So, with the Republicans likely gaining a majority in the Senate, and extending their majority in the House, what do people think this means for Space Policy (NASA, DoD, NOAA, etc)?
*cough* Enter the X-factor called POLITICS and you'll be surprised...
"Let us make recommendations to ensure that NASA officials deal in a world of reality in understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them.They must live in reality in comparing the costs and utility of the Shuttle to other methods of entering space. And they must be realistic in making contracts, in estimating costs, and the difficulty of the projects.Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources. For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
With Shelby heading the Senate Appropriations Committee, my guess would be that the SLS can do no wrong for the foreseeable future.
For NASA, the direction continues to be Mars, a new reuseable, launch vehicle independent architecture, and for the country, a new national policy is underway to consolidate the Atlas/Delta/SLS into a single common LV, and to start work on the next generation of technology. The policy solves the basic problem of too much LV capacity, too little payload, expensive soaring launch costs and shifts dollars to payloads and technology to meet future needs and challenges. The broad Aerospace community is on board with this new flexible path forward that includes a significant amount of new work.Political roadblocks will occur, but recognize that sound policies ALWAYS prevail with too much time lag.Quote from: redliox on 11/04/2014 10:12 pm*cough* Enter the X-factor called POLITICS and you'll be surprised... It appears that Roger's Commission for Congress will be required outside of the tainted Congressional Hearing Process. Unfortunately political responsibility is indeed out of fashion, having been replaced by ideology and partisanship, while the unprecedented work of lobbyists on legislators has severely weakened the democratic process. is clearly not their passion, but will gladly leach off and take credit for the successes, and lay blame for the failures, the mis-want or false 'America Dream'.Quote from: Rogers commission"Let us make recommendations to ensure that NASA officials deal in a world of reality in understanding technological weaknesses and imperfections well enough to be actively trying to eliminate them.They must live in reality in comparing the costs and utility of the Shuttle to other methods of entering space. And they must be realistic in making contracts, in estimating costs, and the difficulty of the projects.Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources. For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
Quote from: jongoff on 11/05/2014 03:07 amSo, with the Republicans likely gaining a majority in the Senate, and extending their majority in the House, what do people think this means for Space Policy (NASA, DoD, NOAA, etc)?Any idea what the changes will be to the various NASA funding committees? Neither have been particularly good to commercial crew funding, but it's tended to be that the Senate adds a little more to what the House proposes.
One thing that may matter is Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who is now Majority Leader in the House and is likely to replace Boehner as Speaker. Musk is one of his contributors.
Absent a very compelling event that serves as a "sputnik" moment, events will continue along their present path. No major funding increase and perhaps a cut based on rhetoric from Paul and Cruz.
Quote from: mike robel on 11/05/2014 03:52 pmAbsent a very compelling event that serves as a "sputnik" moment, events will continue along their present path. No major funding increase and perhaps a cut based on rhetoric from Paul and Cruz. look around we are still dealing with the trampoline moment.
Anything dealing with Obama or direction were wiped out yesterday. That can be said Nationally and locally.
Locally, just about anyone who supported or was part of the local political machine was wiped out last night in State and local.
Translating this: The NASA 2010 change is in its last legs;
...the new blood will reread the Augustine report. Some of that direction will now be put into place?
Predictions based on some recent background actions within NASA. Bolden has been reading the tea leaves. Orion gets much more flight time.
Quote from: Prober on 11/05/2014 04:24 pmQuote from: mike robel on 11/05/2014 03:52 pmAbsent a very compelling event that serves as a "sputnik" moment, events will continue along their present path. No major funding increase and perhaps a cut based on rhetoric from Paul and Cruz. look around we are still dealing with the trampoline moment.Epic fail of your crystal ball yet again. The trampoline moment has gone away. For the foreseeable future RD-180's will continue to be supplied and ULA is already actively working to replace their Russian-dependent rocket with something all-US.