Space and Congress

I went through a few ideas about what to post about today for the Friday science-related post. Since I have a congressional hearing on right now about NASA and its future, I'll post about that. This might turn into a rant about how much I dislike politicians.

I noticed a few things:

• Charles Bolden is a really smart guy.
• Congressmen are not. They don't seem to have a grasp of some key issues of science and technology.
• Congressman Wu from Oregon seems like a complete moron, incapable of making a clear argument. My impression of him: "Wahhh, I don't like this because I just don't. Hmmfp."
• Everyone seems to be worried about a human space-flight program.
• Props to Bolden for having to put up with these people. I couldn't do that.

The Constellation program was flawed. It was nothing new, just rehashing Apollo age technologies. Like rebuilding a 1977 Cadillac, but painting it red this time and adding a Tom Tom navigation system. I respect President Obama for his decision on this issue. It takes a lot of guts to completely cancel a program that we have already spent $10 billion on. I support this too. We need to develop new technologies to get us into space cheaper, and that is what the proposed NASA budget focuses on.

Congresswoman Giffords talked about how she (and many others) want to see more details about this shift for NASA. I agree with her. Details are important. This seem to be a reoccurring theme in this hearing. I'm not convinces that NASA has the details worked out in full, but Bolden did mention a few programs thay are currently working on.

Congresswoman Fudge had a story where she was talking to a kid who wanted to be an astronaut, and she didn't know what to say to him. She wanted to tell him to think of a new goal, because NASA will not have a maned space flight program. OK, what about private space flight? Can't he work for one of those companies (Boeing, Space X) that will soon have the capabilities to take people to space? There is a weird focus on government funded manned spaceflight, like its government funded manned spaceflight or nothing. I actually think that there is a better chance of me going to space if we have a few private companies that have the ability to get there.

She is also worried about the priorities shifting and having the funding for proposed programs canceled in the near future. If that is your worry, you are in the wrong field. Stuff like that happens in the world of politics all the time. I like to think that if it is a well thought out plan, then it will last.

One overlooked goal of the NASA Bidget is the development of a heavy-lift rocket. NASA is looking long-term, not just at the next ten years. This is the type of thing where government funding is useful. There is almost zero incentive right now for the private spaceflight industry to develop these type of rockets that use new technologies.

Bolden is talking about education in NASA. Important. Possibly the most important. Educating kids about NASA ans space and getting them excited about it is the best way to ensure the future of our space program, be it government or private.

It'll be interesting to see how all this plays out. Congress needs to approve the new NASA budget, and right now there seems to be a lot of resistance.

New Things for the Blog

I've been thinking a little about the format of this blog and I have decided to set some kind of rough format. I'm hoping that this will force me to post regularly. Starting today I will have two new features.

On Mondays I will post what is basically an electronics 101 series of posts. This is mostly for me to review and remember stuff that I learned in college and promptly forgot, but also serve as a way for beginners to learn about simple circuits.

On Fridays I will have a post on skepticism/science, because reason rocks. I have already done two posts like this (here and here). Don't expect these to be super long essays, although some of them might be. It all depends on the amount of time I have. Some of the posts might be about things in the news, others might be about something cool I read that week and want to share. I will probably get stuff wrong too, but that's how we learn.

I enjoy feedback too, so feel free to post comments.

I'm hoping to start on a new project soon too, or at least finish some older ones.

Space, and How to Get There.

WSJ
Orlando Sentinel
NYT

Its looking like Obama is planning on canceling the Ares program. Almost a shame, but its probably for the better, but only if Obama has a better plan, and based on the above, it doesn't look like he has one. Instead, our main path to space will be with the commercial space industry.

Commercial space flight. SpaceShipOne does not count, it can't quite make it to space for a long period of time. SpaceX is probably the front runner in the commercial space flight industry. They already have a contract to resupply the International Space Station once the shuttle is retired, and they are the only commercial company to successfully launch a rocket into space using only private funds. In fact, they are prepping to test their heavy lift rocket, Falcon 9, and its reusable spacecraft, Dragon, sometime this year. Upon successful completion of the test flight, Falcon 9 and Dragon will be the craft that resupply the ISS. Another company is Orbital Sciences Corporation. They have one rocket that is being used to transport stuff to space, and the are working on another, larger rocket.

All this is cool and stuff, but it is not the inspirational space exploration that makes kids want to become astronauts and study math and science. But what are the realistic options? Continue with the Ares program? As cool as Ares is, I don't think it was the right option to pursue. It is just an update of technology that has existed since the 60s/70s. It's a shame that Ares was the course we took for NASA, and now it looks like the whole program will be canceled. A waste of time and money, but you can't change the past.

So the future, whats up with that? I fully support the commercial space flight industry. For near Earth stuff commercial space flight is perfect. But getting beyond near earth orbit? For that we need NASA. NASA needs a well developed plan for returning the US to the moon. We are already doing a lot of prep work for that, with LCROSS and the LRO missions. Setting up a moon base should be a goal of NASA's. It will be expensive, prohibitively so, which is why it needs to be done by NASA. To me that is the point of the organization: to spend money on things that are far to expensive for the commercial space industry to pay for. Like going to the moon. Or Mars.

How cool would going to Mars be? Obama, take us to Mars. It only took the Apollo program eight years to get us to the moon. Lets get on this, don't make NASA useless, only doing things NOAA and the Air Force can do now.