Sunday, January 18, 2004

Frank Sietzen Jr. and Keith L. Cowing Saturday, January 17, 2004 "...On Oct. 20, a motorcade swept beneath the U.S. Capitol carrying Vice-President Dick Cheney and three White House aides. O'Keefe accompanied the group. They unloaded on the Senate side and convened in the offices of Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Cheney had come to hear views about the future of the space program. He was not about to tell them how far along the process had come, however. All he said was the administration was open to their ideas." "Frist had summoned five senators for the meeting: three Democrats -- Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, John Breaux of Louisiana and Bill Nelson of Florida -- and two Republicans -- John McCain of Arizona and Sam Brownback of Kansas, respectively, the chairman of the Commerce and Science committee and its space subcommittee. " Each then proceeded to rip the space program apart.  No Vision.  Failed missions.  Disasters.  No sense of value.  Not doing what the country expects of it, etc.  Also blaming national leadership for not leading NASA to some new vision that would energize things. "As the meeting closed, Cheney thanked everyone for their input. "We'll keep you advised as we work through this," he told them. Of course, that was exactly what the Bush administration was wary of doing. "If we had told them what was going on," one source said later, "they would have torn this thing apart by now." One central concept that has emerged and that strikes me as new is Lunar and Martian GPS satellite systems.  These systems would allow for cheaper, more accurate navigational systems on future missions.  Makes tons of sense to me.   1:31:25 PM

"Richard Armitage from the State Department and John Marburger, the president's science adviser, both supported the idea of a revamped space policy....  Marburger also pushed for a return to the moon to build advanced, permanent bases there...." "Getting rid of the space shuttle, considered by many to be emblematic of the agency, was a hard notion to consider. Indeed, NASA old hands would have branded it heresy. Prior to the Columbia accident, few at NASA spent much time considering it." So, it seems that the Columbia disaster (not Challenger...) cleared the way to Close the chapter on the Shuttle program and redirect the resources into the Next Generation manned missions! "NASA's new moon ships also would carry a series of modules, propulsion stages and small cargo units that could be mixed and matched depending on the flight planned. One of the biggest drawbacks of the space shuttles has been their lack of flexibility. Designed for hauling large payloads and modules into space in their cavernous bays, they could not be reconfigured to bring up just a small amount of equipment. NASA has a space trucking fleet which new only one type of cargo: big." "The new plan calls for an evolutionary mode of development, with each step moving astronauts further away from Earth and closer to the moon -- a fleet of modular capsules and interchangeable units. In the trucking fleet analogy, these would be NASA's tankers, small pickup trucks, delivery vans, SUVs and campers." 1:12:57 PM

Interesting discussion of the genesis of the new space initiative.  Focus is on Hiring O'Keefe and shaping the new mission even after the Challenger disaster. 12:55:27 PM

© Copyright 2005 W R Carlson. Last update: 4/29/2005; 4:19:36 PM.