posted 12-04-2003 05:44 PM               

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Q Is the President, the White House planning a new space initiative that includes travel to the moon and to Mars?

MR. McCLELLAN: Let me kind of go back and refresh your memory a little bit. Several months ago, the President initiated an interagency review of space exploration to determine the appropriate future course of United States based exploration activities. The President is strongly committed to the exploration of space. That review is ongoing at this point. It has been underway, and it continues, and it is ongoing.

Q Would the President like to have a new initiative that goes to --

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, look, I think as long as this review is underway, it would be premature to get into any speculation about our space policy that has been and continues to be under review. There are no plans for any policy announcements in the immediate future, and that would include any upcoming speeches. I've seen the reports you're referring to --

Q Are they wrong?

MR. McCLELLAN: -- and I would encourage --

Q Are they wrong?

MR. McCLELLAN: Those reports are not coming out of the White House. And I would encourage you -- if you want to follow those reports, that's certainly you're prerogative, but I would encourage you to not to, because the review, our interagency review of space exploration is ongoing. So it's premature to get into any speculation about some of that space policy.

Q Taking a step back from this particular story, other presidents have talked about space and sort of broadly about the ideas --

MR. McCLELLAN: As has this President.

Q -- and the desires about what they want to do in terms of space exploration. In conversations, has the President talked about the fact that he would like, during his presidency, to have some kind of a situation where he can get to the moon or Mars?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think you've heard the President talk about the importance of space exploration, and the importance, too, of continuing our journey into space. He remains strongly committed to those efforts. And you can look back at his budget and his proposals that he has made. You're asking me to kind of jump ahead of an interagency review process that is going on to make recommendations, and then the President will make some decisions to determine the future direction of space exploration.

Q Is he planning to visit North Carolina, Kitty Hawk, to talk about this, on December 17th?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, as you know, I don't announce events this far in advance. But I made it very clear to you that there are no plans to make any policy announcements on our space program at any immediate upcoming speeches.

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posted 12-04-2003 09:07 PM               

If the earlier reports were true, Bush's vision doesn't involve new funding. Rather, he is setting a "direction and purpose" as directed by the CAIB and assigning NASA to implement it under their current budget. The only way that happens is if the space agency phases out all its projects that don't relate to the new direction/purpose, which fits within O'Keefe's plan for OneNASA (all centers working toward a common goal). Its not an entirely bad idea -- the current system of individual centers competing for funds for their own pet projects is not working. Its not a coherent message when JPL is working on Mars exploration while JSC is focusing on LEO. The two should be combining and complementing their efforts, along with the other centers. Hopefully, if we see nothing else from this new vision (if there is a new vision) it will be a NASA with a clearly stated set of goals and roadmap to achieve them.

posted 12-04-2003 10:13 PM               

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Personally, I don't believe this has anything to do with the Chinese. I think this push for a new vision stems from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board finding that one of the primary needs for NASA is a direction and purpose -- and that has to come from above (a.k.a. the White House).

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I agree with Robert here. We need to do something other than send people into space to do experiments to see what happens when a frog passes wind in weightlessness.
A lot of good has come from the shuttle program but we need to look further into the future. Are we just going to spin around and around in orbit taking pictures and blowing little spheres of orange juice from a straw or are we going to go somewhere? If we are just going to spin around and around, let's take the astronauts to an amusement park and put them on the Tilt-A-Whirl. At least that way we could save the taxpayers some cash.

posted 12-05-2003 03:48 PM               

I believe an announcement is coming and that it will involve a directive for NASA to return humans to the Moon.

I doubt that it will include any deadline or timeline by which that should happen.

Unless Congress decides to play along -- which I doubt, because they were left out of this "interagency review" -- I also feel it unlikely that any significant additional funding for NASA will result from this announcement.

The President will advocate a much stronger relationship between the Department of Defense and NASA, but will leave it to the space agency to streamline their own programs to fund much of this new initiative.

I believe international cooperation will not be stressed and may even be discouraged.

More than any other motive, this vision will be targeted at giving the nation something it can feel proud about (something to counter the negative views toward the situation in Iraq).

I believe the White House when they say there are no "near term" plans for an announcement.

I think the State of the Union is the earliest we might see this vision surface. On that day, the President will have the undivided attention of Congress, his cabinet, and most of the U.S. population, not to mention international viewers. He is not going to want to spend the entire time talking about Iraq, or the economy, and this provides an uplifting distraction from both -- especially since the speech falls so close to the anniversary of Apollo 1, STS-51L, and STS-107.

posted 12-05-2003 10:57 PM               

A moonwalk today would be spectacular no doubt -- but it wouldn't negate everything that came before (or after) it. To write off everything that has happened in the last 28 years is to also dismiss Gemini, Skylab, ASTP, Salyut, and Mir in favor of only Apollo.

The shuttle can be and is spectacular. The ISS is spectacular. Spirit, Opportunity, and Beagle will be spectacular.

But if you really feel that nothing spectacular will happen in your lifetimes, then know you are in good company. Robert Zubrin was recently quoted as saying that a return to Moon would be uninspiring. "Really, how do you inspire the youth of today with a challenge repeating feats their grandparents did?" said Zubrin.

"Spectacular" must really be in the eyes of the beholder.

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An addendum to this post: There is a saying, "The best way the know the future is to create it yourself." This is the philosophy behind companies such as Space Adventures and SoaceX, and organizations such as the National Space Society and the X Prize Foundation.

No one is expected to be only optimistic about everything they hear, but almost every idea has a redeeming aspect. If you only focus on the negative, than how do you expect to contribute to shaping the future you want? Instead, find that "silver lining" that appeals to you, get involved in whatever way you can, and I promise you will find spectacular events at which to marvel.

posted 12-06-2003 01:01 AM               

posted December 04, 2003 09:07 PM

quote:

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If the earlier reports were true, Bush's vision doesn't involve new funding. Rather, he is setting a "direction and purpose" as directed by the CAIB and assigning NASA to implement it under their current budget. The only way that happens is if the space agency phases out all its projects that don't relate to the new direction/purpose, which fits within O'Keefe's plan for OneNASA (all centers working toward a common goal).

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posted December 05, 2003 03:48 PM

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Unless Congress decides to play along -- which I doubt, because they were left out of this "interagency review" -- I also feel it unlikely that any significant additional funding for NASA will result from this announcement.

The President will advocate a much stronger relationship between the Department of Defense and NASA, but will leave it to the space agency to streamline their own programs to fund much of this new initiative.

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I do not disagree with you Rick that more funding is a good idea and should accompany Bush's vision -- and I actually agree that a lack of additional funding will make any such vision very difficult to achieve, however it would not be impossible. If NASA were to drop all projects unrelated to the new vision than $14 billion could go far -- at least far enough to convince Congress that they do not want to be the cause of shutting down a forward moving, very public project by holding back funding in the out years. Sometimes its better to get the ball rolling in the right direction, however slowly, then waiting for its own momentum to take over.

posted 12-06-2003 01:06 AM               

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Originally posted by Rick Boos:
Perhaps the most spectacular was the murdered Delta Clipper program.

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If the Clipper was that good an idea, NASA's decision to pass on it for the X-33 contract would have not spelled its end. Private industry could have easily (at that time) justified developing the project further. The problem was that neither the Clipper's nor VentureStar's backers had any interest beyond the NASA contract to develop the vehicle themselves.

SpaceX just demonstrated that if you believe in a concept, you can not only fully finance its construction without a NASA contract, but you can deliver a finished vehicle in a record period of time -- all the while chipping away at the cost of access to space.

posted 12-06-2003 01:23 AM               

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Originally posted by Rick Boos:
It's ridiculous to have been stuck in low earth orbit(manned wise) for so many years!

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Not that I disagree that we should be returning to the Moon, but I am curious, why you feel justified in stating we have been in LEO for too long? What defines too long? Is it because the research conducted hasn't kept your particular attention? -- because I know many for whom the Moon and Mars hold little to no interest but LEO is greatly exciting to them.

posted 12-06-2003 01:05 PM               

Why must a good idea rely only on the purse strings of Congress and/or NASA? NASA and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization gave DC-X its start, but when both pulled funding, where was private industry? Obviously McDonnell Douglas did not feel it could carry on the development of the Delta Clipper project without support from the government. Why? Certainly there were other customers than NASA and DoD (the emerging LEO satellite market for example) and if they had completed it, you could be sure NASA and the DoD wouldn't have completely ignored it.

posted 12-06-2003 05:03 PM               

(I also want to thank Rick for raising important and well thought questions and issues throughout this discussion.)

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That's why public interest is so low when it comes to the space program. LEO just doesn't capture the public's imagination!

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The public didn't stay very interested in the Apollo moon landings once the initial novelty wore off. Sure, a near space disaster caught their attention, but ask what they remember of the following mission, and if they recall anything it probably involves a golf ball.

Keeping the public enthralled doesn't require a remote location. Look at the ratings for the all-night EVAs on STS-61 repairing Hubble. Look at the worldwide attention on STS-95 with John Glenn.

An entire nation stopped what they were doing to watch daily updates from space -- during STS-107. Israel tuned in to watch Ilan Ramon describe the Earth from above and the science his country was achieving solely because they could relate to him.

LEO can be exciting. Its not exciting to you perhaps because you haven't found a recent aspect to it that appeals to you. That's fine. But don't write off LEO as a "been there, done that" less you are ready to do that for the Moon as well.

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Because I would hate to think of Apollo as just a "stunt" program based upon a cold war!

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You may hate to think of it that way, but that was what it was. The astronauts recognized this and will tell you it themselves. Even the decision to send Jack Schmitt vs. Joe Engle on Apollo 17 was a political decision. Science was a spinoff; a bonus. Apollo was a flags and footprints program.