NEWS - Bush May Announce Return To Moon At Kitty Hawk - Space Daily

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 21:39:49 -0700, in a place far, far away, Hop
David made the phosphor
on my monitor glow in such a way as to indicate that:

If Bush is sincere about manned space exploration he should encourage
commercial space flight. That's what a _real_ red-blooded Republican
president would do. But I think this psuedo-Republican is more intent on
spending tax dollars.

There's no evidence to date that this Republican, pseudo or otherwise,
is interested in space. That wouldn't be surprising at all, given the
experience of his father.

And since there are interesting things going on on the private front,
that doesn't particularly disappoint me, since for all of the flaws,
his war policy is still head and shoulders above any of his putative
Democratic opponents (with the possible exceptions of Lieberman and
Gephardt).

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Depending on the details (in which the Devil always lies) this might
just be the sort of thing that will jump start the moribund US space
effort. It will make some people mad, including the Mars or Bust
crowd, the "let's abolish NASA" crowd, and of course liberal
Democrats.

For those who are a bit cynical and remember Bush the Elder's SEI,
remember that things are different now.

First, Bush the Younger is not his dad.
Second, the liberal Democrats don't run Congress.
Third, Sean O'Keefe runs NASA, not Dick Truly.

Also the plan is not a five hundred billion dollar monstersity, but
contemplates a 7-10% annual increase in NASA's budget, which is
doable. And there's every chance that the new initiative will have
some free market aspects to it. Probably not enough for some, but then
no one gets everything they want.

"Rand Simberg" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 03:38:47 GMT, in a place far, far away, "G.Beat"
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

If he was serious about space, he would have started 3 years ago.
(Florida, Texas and California economies -- how many electoral votes is
that?)

Space is important to local economies, but not *state* economies.
Particularly in some of the largest states in the nation...

Very true .... as I watch some of the factories (subcontractors) that
produced Apollo
and Gemini components - close or be shipped to China.
They should have a good space program ... we sold enough of the parts

[Hah ... reminds me of the M*A*S*H episode of shipping a Jeep from Korea to
US one part at a
time .... very educational episode ... ]

gb

Rand Simberg wrote:
There's no evidence to date that this Republican, pseudo or otherwise,
is interested in space. That wouldn't be surprising at all, given the
experience of his father.

Bush (43) is showing distinct signs of learning from Pere's
mistakes, though he has found some older ones to re-create.

There wasn't much sign Bush (41) was interested in space
prior to SEI either, really. So it could just be that the
family are closet space junkies.

One mistake post-SEI was that a bunch of people weren't
set on fire and thrown off the roof of HQ. That may be
one of the lessons that Bush (43) and O'Keefe have learned...


-george william herbert

On or about 29 Oct 2003 23:54:17 -0800, George William Herbert made the sensational claim that:
Rand Simberg wrote:
There's no evidence to date that this Republican, pseudo or otherwise,
is interested in space. That wouldn't be surprising at all, given the
experience of his father.
There wasn't much sign Bush (41) was interested in space
prior to SEI either, really. So it could just be that the
family are closet space junkies.

The impression I got from his Feb 1st speech on the loss of Columbia was
that Dubya's interest in space was as a national prestige item. It sets
the US above other countries, which makes it a Good Thing®.
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George William Herbert wrote:


One hypothetical approach here would be to start a major
set of initiatives now, and set specific long term goals,
and then assuming Bush (43) gets re-elected, for there to
be a major bloodbath among the non-perfomers about oh say
6 months into his second term. Something like that...




The thing that's missing from all this is a rational reason to return to
the Moon- it's lifeless, and we already know a fair amount about its
geology; we can't afford a permanent manned lunar base because of the
supply problem that such an endeavor would pose, and spending billions
of dollars to get some more rocks is a vast waste of money. At least
with Mars, we would get an inherently more interesting place to visit.

Pat

Hop David wrote:


If Bush is sincere about manned space exploration he should encourage
commercial space flight. That's what a _real_ red-blooded Republican
president would do. But I think this psuedo-Republican is more intent
on spending tax dollars.



What he wants is campaign contributions from the aerospace industry, and
he's quite willing to say whatever he has to to get them.

Pat

Mark Whittington wrote:

Also the plan is not a five hundred billion dollar monstersity, but
contemplates a 7-10% annual increase in NASA's budget, which is
doable. And there's every chance that the new initiative will have
some free market aspects to it. Probably not enough for some, but then
no one gets everything they want.



And if Halliburton and the Carlyle Group can get involved in space
exploration, the president and vice president will be 100% behind the
"free market" aspects of the plan as to assigning contracts.

Pat

For those who are a bit cynical and remember Bush the Elder's SEI,
remember that things are different now.

First, Bush the Younger is not his dad.
Second, the liberal Democrats don't run Congress.
Third, Sean O'Keefe runs NASA, not Dick Truly.

And his pop never lost a shuttle. That in itself is a change in motivations.

"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
...


George William Herbert wrote:


One hypothetical approach here would be to start a major
set of initiatives now, and set specific long term goals,
and then assuming Bush (43) gets re-elected, for there to
be a major bloodbath among the non-perfomers about oh say
6 months into his second term. Something like that...




The thing that's missing from all this is a rational reason to return to
the Moon- it's lifeless, and we already know a fair amount about its
geology; we can't afford a permanent manned lunar base because of the
supply problem that such an endeavor would pose, and spending billions
of dollars to get some more rocks is a vast waste of money. At least
with Mars, we would get an inherently more interesting place to visit.

I'm not sure that supply is all that much of a problem, certainly for a
small outpost with crews rotated on, say, a 6 montly basis. A
Proton/Ariane5/etc... size launcher can soft land around 6,000kg of cargo on
the surface at a reasonable cost for supply purposes.