House joins Senate in proposing a new space bureaucracy here on Earth
Gotta feed those DC pigs!
In mid-November a bi-partisan group of senators introduced legislation they claimed would help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research.”
The absurdity of creating a new agency to do this was obvious. Don’t we already have something called NASA that is tasked with this job? As I noted then, “This is just pork.”
Rather than funding real research or development in space, this legislation simply creates another Washington government agency supposedly functioning independent of presidential or even congressional oversight (a legal structure the courts have increasingly declared unconstitutional).
Well, it appears two congress critters in the House have decided they had to keep up with the Jones in the Senate, and have now introduced their own variation of this legislation.
Yesterday, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee [D-North Carolina], Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, and Congressman Daniel Webster [R-Florida] introduced H.R. 6638, the Space Resources Institute Act, bipartisan legislation which directs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator and the Secretary of Commerce to report to Congress on the merits and feasibility of establishing a dedicated space resources institute relating to space resources, the surface materials, water, and metals often found on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.
The bill would give NASA 180 days to submit its report.
This is just more junk from Congress that will do nothing but distract NASA from its real business, fostering a new American aerospace industry capable of colonizing the solar system for profit. Note too that like the Senate bill, this House bill is a bi-partisan effort in stupidity.
As I said in reporting on the Senate version of this proposal, “Ugh. There are times I wish I didn’t have to read the news from DC. It almost always depresses me.”
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Gotta feed those DC pigs!
In mid-November a bi-partisan group of senators introduced legislation they claimed would help the U.S. beat China in space by creating a new government agency called the “National Institute for Space Research.”
The absurdity of creating a new agency to do this was obvious. Don’t we already have something called NASA that is tasked with this job? As I noted then, “This is just pork.”
Rather than funding real research or development in space, this legislation simply creates another Washington government agency supposedly functioning independent of presidential or even congressional oversight (a legal structure the courts have increasingly declared unconstitutional).
Well, it appears two congress critters in the House have decided they had to keep up with the Jones in the Senate, and have now introduced their own variation of this legislation.
Yesterday, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee [D-North Carolina], Ranking Member of the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, and Congressman Daniel Webster [R-Florida] introduced H.R. 6638, the Space Resources Institute Act, bipartisan legislation which directs the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Administrator and the Secretary of Commerce to report to Congress on the merits and feasibility of establishing a dedicated space resources institute relating to space resources, the surface materials, water, and metals often found on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.
The bill would give NASA 180 days to submit its report.
This is just more junk from Congress that will do nothing but distract NASA from its real business, fostering a new American aerospace industry capable of colonizing the solar system for profit. Note too that like the Senate bill, this House bill is a bi-partisan effort in stupidity.
As I said in reporting on the Senate version of this proposal, “Ugh. There are times I wish I didn’t have to read the news from DC. It almost always depresses me.”
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Cut something here, it sprouts up there.
I would like my tax dollars to at least go to American researchers—a better investment than Argentina.
Besides, USSF is just NewSpace pork anyway.
Jeff Wright,
The proposals in question would certainly fund a lot of new DC desk-sitters, and maybe even a few faux “researchers,” but I’m dubious any of that would ever fund any useful research. On that basis, Argentina looks like a much better investment.
USSF has an actual job to do. It remains to be seen, of course, just how well it’s going to do that job. How it manages the implementation of Golden Dome will be an early indication of its competence as a war-fighting service. But the early returns look generally favorable. The fact that USSF is doing significant deals with NewSpace companies and not simply following the well-worn paths to the legacy cost-plus usual suspects does not make that spending “pork,” it makes it superior stewardship of the taxpayers’ money.
Pork is money going to institutions year after year, decade after decade, that produce nothing but filled parking lots that are pleasing to certain Congresscritters, but nothing of real value to the nation or to taxpayers in general in return for that largesse. MSFC would be one of the paradigmatic examples.
They also serve who only stand and wait.
Besides, this end run is likely a way around DOGE. The problem isn’t keeping engineers on payroll, but not giving anything for them to do. That takes money. Cuts make bad situations worse.
Musk’s IPO is anti-DOGE thinking. I can’t prove this of course, but my guess is that the public option is a result of Starship delays, otherwise I don’t see it happening.
I want to keep bright people in the game. The deadwood is in the logistical nightmare that is force projection. There are those in Europe who don’t appreciate what America has done for them., so I’d rather my neighbors in Marshall stay afloat and leave that other bunch to face Ivan themselves.
Jeff Wright,
The “they” in that “stand and wait” thing are those who serve God, not those who get government paychecks.
From now and going forward, one can expect that a great many things attempted by government will be based on getting around DOGE.
MSFC, in particular, was given quite a bit to do between Shuttle and SLS-Orion. It failed to successfully do any of it. Given the decidedly checkered history of Shuttle, and that SLS now stands a decent chance of being cancelled after two missions without ever actually carrying a crew, I think a good case can be made that the last – and only – thing MSFC ever did well was Saturn V. That’s a loooooong dry spell. That horse can’t run. Time to put ‘er down.
Musk’s potential SpaceX IPO is not a government project so how DOGE enters the frame is, to say the least, mysterious – to all except you, apparently.
Musk has been quite forthcoming about what he needs an epic pile of cash for on fairly short notice – and it’s AI data centers in space, a project whose later phases will also include major industrialization of the Moon. Starship “delays” have nothing to do with it.
It would behoove you to rely on sources of information beyond merely your own fevered brain. Musk’s motive for a possible SpaceX IPO is not a secret. Search engines are your friends.
If the bright people in question are content to be layabouts on the government payroll then pipe them all down the road say I.
The ability to project force is what kept “our country’s battles” – as the Marines’ Hymn says – in far-away places like “the Halls of Montezuma” and “the shores of Tripoli” and not in “the streets of Cucamonga” or “the shores of New Jer-sey.” It’s something hard to whistle up from scratch on short notice and so requires maintenance even when not in immediate heavy use. With the notable exception of 9-11, the capability to project force has kept wars against foreign opponents off of the US mainland since the War of 1812.
There seems to be no shortage of people a lot closer than Europe who don’t appreciate what America has done for them. Ingratitude is, sadly, a very common aspect of the human condition. See Dearborn and Somalisota for relevant examples.
It’s certainly true that most of Europe hasn’t been any great shakes when it comes to “facing Ivan” until quite recently. But they seem to be getting with the program now that their noses are being rubbed in a bracing pile of cold reality. The rest of NATO seems to be more up for the “face Ivan” project than we are at the moment. The Ukrainians, with some help from their neighbors to westward, and less-than-it-should-be help from ourselves, have pretty clearly demonstrated that the Russian bear is a moth-eaten and creaky animal these days. Facing Ivan is all well and good, but bayonetting Ivan until he stops twitching is an even better idea. And I’d a whole lot prefer that be done on his ground than on ours.
If you want to kick in or rattle a cup for MSFC, feel free. But the vast majority of we Americans who do not live in Huntsville would just as soon that “your neighbors” either start earning their keep – if they can – or find someone else to pay them.
Have a sympathetic legislator change the name to the National Institute for Space Settlement.
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade