Obama kills NASA's Human Arm - Private Sector Must Carry Torch

It is official. The American Space Program, a dream inspired by the likes of John F. Kennedy himself, has been killed today as a non-essential government expenditure. The Obama administration has announced that it will defund the Constellation Program, the follow-on Human Space Flight Program intended for lunar colonization. FoxNews reports:

The key elements of Constellation include the Orion crew capsule, its Ares 1 launcher, a larger rocket dubbed Ares 5 and the Altair lunar lander. Obama's top-line spending proposal for NASA is expected to increase slightly over the 2010 appropriation of $18.7 billion and would including some funding for an alternative means for transporting crews to and from the international space station

Facing a federal deficit of $1.26 trillion in 2011, Obama is proposing a three-year freeze on most non-defense discretionary spending, a move the president believes will save $250 billion over the next 10 years, Orszag said. In addition, the White House is proposing more than 120 program terminations, reductions and efficiencies that together are expected to save $20 billion in 2011, Orszag said.

While Obama is picking off major programs at $20 Billion a pop, he is still pushing an increased expenditure on the order of a trillion dollars. I digress.

As I stated in my previous post regarding the early reporting of this information, I applaud the cancelling of the NASA Human Space Flight division (though here I found it to be a bad idea). This is said as a former employee of Lockheed's Ares/Orion team. The program was a mess - extremely overbudget, attempting to make a horribly designed system work. We have Mike Griffin to thank for that - but we have NASA to thank for driving impossible requirements changes, making a state of the art system nothing more than a "larger Apollo" on an underpowered candlestick. We were heading the wrong direction... and instead of throwing money at a bad Government Problem - me, like any like minded fiscal conservative and libertarian should embrace the surrendering of a government agency to the free market.

Could Obama have simply directed the cancelling of Ares I and embrace Ares 5 as a multi-purpose Moon/Mars launch vehicle? Should he have? Or is this the motivation the private sector needs in order to begin the free market colonization of near and far space? Let's take a look at what is on the horizon:

1. Space X is within 1-3 months of the inaugural flight of the Falcon 9 - a private, green, and reusable launch vehicle built with the intention of human passengers. They are already in full scale production and have a launch manifest planned out to 2015 covering over 26 flights of varying payloads. SpaceX, owned by Google, has drastically reduced launch costs - estimated at a 90% cost savings over NASA programs, while focusing special attention on safety and reliability. This private sector innovator stands at the ready to take immediate ownership of NASA astronauts, and is slated to act as a launch platform for prefabbed/inflatable space infrastructure built by Bigelow Aerospace.

2. Virgin Galactic, though not able to attain full orbit, is nearing the end of their test flight phase for their sub-orbital commercial space vehicle. Private citizens, the first space tourists, can catch a ride on the ship for a mere $200,000. I am sure that full orbital trips will be just around the bend.

3. SpaceDev is working with Lockheed Martin and Boeing's United Launch Alliance in order to man-rate their Delta and Atlas launch vehicles. I wonder, however, if a collapse of NASA Humans Space Flight, if "man rating" will be a necessary regulation for future start-ups. This falls under the realm of "how congress reacts" - if a launch vehicle is safe, reliable, and has a great service record - what more do you need to 'over-engineer' the launch vehicle for human safety?

In short - this is the perfect opportunity for the private sector to shine. We can smack Obama around for cancelling the JFK Moon Dream, and chastise him for putting America behind the Chinese or the Russians (the only two countries in the world capable of currently launching humans to orbit - after our remaining three launches this year exhaust our Shuttle fleet). But what we are bearing witness to in our protest is the hypocrisy of our "cause" - that is, give up government bureaucracies - so long as you don't touch the things WE want you to keep. Obama should take notice of his own maneuver, and don't stop until Education, healthcare, identification and the like are off the payroll of the federal government.

We stand, dear readers, at the beginning of something grand. So long as private ventures see a profit or need in Human Exploration - it will be so. This is our opportunity to take the government to task and do it right! Instead of writing your congressmen, write the start-ups like SpaceX and ask what you can do to invest and help drive human space flight on a private level. In the mean-time, write your representatives and remind them to keep their regulatory paws out of what will be an explosion in private space exploration.

Barack Obama a Space Cadet on Space Issues

Our friends over at Spacepolitics.com have written an article about Barack Obama, and his plan to fund his socialized education plan by cutting the very thing that would drive innovation in science and technology, the US Human Spaceflight Programs. That is right! Barack Obama wants to stop sending US Astronauts to the ISS, the Moon, or any research for Mars. Well, at least until the end of his second term, and then some. He has suggested the transfer of all but $500 million (the cost to mothball the manufacturing capabilities) of NASA's manned space flight budget to his socialized education plan.

What he does not realize is that I would lose my job, as I work on Project Orion (the crew portion of the Constellation Program). As well, many aerospace companies who have invested hundreds of millions, if not billions, will be out of business and unable to just maintain a holding pattern until 2020. Business does not work that way... perhaps NASA could survive... but by that time we lose any hope of gaining technical expertise from any Apollo era engineers or astronauts, which has been a saving grace for the Constellation program thus far. To pick up the pieces in 2020 would mean that the US will be unable to launch a man into space for 10-15 years. We would not make it back to the moon before 2030-2040. And we will never make it to Mars.

If I needed one more reason to vehemently oppose Barack Obama as President, well, here it is!

A man with no foresight when it comes to the importance of the technological sector of the economy is little more than a buffoon.

Read the article below:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama released today the
education plan he would enact if elected. The full 15-page plan includes a variety of proposals, including reforming early education programs. The last section of the plan, titled “A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility” explains how he would pay for these initiatives. The passage of relevance here: “The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years,” among other steps. According to MSNBC, Obama would leave in place $500 million/year for Constellation’s “manufacturing and technology base”, but would otherwise transfer the funding to the education effort. None of the campaign’s official statements or other media reports indicate any alternative measures the campaign would take to address what, on its face, would appear to be a five-year delay in the introduction of Ares 1, Orion, and the other main components of NASA’s current exploration
architecture.

(A potentially ironic item, depending on your opinion on the importance of Constellation: one other section of the Obama education plan is titled “Make Math and Science Education a National Priority”.)

The Republican National Committee has criticized the move to delay Constellation, The Hill reports, quoting RNC spokesman Danny Diaz: “It is ironic that Barack
Obama’s plan to help our children reach for the stars is financed in part by
slashing a program that helps us learn about those very same stars.”

This would spell disaster for the leader in world space exploration. And though there is a push for privatizing space, the industry has been held back so long that we are not able to pick up the pieces and send man to space privately right away. This would still leave the US without the means to send man to space.

This may seem like small potatoes, but when China and India are preparing for moon missions by 2020, we cannot delay our own efforts.

The problem with America is the lack of drive to speak out until it is too late... This is a case where it will be too little too late.

Write your local congressman, call Barack's campaign, call a talk radio show. Get the message out that sacrificing the Human Space Program is not an option.

Energy Independence Will Require Radical Changes

Before I begin my discussion on this topic, let me preface by saying that the origin of the Republican Party was in radical ideology... Equality for all men, regardless of skin tone, in a time when slavery was openly practiced over much of the US, and the world. So we were born on radical ideas, and it is on such that we must continue to grow.

Most presidential candidates are talking about an energy independence plan that revolves around a 20-40% reduction in foreign oil consumption by 2020... This is a fancy way of saying that you have a plan, with a fine-print-promise of "It aint gonna happen!"

Energy independence, serious energy independence, does not come from 20 year plans with little or no gain on current situations. Such plans guarantee future energy based wars in regions of the world that would rather not have US occupation.

So to get results, we need Radical Changes... radical changes in the form of Radical Policy and Radical New Laws. I am not one to support bigger government or more laws... but in this case it is a new law that will steer the "norm" in a new direction.

When the congress passed their "sweeping fuel consumption reform" they praised themselves as the car companies grumbled in protest... the reform: mandating 40 mpg average on ALL vehicles by 2020... in hopes to reduce fuel consumption. But with the number of vehicles on the road increasing each year, this does nothing to energy consumption but maintain the status quo!

We need an energy independence bill to go through both houses and the oval office that will guarantee immediate and drastic change... Complete energy independence in less than 8 years from the time of passage... Sounds impossible, but is it? Oh, it will piss off the oil industry... but it is time to "break the addiction". My legislation would look something like this (legal jargon omitted) -

1. 100% of All new vehicles to be sold in the United States shall be Ethanol E-85, Flex Fuel, Ethanol/Hybrid technology, Bio-Diesel, or otherwise burning less than 15% total petrol per tank of fuel by the year 2012.

2. All Oil industry subsidies shall be stopped, and money used instead to prepare the ethanol & bio-diesel infrastructure, including ethanol fuel crops, ethanol / bio-diesel production, and distribution centers. All fueling stations shall be required to provide alternative fueling options (ethanol and/or bio-diesel)

3. US should fund creation of new power plants within the US, to include ONLY clean fuels, excluding Nuclear fission plants. Plants should include Offshore-Wind, Tidal Generators, Geothermal Generators, and Solar Plants.

4. States should be classified as "Sunshine" or "Non-Sunshine" states/regions. For instance, Eastern Colorado gets 300+ days of sunshine a year... this will classify it as a Sunshine State / Region.

5. ALL homes and buildings in "sunshine regions" shall be required to install Solar Panels and energy storage. Cost of installation shall be offset by government subsidies to the solar panel manufacturers. This will drastically reduce the need for power plants, and ensure reduction in natural gas/coal/oil burning emissions. The solar power could provide 75% of all housing energy consumption, eliminating energy draws / black-outs / etc.

Taking the steps above we, as a country, reduce emissions of petroleum based fuels by at least 50-75%. We will also reduce the need for mass power distribution, allowing power share of stored personal solar energy. we will completely eliminate the need to import fuels from the middle east and south America by 2020 (not just reducing by 20-40%). It assures that we become not only energy independent from foreign governments, but greatly adds to our own personal energy independence from big power companies... as well as promising better stewardship of the land in which we live.

This is a radical shift in America, and a challenge that will rival the first moon program to implement on such a short timeline...

But it CAN be done.

In fact, I have freely given my independent ideas on this policy change to Bill Richardson and the You Tube community last week, and I offer it to you (my reader) today. If there is not movement in the congress or by a presidential candidate to adopt these radical policies, I will have to take up the fight myself!

Give the policy some thought, and please feel free to comment...

God Bless.