Analysis of the White House Decision to cancel Ares from the Bad Astronomer.

[LongTomH]

Most of this post is from posts on Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy website. Phil treats the news of the Ares and moon program cancellations as mixed; but, doesn't react. In his latest post, he gives Pres. Obama credit for some good news:

The good news for sure is an increase of $6 billion over the next five years. It stresses new technology and innovation (to the tune of over $1.5 billion), which is also good. A lot of NASA’s successes have been from pushing the limits on what can be done. It also stresses Earth science, which isn’t surprising at all; Obama appears to understand the importance of our environmental impact, including global warming. So that’s still good news.

The very very good news is that half that money — half, folks, 3.2 billion dollars — is going to science. Yeehaw! The release specifically notes telescopes and missions to the Moon and planets. That, my friends, sounds fantastic.

In a previous post: Give space a chance, he states:

OK, yes, it does look like (assuming the rumors are true) the Obama budget for NASA is cutting out the Constellation rocket program in general and Ares in particular. But that doesn’t mean manned spaceflight is dead.

As I said in that above link, private space companies are still a ways off from putting people in orbit. However, I strongly suspect they’ll be doing it before Ares would’ve been ready to do it anyway. Private companies like Space-X may be two years from that, while Ares wouldn’t have been ready for five, assuming NASA could even get Ares ready by the scheduled time and in the assigned budget (which I would give a chance of, oh, say, precisely 0). So it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that after the Shuttle retires later this year (or early next) companies like Space X will be able to reach the International Space Station with rockets before NASA could.

Phil definitely is not a fan of the Ares rocket. Neither is Apollo 11 astronaut Buz Aldrin, and neither am I. Some Apollo-era NASA engineers quit when they learned the new space shuttle design would rely on solid rocket boosters. There are the obvious safety issues, and the fact that the SRB's were a major factor in keeping the cost of shuttle launches high.

Space-X is still forging ahead with it's Dragon and Dragonlab capsule projects as well as the Falcon 9 Heavy Lift vehicle.

Back to Phil's latest post:

So, where does this leave us as far as going back to the Moon? It leaves us delayed, again. That sucks. However, as I have pointed out before, Constellation was already a mess. Behind schedule, over budget, and starved of funding. It was a mandate from the Bush White House, but never got the money it needed from them or Congress to ensure it could be done (this didn’t work when it was attempted from the Bush Sr. White House/Congress either).

Phil continues with a very good, in-depth analysis of the Obama Administration's decision as well as prospects for future manned exploration.

[NoNothing]

1. He is much more credulous than I

About the prospects of Space-X being able to conduct ISS launches anytime "soon."

[HeresyLives]

2. 'A ship may be safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.'

I especially liked that quote.

[Peace Patriot]

3. We're spending a HUNDRED BILLION dollars in Colombia alone--on military aid to

a country with one of the worst human rights records on earth--and that doesn't even count the costs of a greatly increased U.S. military presence in Colombia for reasons that are transparently bogus (the failed U.S. 'war on drugs,' and the never-ending, 40+ year Colombian civil war)...

And that's just ONE country the Pentagon is messing with, at GREAT expense.

...and we can't afford a Moon project?

I appreciate the careful analysis of this funding, and the good and bad points of it. But it's kind of like insurance-run health care 'reform'--we are capable of so much better. We are capable of inspiring the world--not occupying it. We are capable of wonders beyond the imaginations of even the wildest dreamers of previous ages. We are capable of leaving the planet, and beginning the greatest adventure of all--exploring and joining the Great Universe that surrounds us.

It just doesn't add up, you know? What is being done with our money and our resources.

[sandnsea]

4. No, not even a billion to Colombia

We spend around $800 million, which is entirely too much, as well as ineffective and immoral - but we do have to get the figures right.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/colombia/us-military-aid-to-colombia/page.do?id=1101863

[joshcryer]

5. Thanks for the fact check, I was shocked by that number.

[Peace Patriot]

7. You are absolutely right. My error. But the total is much higher than $800 million.

I try to be careful about facts and I keep a lot of facts in my head, but I goofed on that one, and added a zero. (It's funny how the zeroes all seem to run together when you get into these staggering amounts of money--multi-millions, billions, trillions!) I was adding up the $6-7 billion that the Bushwhacks have larded onto the Colombia military, plus the $4 billion estimate I saw for Colombia associated with the new U.S./Colombia military agreement--total $10 billion, an aggregate figure. (--and, oops, added a zero!)

The aggregate for the last decade plus Obama administration funding in Colombia will be much higher than $10 billion, possibly twice that, in real budgeting terms, but won't approach $100 billion, unless the U.S. decides to use Colombia as the "lily pad" country by which to take Venezuela's and Ecuador's oil by force--a real danger, in my opinion, especially if Obama is Diebolded out of office in 2012 and another Bushwhack brought back in.

In real budgeting terms, you need to add in the costs of the new ten-year U.S./Colombia military agreement which includes U.S. military use of at least SEVEN military bases in Colombia, the rebuilding of at least one of them, the doubling of U.S. soldiers and U.S. 'contractors' (to at least 1,500, with escalation clauses), an infusion of U.S. planes and pilots, USN ships, and U.S. high tech surveillance and weaponry, and potential U.S. military use of any and all civilian infrastructure. This will be very costly even if there are not hidden projects embedded in it, and i think there are (an eighth base, entirely new, to be built on the Guajira peninsula, overlooking the Gulf of Venezuela, where Venezuela's main oil reserves, facilities and shipping are located, and only 20 miles from Venezuela's border). In addition, there are aggregate figures for covert ops (hard to guess at, but probably significant) and multi-millions in USAID and other agency funding to provide civilian cosmetics for these military operations. (One USAF document said that all this was for "full spectrum military operations" in the 'Southcom' region (not just in Colombia), to deal with drug trafficking, terrorists and "anti-U.S. governments.")

Colombia is already the biggest U.S. military aid package in the world, outside of Israel. It also has the second worst human rights record in the world. A mass grave was just found, with 2,000 bodies--with grave dates from 2005-2010 (but no names)--in an area, La Macarena, that has been the major focus of U.S. and Colombian military operations. Local people say the bodies are 'disappeared' local political activists--union leaders, community organizers, human rights workers--and also peasant farmers. (Colombia also has one the worst problems of displaced people in the world. Some 3 million peasant farmers have been driven from their lands, mostly by Colombian military and rightwing paramilitary terror.) The La Macarena massacre may have involved U.S. forces, but it was, in any case, the end result of a Pentagon/USAID designed program. And that is yet another probably hidden cost of the war in Colombia--all the studies, reports, 'contractors' this and 'contractors' that, of the private and public bureaucracy in Washington, propaganda/disinformation costs, lobbying, transportation and other travel costs, partying costs, and on and on. It takes a lot of money just to get a war off the ground, and then to keep re-tooling it to different purposes, as events dictate. I just read ONE of these Rand Corporation-type reports on Colombia, and I would really like to know the total cost of just that one report (which says not one word about the death squad killings).

Here is my post on La Macarena massacre: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7623513

One more thing on budgeting. President Obama's 2011 budget cuts funding to Colombia--by 11% or 20% (I've seen different estimates), but will still be about $500,000 for the next year alone. The cut is a reflection of the reality of the U.S. being bankrupt, yet we're still going to give half a billion dollars per year to a country with such a horrible, corrupt, death squad connected government and military. Why? It hasn't stopped the cocaine traffic. It hasn't solved Colombia's social problems (one of the highest poverty rates in the region). It won't likely ever stop the FARC guerrillas--a domestic insurgency that has been fighting Colombia's fascist government for over four decades. What is this "war" for? Is it just a "military-industrial complex" boondoggle and 'turkey shoot' practice for U.S. 'contractors'? Or is it prepping the ground for a wider conflict--Oil War II? If the latter comes to pass, then my $100 billion typo may have been a prescient mistake.

[Johonny]

6. For some reason America under sells it's space capabilities

to the public. Most of the public doesn't realize how many launch vehicles the US has or how often they launch or to which orbits they can launch to. If the US had been a better seller of it's space capabilities to the public the last 15-20 years it would probably not face the negative feedback it now faces with ARES.