Report: Obama Likely To Tear Down Military-NASA Barriers

[babylonsister]

Obama Moves to Counter China With Pentagon-NASA Link (Update1)

By Demian McLean


Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China.

Obama’s transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration because military rockets may be cheaper and ready sooner than the space agency’s planned launch vehicle, which isn’t slated to fly until 2015, according to people who’ve discussed the idea with the Obama team.

The potential change comes as Pentagon concerns are rising over China’s space ambitions because of what is perceived as an eventual threat to U.S. defense satellites, the lofty battlefield eyes of the military.

“The Obama administration will have all those issues on the table,” said Neal Lane, who served as President Bill Clinton’s science adviser and wrote recently that Obama must make early decisions critical to retaining U.S. space dominance. “The foreign affairs and national security implications have to be considered.”

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aOvrNO0OJ41g

[Soylent Brice]

1. this was mentioned on another thread, but there has to be some kind of money trail problem

to link NASA with the DoD like this sounds kind of stupid, but might actually work. theories are abound as to how accountable NASA is with it's funds, hence the headbutting with the Obama admin-elect (or however you want to call it.)

follow the money trail. it will lead to better answers than "big scary China".

granted it's a good idea to stay as far ahead as possible, but i feel there's something more to this.

[Unsane]

2. Space race w/China = giant waste of money

Shouldn't the US gov't work on paying back Chinese loans instead?

W T F

[babylonsister]

3. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. People bitched

when they thought Obama was going to do away with NASA. Now, it seems he wants to revitalize some kind of space program, and people bitch. He can't win.
Me, I don't know enough about the program or care, actually, I'm just a messenger.

[Phoonzang]

4. I saw this article. I think the title is misleading.

He wants to use military rockets to get personnel to the space station instead of NASA's Ares I rocket. Doing so could be both cheaper and close the quicker than working the kinks out of the Ares I.

[GarbagemanLB]

5. Whatever they believe is best to continue space exploration and research.

[Spinzonner]

6. Isn't this type of mixing of missions

how the country ended up, in part, with a compromised Space Shuttle design ?

[WhiteTara]

7. this does not bode well

When we use the military for civilian purposes, things get very slippery and the next step is a militarized space. IMHO.

[Johnyawl]

8. Space is already militarized

Military satellites dominate our skies, and the military would find it damn near impossible to operate without them. It's the threat China poses to those satellites that is driving this 'merger'.

The vast majority of our astronauts have come from the military. We've never NOT had a militarized space program, all NASA did was to allow civilians to run the space program, and to keep the money in a seperate bucket. EVERY country with a viable space program has operated on the same model.

[tigereye]

9. wonder when we will have lunar colonies...

That would be very interesting, I don't know how plausible, though.