Timeline for How and to what extent did lobbyists contribute to Trump/Pence's "next man and first woman" to the Moon? (via Artemis and Commercial Crew programs)
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 19, 2022 at 21:28 | vote | accept | uhoh | ||
| May 18, 2022 at 19:30 | comment | added | David Hammen | @ItalianPhilosophers4Monica I don't think Boeing quite understands the intent of the Commercial Crew program. NASA fully expected the winners to be financial losers in the sense that the winners had to show that the winners were putting significant amounts of their own money into the project. Apparently SpaceX has done just that. How much? Guesses are all over the map. SpaceX is privately held. How much SpaceX charges for a commercial satellite launch vs how much the launch costs SpaceX -- that's closely held data. But SpaceX is obviously raking in enough money to fund Starship development. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 19:06 | comment | added | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | @DavidHammen Any idea of how much total SpaceX has spent (out of investors' pockets, out of customer payments) to date in all its operations? That would put some perspective on the "achievements" purchased by NASA's Moon/Mars $40B program. To be fair however: SpaceX has radically changed space economics, ArianeSpace is also struggling to remain relevant. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 18:41 | comment | added | David Hammen | Elaborating on the above, by 2020, NASA had spent $23.7 billion on Orion, $7.6 billion on Commercial Crew & Cargo. The spending on SLS is another $23 billion or so. Less than half of that 7.6 billion spent on C3PO went to SpaceX. A lot more went to Boeing for it's CST-100 Starliner. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 18:24 | history | edited | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 1122 characters in body
|
| May 18, 2022 at 18:18 | comment | added | David Hammen | @ItalianPhilosophers4Monica Regarding This is disingenuous to say the least: IIRC the amount of money spent so far on SLS represents a good chunk of SpaceX total spending to date... The OP got Boeing's Commercial Crew project (CST-100 Starliner) confused with Artemis/Orion. It was Starliner rather than SLS that was the subject of the referenced ArsTechnica article / broadcast. Boeing does indeed appear to be losing money on Starliner; that is a firm-fixed price contract. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 17:40 | comment | added | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | @DavidHammen Amen to that analysis: cough, F35, cough. And, as certain countries are currently amply demonstrating, running defense programs with pork in mind can backfire spectacularly. Though, maybe, maybe, the F35 has actually matured to be functional, it's only a good thing it wasn't needed during its prolonged and painful gestation. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 13:38 | comment | added | uhoh |
@DavidHammen ;-) +1 100% etc. But you know, all congress is doing is listening to those humble folks who stop by the capital to walk the halls and speak to their representatives about how they'd like to be represented, right? That critical aspect of democracy called lobbying? (pardon my sarcasm)
|
|
| May 18, 2022 at 12:37 | comment | added | David Hammen | @uhoh Pence's push was to ensure that the Moon landing would occur during Trump's second term. That date was utterly unrealistic. Moreover, congresscritters don't like SpaceX. NASA boasts that SLS involves over 1000 companies, spread across most of the states, which congresscritters like. Any sane company would say WTF??? to that. With over 1000 outsourced suppliers, it's not surprising that SLS is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over the initial budget. Orion has similar issues of being behind schedule and over budget. It's not NASA that needs to transform itself. It's Congress. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 2:55 | history | edited | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 72 characters in body
|
| May 18, 2022 at 2:45 | history | edited | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 462 characters in body
|
| May 18, 2022 at 2:45 | comment | added | uhoh | just a note: Pence's push to change NASA's culture in order to do it in five years is connected directly with the Commercial Crew program. It's the lobbyists contribution to the shift to Commercial Crew by Congress that I've focused on. Pence: "NASA must transform itself..." | |
| May 18, 2022 at 2:41 | comment | added | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | I added it, but could only paraphrase the lobbying part which was really wittily phrased. Thought I had as Kindle, but I guess I either got it from the library or had the dead tree version. Good book, if dated. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 2:39 | history | edited | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 462 characters in body
|
| May 18, 2022 at 2:37 | comment | added | uhoh | That reference sounds particularly interesting and relevant, I'm looking forward to it! | |
| May 18, 2022 at 2:32 | comment | added | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | Gotta find the book reference but I read one by one of the engineers of one of the space telescopes. He stated that his team and its research supporters, which took 17 yrs to launch, were consistently outlobbied by the Shuttle's professional lobbyists. As to my answer, a big part of it is re-framing the attribution to Trump's administration. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 2:24 | history | edited | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
deleted 24 characters in body
|
| May 18, 2022 at 2:24 | comment | added | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | The exact program names, and target dates, matter less than manned-back-to-the-Moon-pronto and that initiative was launched in 2004. I am sure there is plenty of lobbying keeping this thing alive. | |
| May 18, 2022 at 2:13 | history | answered | Italian Philosophers 4 Monica | CC BY-SA 4.0 |