🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <82350@ut-emx.uucp> wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Patrick Chester) writes:

>=                    STATEMENT BY SENATOR AL GORE
>=                     Goddard Space Flight Center
>=                       Monday, October 19, 1992

>Gore butters up spaceflight enthusiasts, flem at eleven.

Actually, Gore is buttering up Shuttle enthusiasts. In the first part of
his speech he talks about reducing the cost to orbit but when you get to
where he plans to spend the money, it's all for Shuttle. There will be
no money for cutting costs but plenty of pork.

>= I'm talking from first-hand experience.  As Chairman of the Senate
>= subcommittee that writes NASA's authorization bill, I have battled
>= every year with the Administration on priorities in aerospace.

>What is his REAL record? Anyone? Back to our sound bite.

Not good. Gore was at the forfront of people working to protect Truly
when he was fired. His efforts on his sucommittee shows that he simply
doesn't care about space very much (asside from Mission to Planet Earth.

>Maybe NASA's budget should be increased a bit more. At least cut the pork from
>all of their projects.

From Gore's statements and actions one must conclude that he opposes 'better,
cheaper, faster' and therefore won't increase budget or reduce pork.

>=      Right to the point, Dan Quayle and the National Space Council
>= have failed to act decisively on the issue of developing a new rocket
>= program.  The blame must lie squarely at their feet.

>He may have a point here.

Quayle and the Space Council have shown tremendous leadership on new
launch programs. SSTO for example, wouldn't have happened without the
personal interest of VP Quayle.

Gore doesn't have a point here.

>=      As proposed by the Space Council, the U.S has been actively
>= attempting to develop not one, not two, but three -- yes, three new,
>= costly, and technically complex orbital launch systems:  

First, Gore shows here that he simply doesn't understand science or
engineering all that well. If he did he would know that the best way
to cut costs is to fund several efforts.

Second, all together I agree that NLS is a bad idea we could develop
ALL these ideas for about 15% of NASA's budget. Given that this is
the sort of research NASA is chartered to do, it hardly seems costly.

>= Plane, and the Single Stage Rocket Technology program, which still
>= has no price tag.

>Allen, could you enlighten everybody to the Delta Clipper's price, please?

DC-Y should cost $2 to $4 billion with another billion or so needed beyond
that to take to market. Over four years it is hard to see why Gore
could possibly consider this costly.

>= even given the fact that the Space Plane and the Single Stage
>= Technology program may provide significant benefits only in the
>= long-term future.

>I don't know about the NSP, but DC-X is going to be test-flown in a few months.
>Guess long-term to Gore is anything longer than 4 years.

NASP is a long term research effort. It's a pity that Gore considers long
term research a bad idea.

SSRT is a moderate risk high payoff project which, if it works, will
reduce costs by an order of magnitude during a Clinton administration.

>=      The findings of the Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S.
>= Space Program, the so-called "Augustine Committee", offer a good road
>= map.  

Which is very strange. The number one recommendation of the Advisory
Committee was that a Heavy Lift Vehicle (which he opposed above)
should be the highest priority for NASA.

>My main bitch about waiting for manned exploration is that we've *been* waiting
>for nearly 20 yrs to start. At least let us return to the Moon, dammit.

Any you will continue to wait under Clinton.

If you loved NASA under Truly, your going to love the next 4 years.

   Allen

-- 
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allen W. Sherzer | "A great man is one who does nothing but leaves        |
|  aws@iti.org     |  nothing undone"                                       |
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