Talk:Space policy of the Barack Obama administration

Criticisms
Who's stupid idea was it to include criticisms about a speech before the speech was given? I'm removing these but feel free to post any post-speech criticisms.--Craigboy (talk) 21:28, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The previous removed criticisms can be added if the article is converted from the speech at KSC to Obama's Space Ambitions for NASA (which were originally announced in February).--Craigboy (talk) 22:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

If anyone is looking for criticism and has the time than here's a video that the info can be drawn from. http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=Hearings&ContentRecord_id=54f5c39e-f62c-487f-b9ed-fd4be38d096f --Craigboy (talk) 03:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I am very confused by these criticisms. They seem emotional and not thought out at all. Zubrin says the Ares V could take us to an asteroid by 2016 yet it isn't even scheduled to make a maiden flight till 2018 and that's not taking into account the fact it is very much behind schedule. And as far as I know the Ares V is just a cargo launcher for LEO and not for deep space travel so I am not sure. This guy is smart too so I don't understand what he is thinking. I think the problem is people like him are zealots about space travel and just want to see physical results instead of intangibles, they just want to throw resources at the problem and force it through for short term success, basically they want to see results in their life time for their own pleasure.

If you look at what Obama has done it is pretty smart, he basically scrapped Ares I because it's pointless, the commercial sector can make a rocket comparable to Ares I much cheaper and faster, just look at the Falcon 9 launch that just happened. The main thing the government needs to contribute is a heavy lift vehicle like the Ares V, since the Ares I is no longer taking up time from the designers they development of the heavy lift launched can be accelerated like he said and be ready to be constructed at 2015.

Since I'm on a roll I'll keep going. So he didn't really cancel constellation, he just rearranged it and made it better. He replaced the Ares I with the private sector, and he moved the Ares V closer. This also allows him to extend the ISS which is the most important part, which blows my mind all these Mars enthusiasts don't seem to realize. Why would you be happy to get to the Moon by 2020 (unlikely, but we'll pretend) but then have the ISS be destroyed in 2015? For purposes of going to Mars you learn a lot more useful stuff by keeping the ISS around and testing systems and techniques for the voyage to Mars. This is such an obvious concept to me. Landing on the Moon teaches you very little for getting to Mars because landing on Mars is a completely different challenge than the Moon, but the voyage to Mars which is a crucial element of the equation can be recreated on the ISS very well.

Anyways, if you use logical thought to consider the decisions made it is not anti-exploration and is actually a smarter way to do it. Bushes way was to just basically use blunt force to get us back on the Moon for an ego rush that would produce little long term usefulness to get to Mars. He says he will spend 100B to accomplish nothing, when in reality he will gain technologies and skills that we will have forever. While the original plan would spend more to achieve less intangibles, the only thing it would achieve is the act of a man on the Moon again, something we have done already and won't learn much from in relation to Mars compared to utilizing the already there ISS. The only reason these geeks want it is so they can be alive to see it happen, it's rather selfish of them.Rukaribe (talk) 22:24, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

With me I think there' several good reasons why Obama's plan had problems but I don't think Zubrin made any of those (mainly because he lied and exaggerated facts). Back in 2003 proposing commercial crew might have been too ambitious for the time and that the choice to use commercial providers might have been seen as a response to the Columbia incident (the loss of the crew happened, like with Challenger for a very stupid reason).

Obama's plan wasn't to build the Ares V sooner, it was to finish choosing a different design by 2015. But since the Ares V was predicated to be delayed due to budget reasons than Obama's rocket might actually be built sooner.

In regards to the moon missions, they were going to be long duration which would help with long duration missions to Mars, a lot of the hardware could be re-used such as rovers, habitats and suits. A return to the moon has other benefits. No I don't think it should be our main focus (because Mars is truly the goal) but it's a relatively close planetary body that we can test things on and there's still plenty of things we don't know about it.--Craigboy (talk) 11:06, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I included the criticisms from the Apollo astronauts because I wanted to provide a balanced perspective of the support from Elon Musk and Buzz Aldrin. I realize they weren't from after the speech, but they were about the topic of the speech and were directly relevant. I'm all for renaming the article to "Obama administration space policy" or something similar if the article is expanded. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 14:40, 17 July 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a letter in support from Shuttle and Apollo astronauts released recently: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=31239. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 14:44, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

@Jatkins - The video I posted contains criticisms from the Apollo astronauts post-speech, take quotes from there instead.--Craigboy (talk) 21:23, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

My there are a number of pro-Obama posters here! How likely is it that Obama's "heavy lift vehicle" (which was essentially starting from scratch) would be ready 2 years earlier than Ares V which had already been worked on for years? Remember Obama cancelled Ares V itself, yet some here are talking as if he cancelled Ares I specifically to put the resources into Ares V. But this isn't the case at all. Scrapping a program that may be going heavily into cost over-runs and starting again from the beginning might possibly be cheaper over all (that's debatable), but it is highly unlikely to be up and flying more quickly, and I don't know why anyone would seriously think this would be unless a lot more money was going to be spent on development, which goes against the reasons for cancelling Ares V in the first place. It seems to me that Obama isn't really that interested in space activities, and would rather spend the money on earth based projects, like community development. It was quite clear in his campaign, when he proposed a 5 year suspension of development to help fund educational programs where he was looking. Certainly he wouldn't have been happy about having to find extra funds to finish Constellation, which was a Bush program anyway. Whilst there were plenty of critics of the Constellation program, and particularly Ares I, there are questions about the general lack of direction of Obama's proposals. He may talk about an asteroid mission in 2025, but that would be a decade or more after his term would end, and there is no clear funding to achieve this. The point about the ISS is a good one. It is needed to gain experience for any Martian flight, as well as other scientific gains and the fact it is stupid to throw away such an expensive project so soon. However it is the INTERNATIONAL Space Station, not the United State Space Station. The decision on its future isn't for the US alone to decide, and the US will also be relying on the Russians simply to use it.

As for some of those other comments on this. Well to simply say we shouldn't go to the moon because "we've already been there" has to call into question as to why bother having a manned flight to Mars! Why spend hundreds of billions (it'll cost that much however they do it) developing equipment and only send one crew there and back? After that we'll have "already been there" and so why bother sending anymore? It's the same logic isn't it? Particularly since there has been a lot of robotic exploration. In fact why bother keeping the ISS since we've already been in orbit? Also whilst LEO can be used to gain much of the experience needed for the flight, to make any Mars mission worthwhile, a long surface stay would be needed. The Moon would be a much more realistic test of such equipment than either LEO or some desert region. Mars may have an atmosphere, but the pressure is so low it's virtually a vacuum. Besides, Obama is not committing to any such mission, it is some future concept and no more. These conceptual flights have been put forward by NASA since the '60's - I don't see much of a change from any of that. For these to be anything more than a wishlist, someone (either the Government or a private consortium) is going to have to bite the bullet and committee to serious funding and programs, which there hasn't been.

What's needed is a realistic discussion of how the Obama speech/policy changes the direction of the US in space. Does it "save money"? Is there any real direction? What the long term effects will likely be. Comments from various "experts" on this should be here, and it shouldn't be a case of either Obama-bashing, or hailing him as the golden boy either. BTW for any of those "never landed on the Moon" conspiratorialists demanding to know why no one has returned. No one has committed to manned Luna flight since project Apollo, not long enough to see the projects through anyway. It's the same with there being no supersonic passenger aircraft around since Concorde was grounded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.177.218.51 (talk) 06:21, 17 February 2012 (UTC)


 * You can add the criticisms but they need to be cited to a reliable source. I don't really think you can say whether it saves money because that's fairly subjective and we don't even really know yet. --Jatkins (talk - contribs) 14:08, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Potential move
This article is a good overview of the Obama administration's space policy in general as it stands now. Rather than restrict it to only being about this one speech, I suggest moving this article to Space policy of the Barack Obama administration. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 02:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Moved article
I moved the article to a name that more accurately reflects the policy formation process in the US (i.e. does not assert that the president sets the policy), as well as one that closely matches the main article format wise. Vietminh (talk) 17:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I appreciate your boldness in moving the article. However, I don't think it's accurate to say that the presidential administration doesn't set space policy.  Space policy isn't something that moves along smoothly regardless of who is president; it is often radically altered every time a new administration comes into office.  For example, the Constellation program was a major top-down initiative of the Bush administration, which was almost immediately cancelled when Obama came into office and replaced with a radically different plan based on supporting commercial space travel.


 * Also, the standard form for policy articles is "X policy of the Y administration"; see List of public policy topics by country for a list. I'm usually in favor of deviating from the standard if there's a solid reason for doing so, but I think the new title just isn't as accurate as the old one.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 18:20, 23 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I didn't realize this was the standard form, and there's no sense in having this article different from that standard (as you say, no compelling reason). I was thinking of it like a political scientist (i.e. congress has to approve the budget, so in the strictest sense the President doesn't truly "set" the policy). I'll revert this and the Bush one, and change the links at the US space policy article accordingly Vietminh (talk) 22:57, 25 September 2011 (UTC)


 * No worries. In the United States the presidential administration has a lot of power to set policy for the executive departments independently from, but within the bounds set by, Congress.  This power is greater than I suppose a prime minister would have in a parliamentary system.  Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 20:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

No Mention of SLS?
Why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.229.168.8 (talk) 17:37, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

SLS was never a part of Obama's space policy, it was initiated by Congress. In fact, it goes straight agains Obama's plans for a Heavy Lift Vehicle. M129K (talk) 12:22, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

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