of crap we're having to deal with now.

Didn't mean to imply that you were. The topic though was about "Obama's America."

I do think Obama's approach to defunding Nasa is a good idea, but I believe he is motivated more by wanting to spend that money on social programs than he is by being concerned with Nasa's mismanagement. (He's defunding the military too!) In other words, I think he did the right thing for the wrong reasons, and therefore it is an accident.

He's not defunding NASA, he's defunding (ie, canceling) Constellation. A program that was Griffen's pet project, where he ran the show and would not allow anyone to change anything. It's not totally Griffin's fault, though, because Bush refused to fund it for the last years he was in office, and of course, Obama didn't want to fund it without further study. The Augustine Commission concluded that the Griffin plan was a non-starter, and that we'd have to go about things differently. Obama listened to Norm Augustine and decided that canceling constellation was the best move he could make.

Norm Augustine and many others have been calling for the full privatization of the space industry for many years now, it's only now that it's happening, and for that Obama deserves full credit.

BTW, military space could use less funding, to be honest:

SpaceX has been working on their Falcon 9 since long before Obama was anyone of consequence.

Yep, and if Constellation wasn't canceled SpaceX would never gotten commercial crew development, and crew launching would've been delayed by years. But thanks to Obama they're getting commercial crew.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 9:04 pm

Okay. Credit where credit is due.

AcesHigh · Post by **AcesHigh** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:22 am

93143 wrote:
MirariNefas wrote:
But in Obama's america there will be nobody allowed to have the freedom and the drive to put people in space and no wealth to do it.
Obama kills a bloated government program and promises funds to private industries seeking to put people in space. I'm not sure I understand you.
He's killed more than that. How the hell are we supposed to support the ISS without Shuttle?

how convenient that the Shuttle had been scheduled to be ended in the Bush administration and the Constellation program was not funded enough to provide a replacement in time...

but you (Obama haters) ONLY STARTED complaining about a lack of shuttle replacement AFTER Obama got elected. Its trully mind boggling.

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 12:14 pm

how convenient that the Shuttle had been scheduled to be ended in the Bush administration and the Constellation program was not funded enough to provide a replacement in time...

Yeah and no matter how much money they would have thrown at it, Constellation would have never been ready in time anyway.
It was a bad idea from the start. A very expensive idea that was no real progress either. Sure SpaceX is not doing anything shiny and new either, but at least they are cheap.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 12:26 pm

MirariNefas wrote:....
The shuttle is an expensive dinosaur and the budget is exploding. It's time for the shuttle to die.

Now you see? Here you had the opportunity for a perfect metaphor match and ya blew it! Ya shoulda said "The shuttle is an expensive dinosaur and the budget is exploding. It's time for the shuttle to go extinct". But nooo, you said "to die". Boring!

MirariNefas · Post by **MirariNefas** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 10:50 pm

ooo and how about "The shuttle is an expensive dinosaur and the budget has just been struck with a gigaton asteroid...", or would that be too much?

93143 · Post by **93143** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 11:41 pm

AcesHigh wrote:
93143 wrote:
MirariNefas wrote: Obama kills a bloated government program and promises funds to private industries seeking to put people in space. I'm not sure I understand you.
He's killed more than that. How the hell are we supposed to support the ISS without Shuttle?
how convenient that the Shuttle had been scheduled to be ended in the Bush administration and the Constellation program was not funded enough to provide a replacement in time...

but you (Obama haters) ONLY STARTED complaining about a lack of shuttle replacement AFTER Obama got elected. Its trully mind boggling.

Just in case you aren't aware (since you plainly aren't), I am basically a DIRECT supporter. DIRECT has been screaming about this problem for four years, and pushing for a Shuttle extension ever since it became apparent that it was too late to get anything else flying in time.

This has nothing to do with hating Obama. I hoped he would fix the mess. He didn't. So now Griffin, Bush, and Obama share the blame for the gap, and the looming ISS logistics shortfall (not technically known, but very likely, considering that the station was designed to be supported by the Shuttle, and the current plan - including CRS - was made to meet Griffin's goal of supporting the ISS at <50% until 2015).

[[Aside: Did you know that there is, in fact, a spare solar array, as well as a spare radiator assembly? They don't have a ride up. If they're needed, and the Shuttle isn't flying, that's just too bad.]]

Obama changed just about everything except the one thing that desperately needed immediate attention... Yes, there was an official top ten list of urgent national issues confronting Obama, and Shuttle was on it...

Diogenes wrote:
Josh Cryer wrote:Welcome to Obama's America.
Yes, the place where the rooster takes credit for the sunrise.

In his tax day speech, Obama seemed to be taking credit for upcoming science missions that have been funded and in the works for years, and that he has had absolutely nothing to do with.

Politics.

He says he cares. I don't believe him.

choff · Post by **choff** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 11:49 pm

I still think the shuttle program was a mistake, and Saturn V was the way forward.

Here's a look at what could have been:

http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... -1968.html

Skipjack · Post by **Skipjack** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 11:53 pm

I think it is very dangerous to keep the shuttles flying. They are past their lifetimes. Face it!
Europe, Japan and Russia all have the capacity to support the ISS with their transports. The US can follow with the commercials very soon. So I do not see a huge gap there at all.
The only gap that you are seeing is an actual american crew transport to the ISS. If you want to use the shuttle for that, this will be very, very expensive. There just is no money for that, especially with the Constellation supporters trying to keep their stuff going. It is a huge mess indeed, but it was not made by Obama. It was made by the previous administration and you are now blaming Obama for not cleaning up TO YOUR LIKING. That is a bit unfair, I would say.
No, I think the best way is to continue with the current plan. This back and forth will not go anywhere.
Btw, Obama is following the recommendations by the Augustine commission almost to the point. That was a panel of independent experts making their recommendations. So, you would have to blame them too.

93143 · Post by **93143** » Mon Jun 07, 2010 12:26 am

Skipjack wrote:I think it is very dangerous to keep the shuttles flying. They are past their lifetimes. Face it!

That's not true at all. The fact is, they are nowhere near their design lifetimes (~30% through) and are performing as well as could be expected.

Shuttle has never been safer. The SRB issue that took down Challenger was eliminated when the boosters were redesigned after that accident. The foam loss issue has been solved; tanks no longer shed sufficiently to cause a hazard. The safety culture hasn't had time to "recover" from Columbia, and in fact after that second accident the program may have learned its lesson for good; everyone works very hard to keep the Shuttles as safe as possible.

The ASAP is just spouting the Ares party line; that's been obvious for a while. The demanded "recertification" is not really much more than is done for every single flight as it is...

Hell, even the Russians want the Shuttle to keep flying... A cosmonaut and at least one other official (IIRC) have stated this publicly... (Also, why else would they threaten to raise Soyuz prices while the U.S. could still do something about it?)

Europe, Japan and Russia all have the capacity to support the ISS with their transports. The US can follow with the commercials very soon. So I do not see a huge gap there at all.

That capacity is already designed into the plan. ATV, HTV, Progress, Dragon, Cygnus. They're already in the plan. The plan, I will remind you, that has the ISS running at <50% to 2015 and then splashing.

The Shuttle extension is to cover near-term requirements and contingencies. International partners aren't going to be able to ramp up massively in the time frame in question. SpaceX and Orbital probably aren't going to be able to ramp up at all in the time frame in question.

There isn't a plan to support the ISS at 100% to 2020 (which date will likely require more spares and ORUs, some of which can only fly on Shuttle). Until there is, and it doesn't include Shuttle going forward, Shuttle should not be retired.

you are now blaming Obama for not cleaning up TO YOUR LIKING. That is a bit unfair, I would say.

You would be wrong. It's entirely fair to complain about someone doing something I think is stupid (or in this case, not doing something I think is both wise and very very obvious).

No, I think the best way is to continue with the current plan. This back and forth will not go anywhere.

The back-and-forth might converge on a compromise. It's looking possible, but not certain.

The new plan, though - that is unlikely to go anywhere. Congress hates it (at least, the ones that care about NASA at all and don't want to just raid its budget for pork), and Obama will be out of office long before anything interesting (to an outside observer) happens, even if he somehow wins a second term.

It's worth noting that the proposed date for the HLV decision (2015) is in the back half of O's hypothetical second term - the time when Presidents traditionally become loose cannons due to a complete lack of voter accountability...

Btw, Obama is following the recommendations by the Augustine commission almost to the point. That was a panel of independent experts making their recommendations. So, you would have to blame them too.

Have you read their report? I have. (And I wasn't impressed, but that's a whole other story...) Obama is not following them particularly closely. That business with Orion, for instance - Augustine et al. were quite taken aback by that one. Choosing a set of missions and then cancelling the spaceship that was supposed to do the missions is not a minor deviation.

The report does contain a warning about ISS logistics. Obama's response is apparently "we'll figure that out as we go. ...what's that? We have an operational system right now that could solve the problem easily? No, His Majesty Bush decreed that it was to be canned in 2010, so canned it is."