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.
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.
Quote from: RonM on 07/03/2014 05:56 pmThe 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.
Quote from: vulture4 on 07/03/2014 09:52 pmQuote from: RonM on 07/03/2014 05:56 pmThe 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.
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...
...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.
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.
Quote from: RonM on 07/04/2014 05:09 pmI 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.
I hope you're right. Now if we can get that extra $3 billion for NASA the Augustine Commission recommended.
Quote from: vulture4 on 07/04/2014 06:52 pmQuote from: RonM on 07/04/2014 05:09 pmI 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.
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.
NASA officials cannot question Congress.
Quote from: QuantumG on 07/06/2014 05:07 amQuote from: vulture4 on 07/06/2014 02:56 amNASA 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.
Quote from: vulture4 on 07/06/2014 02:56 amNASA officials cannot question Congress. Why not?
Quote from: Sean Lynch on 07/06/2014 05:25 amQuote from: QuantumG on 07/06/2014 05:07 amQuote from: vulture4 on 07/06/2014 02:56 amNASA 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?
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.