With the rollout of the Space Launch System, with a design, a budget, and a schedule, the new phase in the revived space exploration program has commenced. This is the phase when opponents try to kill the program before it is too late.
Some of the usual suspects, such as the Space Access Society, the Space Frontier Foundation, and the so-called "Tea Party in Space" have attacked the SLS. While they see it as being too expensive and not needed, the reason for the opposition stems from the belief that the SLS and the space exploration program in general is seen as a threat to the commercial crew program. In a time of limited budgets, it is possible that NASA cannot do space exploration and provide subsidies for private space taxis at the same time.
It is not a frivolous objection, as both the Space Review and Time Magazine point out in well written and balanced pieces on the fiscal perils that await the heavy lift rocket program. The truth of the matter is that it will take a great deal of leadership and political skill to keep both the space exploration program and the commercial crew program funded for the next several years. And that doesn't even include other NASA priorities, such as aeronautics and space science. Unexpected technical challenges have the potential of sinking or at least greatly delaying both projects.
This is one of the many sad legacies of the Obama administration. When President Bush first proposed the Constellation space exploration program and the Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program, they were seen as complimentary. While COTS would free NASA from the burden of operating in low Earth orbit, Constellation would help to return the space agency to its Apollo era exploration roots.
But by cancelling Constellation and greatly expanding the cost of the commercial program, Obama managed to pit each program against the other. Now space exploration and commercial space are seen as competing against one another.
Now the supporters of the commercial crew program will join with liberals who disdain all space exploration to try to kill the Space Launch System and thus space exploration for another generation, in order to ensure the survival of commercial crew. It is a counter-productive political strategy, to say the least, because it alienates space exploration advocates and gives them an incentive to kill commercial crew instead and then incorporate a public option, say launching a version of the Orion on the ATK Liberty rocket, into the new exploration program.
The correct strategy would be for the two sides to combine forces to increase the size of the NASA pie so that both programs can be funded, so that they can be seen as complimentary again as they were during the Bush administration.
Truth to tell every large scale space projects begins with people wanting to throttle it in the cradle. Senator William Proxmire, a life-long space opponent, tried to defund Apollo before Kennedy's assassination made the moon landing program sacrosanct. Liberals, including Proxmire and Senator Walter Mondale, tried to kill the space shuttle during the early 1970s. The space station program underwent several near death experiences until the International Space Station was approved by President Clinton. President George H. W. Bush's Space Exploration Initiative was stillborn. Depending on one's point of view, Constellation was killed by Obama or else morphed into the current effort after a year and a half interregnum.
Now it is the turn of the SLS and the revive space exploration program to be under siege. Whether they will survive is yet to be seen.
Mark R. Whittington is the author of Children of Apollo and The Last Moonwalker. He has written on space subjects for a variety of periodicals, including The Houston Chronicle, The Washington Post, USA Today, the L.A. Times, and The Weekly.
jacqueline kennedy jacqueline kennedy jackie o john kennedy jr john kennedy jr machine gun preacher machine gun preacher
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.