Author Topic: Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Hearing on  (Read 35242 times)

Offline Jim

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I just finished watching the archived web cast. It seems like once again we have the Administration going off on a tangent regarding SLS/MPCV funding, and once again Congress will be more than willing to put them back on course, the course they all agreed to two years ago.

What will it take to get the Administration to quit tweaking Congress's nose when it comes to NASA's priorities?


USA access to space is the priority and commercial crew is way to do.

KBH priorities are not the nation's but pork for her area.    It will be good for NASA when she is gone.
« Last Edit: 03/29/2012 07:29 pm by Jim »

Offline yg1968

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I just finished watching the archived web cast. It seems like once again we have the Administration going off on a tangent regarding SLS/MPCV funding, and once again Congress will be more than willing to put them back on course, the course they all agreed to two years ago.

What will it take to get the Administration to quit tweaking Congress's nose when it comes to NASA's priorities?


USA access to space is the priority and commercial crew is way to do.

KBH priorities are not the nation's but pork for her area.    It will be good for NASA when she is gone.

Senator Shelby is a lot worse than her. Be careful what you wish for.

Offline Namechange User

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I just finished watching the archived web cast. It seems like once again we have the Administration going off on a tangent regarding SLS/MPCV funding, and once again Congress will be more than willing to put them back on course, the course they all agreed to two years ago.

What will it take to get the Administration to quit tweaking Congress's nose when it comes to NASA's priorities?


USA access to space is the priority and commercial crew is way to do.

KBH priorities are not the nation's but pork for her area.    It will be good for NASA when she is gone.

Don't make ignorant statements.  Boeing is in Houston and CST efforts likely employ more than the handful working SLS in this area.  In fact "her area" has been hit pretty hard relative to aerospace funded by "pork".  Orion efforts are mainly in Colorado, Louisiana and Florida. 

If "USA access" was such the priority, then perhaps we should not have done what we did until we had a better footing. 
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Offline Jim

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Don't make ignorant statements.  Boeing is in Houston and CST efforts likely employ more than the handful working SLS in this area.  In fact "her area" has been hit pretty hard relative to aerospace funded by "pork".  Orion efforts are mainly in Colorado, Louisiana and Florida. 

If "USA access" was such the priority, then perhaps we should not have done what we did until we had a better footing. 

That is water under the bridge and it is not relevant and bringing it up now is just as ignorant.  Same goes for ignoring what KBH real priorities are.

As for areas hit hard, Houston pales compared to Brevard County
« Last Edit: 03/29/2012 08:30 pm by Jim »

Offline Namechange User

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Don't make ignorant statements.  Boeing is in Houston and CST efforts likely employ more than the handful working SLS in this area.  In fact "her area" has been hit pretty hard relative to aerospace funded by "pork".  Orion efforts are mainly in Colorado, Louisiana and Florida. 

If "USA access" was such the priority, then perhaps we should not have done what we did until we had a better footing. 

That is water under the bridge and bringing it up now is just as ignorant.  Same as ignoring KBH priorities.

As for areas hit hard, Houston pales compared to Brevard County

No, it is not.  It is a statement illustrating why it is important to have an integrated strategy. 

So Jim, as a NASA employee whose livihood comes from said government "pork", what precisely are KBH's priorities?  Please square those with the statements I made above.

And you can't have it both ways.  You can't make the claims you did and then whine about how hard the KSC area has been hit. 
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Offline Mark S

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Don't make ignorant statements.  Boeing is in Houston and CST efforts likely employ more than the handful working SLS in this area.  In fact "her area" has been hit pretty hard relative to aerospace funded by "pork".  Orion efforts are mainly in Colorado, Louisiana and Florida. 

If "USA access" was such the priority, then perhaps we should not have done what we did until we had a better footing. 

That is water under the bridge and it is not relevant and bringing it up now is just as ignorant.  Same goes for ignoring what KBH real priorities are.

As for areas hit hard, Houston pales compared to Brevard County

You're slinging a lot of mud there, Jim. Because she is a retiring politician with no reason to pander to her constituency, her motives are more likely to be out of genuine concern for NASA and our space program than for "pork". And since she announced her impending retirement over a year ago, that would seem to have been the case for quite a while now.

And since allowing the cancellation of Shuttle to proceed without a replacement is directly due to the Administration's policies, OV's comment regarding how we got where we are today is entirely relevant, not just "water under the bridge".

Mark S.

Offline Jim

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And since allowing the cancellation of Shuttle to proceed without a replacement is directly due to the Administration's policies, OV's comment regarding how we got where we are today is entirely relevant, not just "water under the bridge".


wrong, how we got here is NOT relevant, the past can't be changed.
Sick and tired of people saying it is this Administration's policy, it was the previous one that initiated it and started the program termination.  It was the past Administration, who put all eggs in the basket with CXP.  It was the current Admin that started commercial crew.  So your contempt for this administration is without merit.

Offline Jim

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her motives are more likely to be out of genuine concern for NASA and our space program than for "pork".

Tell me another fairy tale.

Offline Namechange User

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And since allowing the cancellation of Shuttle to proceed without a replacement is directly due to the Administration's policies, OV's comment regarding how we got where we are today is entirely relevant, not just "water under the bridge".


wrong, how we got here is NOT relevant, the past can't be changed.
Sick and tired of people saying it is this Administration's policy, it was the previous one that initiated it and started the program termination.  It was the past Administration, who put all eggs in the basket with CXP.  It was the current Admin that started commercial crew.  So your contempt for this administration is without merit.


Who are you to decide what is "not relevant"?  The importance of having an integrated strategy is more clear now than ever.  In addition, discussing and learning from the past is supposed to be how we, as a people, learn.

Your attempt to "sweep it under the rug" because it is not convienent for you to discuss with the ideology you are trying to push is nobody's problem but your own. 

This is even more evident when you choose to only highlight certain information.  Here's some info:

- The current administration was elected in November 2008, STS formally stood down major operations in August 2011. 

- The GAO listed shuttle-termination as a "urgent issue" for President-elect Obama and that this administration would need to decide to retire or extend the Program. 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn15145-space-shuttle-is-key-issue-for-obama-agency-says.html

- The groundwork for Commercial Crew was actually set in the previous administration.  This Administration via propoganda from the CSF and other sources labeled and branded it something it was clearly yet not able to become, making promises that are far from being fulfilled and setting us up for failure, in multiple ways.

- Previous policy and execution was by no means perfect and had its problems by all counts.  However, this Administration cleaned it all away and replaced it with nothing but rhetoric.  And given the "rationale" for STS termination was to pay for Constellation, CxP's termination took away the rationale for terminating STS immediately. 

So NOBODY is suggesting that somehow the we "change the past" but instead reference it and learn from it. 
« Last Edit: 03/29/2012 11:07 pm by OV-106 »
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Offline Jim

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Who are you to decide what is "not relevant"?   

 There is no decision involved.  Because isn't relevant any.  Plain and simple.  Going forward with crew access is not based on why or how the shuttle program ended.
« Last Edit: 03/30/2012 02:39 am by Jim »

Offline Mark S

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Short-sighted and wrong.

Quote
    Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The Life of Reason (1905-1906) by George Santayana.

Offline Jim

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Short-sighted and wrong.

Quote
    Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The Life of Reason (1905-1906) by George Santayana.


Applicable to SLS

Online jongoff

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Short-sighted and wrong.

Quote
    Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The Life of Reason (1905-1906) by George Santayana.


Applicable to SLS

Yup, very applicable. The problem is that those who cannot remember the past tend to drag the rest of us along for their remedial lessons.

~Jon

Offline spectre9

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Charlie has done the dirty thing here and asked for extra for SLS and given that money to commercial crew.

KBH trusted Charlie not to do something like this.

A punishment will be enacted on the commercial jobs he's trying to protect in way of a down select.

Offline Mark S

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Short-sighted and wrong.

Quote
    Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The Life of Reason (1905-1906) by George Santayana.


Applicable to SLS

Yup, very applicable. The problem is that those who cannot remember the past tend to drag the rest of us along for their remedial lessons.

~Jon

The past that I learn from is that HSF missions are accomplished by NASA owned systems. Every manned launch from the beginning of American space flight, heck even all non-American space flight since the dawn of the space age, has taken place on government owned systems.

It is the "commercial" proponents who need to prove their case that a market will magically develop and be sustainable if NASA would just throw away all their experience, expertise, and processes, and not just rely on, but become 100% dependent on, these "commercial" providers. It is an extraordinary leap of faith that deserves full scrutiny and is justifiably the subject of skepticism and demands for proof.

Mark S.

Offline Jim

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experience, expertise, and processes,


Who do you think has these?  The contractors, the same people that will operate commercial systems.  Boeing (and its legacy companies) provided each one of the NASA "owned" systems and operated them for NASA.

It was NASA management of these NASA owned systems that lead to Challenger and Columbia.

So it doesn't require an extraordinary leap of faith nor does it does it require full scrutiny and is not justifiably the subject of skepticism and  demands for proof because NASA has set the bar low.

Offline Jeff Bingham

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And since allowing the cancellation of Shuttle to proceed without a replacement is directly due to the Administration's policies, OV's comment regarding how we got where we are today is entirely relevant, not just "water under the bridge".


wrong, how we got here is NOT relevant, the past can't be changed.
Sick and tired of people saying it is this Administration's policy, it was the previous one that initiated it and started the program termination.  It was the past Administration, who put all eggs in the basket with CXP.  It was the current Admin that started commercial crew.  So your contempt for this administration is without merit.


Just a another pertinent fact you will likely consider irrelevant, but for those interested in historical details, I'll throw it into the mix here anyway.

This is from the 2008 NASA Authorization Act. It specifically preserved the option for continuing shuttle beyond 2010 for the incoming Administration--which was of course unknown when the legislation was drafted and even when enacted on October 15, 2008. Subsequent to the election, this provision was very clearly pointed out to the Obama Transition Team for NASA (headed by Lori Garver) and they clearly understood they had the option to continue--and that the Congress would likely support that move, given its history, since 2005, of concern about "The Gap," especially with respect to the ability to support and sustain ISS. They "punted" that decision to the overall HSF Review Committee (Augustine), who, in the end provided a series of options among which was continuation of Shuttle to 2015, by which time it was expected that Ares 1 would be flying. The FY 2011 Budget Request the following year demonstrated THIS Administration's DECISION:

Section 611

(d) TERMINATION OR SUSPENSION OF ACTIVITIES THAT WOULD PRECLUDE CONTINUED FLIGHT OF SPACE SHUTTLE PRIOR TO REVIEW BY THE INCOMING 2009 PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION.—
 (1) IN GENERAL.—The Administrator shall terminate or suspend any activity of the Agency that, if continued between the date of enactment of this Act and April 30, 2009, would preclude the continued safe and effective flight of the Space Shuttle after fiscal year 2010 if the President inaugurated on January 20, 2009, were to make a determination to delay the Space Shuttle’s scheduled retirement.
(2) REPORT ON IMPACT OF COMPLIANCE.—Within 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator
shall provide a report to the Congress describing the expected budgetary and programmatic impacts from compliance with paragraph (1). The report shall include—
(A) a summary of the actions taken to ensure the option to continue space shuttle flights beyond the end
of fiscal year 2010 is not precluded before April 30, 2009;
(B) an estimate of additional costs incurred by each specific action identified in the summary provided under
subparagraph (A);
(C) a description of the proposed plan for allocating those costs among anticipated fiscal year 2009 appropriations
or existing budget authority;
(D) a description of any programmatic impacts within the Space Operations Mission Directorate that would result
from reallocations of funds to meet the requirements of paragraph (1);
(E) a description of any additional authority needed to enable compliance with the requirements of paragraph
(1); and
(F) a description of any potential disruption to the timely progress of development milestones in the preparation
of infrastructure or work-force requirements for shuttle follow-on launch systems.

122 STAT. 4798 PUBLIC LAW 110–422—OCT. 15, 2008

Added Note: Since the above provision expired at the end of April 2009, NASA, knowing of the HSF Review, elected to take only non-irreversible termination activities pending the outcome of that review, and pending the Administration's formal response to that review as part of the FY 2011 Budget Request. Thus, the Bush-initiated termination "decision" could have been reversed as late as the Spring (and actually into the summer) of 2010. As added "insurance" for that option, the 2010 Act included language "protecting" ET-94 to enable the shuttle flow to ramp back up. Senator Hutchison also introduced a bill (S. 3068), the ‘‘Human Space Flight Capability Assurance and Enhancement Act of 2010", which provided for a recertification process for Shuttle, authorized funding for two flights per year for FY 2010, 2011 and 2012, and required a joint determination by the President and the Congress regarding a decision to terminate the shuttle. Rather than pursuing passage of that bill, it became the starting point on the Republican side of negotiations regarding the content of the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, and the removal of those shuttle provisions became part of the "Compromise" that produced the 2010 Act.
« Last Edit: 03/30/2012 02:11 pm by 51D Mascot »
Offering only my own views and experience as a long-time "Space Cadet."

Offline yg1968

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They "punted" that decision to the overall HSF Review Committee (Augustine), who, in the end provided a series of options among which was continuation of Shuttle to 2015, by which time it was expected that Ares 1 would be flying.

Actually, the Augustine option to extend the Shuttle to 2015 would have used a cargo only Directly Shuttle-Derived Heavy Lift Vehicle (not Ares I). This option still would have funded commercial crew (instead of Ares I). Augustine replaced Ares I with commercial crew in almost all of his options.

See slide 33 of the Sally Ride Presentation:
http://www.nasa.gov/ppt/378555main_02%20-%20Sally%20Charts%20v11.ppt
« Last Edit: 03/30/2012 02:54 pm by yg1968 »

Offline Jim

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And since allowing the cancellation of Shuttle to proceed without a replacement is directly due to the Administration's policies, OV's comment regarding how we got where we are today is entirely relevant, not just "water under the bridge".


wrong, how we got here is NOT relevant, the past can't be changed.
Sick and tired of people saying it is this Administration's policy, it was the previous one that initiated it and started the program termination.  It was the past Administration, who put all eggs in the basket with CXP.  It was the current Admin that started commercial crew.  So your contempt for this administration is without merit.


Just a another pertinent fact you will likely consider irrelevant, but for those interested in historical details, I'll throw it into the mix here anyway.

This is from the 2008 NASA Authorization Act. It specifically preserved the option for continuing shuttle beyond 2010 for the incoming Administration--which was of course unknown when the legislation was drafted and even when enacted on October 15, 2008. Subsequent to the election, this provision was very clearly pointed out to the Obama Transition Team for NASA (headed by Lori Garver) and they clearly understood they had the option to continue--and that the Congress would likely support that move, given its history, since 2005, of concern about "The Gap," especially with respect to the ability to support and sustain ISS. They "punted" that decision to the overall HSF Review Committee (Augustine), who, in the end provided a series of options among which was continuation of Shuttle to 2015, by which time it was expected that Ares 1 would be flying. The FY 2011 Budget Request the following year demonstrated THIS Administration's DECISION:

Section 611

(d) TERMINATION OR SUSPENSION OF ACTIVITIES THAT WOULD PRECLUDE CONTINUED FLIGHT OF SPACE SHUTTLE PRIOR TO REVIEW BY THE INCOMING 2009 PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION.—
 (1) IN GENERAL.—The Administrator shall terminate or suspend any activity of the Agency that, if continued between the date of enactment of this Act and April 30, 2009, would preclude the continued safe and effective flight of the Space Shuttle after fiscal year 2010 if the President inaugurated on January 20, 2009, were to make a determination to delay the Space Shuttle’s scheduled retirement.
(2) REPORT ON IMPACT OF COMPLIANCE.—Within 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator
shall provide a report to the Congress describing the expected budgetary and programmatic impacts from compliance with paragraph (1). The report shall include—
(A) a summary of the actions taken to ensure the option to continue space shuttle flights beyond the end
of fiscal year 2010 is not precluded before April 30, 2009;
(B) an estimate of additional costs incurred by each specific action identified in the summary provided under
subparagraph (A);
(C) a description of the proposed plan for allocating those costs among anticipated fiscal year 2009 appropriations
or existing budget authority;
(D) a description of any programmatic impacts within the Space Operations Mission Directorate that would result
from reallocations of funds to meet the requirements of paragraph (1);
(E) a description of any additional authority needed to enable compliance with the requirements of paragraph
(1); and
(F) a description of any potential disruption to the timely progress of development milestones in the preparation
of infrastructure or work-force requirements for shuttle follow-on launch systems.

122 STAT. 4798 PUBLIC LAW 110–422—OCT. 15, 2008

Added Note: Since the above provision expired at the end of April 2009, NASA, knowing of the HSF Review, elected to take only non-irreversible termination activities pending the outcome of that review, and pending the Administration's formal response to that review as part of the FY 2011 Budget Request. Thus, the Bush-initiated termination "decision" could have been reversed as late as the Spring (and actually into the summer) of 2010. As added "insurance" for that option, the 2010 Act included language "protecting" ET-94 to enable the shuttle flow to ramp back up. Senator Hutchison also introduced a bill (S. 3068), the ‘‘Human Space Flight Capability Assurance and Enhancement Act of 2010", which provided for a recertification process for Shuttle, authorized funding for two flights per year for FY 2010, 2011 and 2012, and required a joint determination by the President and the Congress regarding a decision to terminate the shuttle. Rather than pursuing passage of that bill, it became the starting point on the Republican side of negotiations regarding the content of the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, and the removal of those shuttle provisions became part of the "Compromise" that produced the 2010 Act.

Thanks for the correction

Offline Namechange User

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Who are you to decide what is "not relevant"?   

 There is no decision involved.  Because isn't relevant any.  Plain and simple.  Going forward with crew access is not based on why or how the shuttle program ended.

You are moving and/or dodging the goal posts.  You said "USA access" was a priority.  I agree, and that is something we had 8 months ago and why I spoke at length in many forums about the strategic mistake we were about to make and now have to live with. 

I also do not disagree that in the hear and now that "commercial" crew access is the current priority.  However, when we have "USA access" again is still TBD.  Here I simply said if it was such a priority, as you suggested it was as well, then we should not have done what we did until we had a better understanding of "what" would be online and "when".  Your statement and mine are inter-related and hence why I have said time and time again the importance of an integrated strategy.

Speaking of said integrated strategy, what is it precisely relative to ISS utilization and commercial crew?  You are now guilty of what you accuse so many others of and that is speaking without any true knowledge of the situation.  So I ask again, what is the integrated strategy and please square how KBH is guilty of wanting "pork" for "her area" yet address the points I made about Boeing/CST, SLS work in Texas and Orion work in Texas and how she has advocated for true ISS utilization. 
Enjoying viewing the forum a little better now by filtering certain users.

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