Obama/Holdren plan means no more of you are going to fly into space except for ma

[Guest]

"The Obama/Holdren plan means no more of you are going to fly into space except for maybe a few every year (for a little while) as passengers with the Russians."

From my dear friend Homer Hickam. A man who was reared in the coalfieds of West Virginia and rose to the heights of an aerospace engineer for NASA. Now an author, here are Homer's thoughts on Obama's overhaul of the NASA program.

http://www.homerhickam.com/cgi-bin/blog.cgi

[Guest]

This is just another piece of the dismantling America puzzle, that's all. When he went around the world apologizing for the USA and bowing to every tyrant, he made speeches saying the USA is not exceptional.
This regime is hell bent on destroying the USA and everything we ever believed in..

[Guest]

Donna2: Give this a read and tell me what you think:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/16/obama_space_vision/

Obama was speaking at the KSC yesterday (this was planned for some time - but critics of what was leaked of Obama's plan haven't had a chance to respond)

Some points:

1) $6B increase in NASA's budget.

2) Elimination of Ares I and Ares V

3) Reprive for Orion - it's back in the plan.

4) Vision - "What we're looking for is not just to continue on the same path; we want to leap into the future. We want major breakthroughs, a transformative agenda for NASA."

5) Private ventures - having companies like SpaceX and the Falcon 9 take over lifting duties. After all, isn't it a tenet of conservatism that private industry can do things better and more efficiently for less money? (Elon Musk, head of SpaceX, as one would expect, heartily agrees (http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100416/NEWS02/4160324/Musk--Obama-made-right-choice)

6) Extends the ISS to at least 2020.

7) Lays out rough timeframes for sending astronauts to Mars and asteroids.

Personally, I've been waiting for this talk ever since the Augustine Comission came out with their report which said, of the Ares program, that even if "Santa Claus delivered it tomorrow", we couldn't afford to run it since it was 50% more expensive and carried 50% less payload that what private industry could deliver.

*IF* this (Obamas stated agenda) is real, then we have a major turning point - for the better, I believe. For once, someone's thinking long-term. I was *very* skeptical at first (believing that we should have funded Constellation properly) but this COULD be the start of something better.

[Guest]

djplong, did you have a chance to read Mr. Hickam's remarks? The link I provided updated to remarks he posted after Obama's speech in Florida. You can take a look back at his previous blogs. I personally think it's very insightful seeing how it comes from an areospace engineer for NASA who worked in spacecraft design and astronaut training and someone who actually has knowledge on the subject and contacts in the space program.

[Guest]

I've read the updated entry.

I agree with his "let's see what happens" attitude but I disagree with some aspects of how he characterized the way we got into this mess. While he quite rightly is skeptical about Obama's intent to FUND what he SAYS he's going to do, he seems to gloss over the fact that that is EXACTLY what the previous administrations have done. Big talk, no bucks.

I can't say I blame him for being pessimistic.

One thing that nobody has mentioned in all this. We were without manned spaceflight capability from 1975 (really 1972) until 1981. Apollo-Soyuz in 1975 was a one-off with, literally, leftover Apollo parts (except for the docking module). Apollo 17 blasted off in December '72.

So here we are looking at no U.S.-operated manned spaceflights from 2011 (anyone who believes the last shuttle mission will actually fly before the end of the year hasn't been paying attention - delays are VERY likely) until.... ?

We don't know when Orion will be ready. Or if the Dragon will be made man-ready (Musk says he can do it in a couple of years). ..or if someone will come up with something else.