Raise your hand if you think this is a good idea

[Botnst]

Obama Moves to Counter China With Pentagon-NASA Link
Demian McLean
Fri Jan 2, 3:58 pm ET

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China.

Obama’s transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency’s planned launch vehicle, which isn’t slated to fly until 2015, according to people who’ve discussed the idea with the Obama team.

The potential change comes as Pentagon concerns are rising over China’s space ambitions because of what is perceived as an eventual threat to U.S. defense satellites, the lofty battlefield eyes of the military.

“The Obama administration will have all those issues on the table,” said Neal Lane, who served as President Bill Clinton’s science adviser and wrote recently that Obama must make early decisions critical to retaining U.S. space dominance. “The foreign affairs and national security implications have to be considered.”

China, which destroyed one of its aging satellites in a surprise missile test in 2007, is making strides in its spaceflight program. The military-run effort carried out a first spacewalk in September and aims to land a robotic rover on the moon in 2012, with a human mission several years later.

A Level of Proficiency
“If China puts a man on the moon, that in itself isn’t necessarily a threat to the U.S.,” said Dean Cheng, a senior Asia analyst with CNA Corp., an Alexandria, Virginia-based national-security research firm. “But it would suggest that China had reached a level of proficiency in space comparable to that of the United States.”

Obama has said the Pentagon’s space program -- which spent about $22 billion in fiscal year 2008, almost a third more than NASA’s budget -- could be tapped to speed the civilian agency toward its goals as the recession pressures federal spending.

NASA faces a five-year gap between the retirement of the space shuttle in 2010 and the first launch of Orion, the six- person craft that will carry astronauts to the International Space Station and eventually the moon. Obama has said he would like to narrow that gap, during which the U.S. will pay Russia to ferry astronauts to the station.

NASA Resistance
The Obama team has asked NASA officials about the costs and savings of scrapping the agency’s new Ares I rocket, which is being developed by Chicago-based Boeing Co. and Minneapolis- based Alliant Techsystems Inc.
NASA chief Michael Griffin opposes the idea and told Obama’s transition team leader, Lori Garver, that her colleagues lack the engineering background to evaluate rocket options, agency spokesman Chris Shank said.

“The NASA review team is just asking questions; no decisions have been made,” said Nick Shapiro, a transition spokesman for Obama. The team will pass its finding on to presidential appointees, said Shapiro.

At the Pentagon, there may be support for combining launch vehicles. While NASA hasn’t recently approached the Pentagon about using its Delta IV and Atlas V rockets, building them for manned missions could allow for cost sharing, said Steven Huybrechts, the director of space programs and policy in the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is staying on into the new administration.

The Delta IV and Atlas V are built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp., and typically are used to carry satellites.

Already Developed
“No one really has a firm idea what NASA’s cost savings might be, but the military’s launch vehicles are basically developed,” said John Logsdon, a policy expert at Washington’s National Air and Space Museum who has conferred with Obama’s transition advisers. “You don’t have to build them from scratch.”

Meanwhile, Chinese state-owned companies already are assembling heavy-lift rockets that could reach the moon, with a first launch scheduled for 2013. All that would be left to build for a manned mission is an Apollo-style lunar lander, said Griffin, who visited the Chinese space program in 2006.
Moon Landing

Griffin said in July that he believes China will be able to put people on the moon before the U.S. goes back in 2020. The last Apollo mission left the lunar surface in 1972.

“The moon landing is an extremely challenging and sophisticated task, and it is also a strategically important technological field,” Wang Zhaoyao, a spokesman for China’s space program, said in September, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

China plans to dock two spacecraft in orbit in 2010, a skill required for a lunar mission.

“An automated rendezvous does all sorts of things for your missile accuracy and anti-satellite programs,” said John Sheldon, a visiting professor of advanced air and space studies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. “The manned effort is about prestige, but it’s also a good way of testing technologies that have defense applications.”

China’s investments in anti-satellite warfare and in “cyberwarfare,” ballistic missiles and other weaponry “could threaten the United States’ primary means to project its power and help its allies in the Pacific: bases, air and sea assets, and the networks that support them,” Gates wrote in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.

Anti-Satellite Warfare
China is designing satellites that, once launched, could catch up with and destroy U.S. spy and communication satellites, said a Nov. 20 report to Congress from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. China’s State Council Information Office declined to comment on the nation’s anti- satellite or manned programs.

To boost cooperation between NASA and the Pentagon, Obama has promised to revive the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which oversaw the entire space arena for four presidents, most actively from 1958 to 1973.
The move would build ties between agencies with different cultures and agendas.

“Whether such cooperation would succeed remains to be seen,” said Scott Pace, a former NASA official who heads the Washington-based Space Policy Institute. “But the questions are exactly the ones the Obama team needs to ask.”

[pj67coll]

My hand is raised. Anything to try and reverse the sclerotic US space program.

- Peter.

[tankdriver]

Wasn't the original space race primarily a military endeavor?



Although if China's space capabilities were a worry, one wonders why Clinton gave them the technology to make it happen.

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by pj67coll

My hand is raised. Anything to try and reverse the sclerotic US space program.

- Peter.

Anything that gets involved with military technology will have military restrictions. A large number of NASA missions already have a military and/or intelligence component. Intelligence agencies have their own suite of restrictions.

At its best, science is an open, public enterprise.

People outside of NASA will never be certain that they are dealing with civilians and civilian restrictions. This undermines public trust in a civilian agency.

Foreign governments and people will be even more circumspect.

On the positive side -- the military and intelligence space programs have practically unlimited budgets and little or no public oversight. Congress has oversight. All we have to do is trust Congress that our money is well-spent.

Also on the positive side, The military is big on program and project accountability. There is a chain of command and a name attached to every decision. The military is intolerant of failure. That has 2 effects, one good and the other, bad. On the good side is that everybody tends to think things through. The bad side is that the military is hugely conservative -- unwilling to take risks. This is why the military does almost no research on its own. It contracts with universities and private enterprise -- natural risk-takers.

B

[Pooka]

Catheirn the Great said, "It is best to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer."

Pooka

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by tankdriver

Wasn't the original space race primarily a military endeavor?



Although if China's space capabilities were a worry, one wonders why Clinton gave them the technology to make it happen.

Yes, started as military with direct military apps -- flying higher and faster was the goal. Kennedy began to force a serious split between civilian and military space apps. But if you look at the majority of early astronauts, they were all military, just detailed to NASA. I don't know the present-day stats but I'll bet astronauts are still half military. Lots of the aeronautical research is still military or quasi-military in it's applications.

If you look at it in a cynical light NASA is a cheap cover for military and intelligence development. You give them a mars rover in one hand and then tell everybody that's what NASA is about. Forget "Mission Earth" -- observation of the Earth. It's all science, right?

B

[cmac2012]

IIRC, after the initial embarrassing failures to get a satellite aloft, Ike (or someone) turned to military launch vehicles to get the job done as they had a good track record. I think that's when V. Van Braun came on. Then some years later, he and crew were upset about NASA being divorced from its military ties. I think.

I would like to see robotic missions from here on out. Scrap 90% of military and use the savings for robotic missions. Can you imagine having successful rovers on some of the moons of Saturn? Or a telescope on the moon?

There's no point in sending people into space. Have you seen the footage of people just returned from the space station being carried out on stretchers?

Space is not good for people. It kills them, slowly.

[Botnst]

Uh, .... all that's really interesting and everything.

What have you to say about the proposal being floated by the next administration? You know, the thread topic?

[cmac2012]

What does that have to do with this thread?

I don't fancy that Obama is that much more enlightened (to suit me) than the vast majority of pols. Yes, the Chinese can maybe kill our satellites. I'm sure it would be like, just really easy and stuff to shoot down whatever they use to try to shoot them down, so of course there's a technical fix to this issue that won't cost much of anything. There always is, right?

[Pooka]

I don't think Clinton 'gave' China anything. Loral is supposed to be the one that sold the info.

To punish China for Tinnaman Square the US instituted a trade enbargo that was in force unless the President signed a waiver. US companies needing to get communication satalites up needed China as there were too many for the US to launch, so Clinton signed a waiver.

Then a Chinise rocket blew up and destroyed a $200,000,000 comm sat.

The Chinise had a 'staging' problem; when the first stage ended the second would either fire early or late. Loral had the solution and asked for a waiver to sell the 'necessary' solutions to China.

Clinton got two sets of advice: State said do it in order to build on relationships started under the first Bush, and the military said don't as it might help the Chinise with their ICBM's.

Clinton signed the waiver and more US companies got their satalites up.

As I recall a special prosocutor looked into this and found no wrong doing on Clinton's part, but I don't remember if a full scale investigation was undertaken.

This waiver and Loral's sale saved American companies hundreds of millions in cost to get their comm sats up. Still, you have to wonder if it was that smart a thing to do.

Pooka

[H-townbenzoboy]

To the moon, Alice!

[cmac2012]

Our best hope in this matter is making it very clear to China that any sort of war in space will be the end of man's forays into space. Space junk rotating in weird orbits at 18,000 mph +. Like a virtual huge shotgun blast of space junk. Who knows, they're not dummies. They will see that war in space will cost them more than it will profit them.

[MS Fowler]

A conspiracy advocate might have a lot of fear about increasing military influence in civilian government. Some level-headed people who never subscribed to any conspiracy theories might have some concerns, too.

We would do well to remember Ike's warning to beware the military-industrial complex. If its not too late.

[Botnst]

Originally Posted by Pooka

I don't think Clinton 'gave' China anything. Loral is supposed to be the one that sold the info.

To punish China for Tinnaman Square the US instituted a trade enbargo that was in force unless the President signed a waiver. US companies needing to get communication satalites up needed China as there were too many for the US to launch, so Clinton signed a waiver.

Then a Chinise rocket blew up and destroyed a $200,000,000 comm sat.

The Chinise had a 'staging' problem; when the first stage ended the second would either fire early or late. Loral had the solution and asked for a waiver to sell the 'necessary' solutions to China.

Clinton got two sets of advice: State said do it in order to build on relationships started under the first Bush, and the military said don't as it might help the Chinise with their ICBM's.

Clinton signed the waiver and more US companies got their satalites up.

As I recall a special prosocutor looked into this and found no wrong doing on Clinton's part, but I don't remember if a full scale investigation was undertaken.

This waiver and Loral's sale saved American companies hundreds of millions in cost to get their comm sats up. Still, you have to wonder if it was that smart a thing to do.

Pooka

The Chinese got the militarily important tech sold by the companies that Clinton promoted and Algore got a huge political donation from the Chinese. Everybody wins!

B

[tankdriver]

Originally Posted by Pooka

I don't think Clinton 'gave' China anything. Loral is supposed to be the one that sold the info.

To punish China for Tinnaman Square the US instituted a trade enbargo that was in force unless the President signed a waiver. US companies needing to get communication satalites up needed China as there were too many for the US to launch, so Clinton signed a waiver.

Then a Chinise rocket blew up and destroyed a $200,000,000 comm sat.

The Chinise had a 'staging' problem; when the first stage ended the second would either fire early or late. Loral had the solution and asked for a waiver to sell the 'necessary' solutions to China.

Clinton got two sets of advice: State said do it in order to build on relationships started under the first Bush, and the military said don't as it might help the Chinise with their ICBM's.

Clinton signed the waiver and more US companies got their satalites up.

As I recall a special prosocutor looked into this and found no wrong doing on Clinton's part, but I don't remember if a full scale investigation was undertaken.

This waiver and Loral's sale saved American companies hundreds of millions in cost to get their comm sats up. Still, you have to wonder if it was that smart a thing to do.

Pooka

The waiver allowed transfer of missile guidance technology. Signing the waiver gave them the tech.
Whether he got paid for it or not is up for debate, but the thing happened. It strikes me as a very stupid thing to do, but then, so does deregulation of the finance business, so what do I know.