Tag: space policy

Freedom: What Trump’s election will mean for America’s space policy

2:24 pm

The resounding landslide victory by Donald Trump and the Republicans yesterday is going have enormous consequences across the entire federal government. As a space historian and journalist who has been following, studying, and reporting on space policy for decades, this essay will be my attempt to elucidate what that landslide will mean for NASA, its Artemis program, and the entire American aerospace industry.

The cost of SLS
The absurd cost of each SLS launch

The Artemis Program

Since 2011 I have said over and over that the government-designed and owned SLS, Orion, and later proposed Lunar Gateway space station were all badly conceived. They all cost too much and don’t do the job. Fitting them together to create a long term presence in space is difficult at best and mostly impractical. Their cost and cumbersome design has meant the program to get back to the Moon, as first proposed by George Bush Jr. in 2004, is now more than a decade behind schedule and many billions over budget. Worse, under the present program as currently contrived that manned lunar landing will likely be delayed five more years, at a minimum.

For example, at present SLS is underpowered. It can’t get astronauts to and from the Moon, as the Saturn-5 rocket did in the 1960s. For the first manned lunar landing mission, Artemis-4, SLS will simply launch four astronauts in Orion to lunar orbit, where Orion will rendezvous and dock with the lunar lander version of Starship. That Starship in turn will require refueling in Earth orbit, using a proposed fuel depot that has been filled by multiple earlier Starship launches.

Once Starship is docked to Orion the crew will transfer to Starship to get up and down from the Moon, and then return to Earth in Orion.

You think that’s complicated? » Read more

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Japanese government adopts revised space policy emphasizing defense

10:00 am

The Japanese government today announced a revision to its space policy, with the changes mostly focused on increasing that nation’s military surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities in space.

Though defense and security appeared to be the focus of the revision, there were hints this would be achieved through a greater use of the competitive free market.

The government also vowed to bolster collaboration between the Defense Ministry and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in a bid to provide support to private companies engaged in critical space technology development, the blueprint says. By attempting to stimulate private-sector-led development in space, the government will aim to reduce costs in the face of budget constraints, it adds.

Japan has traditionally operated as the U.S. used to, by letting its space agency JAXA do and control everything. JAXA in turn has routinely hired established companies like Mitsubishi to build what it wants, while retaining all control and ownership. The result has been a moribund effort, with Japan at present having no low cost rocket that can compete on the international market for business.

Whether this new policy will allow new companies to compete with the big established players remains unknown.

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The first meeting of the National Space Council

9:45 am

The first meeting of the National Space Council just wrapped up. You can see highlights here. I have several thoughts.

The entire event was very carefully staged, with the planned outcomes determined beforehand. The three panels of speakers were organized to match up with the three main actions the council intended to pursue, with the questions from the various high level Trump cabinet members clearly arranged to line up with each panel. Moreover, the fact that all these panel members were there and participating in this staged event suggests that Trump himself is directly interested, and insisted they do so.

The first action was a decision to rework the country’s overall space policy, including its future goals for exploring the solar system. This action item was linked with statements by officials from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Orbital ATK, and was clearly intended to placate their desire to keep what they all called “sustained” and “reliable” funding. It was also clearly linked to Pence’s opening remarks, which insisted that the U.S. should return to the Moon, permanently, and use that as a jumping off point for exploring Mars and the rest of the solar system.

The second action was a commitment to review, in the next 45 days, the entire regulatory bureaucracy that private companies must face. This was linked to the testimony from officials from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Sierra Nevada.

The third action was a focus on the military and national security aspects of space, focused on the development of a “space strategic framework” that will apparently link the military needs with the growing commercial space industry. This framework has been under development for several months. The council actually spent the most time questioning the national security witnesses on this issue. This focus also aligns with the main interest in space held by Trump’s nominee for NASA administrator, Congressman Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma). Interestingly, Bridenstine was in the audience, but was given no speaking opportunity, unlike the NASA acting administrator, Robert Lightfoot, who Pence specifically provided a moment to speak.

Overall, this meeting indicates that the Trump administration is likely not going to do much to drain the swamp that presently dominates our space effort. Trump’s interest in reducing regulation remains strong, but it also appears he and his administration is also strongly committed to continuing the crony capitalism that is wasting literally billions of dollars in space and helping to put the nation into unrecoverable debt.

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Clinton campaign outlines its space priorities

8:55 am

In an op-ed today, an adviser to the Hillary Clinton campaign outlined the space policy priorities that her administration would focus upon should she win the election.

Despite attempts to suggest these policies would be significantly different than the policies of Donald Trump, it seems to me that her focus would be quite similar to Trump’s. While the announcements from the Trump campaign have suggested his administration would consider more changes to space policy than Clinton, both candidates appear to be proposing only minor changes. With both, the private-public partnership of commercial space would be continued. With both, SLS/Orion will be reconsidered, and changed depending on the demands of Congress.

The only significant difference, based on today’s op-ed, is that a Hillary Clinton administration will likely devote significant NASA resources to the study of global warming, while Trump appears quite willing to slash this research, based on what appears to be data tampering for political reasons in both NASA and NOAA.

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The full Gingrich speech on space

11:47 pm

As noted by one commenter, the full Gingrich speech on space is available here on C-SPAN.

I have now listened to the whole speech, and can say without hesitation that everything I wrote in my previous post was correct. Gingrich is knowledgeable about space, science, and history. He is basing his proposals on past successful models where the U.S. government did nothing but buy the product developed by private individuals or companies. These proposals actually continue as well as accelerate the Obama administration’s efforts. And he is not proposing a giant pork program.

His proposal to have a moon base by 2020 is unquestionably campaign talk that won’t happen. Nonetheless, this proposal is aimed at energizing the American aerospace industry by focusing the government’s goals, which will then need to be purchased by the government from private companies. He also made it very clear he wants to shrink the NASA bureaucracy, reducing its budget while devoting ten percent of that savings (equal to billions of dollars) for prizes. The example of a $10 billion tax-free prize for the first to get to Mars was only for illustration. As he said,

The model I want us to build is largely is the model of the ’20s and ’30s, when the government was actively encouraging development but the government wasn’t doing anything. The government was paying rewards, it was subsidizing the mail. … We had enormous breakthroughs in aviation in the ’20s and ’30s at very little cost to the government because lots of smart people [outside the government] did it.

I beg everyone to listen to this speech, in its entirety. It illustrates a thoughtful man who understands history. Gingrich might not be a perfect man, and he certainly is not the perfect candidate for President, but don’t tell me what you think of him if you refuse to listen to him. For two decades too many people have eagerly expressed opinions about him without really listening to what he has actually said or done. And what he says here is reasonable, intelligent, and certainly worthy of consideration.

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