“The real problem in my view is lack of competent NASA leadership. That was true with Griffin and it is still true today. ”

Current NASA management leaders are cheerleaders that ignore risks and cheer loudly for whatever nonscientific space program the President decides on until there is a catastrophe.

The real issue is a President who requires sycophancy in support of his illogical and highly partisan human spaceflight policies.

“There is no way to dilute the events Sep. 1, 2016 into something less than catastrophic, and not just for SpaceX but for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program itself. Because, after Thursday, September 1, NASA’s bet on Commercial Crew in general, and in SpaceX in particular, was challenged not just programmatically but technically. What remains to be seen is whether or not, and how fast, the Commercial Crew program (CPP) and SpaceX recover, something that will take not days or weeks, but months to determine.”

From: ‘Perspectives After The Fire: Long Road Ahead for SpaceX and NASA’s Commercial Crew Program’ By Jim Hillhouse September 23rd, 2016
At: http://www.americaspace.com/?p=95322&cpage=1#comment-1838039

The real problem in my view is lack of competent NASA leadership. That was true with Griffin and it is still true today. There is a reason why ISS remains at $3 billion a year despite no longer being in development or in construction-too large an organization, too many fiefdoms within the program, too many people. The program is not focused on operating with an austere budget-just the opposite; far too many competing fiefdoms inside of the program; its the same reason they cannot fly payloads efficiently or effectively. All the fiefdoms are competing to maintain their piece of the budget and no one is in charge. Of course if the real goal is simply $3billion to spend on jobs, then leadership is meeting expectations.

“It is more a necessity than a desire, Crawford says. Before we head to Mars – or any other faraway body – humans must learn how to thrive in dusty, high radiation environments. ‘To send people to Mars you have to be very confident in all aspects of the technology,’ he says. ‘Going to the moon is risky too, but the advantage of learning and trialling all this stuff on the moon is that if something goes wrong, you can bring people back. The moon is only three days away. Abort options exist.’”

From: ‘Is a moon village the next step for space exploration?
ESA’s chief thinks so
Could an outpost on the moon be the next logical step towards the know-how and infrastructure we need to head into the farther reaches of the solar system?’
By Ian Sample Science editor
At: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/23/is-a-moon-village-the-next-step-for-space-exploration-esas-chief-thinks-so

A billionaire or group of billionaires can buy a President’s space policy and some folks in Congress, but trying to buy off and control the world’s political, commercial, scientific, space, and media leaders is highly difficult.

Why?

Well for one reason, what is ‘good’ for SpaceX probably isn’t good for the national high tech space programs, aerospace companies, and skilled workers of other countries.

Currently, it appears America’s space program is illogically diverging from the logical and pragmatic Lunar resource tapping goals of most other national space programs.

Space is a harsh environment. Geopolitical leadership on Earth is an even harsher reality checking environment, and history is littered with examples of incompetent and corrupt leaders.

America cannot lead the international commercial, high tech, and science communities on a risky and costly wild goose chase to Mars if most nations wisely decide it is in their best economic and national political interests to focus on tapping Lunar resources and commercial opportunities.

Folks around the world understand how fickle America’s attention and funding for space goals can be.

We Americans once went to the nearby Moon within a decade of making that costly decision to do so and then quickly quit going to the Moon and destroyed much of our Lunar mission capabilities and space dreams.

Other countries and their aerospace companies lack the financial depth or resources to foolishly follow America in a risky and costly Musk driven Mars Colony mania that could quickly dissipate when astronauts start to die and costs escalate.

The pragmatic space science, technology, commercial, and political leaders of the broader world will eventually coalesce into mainly supporting policies and short and long-term Moon resources centered Cislunar Space goals that reduce human spaceflight risks and costs and don’t need the support of America and NASA’s Musk Mars Colony Now driven illogical agenda.

NASA following a fickle high risk and costly Musk driven Mars Colony Now space program means de facto and de jure that America is headed towards giving up its leadership in Cislunar Space.

And if NASA cannot lead in Cislunar Space by helping to identify and develop the Moon’s diverse resources and opportunities, America’s leadership on our Home Planet, and Mars, will become increasingly dubious, tenuous, costly, and politically unsustainable.

Thanks for the links, I remembered reading the articles; but was not sure where to look for them.

Pursuant to your discussion, I wrote about the activities of the “Gold Team” in my series on the Vision for Space Exploration:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

In regard to the legendary “$3 billion additional” meme, that was something cooked up by Augustine to give the administration a pretext to cancel the VSE, Project Constellation, and (they hoped) human spaceflight. It didn’t work out that way because Congress forced the administration to continue with Orion and build SLS, in spite of their resistance to that. That’s why we have a vehicle with no destination, except for the fantasy of a human Mars mission 20 years in the future (and it always will be 20 years in the future). In fact, the Augustine committee was presented with affordable, no-increase-required options to execute the VSE, but those options were not even rejected by the committee — they were completely IGNORED by them.

Ask yourself this: if the flaws in the original Constellation architecture could have been fixed with an additional $3 billion per year, why would an administration famous for spending over a TRILLION dollars in “stimulus” money hesitate to ask for that meager additional amount for NASA? Unless there were other, unspoken motivations involved.

Good catch on the article.

Interesting that the author who has been very much a SpaceX groupie is showing some signs of skepticism.

Then, however, he closes with:

(a) during the next five years Musk might fly his Red Dragons to Mars.
(b) He might continue to develop and test the Raptor engines that would power his next-generation rocket. (c) He could make reusable rocketry a reality.
(d) He could fly commercial crew missions safely and demonstrate his reliability with US astronauts.
(e) He could continue do all of this at a fraction of the cost of similar government programs.

“If he does this, a commercial pathway to Mars, offered by SpaceX at a cost of $50 billion to $100 billion might have some credibility with a future president and Congress. And if NASA doesn’t buy it, perhaps another foreign government might.”

That is quite a laundry list of accomplishments for the next five years (maybe Musk will solve the problem of controlled Nuclear Fusion in the next five years – but probably not).

Then (of course) the implied threat that it the US does not give Musk the money some other country might.

The idea that some other country might control Cis-Lunar Space is credible as a threat. The idea that another country might bank roll a Mars Colony (even if successful) is not.

Regarding partnership with NASA and SpaceX, I don’t see anything wrong with that such as Dragon provides means to deliver and return large items because it has a big door (Soyuz and Progress do not). But saying SpaceX shows how private companies leads the way to Mars (yeah, a fantasy far off into the future) but they should admit much of that is at government expense.

Very well put. Thank you.

It was mainly about the flow of money and the President’s highly partisan politics, not “idealism”.

And the main issue still is the flow of money and the President’s highly partisan politics.

“But at Ars we’ll be watching for something much more prosaic, namely, who pays for all this?

With regard to this question there is one telling line in the description of Musk’s talk: ‘The technical presentation will focus on potential architectures for sustaining humans on the Red Planet that industry, government and the scientific community can collaborate on in the years ahead.’ The notion of industry and government ‘collaboration’ seems a key admission that SpaceX will need substantial financial help to establish a Mars colony.”

From: ‘Between a rocket and a hard place: Elon Musk to give the speech of his life SpaceX no doubt has some brilliant ideas about Mars. But who will pay?’
By Eric Berger 9/22/2016
At: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/09/between-a-rocket-and-a-hard-place-elon-musk-to-give-the-speech-of-his-life/

SpaceX’s ‘partnership’ with NASA on Mars missions and a colony will continue the Elon Musk tradition of getting the taxpayers of America to subsidize high risk Martian fantasies while at the same time increasing the assets and value of his company SpaceX and ignoring the “The Value of the Moon” to reduce the risks and costs involved with developing Cislunar Space.

Note that Cislunar Space, which includes the Moon, is a volume of space far more valuable than Mars because it surrounds that beautiful first class planet called Earth.

The cost of continuing the high risk Mars fantasy ‘collaboration’ with Elon Musk and SpaceX will be the ongoing partisan politicization of NASA and American space policy. Nontransparent Presidential/NASA ‘deals’ would continue to be made with SpaceX that are not in America’s best national security interests. And unfortunately the Moon’s resources, opportunities, and benefits would probably be developed and enjoyed by a group of nations that won’t include America.

That is one of the key questions arising from congressional hearings on President Obama’s new plan for NASA. The President wants to cancel the entire Constellation program, of which Ares I is part. He proposes replacing Ares I as a launch vehicle for taking astronauts to low Earth orbit (LEO) with commercial alternatives in part because of anticipated cost savings.”

From: ‘How Much Would Ares I Cost?’
By Marcia S. Smith March 26, 2010
Updated: December 5, 2011
At: http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/how-much-would-ares-i-cost?A=SearchResult&SearchID=1565489&ObjectID=4501984&ObjectType=35

“ATK proposed an advanced SRB nicknamed “Dark Knight”. This booster would switch from a steel case to one made of lighter composite material, use a more energetic propellant, and reduce the number of segments from five to four.[44] It would deliver over 20,000 kN (4,500,000 lbf) maximum thrust and weigh 790,000 kg (1,750,000 lb) at ignition. According to ATK, the advanced booster would be 40% less expensive than the Shuttle-derived five-segment SRB.”

From: ‘Space Launch System’ at: Wikipedia

The President ‘knew’ his ‘political friend’ Mr. Musk could someday make a ‘cheaper’ and ‘more reliable’ fast response military/commercial/NASA launcher. Pseudo science from a crystal ball is the political world’s ‘best form of partisan tactics’.

Having a President as a ‘political friend’ is amazingly much more useful than rocket science, Lunar commercial benefits, and national security interests.