As is his nature, Senator Cruz is more interested in blaming (or creating blame) the current Administration.Take his comments on Commercial Crew for instance, he stated in the Houston Chronicle article:"We are entirely dependent upon the Russian Soyuz system. It is unacceptable from the perspective of space interest and also from national security interests. I have repeatedly inquired of this administration about its contingency plans if the Russians shut off the Soyuz."It's good he's concerned, but where was he when Obama was asking for full funding of the Commercial Crew program so that we wouldn't be in this situation as long as we're going to be now? Fully funding the program could have cut 2 years off of the development schedule, meaning we could have had independent access to the ISS by 2015/6 instead of 2017/8.The solution he has been asking for is what he professes he supports - the private sector. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to recognize that, he seems to assume that there is some sort of NASA solution - which is scary in itself if you consider he is not aware of the schedule for Orion.Also, I bet he is not aware that the U.S. has actually been reliant on Russia for use of the ISS since the beginning of the Soyuz program. Apparently The Hill is not, because they incorrectly stated:"NASA has been reliant on Russia to ferry Americans back and forth to space since the space shuttle program ended in 2011."The Shuttle was never able to KEEP our astronauts at the ISS, since it could only stay in space for 2 weeks and couldn't act as a lifeboat for emergencies. The Shuttle could only exchange crew members. This is a pretty common misperception, but having the person in charge of NASA in the Senate not aware of this is pretty bad.As to whether he will lead NASA to the benefit of the nation or his state, this quote from the Houston Chronicle might foretell that:"Texas and the Houston area in particular has been a tremendous beneficiary of that private sector activity."Now granted he was talking to a Texas paper, but he seems to be signaling that the gravy train will continue.I don't know. I am not fan of Senator Cruz, but mainly because he seems to cause more harm than good. I hope he becomes a quick study of the issues surrounding and involving NASA, and that his committee can somehow create non-partisan guidance for NASA that makes sense. Call me a dreamer...
Cruz has only been involved with NASA during the last couple of years.
Commercial crew has been adequately funded for the last couple of years (close to $700M).
Cruz meant that we shouldn't have to rely solely on the Russians for ferrying crew to the ISS and that's a fair point.
It's not Obama's fault but he isn't going to admit it. He has to sound like he disagrees with Obama even though it doesn't seem that he intends to change anything substantive about his policies. He is a presidential candidate for 2016. He is not going to praise Obama. He has to sound like he would have done a better job had he been President. That's just the way politics works.
Quote from: yg1968 on 01/14/2015 08:16 pmCruz has only been involved with NASA during the last couple of years.How many years should it take to come up to speed on what the issues are that NASA faces? I'd say it shouldn't take more than a year, should it?QuoteCommercial crew has been adequately funded for the last couple of years (close to $700M).It has never been funded to the levels that NASA has requested, so no, it has not been adequately funded. Not if the goal is to stop using Soyuz as soon as possible, which has always been the goal - even before Putin started being noticeably bad.
That's encouraging. I was worried that Senator Cruz would want to cut everything. Of course, he is a senator from Texas, so I should have know better.Let's send him some nice emails and bring up the issue of a lack of payloads for SLS and problems with planetary exploration funding.
Quote from: RonM on 01/14/2015 06:09 pmThat's encouraging. I was worried that Senator Cruz would want to cut everything. Of course, he is a senator from Texas, so I should have know better.Let's send him some nice emails and bring up the issue of a lack of payloads for SLS and problems with planetary exploration funding.He says he's an SLS supporter, so he'll probably avoid focusing attention on the lack of SLS payloads. It undermines the whole rationale for the billions being funneled to it to point out we have nothing of substance for it to do.
How many people here have even bothered to email Cruz, let alone call his office, or dare visit?I am not sure why the last thread was sent to Siberia but I do trust the moderators here. I never did see what happened but I hope we get it cleaned up and merged with this.Ted Cruz will shock a lot of people. He is very knowledgeable and really does love NASA. He is not anti-science like some want you to believe. He does not believe in redundancy. To Jim's point - Earth Science is in the original NASA Authorization Act. Senator Cruz knows this. The globul warming crowd wants to make you believe Senator Cruz wants to shut down NASA science. This is inherently false.I think there are a lot of people who are going to be embarrassed by trying to paint Senator Cruz into an anti-science box. In fact I know it.Being a tea party guy I hope this thread is not derailed. I do hope the moderators crackdown on any OT posts or ad hominem attacks. I think this is going to be a very good two years for those who support Commercial Crew, Science, and yes SLS.People will be surprised.