Hubble Marching orders

In article ,
Henry Spencer wrote:
[Bush] has quite visibly *not* sold Congress or the public on the idea,
and sooner or later that lack is going to be felt, especially since
all the real action in his plan happens after he leaves office.

Alex Roland said at the very beginning of this story that the real
purpose of the Bush space vision was to sustain the space station and
only pretend to move on. It's like saying, "I am absolutely resolved
to quit smoking --- six years to the day from today!" Your complaint
is exactly consistent with Roland's take on it.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \ Home page: http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~greg/
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

Greg Kuperberg wrote:
Henry Spencer wrote:
[Bush] has quite visibly *not* sold Congress or the public on the idea,
and sooner or later that lack is going to be felt, especially since
all the real action in his plan happens after he leaves office.

Alex Roland said at the very beginning of this story that the real
purpose of the Bush space vision was to sustain the space station and
only pretend to move on. It's like saying, "I am absolutely resolved
to quit smoking --- six years to the day from today!" Your complaint
is exactly consistent with Roland's take on it.

Except that Station's growth has been solidly truncated for the
forseeable future, and Shuttle's lifespan has had its limit
defined.

I think that there's an implicit "we can't go on to Moon/Mars
until we have shown that we can actually finish this Station
project" in a lot of what O'Keefe and Bush have done.

But that's not the same as "sustaining it and only pretending to
move on". Station is clearly not the future direction of
anything right now. Long term budgets and plans have been set.

You seem to keep yourself in willful ignorance of developments
over the last 18-24 months. Why?


-george william herbert

In article ,
George William Herbert wrote:
Greg Kuperberg wrote:
Alex Roland said at the very beginning of this story that the real
purpose of the Bush space vision was to sustain the space station and
only pretend to move on. It's like saying, "I am absolutely resolved
to quit smoking --- six years to the day from today!" [Henry's] complaint
is exactly consistent with Roland's take on it.
Except that Station's growth has been solidly truncated for the
forseeable future,...

For about the fifth time. But, as Robert Park pointed out many years
ago, the space station is a hydra: no matter how much you cut off, it
will just grow back. One reason for this is that the space station was
a mountain of wild promises from day one, when Reagan first announced it.

They aren't really truncating the space station unless they lay off a
lot of people. That is exactly what Washington still doesn't want to do.

and Shuttle's lifespan has had its limit defined.

But not really. First, Bush is taking no responsibility to retire the
space shuttle himself; the next guy is supposed to do it. Second, in
the face of this supposed retirement, they were still planning 28 more
shuttle flights until recently, so Bush's date isn't even credible.
And third, even though the retirement date isn't politically credible,
the date is close to a truism of engineering. In other words, Bush
"limited" the shuttle to about when it will fall apart anyway.

Or, as I should say in all of this, Bush and O'Keefe. Frank
Seitzen reported in November that O'Keefe was promoting the then-fetal
space policy to the White House. I believe it.

I think that there's an implicit "we can't go on to Moon/Mars
until we have shown that we can actually finish this Station
project" in a lot of what O'Keefe and Bush have done.

And, you know, you can't climb Mount McKinley until you have
shown that you can smoke 10 more cartons of cigarettes.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \ Home page: http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~greg/
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

Greg Kuperberg wrote:
George William Herbert wrote:
Greg Kuperberg wrote:
Alex Roland said at the very beginning of this story that the real
purpose of the Bush space vision was to sustain the space station and
only pretend to move on. It's like saying, "I am absolutely resolved
to quit smoking --- six years to the day from today!" [Henry's] complaint
is exactly consistent with Roland's take on it.

Except that Station's growth has been solidly truncated for the
forseeable future,...

For about the fifth time. But, as Robert Park pointed out many years
ago, the space station is a hydra: no matter how much you cut off, it
will just grow back. One reason for this is that the space station was
a mountain of wild promises from day one, when Reagan first announced it.

They aren't really truncating the space station unless they lay off a
lot of people. That is exactly what Washington still doesn't want to do.

It's Dead, Greg. It's pushing up daisys.

The production lines for node hardware and components are shut down.

One could presumably recreate that capability from scratch, but there
isn't anyone employed in a position to be making new ones right now.

Hardware that doesn't already exist isn't going to get built without
significant new investment.

So, yes, everyone involved in manufacturing the basic components is
"laid off"; they still have the final assembly and checkout people
there because you don't completely abandon that capability until
it's up in orbit, but the whole back end of the process is all done.

and Shuttle's lifespan has had its limit defined.

But not really. First, Bush is taking no responsibility to retire the
space shuttle himself; the next guy is supposed to do it.

Because it won't be done with flying ISS components up until
the next President's term. Or do you think we should abandon
ISS and just shut down the program and Shuttle now?

Second, in
the face of this supposed retirement, they were still planning 28 more
shuttle flights until recently, so Bush's date isn't even credible.

They're planning to complete the ISS assembly. Shuttle upgrades
and such related to flights past that time have been terminated.
They aren't investing any more in new technology or lifetime extension
beyond what's needed for those flights. The budget for those
upgrades and extensions and capability adds other than those
needed in the next few years of ISS flights has been zeroed.

Again, that could get reversed, but as of right now, Shuttle's
lifetime will be Over a very few years from now.

And third, even though the retirement date isn't politically credible,
the date is close to a truism of engineering. In other words, Bush
"limited" the shuttle to about when it will fall apart anyway.

The Shuttles aren't all going to immediately fall apart at
that time: they needed major refurb and various systems to
be recertified or remanufactured. Endeavour at least has
quite a bit more lifespan left on her, as she's much newer.

To keep it flying past then, there needed to be money spent,
a lot of it now. Money on long term work on the engineering
and improvements and repairs.

That money now isn't going there, it's going other places.

Or, as I should say in all of this, Bush and O'Keefe. Frank
Seitzen reported in November that O'Keefe was promoting the then-fetal
space policy to the White House. I believe it.

I think that there's an implicit "we can't go on to Moon/Mars
until we have shown that we can actually finish this Station
project" in a lot of what O'Keefe and Bush have done.

And, you know, you can't climb Mount McKinley until you have
shown that you can smoke 10 more cartons of cigarettes.

Greg, I don't really care if you agree with it. But I think
that Congress *does* agree with it, and would look upon NASA's
inability to actually finish ISS as a sign of its inability to
execute on anything. That's the point. NASA doesn't get its
money from a giant dollar tree in the VAB. They have to keep
Congress and the President and OMB convinced that they're
worth it and can use it reasonably wisely. If those people
lose faith then NASA goes away, or withers.


-george william herbert

In article ,
George William Herbert wrote:
But I think that Congress *does* ... would look upon NASA's inability
to actually finish ISS as a sign of its inability to execute on anything.

Or rather, anything manned.

I agree that that is the prevailing sentiment in Washington --- not
just in Congress. If NASA can't move forward with the space station,
then it can't be trusted with an astronaut program. Corollary: Bush is
not drawing the curtain on the space shuttle and the space station; he
only outlined a "next act" for the 44th president and the 111th Congress.
He is not pulling the astronaut program out of its current fiasco.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \ Home page: http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~greg/
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

Greg Kuperberg wrote:
George William Herbert wrote:
But I think that Congress *does* ... would look upon NASA's inability
to actually finish ISS as a sign of its inability to execute on anything.

Or rather, anything manned.

I agree that that is the prevailing sentiment in Washington --- not
just in Congress. If NASA can't move forward with the space station,
then it can't be trusted with an astronaut program. Corollary: Bush is
not drawing the curtain on the space shuttle and the space station; he
only outlined a "next act" for the 44th president and the 111th Congress.
He is not pulling the astronaut program out of its current fiasco.

So you agree that completing ISS - a process which will take longer
than Bush's remaining years in office - is a prerequisite for NASA
moving on to other manned space programs.

And you are not disputing that ISS fabrication funding is gone
and that the assembly lines are shut down, all the components are
built and waiting for launch (or, with minimal remaining work to
be ready for launch, plus on the ground maintenance while they wait).

And you are not disputing that long term funding for Shuttle upgrades
and maintenance past the 2010-ish Station Completion time has been
terminated, and that money is now only going to Return to Flight
activities and the next 30ish flights requird for ISS assembly.

In what way is this not drawing the curtain? In a program for which
long term planning and operations are key, having terminated the
long term operations and maintenance funding and terminated ISS
production lines is just about as much drawing the curtain as you
can get, on a program which you and everyone else acknowledges is
going to have to do a moderate fixed number more flights before
it's done with its acknowledged necessary next step before
moving on.

If the long lead time stuff isn't happening anymore, the program's
dead, Greg. Revival is still possible before Shuttle is shut down.
But absent a directed and intense maintenance and refurbishment
and upgrades budget, Shuttle's lifespan is *over* in something
like 5-7 years from now. And every NASA plan does not have
that directed and intense maintenance and refurb and upgrade
budget. Contractors have haad upgrade contracts terminated
and the workforces scattered to other jobs. NASA's internal
personel working on upgrades and such are reassigned.

It could practically only be more dead if NASA explicitly
abandoned its manned space program immediately, given the
assumption that ISS has to happen or else the next steps
won't be credible to Congress or others in Washington.


-george william herbert

In article ,
George William Herbert wrote:
So you agree that completing ISS - a process which will take longer
than Bush's remaining years in office - is a prerequisite for NASA
moving on to other manned space programs.

I agree that it is a prerequisite, but I don't agree that it has to be
one. If Bush had devoted some political capital to it (only a moderate
amount relative to the vast amount that he possesses), it would have
been different.

And you are not disputing that ISS fabrication funding is gone
and that the assembly lines are shut down, ...

It might well be that this particular ISS activity has come to a close.
But did Bush do it? Has the Bush vision actually led to the layoff of
a single employee connected to the astronaut program? I have seen no
evidence of it in the news feeds. Most people don't take pink slips
lying down.

What I did see was this quote from Bill Gerstenmaier, the space station
program manager:

We don't see hardly any changes to our program based on the new
initiative - we're pretty well aligned with it to begin with.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1030986.htm

Gerstenmaier's confident pronouncement is exactly consistent with
Alex Roland. Nobody has drawn any curtain on the space station.

And you are not disputing that long term funding for Shuttle upgrades
and maintenance past the 2010-ish Station Completion time has been
terminated, ...

Yes I do dispute that. George W. Bush cannot dictate funding for NASA
beyond FY 2009. Come FY 2010, NASA could be tripled or cancelled.
Everything to the right of the dotted line in budget sheet here is
negotiable:

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/54873main_bu...rt_14jan04.pdf

This is the same George Bush, I might add, who has repeatedly requested
$80 billion at the eleventh hour for one of the main projects of
his administration, a project he cares about 100 times as much as he
cares about NASA. Long-term planning at the White House is typically
disingenuous.

--
/\ Greg Kuperberg (UC Davis)
/ \ Home page: http://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~greg/
\ / Visit the Math ArXiv Front at http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/
\/ * All the math that's fit to e-print *

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 21:49:39 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Greg Kuperberg) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

In article ,
Henry Spencer wrote:
[Bush] has quite visibly *not* sold Congress or the public on the idea,
and sooner or later that lack is going to be felt, especially since
all the real action in his plan happens after he leaves office.

Alex Roland said at the very beginning of this story that the real
purpose of the Bush space vision was to sustain the space station and
only pretend to move on.

Alex Roland is clueless on this matter.