From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space
Subject: Re: Soyuz as ACRV
Date: 21 Aug 92 12:18:15 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <1992Aug20.174444.23016@iti.org> aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) writes:
>In article <1992Aug20.134030.8206@ke4zv.uucp> gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman) writes:
>>Yeah but I'd rather have an operational space transporter than higher
>>VA benefits.
>
>That's not the choice. Gary, your model of the political process and
>budget allocation just isn't correct. We DO have some clout. We have
>enough clout to get about $15B per year for NASA. NASA is a popular
>agency within the government and if savings where found, most if not
>all would be allocated back to NASA.

NASA is a popular political whipping boy in Congress. How many times
have we heard "if we can send a man to the Moon, why can't we..." The
sad truth of course is that we *can't* send a man to the Moon anymore
because a proven launch system was abandoned for a system that *claimed*
it would be much cheaper. Much of the support for NASA comes from 
Representatives who have NASA pork in their districts.  NASA has done 
an astute job of spreading this pork in critical districts.  Your plan 
would shift most of the pork to the districts of the Senator from McD 
and the Representative from MM. They might like that since military
funding is winding down, but the Senators from Rockwell and M-T would 
not be amused. NASA funding is a delicate balance of pork, upsetting 
that balance would likely result in loss of funding. 

>If space opponents where as powerful as you say, then Freedom would
>have been killed long ago. Traxler would have been successufl in
>killing it instead of going down to an embarasing defeat.

Fred has been downsized how many times? And Fred's schedule has been
stretched out how many times? NASA has gone to Congress with funding
requests for Fred and come back with a half a loaf how many times?
This is the standard way that Congress kills a program. They rarely
ever chop off it's head, they just slowly starve it to death so that
when it's finally ready to deploy, it's cost has skyrocketed due to
stretch outs and nobody wants it anymore because it's capabilities
have been reduced so much. Meanwhile as much pork as possible has
been milked from the program for Congress critters' home districts. 

>Even if you where correct, we would still be better off with the
>money in VA since the alternative makes the space market far larger
>(enough to pay for HLV development and almost double the number of
>MLV launches) and cheaper. This encourages greater activity which is
>now stifled by a space program (and supporters) who don't consider
>cost an important factor.

There is no defined *mission* that requires HLVs today, and Congress
is very reluctant to fund any new starts right now. There are no
*commercial* launches waiting development of HLVs. Poor Fred is the only
possible market. Any savings in the NASA budget will *not* be plowed 
back into NASA new starts. And Shuttle, with all it's unique capabilities,
that are operational *right now*, will be lost. That's the political reality 
as I see it, a smaller and less capable NASA and no commercial concern 
stepping in to fill the space development gap. Space exploration and
development still needs NASA as a driver. Commercial operators are happy
making risk free bucks off of comsats. I'd rather see Shuttle flying
Astro and Spacelab and playing with tethers than see an emaciated Fred
being fed spam in a can on the cheap while VA benefits rise.

Gary
Newsgroups: talk.politics.space