Hubble Marching orders

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 20:34:39 +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 ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 19:41:32 +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:
Of course the 44th president will be able to change it. All he will
have to do is point to the unfinished space station.
In what way will the station be "unfinished" by then? There is
already an implicit agreement that the Shuttle won't be retired until
station is complete.

In the sense of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. They won't be able to
do all of this by 2010:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/future/

In other words, there is no way for the 44th president to meet both
Bush's promise to complete the space station, and Bush's promise to
retire the space shuttle by 2010. That is often the way it goes when
you promise things on behalf of other people.

It's often the way things go in policy in general. By your standards,
no president would ever be able to make any plans extending beyond his
own term. Kennedy wouldn't have been able to commit us to the moon,
or Roosevelt to winning the war.

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
There is no way for the 44th president to meet both
Bush's promise to complete the space station, and Bush's promise to
retire the space shuttle by 2010. That is often the way it goes when
you promise things on behalf of other people.
It's often the way things go in policy in general. By your standards,
no president would ever be able to make any plans extending beyond his
own term. Kennedy wouldn't have been able to commit us to the moon,
or Roosevelt to winning the war.

Except that Kennedy and Roosevelt didn't rear-load the funding for those
projects, and they didn't saddle their successors with contradictory
promises. But once again, there is something more basic about my position
that you are missing. I really don't mind the Bush space vision all that
much, because it could be the kiss of death for government-funded human
spaceflight. Come January 2009, the astronaut program will be a shambles,
and I just won't mind. Maybe you will mind. In any case you will see.

--
/\ 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 in
:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:33:00 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
(Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:
Maybe if Bush actually had a political reason for his space initiative,
he'd actually be committed to it?
You continue to provide zero evidence that he's not committed to it.

The budget chart makes clear that Bush is committing the 44th
president to a great deal and committing himself to very little:

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

All of the hard stuff begins in FY 2010 or FY 2011. By an amazing
coincidence, FY 2009 is the last budget that Bush himself will
propose or sign.

That chart is somewhat misleading because it's expressed in current-year
dollars. In constant-year dollars (i.e. adjusted for inflation), *all* the
budget increases are during the Bush administration; the post-2009 budgets
are assumed merely to remain constant with respect to inflation (hint:
that's what that dashed line on the chart is supposed to indicate). In the
CBO's constant-year rendition of NASA's chart, the line is pretty much flat
after 2009. So the presidents after Bush are committed to little other than
*not cutting* the buying power of NASA's budget.

As for the magnitude of Bush's commitment so far, NASA's 2004 and 2005
budgets enjoyed increases of 4.3% and 4.0% respectively (after inflation),
at a time when everything else other than DoD and DoHS were getting cut.
That is also the largest two-year increase in NASA's budget, percentage-
wise, since 1990-91.

As for the remainder of the Bush term, we'll see. NASA's 5-year plan called
for another 5% increase this year, to about $17 billion. That will be very
difficult for Bush to follow through on, in the current environment.

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

(Greg Kuperberg) wrote in
:

In article ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 19:24:30 +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:
That's exactly it: Retiring the shuttle is one of the politically
difficult things that Bush has decided the 44th president will do.
No, Bush has made the decision. The 44th president will have no
ability to change it.

Of course the 44th president will be able to change it. All he will
have to do is point to the unfinished space station.

You're focusing too strongly on the 2010 retirement date. NASA is not. ISS
assembly will be driven by a certain number of flights (currently 28), not
a certain calendar date.

There are myriad ways Bush could make the shuttle retirement decision
irreversible by his successor. The easiest would be to procure all 28
required external tanks in advance (perhaps with some more for reserve if
you insist...), then inform Lockheed Martin that the government will not
reimburse the cost of storage of the ET production tooling (extra bonus
points if the government issues a CEV contract that requires them to clear
out Michoud to make way for it...). Lockheed will of course immediately
destroy the ET production tooling, since it's cost-prohibitive to store
tooling for a product the sole customer doesn't want any more. That would
make continued shuttle flights a *very* expensive proposition.

The above scenario is not unprecedented. Replace "Bush" with "LBJ", "his
successor" with "Nixon", "external tanks" with "S-IC stages", "Lockheed
Martin" with "Boeing", and you've basically got the story of the end of the
Saturn V. You don't even have to change "Michoud"... :-)

The above scenario may not in fact happen, since NASA may want to keep the
option of using a shuttle-derived vehicle for CEV on the table (if they are
serious about controlling costs, they will not).

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in
:

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 02:04:38 +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:

But once again, there is something more basic about my position
that you are missing. I really don't mind the Bush space vision all
that much, because it could be the kiss of death for government-funded
human spaceflight. Come January 2009, the astronaut program will be a
shambles, and I just won't mind. Maybe you will mind.

That's hard to imagine, given my interest in the "astronaut program"
(whatever the hell that means).

I suspect that's just his politically-correct substitute for "manned
spaceflight program", and he doesn't like NASA's version, "human
spaceflight program".

--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

On Tue, 1 Feb 2005 02:04:38 +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 ,
Rand Simberg wrote:
There is no way for the 44th president to meet both
Bush's promise to complete the space station, and Bush's promise to
retire the space shuttle by 2010. That is often the way it goes when
you promise things on behalf of other people.
It's often the way things go in policy in general. By your standards,
no president would ever be able to make any plans extending beyond his
own term. Kennedy wouldn't have been able to commit us to the moon,
or Roosevelt to winning the war.

Except that Kennedy and Roosevelt didn't rear-load the funding for those
projects, and they didn't saddle their successors with contradictory
promises.

Really?

But once again, there is something more basic about my position
that you are missing. I really don't mind the Bush space vision all that
much, because it could be the kiss of death for government-funded human
spaceflight. Come January 2009, the astronaut program will be a shambles,
and I just won't mind. Maybe you will mind.

That's hard to imagine, given my interest in the "astronaut program"
(whatever the hell that means).

In any case you will see.

I won't be the only one.

In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
The above scenario is not unprecedented. Replace "Bush" with "LBJ", "his
successor" with "Nixon", "external tanks" with "S-IC stages", "Lockheed
Martin" with "Boeing", and you've basically got the story of the end of the
Saturn V. You don't even have to change "Michoud"... :-)

Unfortunately for a nice analogy, NASA hoped to resume Saturn V production
(although it was increasingly a forlorn hope) until summer 1970, and
retained tooling etc. for a 2/year production rate until summer 1972.

The NASA History Series book "Exploring the Unknown", vol. 4, reprints the
3 Aug 1972 memo from Myers to Fletcher requesting approval (which was
granted) to abandon the 2/year production capability.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

In article ,
Jorge R. Frank wrote:
(Greg Kuperberg) wrote in
:
The budget chart makes clear that Bush is committing the 44th
president to a great deal and committing himself to very little:

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

All of the hard stuff begins in FY 2010 or FY 2011. By an amazing
coincidence, FY 2009 is the last budget that Bush himself will
propose or sign.
That chart is somewhat misleading because it's expressed in current-year
dollars. In constant-year dollars (i.e. adjusted for inflation), *all* the
budget increases are during the Bush administration...
....
You're focusing too strongly on the 2010 retirement date. NASA is not. ISS
assembly will be driven by a certain number of flights (currently 28), not
a certain calendar date.

These comments miss the point. 4% budget increases are not all that
difficult politically. It is less than an extra $1 billion, from the
same George Bush who repeatedly requests $80 billion at the 11th hour
for other exploits. The really hard part is to retire the space shuttle
and the space station. The 28-flight space station construction plan
is colossal and risky. Politically it is almost as good as infinitely
many more flights.

I have every reason to believe you that NASA isn't serious about retiring
the shuttle in 2010. With a realistic flight schedule it might be more
like 2013. But Bush himself did focus on it; he repeated that precise
year in his speech. He did it to make his vision look credible, because
it is supposed to use freed shuttle and station money. What will actually
happen is that either (1) the space shuttle and space station quagmire
will continue, and the Bush space vision will get limp-along funding; or
(2) the space shuttle will crash again or the station will be abandoned,
and the reputation of manned spaceflight will fall through the floor.
The second case is politically more interesting; it's not clear whether
Bush or the 44th president would rally behind the Bush vision or not.

(By the way I was calling it the "astronaut program" just because that
is simpler than "human spaceflight program".)

--
/\ 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 *

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:33:00 +0000 (UTC), in a place far, far away,
: (Eric Chomko) made the phosphor on my
: monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

: : Kennedy gave far more attention to his commitment *after* that first
: : speech, mentioning it repeatedly and emphasizing its importance. He knew
: : that he had to sell it to Congress and the public, and keep it sold year
: : after year, if it was going to happen.
:
: : It's unclear whether he "knew" that or not. He sold it because he
: : perceived it to be important part of the Cold War. Recall that Apollo
: : was first and foremost a propaganda activity, in terms of its purpose.
: : It would make sense for Kennedy to continue to trumpet it.
:
: Maybe if Bush actually had a political reason for his space initiative,
: he'd actually be committed to it?

: You continue to provide zero evidence that he's not committed to it.

Good technical communication requires repetition. Henry basically stated
that JFK did repeat his commitment to space whereas Bush has not. THAT
alone is evidence.

: Regarding JFK and space, I suspect that along with the political angle
: Kennedy actually believed that going to the moon was worth doing from a
: purely humanitarian point of view.

: Another assertion for which there is zero evidence, and abundant
: counterevidence.

Based upon the personalities of Kennedy and Bush I stand behind my
statement. I note that of that adundant counterevidence you mention that
you didn't provide any. Again, were you sleeping in class when the
professor stated you should back up your claims.

: : He has clearly sold Congress on it well enough to get his full NASA
: : budget passed in an environment when everything else was being cut.
:
: With the remaining shuttle fleet grounded in the wake of the Columbia
: disaster getting a minor budget increase at NASA isn't some great feat.

: It is when everything else in the federal budget is being cut.

Not everything in the budget is being cut. Check the DOD and DHS.

: They plan on cutting the Hubble, remember? So that is an admission that
: funds are still tight.

: Of course they are. But that only reinforces the fact that he
: considers the exploration initiative to be high priority.

No proof of that. All we have his one speech. Henry spelled it out nicely.
I'll take his word over yours any day.

Eric

Rand Simberg ) wrote:
: On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 18:07:43 +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:

: The budget chart makes clear that Bush is committing the 44th
: president to a great deal and committing himself to very little:
:
: http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/54873main_bu...rt_14jan04.pdf
:
: All of the hard stuff begins in FY 2010 or FY 2011. By an amazing
: coincidence, FY 2009 is the last budget that Bush himself will
: propose or sign.

: By another amazing coincidence, that's about the time that Shuttle
: gets phased out and the money becomes available.

Available for exactly what? That is another point, Bush's vision isn't
clear.

: rolling eyes at someone who takes Alex Roland seriously

Same could be said for you. Actually, you make a case FOR Roland to be
listened to.

Eric