Bush & the Moon - Space Plane

[greyl]

This is part of an inter-office email from a former employee of Nasa, and current employee of a Nasa subcontracter. (who won the Snoopy award)

snip>
"Don't know what to make of the GW suggestion that we return to the moon. You never know how much of what they say this time of year is politically motivated. The reason I was kind of surprised to hear them mention it is because of the tight budget we have been under for so many years. If we can't afford to do what we already have on our plate, how are we going to be able to afford to put more on our plate? A more pressing issue in my mind is making a more safer "space plane" to carry the astronauts to and from space....regardless where they are going. It's always about $$$."
<snip

I personally think this memo is right on, and that bush mentioned a moon launch to provide ambience to his backdrop of "everything is fine, we're the planet's lone undefeatable superpower, we have plenty of money" (even though we've spent all of it).

[punpirate]

1. This approaches the issue...

... but doesn't dare mention the real reason--Bush's suggestion about going to the moon again is little more than a sop to the defense/aerospace industry--saying, in effect, we'll shovel yet more taxpayer dollars in your direction in an effort to bust the national budget and get rid of those inconvenient drains on corporate profitability such as matching employer payments into Social Security.

The Bushies have absolutely no imagination, and this latest ploy of theirs about returning to the moon is yet more evidence of that simple fact.

Cheers.

[greyl]

2. Good points

but they (raytheon, l.martin etc...) already heard about the 400 billion defense budget, right?
And keep in mind that the reaction I posted was from someone in the aerospace industry.

I just percieved bush mentioning the moon as more hollow marketing. (I may be wrong) Why would he have to announce publicly "we're going to the moon again" to satiate defense contractors? Isn't the military-industrial-congressional complex supposed to be kinda hush hush? I mean, his announcement was meant for the general public.

[punpirate]

3. Everything the Bushies do...

... is political. Reassuring their base is paramount. It is hollow marketing, as you say, but it's made public to build public support for something that is essentially narrow and meaningless. There's no scientific reason to spend money on another venture to the moon, so the real reason is to funnel money to the aerospace industry. The Bushies can't say that, though, because the public would not support such.

That said, there may be another reason for this trial balloon--exploitation of space for military reasons. The US needed the support of international partners to fund the space station (another huge boondoggle) and there was considerable argument in the `80s about US insistence of a military presence on or behind the space station. Establishing a moon base, for example, for purposes of US military dominance of space would eventually fly with the public, given the current national mood.

On edit, there's one more consideration in this: Chinese ambitions for moon walks. Bush may be playing on nationalist sympathies by suggesting that it's not enough to have been first, but that America must always be first and foremost. The key to recognizing this nuance will be a further insistence on the part of the Bushies on a timetable which will beat the Chinese to the moon this time.

Cheers.

[bigtree]

4. I must have everything to do with China's announced intention to go

China wants space-based platforms for laser weaponry.
The U.S. wants space-based platforms for laser weaponry.

on the moon.

[citizen snips]

5. That is not all bush is planing.

Bush is also wants to set up a moon base and send a man to Mars. I also think China wants to go to the moon and I don't think he wants the chinase to move past us in space.

[bigtree]

6. I know MATTMAN

But you can't have one without the other with this space nuclear crowd.

Star Wars Makes Defense Secretary Space Out-
http://truthout.org/docs_03/111003H.shtml

"Within hours of the Chinese sending their first man into space, U.S. officials were claiming he was a spy and began setting the stage for space as a combat zone. "In my view it will not be long before space becomes a battleground," Lieutenant General Edward Anderson, deputy commander of the U.S. Northern Command, said at a geospatial intelligence conference in New Orleans. "Our military forces . . . depend very, very heavily on space capabilities, and so that is a statement of the obvious to our potential threat, whoever that may be." He added, "They can see that one of the ways that they can certainly diminish our capabilities will be to attack the space systems. Now how they do that and who that's going to be I can't tell you in this audience."



With so many problems to sort out on Earth, why is a country like China sending people into space?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3131374.stm

Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's Moon exploration programme, told BBC News Online last year that the aim was a space station not later than 2005, and that there could be manned Chinese outposts on the Moon by 2020 or 2030.

The Moon could serve as a new and tremendous supplier of energy and resources for human beings," he said. "This is crucial to sustainable development of human beings on Earth." But does China's space programme have other, more selfish objectives?

There are specific military purposes, in the view of Li Cheng.
"No one would be so naïve as to think this only has civilian implications. China is very concerned about the US missile defence system. space programme is commissioned and mainly controlled by the military," he said. Such charges are dismissed by officials and academics in China.

China's space programme as a whole does have obvious military implications, says Gary Milhollin, an American defence expert.
"If you make progress in space, if you use that progress for reconnaissance of military satellites, you can make progress in launching more effective missile attacks."