The Nation will get exactly what we got from the Constellation program where we spent 13 billion. Nothing, not a single orbital launch. If the SLS gets pushed through it wil just be another repeat with a different President canceling the program because it is over budget and behind schedule and then we can wash, rinse, repeat and start another new program with another new name.

It is time we open the space sector up with more commerical players competing.

A conservative may vote in favor of NASA funding but if it is attached to anything else more, like a tax increase, than likely not. The house of representatives just voted to cut NASA by 2 billion but fully fund the pork laden SLS. Which is cutting all the President’s programs like earth science, climate change, commercial crew ect. The message is plain, if you want your programs then fund the pork train SLS.

The Senators are not willing to fund the SLS at a level that NASA can complete it with traditional funding through FAR. It doesn’t matter to these Senators if the rocket actually ever gets built and flies. They are not funding a single payload for a 130 ton launcher, they are not even talking about a single mission for the 130 launcher.

All they are saying is, give us the funding to WORK on it in the “traditional” NASA cost plus no bid way we have always did. It doesn’t matter if it just get added to the long list of multi billion dollar programs that were canceled, As long as the jobs stay, the contractors get their contracts and they get their votes and campaign contributions, that’s the bottom line.

That is why we are where we are. Those congress members do not want to see commercial competition and the voting public to realize just how much we are NOT getting for our NASA tax dollars. NASA recently released a report that if they would have did the SpaceX Falcon 9 the traditional way it would have cost over 4 billion, SpaceX did it for 800million and only 300 million was COTS funding.

SpaceX has said they could do a HLV for 2.5 billion, NASA says it will cost them 38 billion. The Senate says do everything the same way you did Constellation and do it in less time and less money 11 billion. But unless the Senate allows them to competitively bid it and instead forces them to use shuttle derived it can’t be done for 11 billion. So the space state senators do care they have told NASA to start on it anyway.

Do you know how big NASA’s budget is?

A tax increase should not be needed to fund NASA.

In 2004 President Bush put forth a new space policy called the Vision for Space Exploration, it called for getting the space shuttle back in operation, finish building the International Space Station with the shuttle and then retire the space shuttles in 2010. It also called for commercial space to take over the routine job of crew and cargo to LEO to resupply the ISS.

Another phase was for NASA to return to Luna in 2015 and no later than 2020. NASA was not to build any new launchers according to the VSE but use existing commercial launchers.

The Constellation program, that was born out of the ESAS report ran by ex NASA Administrator Griffin and he soon hijacked the VSE and instead started building 2 new rockets for NASA. These cost plus, no bid contracts blew through 13 billion dollar and produced no flight hardware and never had a single orbital launch for the effort. For each year the Constellation program ran, it fell another year behind schedule. In order to pay for it Griffin wanted to deorbit the ISS at the end of 2015. He also cut funding for COT-D, that was the part of the COTS program that related to commercial crew.

When President Obama saw the mess he appointed a blue ribbon panel to give him some options. The Augusting panel had as one option the flexible path.

President Obama canceled the train wreck of pork called Constellation and then funded commercial space for crew access now called CCDEV and it was funded with 50 million from the stimulus, he wanted 400 million but some Senators wouldn’t fund it. NASA also funded 250 million for CCDEV 2. In the current budget request he was asking for 850 million for commercial crew but the pork train senators are blocking it and only want 350 million going towards commercial crew.

There are certain members of Congress now pushing the SLS or Space Launch System. This is just a new name for the pork train called Constellation. NASA has said it would cost 38 billion to build it. But congress will only fund 11 billion. NASA is waiting for an independant cost analysis on cost, but the Senators want to supena Adminstrator Bolden to provide documents.

Altough I do not support the tea party, I do support the work that Andrew is doing with the tea party in space, and if you actually dug into the subject of space policy you would know that he supports the President on the path he is pushing for NASA. It was one of the very few things that some members of the conservative party support the President.

So before you just start shouting sound bites, actually dig into the history of how we got where we are with the space program and what the real issues are.

There are certain Senators from Space states that have a NASA center and are fighting tooth and nail for the pork train to keep on sending them their money. This gives them the make work jobs in their districts, gets those votes and also gets contributions from the usual suspects, ATK, Lockheed Martin and Boeing for their cost plus no bid contracts.

I support President Obama’s space program and his desire to bring more commercial into the space sector, every President since Nixon has called on NASA to get more bang for the buck by utilizing more commercial services but the pork train Senators have always blocked it.

Does that mean that Obama is going to be put on “Hatewatch” or the readers here will advocate sending Obama to colonize Pluto?

You guys should try doing a little research about the organization, you just might find you agree with them.

It’s socialism for sure, corporate socialism.

That doesn’t surprise me–Limbaugh and Hannity are all about show business and having actors as callers would make it easier for them to control their own script. LOL.

Go figure, people listening to live shows (tv or radio) for call ins may be listening to actors instead of actual listeners. People wonder why some shows have such high ratings, or think they are listening to real people over certain issues may be getting fooled.

The Tea Party does pose a danger to the country when they threaten the entire financial system by voting to default on paying the government debt. This goes way beyond just having an opinion. They support military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq but don’t want to pay the bill or pay for a soldier’s medical care–yet they think they are patriotic. Michelle Bachman wants the federal government to pay for a 300 million dollar bridge in her district but will not vote to raise taxes to pay for the bridge. Yet, she wants to cut entitlement spending of social security and medicare because of the deficit that will be added to by this pork barrel project. This is a threat to our democracy when a small group of people can hold the government hostage and deny others their rights.

BTW, here is an article http://tinyurl.com/3gsznot about a Tea Party backed Representative in Georgia who defaulted on a 2.2 million dollar loan. He said it is the bank’s fault because the bank should have known he would not be able to repay the loan. Of course, he ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility.

I guess you think this website sucks, is it because you’re used to hearing, ‘corporations are people, the lies about we the people, and tax cuts?’

I will be nice, and just say, troll.

Remember the “Prime Directive” from Star Trek?

…”The Prime Directive is explicitly defined in the Star Trek episode “Bread and Circuses,” which is set in 2267:
“ “No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space or the fact that there are other worlds or civilizations.”…
Maybe their P.R. department has hijacked the
“Prime Directive” and the “Omega Directive” and lacks the verbal skills to spell out that they
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive
…”The Prime Directive is a Starfleet regulation, and thus only applies to Starfleet officers. Civilian citizens of the Federation are not bound by it. In fact, if a Federation citizen has chosen to personally interfere with another civilization, Starfleet is powerless to remove that individual, under penalty of court-martial.[1]…”

..”The only stated exception to the Prime Directive is the Omega Directive, in which a captain is authorized to take any means to destroy Omega Molecules when detected. Whenever the Omega Directive is in force, the Prime Directive is effectively rescinded.[2]…”

Bon voyage.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the same as when anyone else hires a contracter to build something? “We want to build a porch, and this is how we want you to build it.” “We want a new lighting system, and this is how we want it to look.” And so on.

However, if these clowns want to go homestead Pluto or something, I’m all for it.

Interesting how they hate government, hate the poor, hate taxes, they still think the people they hate owe them something, or should I say owe them everything. This is off the subject, but, former city of Bell (Califas – mayor) official Robert Rizzo, had given himself a $650,000 a year pension, this was just recently reduced to $50k a year, and now he’s appealing this. This is why the pension programs are running short of money, because of the management salaries, perks…not because of the union workers/medical…so, I would like this tea group to prove how they are going to pay for this adventure – I would like for them to prove that they will not use money from the govt or taxpayer funds. I mean, it is just recently that the NASA programs was just defunded and thousands of workers are without jobs.