“MSFC is about propulsion and BEO exploration.”

Marshall is about pork and keeping the parking lots full. It hasn’t done any original propulsion work in this century. It hasn’t done any consequential propulsion work in nearly a half century. During all of that time it has been surpassed, in the propulsion field, by a lot of other folks, starting with SpaceX and continuing with what is now a list so long it’s difficult to keep up but which certainly includes Stoke and even Blue and Relativity. It’s a heckuva note when multiple only-a-few-years-old start-ups have designed more new engines than Marshall has in ten times as long.

The situation is nearly as bleak in terms of BEO and even LEO. Marshall begat Shuttle, which was tweaked only minutely over three decades of problematical service and the loss of two orbiters and crews, then was retired without any Marshall-designed successor unless one wants to count the farcical Ares 1 “Corndog.”

Marshall’s only BEO – barely – effort in this century was the failed Constellation, out of the wreckage of which SLS emerged and Orion barely survived but Altair did not. That rendered the entire project incapable of managing even flags and footprints on the Moon again, never mind doing anything manned anent Mars. This, of course, did not stop Marshall from soldiering on, parking lots full, pork in plenty, working lethargically on a fractional program that was never going to go anywhere without vast outside assistance.

All politics is local. Republicans and Democrats are close to indistinguishable when it comes to defending federal spending in their districts.

Marshall, though, is hardly the hinge upon which Alabama politics crucially swings. If, as it has long richly deserved, Marshall is heavily downsized or even closed, well, Trump is moving Space Command HQ to Huntsville and Space Force money spends just as well as NASA money while being less subject to sudden abbreviations or cancellations. Especially for all of the aerospace crumb-chaser outfits HQ’d in Huntsville and environs, the Space Force-derived crumbs are likely to prove larger and tastier than those from Marshall anyway. Life will go on in Alabama aerospace.

If Trump decides to “move Duffy aside” he won’t have to “manage” it, he will just do it and that will be that. Duffy serves in both of his jobs at the pleasure of the President.

Duffy, in any case, has pretty much sealed SLS-Orion’s doom by kicking off a pissing contest with Elon who now has promised to build an entire alternate architecture for manned lunar presence and logistics, not just the lander. I don’t see how a notional Isaacman Administratorship could do any greater intentional damage to the SLS-Orion cause than Duffy has just done seemingly unintentionally.

The US has, indeed, long needed space-based radar, but not some single giant antenna. We need lots of little ones in LEO capturing SAR imagery and doing real-time tracking of opposition aircraft and spacecraft. Just as the giant, but never sufficiently numerous, optical imagery birds are being replaced by constellations capable of continuous no-sparrow-shall-fall observations in real time, space-based radar needs to go the same way.

“With a hoss of a second stage coming– I could easily see other assets lofted.”

Then you’re the only one. The Air Force – and, now, the Space Force – have repeatedly indicated no interest whatsoever in using SLS for anything.

And I wouldn’t count my “hosses” before they’re foaled if I were you. It is by no means certain that EUS will ever fly – not that it’s really much of a “hoss” in any case.

Aussie Dave,

You are right, of course. Utterances made in a state of abject panic and terror are seldom well-considered. A sizable fraction of the erstwhile US government payroll will be gone for good by the time this “government shutdown” is over. The public employee unions are experiencing something they have never known since their inception 65 years ago – fear.

pzatchok,

Anent Reagan and the air traffic controllers union, even then the government employee unions were running amok. Reagan called their bluff rather decisively. As the French like to put it, it was necessary to shoot a few in order to encourage the others.

You are, of course, entirely correct that government employee unions are institutional cancers that need to be excised.

Trump should be able to fire anyone who is not needed. Like all of NASA.

We should remove all government unions.

When I was in college, the leftists thought NASA’s only mission was military. When I said something like I wanted to work for NASA or I wanted to build rockets when I grew up, the response was often, “Why do you want to kill people?” How quickly they forgot that NASA didn’t put warheads on people’s heads but put people on the Moon, or maybe they thought that since most of them had come from the military that NASA was also military, and that NASA’s rockets must therefore also be intended for military purposes. Including and especially the Space Shuttle. They were not much sympathetic after Challenger, at least not at my school.

It just goes to show that leftists were bereft of reality decades ago, too, not just recently.

I have seen the word used this way for about a decade, and have used it in the this manner. The term has been slightly removed from it’s in-your-face beginnings, and now seems socially acceptable. I like word in this guise, and Aussie Dave probably didn’t think his sentence would be so deconstructed. Nothing personal; just the word, but not ‘bird’.

I don’t think NASA’s primary mission is ‘national security’, either.

One of the things America needs is a good Space Based Radar

Now, Stahl and others had ideas for a 492 foot dish for radio astronomy. I am thinking one of those turned Earthwards (the reverse of Hubble) could really help American Space dominance.

SLS had an 1,800+ apogee on its first launch. With a hoss of a second stage coming– I could easily see other assets lofted.

Where Hegs loves PT, I would focus on getting space advocates leading EACH of the branches of the services to make double sure space advocates NEVER get put in the broom closet again.

I wish Musk would get his ball and go home. Let him launch whatever to Mars. I care not.

To rewrite a quote–China is my adversary–but the Air Force is my ENEMY.

I don’t usually put much stock in ANYTHING Cowing has to say–but this has the ring of truth to it.
Goddard-the-Green most certainly is the DNC favorite.

Same with Handmer’s JPL (which is a de facto NASA Center.) They have always had it in for Marshall.

If it wasn’t something they could shoehorn into a Delta II sounding rocket (like those endless little bomb-disposal robots all over Mars)–they wanted it killed.

MSFC is about propulsion and BEO exploration—which Greens just don’t have a whole lot of use for.

Remember, Alabama Democrats have historically been to the Right of Rockefeller Republicans (yuck).

That might actually be changing.

With Marshall under the gun, I have seen more and more of the A.J. Foyt of Alabama politics, Doug Jones (“His Accidency” 2.0).

This all smells of one of his stunts.

Senator Tuberville was a football coach–and not a particularly bright one as Saban revealed.
A former advocate of his, sportswriter Paul Finebaum, looks to replace him (he likely will be another Rockefeller if elected).

Cowing used to hate on SLS worse than Mr. Zimmerman because (GASP!) we had Von Braun.

But I think even he understands how corrosive in-fighting among space-advocates has become:
“FWIW the more you (we) space people argue with each other about stupid things, the less likely we’ll get to explore this universe.”

And now, he is wisely stepping back:
https://nasawatch.com/trumpspace/nasawatch-is-on-pause/

Good riddance.

If Trump manages to move Duffy aside, so Jared and others can try to axe SLS/Artemis or whatever—I can easily see Paul and/or Doug Jones as a shoe in.

The most conservative Alabamian I know (social conservative) is Mormon Mo Brooks, and he and the Donald had a falling out. The voters threw him out in favor of Britt.

The ironic thing in all this is—if Trump axes Marshall thinking it is a Democratic institution—that actually wind up making Alabama more purple out of resentment.

Doug Jones, right now, looks to make these lay-offs his issue. He always avoided cultural issues and questions. A dumber politico would have not only have called Roy Moore a Bible-Thumper, but surrounded himself with blue-haired Wiccans or something out of Portland. He never did that. He claimed to support the Second Amendment—but voted lock-step with the DNC pretty much.

When the mills and factories closed, a lot of folks went towards aerospace north and medicine here in Birmingham.
Jones easily bested Roy Moore–and I can sense a repeat. Saban–shockingly to me–is something of a Democrat.

Politics in this state has always been…odd.

But never–NEVER underestimate us
https://archive.org/details/the-natural-superiority-of-southern-politicians-book/mode/2up

On the other hand, actually shutting down a program that already exists, is running, and has employees, businesses, beneficiaries, etc, well obviously all of those have standing to sue.

And of course there does seem to be a trend that standing is taken very seriously when rejecting Republic suits very early in the process, and is a matter for appeal years later when it’s Democrats filing the suit.

The one that I need to look up and refresh myself on is the Keystone Pipeline. I know the Canadian company filed suit when Biden cancelled it on day one, and all the usual arguments about lack of process, arbitrary and capricious, etc that are being thrown at Trump, would have applied there. But I never heard anything after it was filed.