Author Topic: The art of persuading the congressmen/OMB to support alternative SF policies  (Read 19468 times)

Offline Galactic Penguin SST

This thread is specifically for those who have specific issues with some of NASA's current policies (including, but not limited to, things like SLS, Orion, JWST.....).  ::)

I see that many members here have some opinions on many of NASA's programs that differs from the current policies. No problem with that - until one realizes that all NASA policies have to go through the political shredding and it's difficult to overturn the actions from some of the congressmen or White House officials.

I am a deep believer of the doctrine of the DIRECT project, and as Ross said (very recently):

As I explained over on the other thread (in Historical) it doesn't depend on the technology.   It depends on the politics -- and sadly, EELV has never managed to get much political backing behind them.

The issue is more to do with NASA's annual budget process.   If you go for EELV, you lose the political support every state and regional representative that make money from an SDLV-style solution.   And many of those are members on the various committees that authorise and appropriate NASA's top-line budget every year.

There are plenty of other demands for NASA's money out there and without their explicit and sustained support each year you could realistically lose the committee votes that provide NASA with it's full Budget.   That could easily result in at least 3, more likely 5, and maybe even 7 billion off the top of NASA's budget every year.

Saving a billion a year on the launcher, but losing 5 billion a year in NASA's overall budget, would be a very bad trade indeed as the losses would mostly be directed towards the Science directorate.

Though I personally am not a fan of the current direction for SLS, it still represents the backbone of NASA's entire political support structure and without that, NASA could be in a much, much worse position.

Ross.

A_M, Unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

There is at least a decade's difference between when NASA's political support mechanism was destroyed, and when there could potentially be a moon base -- it just takes that long to develop all of the systems required.

Throughout that entire time though, NASA would be down billions of dollars each year.    In that financial environment, all of the other centres (and their political reps) would fight tooth-and-nail to retain their slice of the budget.   Aeronautics, Science etc.   It was HSF's fault that caused this mess, so they should bear the brunt of the cuts, no?

The internal fighting would be horrific and without the support for the extremely powerful "big rocket" delegation, there would be far fewer senior committee members fighting for the human spaceflight slice, so they would actually lose an even larger share.

The loss of topline budget would ultimately mean there would be no real money for any human exploration program BEO -- and that means outright cancellation.   Heck, if HSF caused a $5bn topline budget loss we would be damn lucky to retain any sort of human *LEO* program!   Without the robust HSF budget, there would be no Moon base.   If we can't afford the Moon base, where are your Moon base contracts?


Its a sad fact, but the folk who want SLS are *the* most powerful players in NASA's political game.   Ignore them, or turn them away from NASA at the entire agency's peril.

This is the dilemma we face today.   SLS is horrible.   But without the political backing that is actually behind SLS, the whole of NASA would be in a far, far worse position.   Its a situation of one step backwards, hopefully in return for two steps forwards.   You can tell its a government operation, can't ya? ::)

Ross.

So for all those who are saying out "Kill SLS! Replace Orion! Do manned lunar surface missions! Develop and use depots! Give commercial companies BLEO transportation contracts! Develop ISRU tech! ......................" here, I have a question: without putting NASA into yet another state of confusion over constantly changing projects from the string-pullers, how would you, as a US citizen (if you aren't then there's not much one can do about US space policies, right?  ;)), persuade the key congressmen and/or administrative officials to turn the tide and adopt what you believe NASA should do, just as the DIRECT project members did during their active days a few years ago? Because if your method is ineffective, there's no way that your plan would become a reality, and constantly pushing your own views here won't do anything at all.  :P

So - what are your plans?  ;)

P.S. Please be civil when discussing here, thanks!  :)
Astronomy & spaceflight geek penguin. In a relationship w/ Space Shuttle Discovery. Current Priority: Chasing the Chinese Spaceflight Wonder Egg & A Certain Chinese Mars Rover

Offline RonM

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The US has several pressing issues and human spaceflight is not one of them. NASA is very low on the priorities list.

The way voters can influence Washington are the standard methods. Write or email your members of Congress. You can put a petition on whitehouse.gov, but that hasn't been very successful for spaceflight issues. Politicians, or more accurately, their staff, will read your messages, but they will only act if they get a large number of comments on the same issue.

Unfortunately for us HSF fans, the general public is not concerned about NASA.

It's time to get with the program. You may not like it, but SLS and Orion are the only game in town for NASA.

Offline vulture4

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The US has several pressing issues and human spaceflight is not one of them. NASA is very low on the priorities list.

The way voters can influence Washington are the standard methods. Write or email your members of Congress. You can put a petition on whitehouse.gov, but that hasn't been very successful for spaceflight issues. Politicians, or more accurately, their staff, will read your messages, but they will only act if they get a large number of comments on the same issue.

Unfortunately for us HSF fans, the general public is not concerned about NASA.

It's time to get with the program. You may not like it, but SLS and Orion are the only game in town for NASA.

I disagree. Public outcry has already had some effect on Nelson's support for Commercial Crew.

Offline JohnFornaro

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To the OP.  I'm absolutely in favor of alternative Science Fiction policies.
« Last Edit: 07/04/2014 02:47 pm by JohnFornaro »
Sometimes I just flat out don't get it.

Offline RonM

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The US has several pressing issues and human spaceflight is not one of them. NASA is very low on the priorities list.

The way voters can influence Washington are the standard methods. Write or email your members of Congress. You can put a petition on whitehouse.gov, but that hasn't been very successful for spaceflight issues. Politicians, or more accurately, their staff, will read your messages, but they will only act if they get a large number of comments on the same issue.

Unfortunately for us HSF fans, the general public is not concerned about NASA.

It's time to get with the program. You may not like it, but SLS and Orion are the only game in town for NASA.

I disagree. Public outcry has already had some effect on Nelson's support for Commercial Crew.

I hope you're right. Now if we can get that extra $3 billion for NASA the Augustine Commission recommended.

Offline vulture4

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The US has several pressing issues and human spaceflight is not one of them. NASA is very low on the priorities list.

The way voters can influence Washington are the standard methods. Write or email your members of Congress. You can put a petition on whitehouse.gov, but that hasn't been very successful for spaceflight issues. Politicians, or more accurately, their staff, will read your messages, but they will only act if they get a large number of comments on the same issue.

Unfortunately for us HSF fans, the general public is not concerned about NASA.

It's time to get with the program. You may not like it, but SLS and Orion are the only game in town for NASA.

I disagree. Public outcry has already had some effect on Nelson's support for Commercial Crew.

I hope you're right. Now if we can get that extra $3 billion for NASA the Augustine Commission recommended.

There I would have to say that there are limits. A major budget increase seems unlikely.

Offline Coastal Ron

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This thread is specifically for those who have specific issues with some of NASA's current policies (including, but not limited to, things like SLS, Orion, JWST.....).  ::)

...without putting NASA into yet another state of confusion over constantly changing projects from the string-pullers, how would you..., persuade the key congressmen and/or administrative officials to turn the tide and adopt what you believe NASA should do...

While it is your thread, I have to say that this particular statement is a false premise - the "without putting NASA into yet another state of confusion over constantly changing projects".

There are many of us that see the most recent POR's (i.e. SLS and Orion/MPCV) as creating a state of confusion, and that NASA (and the future of space exploration here in the U.S.) would actually be better off not only without the SLS and the Orion, but without the money that is currently supporting those two programs.  So yes, if the programs get cancelled we do understand that the budget for them may go too.

Why would this not necessarily be a bad thing?

Part of the current problem is that politicians are making decisions for NASA based on what will keep employment high in their states or districts.  And that's because of the major infrastructure that was created for the Apollo program created what is essentially a sense of "entitlement" - that those facilities must always be kept in place regardless our real current needs.

So how do we fix that?  Once the SLS and Orion/MPCV are cancelled (and the money goes with them), we need to reassess NASA's staffing and facilities - do a BRAC-like review.  Painful?  Yes.  But it has to be done at some point.

That reduction will hopefully also have the effect of less direct political interference.  For instance, the SLS was only able to be created because there was already work and contracts in place from Constellation that allowed Congress to essentially novate the Ares I/V contracts into the SLS, thus bypassing a myriad of normal checks and balances that would have normally been done before such a large commitment was made.  It is that type of political interference that has to be eliminated in order for NASA to really be free to move forward in a balanced way.

So essentially what I'm proposing is not a way to convince politicians to do things that clearly don't benefit them (I'm not sure that is possible), but to reduce their ability to interfere on such a detailed basis.

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...just as the DIRECT project members did during their active days a few years ago?

I was a DIRECT supporter initially, and I think they did a terrific job getting as far as they did.  But I'm not sure they really changed the political calculation in any meaningful way, and I don't think they are a winning model for major change.

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Because if your method is ineffective, there's no way that your plan would become a reality, and constantly pushing your own views here won't do anything at all.  :P

Again, there are many of us that see the SLS and Orion/MPCV as being a severe liability for NASA, since there is a major disconnect between funding and mandates (i.e. there is not enough money to use the SLS & Orion, so developing them will ultimately be an expensive dead end).

So if anything I see my role as a U.S. Taxpayer as not only looking out for all taxpayers, but the future of NASA too.

My $0.02
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

Offline KelvinZero

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This doesnt quite answer the OP, but I think the tide will have turned if the ISS replaces the SLS as the core lobby for HSF. To do this it just has to survive a bit longer. I think it's lobby is strengthening all the time. I think this would provide the necessary change in culture such that NASA HSF begins taking on smaller, manageable goals and then actually achieving them. So the question is what can we do to protect ISS from political sabotage for just a bit longer... Im not going to try to answer that.. :)

For a political discussion I think we can ignore any technical arguments why the use of the ISS may expire, and why the purpose of commercial crew may therefore expire. It is not the ISS object but the ISS lobby that counts. Thats all the companies involved in any ongoing construction and maintainance, all the research being funded, all commercial launchers servicing it. The SLS has survived this long without a mission, the ISS lobby will IMO be much more adaptable at pulling a mission out of a hat to keep all these elements employed. This would be true even if we pursued a purely BEO architecture. Everything that goes on top of SLS would have much more in common with ISS experience than SLS experience.

Though I personally am not a fan of the current direction for SLS, it still represents the backbone of NASA's entire political support structure and without that, NASA could be in a much, much worse position.

I think NASA could have a far smaller budget yet still take steps forward. The lobby for SLS currently seem dedicated to using its might to kill even these smalls steps.

For example: ISS, propellant depots, SEP tugs, commercial crew, precursors eg to the lunar poles. The politicians behind SLS are continually attacking these, often with very dirty tricks. This is what we are buying with our SLS funding.

ISS however, is hungry for projects like this. Perhaps not the lunar precursors, but I think funding those diverse commercial cargo providers will also open opportunities there.

Offline Proponent

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I hope you're right. Now if we can get that extra $3 billion for NASA the Augustine Commission recommended.

There I would have to say that there are limits. A major budget increase seems unlikely.

And to get to the levels Augustine was talking about, the increase now would have to be quite a bit larger than $3 billion.  Consider that in FY 2009, NASA's budget was about $19.2 billion.  A $3-billion plus-up then would have brought it to $22.2 billion.  Now add inflation (at the rate of the NASA New-Start Inflation Index) and, in FY 2014 terms, the Augustine target becomes about $25.9 billion.  Meanwhile, NASA's budget, even in nominal terms, has actually gone down to, what, about $18 billion?  So the budget boost needed now is something like $7 billion or more.  Not gonna happen.

P.S.  JH points out that the Augustine suggestion was based on a presidentially-suggested FY 2010 budget of $18.6 billion, making the shortfalls a little less than suggested above.  Per the attached spreadsheet, the FY 2014 shortfall is to the tune of "only" $6 billion.  The basic conclusion remains the same: there's no prospect of NASA reaching the funding levels that Augustine indicated are needed.
« Last Edit: 11/14/2014 08:29 am by Proponent »

Offline EE Scott

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I hope you're right. Now if we can get that extra $3 billion for NASA the Augustine Commission recommended.

There I would have to say that there are limits. A major budget increase seems unlikely.

And to get to the levels Augustine was talking about, the increase now would have to be quite a bit larger than $3 billion.  Consider that in FY 2009, NASA's budget was about $19.2 billion.  A $3-billion plus-up then would have brought it to $22.2 billion.  Now add inflation (at the rate of the NASA New-Start Inflation Index) and, in FY 2014 terms, the Augustine target becomes about $25.9 billion.  Meanwhile, NASA's budget, even in nominal terms, has actually gone down to, what, about $18 billion?  So the budget boost needed now is something like $7 billion or more.  Not gonna happen.

Well that's a sobering perspective.
Scott

Offline RonM

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I hope you're right. Now if we can get that extra $3 billion for NASA the Augustine Commission recommended.

There I would have to say that there are limits. A major budget increase seems unlikely.

And to get to the levels Augustine was talking about, the increase now would have to be quite a bit larger than $3 billion.  Consider that in FY 2009, NASA's budget was about $19.2 billion.  A $3-billion plus-up then would have brought it to $22.2 billion.  Now add inflation (at the rate of the NASA New-Start Inflation Index) and, in FY 2014 terms, the Augustine target becomes about $25.9 billion.  Meanwhile, NASA's budget, even in nominal terms, has actually gone down to, what, about $18 billion?  So the budget boost needed now is something like $7 billion or more.  Not gonna happen.

SLS and Orion alone will not make a BEO exploration plan. The current budget does not include additional payloads for SLS, something that should have gone into design a year or two ago. As it stands now, there is nothing to launch in the 2020s other than an Orion. Without more money, this isn't going to work.

Since Congress isn't going to give NASA any more money, they should fund Commercial Crew, keep ISS flying, and cancel SLS and Orion. That ought to save a few billion dollars a year.

I think it is terrible that we are throwing away money on underfunded projects that are doomed to fail. If members of Congress want jobs programs in their states, they should fund infrastructure projects. At least the money would be used to build something useful.

A better plan would be to have a Commercial Mars program. Get NASA out of the hardware business and help fund private companies like SpaceX, Boeing, etc. come up with a better BEO exploration architecture.

Offline ThereIWas3

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A better plan would be to have a Commercial Mars program. Get NASA out of the hardware business and help fund private companies like SpaceX, Boeing, etc. come up with a better BEO exploration architecture.

Or maybe a "prize" program; rewards for acheiving milestones toward a Mars mission.  Zubrin actually had Newt Gingrich on board with this at one time.

I do not think SLS will ever go to Mars - it will be cancelled before it gets that far due to the budget problems outlined earlier.   It seems Congress is impossible to educate on these issues, and has other priorities, so I would say that it is a waste of time worrying about any NASA-by-itself Mars mission.  NASA just does what Congress lets it do, and Boeing is right there with them.      Any Mars plan that counts on SLS will never see fruition.  Mars Inspiration fails for this reason as well;  as soon as they announced they were switching to SLS, I knew they were dead.

That does not mean that NASA will not be involved in a Mars mission - their research labs have a lot to contribute, just like in the old NACA days.  But leadership is going to have to come from other places.  It may become easier once there is some interesting reason to actually send people to Mars that the public can get excited about.  It is a shame so much money is being wasted in the wrong directions.

So in the meantime, there is a lot of cool research being done by JPL.  But the one I focus on is not so much Curiosity, but the HiRISE imaging project.  Identify promising landing locations.
« Last Edit: 07/05/2014 08:48 pm by ThereIWas3 »

Offline vulture4

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NASA officials cannot question Congress. We, the space enthusiast community, can. We need to bring the debate into the open. We can tell them we want a sustainable ISS, we want a hundred Americans in space at once, we want our tax dollars spent on multiple Commercial Crew concepts, reusable launch systems, propellant depots and solar electric (and nuclear electric, perhaps even nuclear thermal) propulsion. ISS cannot support itself with microgravity research. We need astronomy and earth observation on the ISS, together they can produce more data every hour than microgravity can in a decade. And yes, we need tourism in LEO.  We need NASA to be producing advances in aeronautics, climate science, life sciences, and many other kinds of science and technology to benefit industry, our nation, and seven billion humans on Earth, not just seven humans on Mars.

Our tax dollars are limited. Something has to go. We do not need SLS or Orion. So much money is going into these programs that they will soon have so much inertia they will go on forever consuming our resources, with no prospect of actually carrying us forward.
« Last Edit: 07/06/2014 12:30 pm by vulture4 »

Offline QuantumG

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NASA officials cannot question Congress.

Why not?
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline QuantumG

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NASA officials cannot question Congress.

Why not?
Congress has legal authority to question NASA.  NASA has no legal authority to question congress.
Even the president has to respond to a congressional subpoena.

How's that related to what vulture4 said? .. and why are you trying to answer for him?
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline QuantumG

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As far as I can tell, there's nothing to prevent an honest discussion between a NASA administrator and members of Congress. Mike Griffin says he did it all the time and they supported him in both policy and funding. The hostile relationship that the Obama administration has brought to NASA, with Congress literally demanding documents and reports and the administrator being called to explain why they haven't been forthcoming, is only a few years old and utterly unprecedented. When it started happening, I thought it might actually be a good thing, but the backlash from Congress has been swift and direct.

Edit/Lar: PoliteJim3000 works on other posts too.

« Last Edit: 07/06/2014 10:33 am by Lar »
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline Lar

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Whoa there peeps. A bit more sweetness and light please.

I think you might be at cross purposes a bit. Sure, NASA administrators and others (such as constituents and the media) can question congressmen as much as they want... and doing so might be useful to clarify intent, or even to help congressmen understand things. But Congress has the power of subpoena and can COMPEL answers..  A NASA admin can't do that (except in a very rare and as far as I know, could be wrong, never yet seen civil action in which a congressman was sued for something by a NASA administrator and a subpoena was granted during discovery)

Questions can flow both ways but they HAVE to be answered in one direction only.

Would all agree that's a fair summation of the situation?
« Last Edit: 07/06/2014 10:36 am by Lar »
"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk
"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Offline vulture4

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NASA officials cannot question Congress.

Why not?
Congress has legal authority to question NASA.  NASA has no legal authority to question congress.
Even the president has to respond to a congressional subpoena.

How's that related to what vulture4 said? .. and why are you trying to answer for him?

I agree completely with Quantum. Congressional committees call witnesses and require them to testify as to how NASA is implementing their commands to build SLS/Orion and use them to go to Mars on the decreasing budget the Congress actually provides. Charley Bolden occasionally puts in a few comments regarding the essential need for commercial crew and ISS, but he does not get to question the members of the committee.
« Last Edit: 07/06/2014 07:08 pm by vulture4 »

Offline QuantumG

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What's incredibly strange is that these Congressional Q&As are apparently the only contact between the NASA administrator and the members asking the questions. Prior to this administration, there was a regular backwards and forwards of both written and oral communication. Imagine being the CEO of a company and only talking to your investors for an hour every 6 months or worse. With an audience. On camera. If they sent you letters throughout the interval, surely you'd answer them. If you didn't, I don't think you could be honestly surprised if they withheld your funding until you did, or at least saw no good reason to grant you increases.

Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline Coastal Ron

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As far as I can tell, there's nothing to prevent an honest discussion between a NASA administrator and members of Congress.

I would agree with that.  It is common for high level leaders in government to have conversations with members of Congress.

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Mike Griffin says he did it all the time and they supported him in both policy and funding.

I'm not sure we know enough to infer cause and effect.  Griffin came on after the VSE was announced, and the congresscritters he talked with may have been very receptive to increased funding in their states, not so much that the U.S. was going to be embarking on a new space exploration effort.

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The hostile relationship that the Obama administration has brought to NASA, with Congress literally demanding documents and reports and the administrator being called to explain why they haven't been forthcoming, is only a few years old and utterly unprecedented.

Looked at in isolation from all the issues going on with Obama and various elements in Congress and politics in general, maybe you could raise alarm.  But in full context of the relationship Obama has with just about any Republican politician, and the efforts some Republicans have put into being "anti-Obama" on things that Republicans used to be stridently for, I don't see anything to raise an alarm over.

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When it started happening, I thought it might actually be a good thing, but the backlash from Congress has been swift and direct.

Well, to be fair, when you look at the fact that Congress took ownership of the SLS by mandating that NASA build it, and that the documents I think you are alluding to were related to the SLS and the speed at which NASA was making procurement decisions, this is really just the natural Executive vs Legislative strum and drang.  And what was the result of all of that?  Anybody fired or impeached?  Not that I remember.

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Edit/Lar: PoliteJim3000 works on other posts too.

 :)
If we don't continuously lower the cost to access space, how are we ever going to afford to expand humanity out into space?

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