Some Insight Into The Details of The President's Space Vision

04/13/04 00:00:00    

By Michael Mealling

Arthur Smith notified me of this one. John Marburger has published an an article in the Orlando Sentinal (registration required, foobar/foobar seems to work) entitled Bush's new paradigm puts space exploration within reach. Marburger is the President's Science Advisor and the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. In the article he makes it clear that the plan is very lunar focused over the short to medium term. While he doesn't mentioned commercialization at all, he seems to be making it clear that the stepwise but aggressive development of cislunar infrastructure is the goal.

The article suggests some questions: is this just additional insight into the President's original vision or is any of this informed by the Aldridge Commission's internal discussions? If so then Marburger's statement, “NASA's capabilities are compatible with this new paradigm.” gives new meaning to the word “compatible” since so far the Commission has heard from very few witnesses that have agreed with that statement. But on the other hand, Florida is a state that Bush needs to win, and this was written for the Orlando area, so its definitely a political bone being thrown to one of Flordia's largest employers.

Its really hard to tell what the politics are here. When I listen to the Commission meetings I become optimistic. But when I hear those Unions speak and I see that they're on the agenda yet again, I go the other direction. I'm struck by this section in Lost In Space:

bq.

Amid the diminished expectations brought on by the shuttle, O'Neill's most noticeable impact was felt as part of the Reagan-assigned National Commission on Space, led by former NASA administrator Thomas Paine, who was perhaps the most O'Neillian of any administrator in the agency's history. The commission was established in 1984 by Congress and the White House to define the nation's space goals for the coming century.

The commission's report was bold and ambitious. It proposed the establishment of an outpost on the moon by 2006, spaceports at several Lagrangian points (although not the megacities proposed by O'Neill) shortly thereafter, a Mars base by 2015 and the active development of space-based resources for further exploration and settlement. Because the report was released only weeks after the explosion of Challenger, NASA wasted little time in burying it.

In other words, we've already been here and we didn't get anywhere last time. So why is now different?

Well, for one thing, Bush isn't Reagan. This Congress is much friendlier to presidential initiatives like this, if done with costs in mind. But all of this could die with his presidency if Kerry wins. Or if he is weakened to the point that he needs the support of the labor unions in Florida to carry that state, thus selling out to the exact forces that, IMHO, would ruin any recommendations the Commission might make.

Politics makes great theatre. But I can't imagine actually wanting to have my livelihood and personal wealth tied up in a process like this. So even if the entire process is hopelessly screwed, I'm still going to work like hell to build out the private side of this business. Who knows, maybe having a hopelessly screwed up US space program would make building my aerospace company easier in the long run.