[extropy-chat] Bush's Schedule for NASA

[Harvey Newstrom]

Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> On Wed, 14 Jan 2004, Mike Lorrey wrote:
> 
> > --- Harvey Newstrom <mail at harveynewstrom.com> wrote:
> > > Here is the schedule for Bush's plan for NASA:
> > >
> > > 2004-2004	Divert $11B from other funded NASA projects
> 
> Harvey -- are you sure?  First they can't use $11B this year. 
> Second isn't the 2004 budget already approved?  Third isn't 
> NASA getting some savings until the Shuttles are ready to fly 
> again?  Is the ...-2004 a typo?

Sorry this isn't clear.  I didn't mean they spend the $11B this year.  I
meant the President is calling for an immediate stop to unrelated missions
pretty much immediate, so those funds are reallocated this year.  The actual
spending gets spread over five years.

> > > 2010-2015	Period where US has no vehicles that reach space station
> 
> I'm not sure this is true -- I think they are planning on 
> using European & Russian vehicles to get there and it looked 
> to me like they were going to start testing the new capsule 
> by ~2008.  Perhaps not human rated -- but 4 years given the 
> base we have to build on doesn't seem *that* difficult.

Right.  We will be using European and Russian vehicles.  The US won't have
vehicles that can reach there for at least three years and maybe for five
years.

> And all of these are *long* past the end-point for G.W.B. 
> political machinations so their probability of remaining 
> "cast in stone" probably approaches zero as each subsequent 
> president decides to put his or her stamp on them.

This is very true.  All of the project cancellations, budget diversions and
new funding occur during the second Bush administration (if he is
reelected).  But there are no actual milestones until after Bush is long
gone.  It is not clear if he isn't interested in the milestones, or has
unstated milestones for the earlier years.  There will be a lot of overlap
between the early development and military uses.  Since the only budget
increases Bush has done are for the military and homeland defense, some
people are speculating that this is part of the same pattern.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>