NASA - LEO ain't going to cut it no more...

If I were President (Part I – NASA)

Bringing to you an sporadic and unorganized series of rantings on what would happen under the benevolent Crazed American Administration.

Part I: NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Many times I ask myself, what happened to American Leadership in all things technological? First and foremost, I refer to you to the glorious NASA – under whose Administration, has seen America’s Exploration ability wane to the point of insignificance. We are a nation, founded by explorers, yet we have nothing to explore. There is a boundless frontier that’s only one hundred miles way, and all that stands between us and it is gravity and a will to do it. American priorities are just not where they need to be to see us “boldly go”. Dammit – we should “boldly go” and with a quickness!


My speech to the American People:

Disembodied voice of Announcer: Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States, the Crazed American.

My fellow Americans.

As this Administration is of the mind that without a challenging frontier, any nation, any empire is doomed to stagnation and decadence. Since my predecessors somehow let the whole world, from crazy Islamo-Nazis to goatherding peasants aquire all sorts of thermonuclear goodies, it is obvious that we can’t throw our ruck onto the back of the nearest tank and head on out a conquering. That’s too bad, because the commute wouldn’t be as bad.

Since the uncharted depths of space are, to the best of our knowledge, sparsely populated, and even then only by bacteria, and the bacteria lobby doesn’t give much money to any re-election campaigns, I say we get our sorry, monkey selves on out into the ol’ inky blackness of space.

To that end, my challenge to NASA: you have exactly one Earth Year, that’s 364.25 Earth days, to put American men and women back on the Moon. One Year to set up a polar station on the moon. Get hopping. It took America’s finest minds under ten years to do it back in the 1960’s and they did it with slide rules. I have more computational power in my cell phone than all of the aerospace industry combined did, back in the sixties. Were people back then smarter than we are today? Hells no. Time to get cracking. The immediate goal of this initial Lunar mission will be to set up and begin transmission of solar power back to Earth within one year of establishment of the new lunar base. Proceeds from this power generation will go directly into NASA’s budget. Estimates are that in the space of five to ten years solar power production and lunar mineral production could mean that NASA could turn a profit in less than ten years. This power production would also mean that there would be a lessening reliance on polluting power sources. That’s the carrot.

Now for the stick, and a mighty bad one it is indeed. NASA will not be given an additional dime of taxpayer money. NASA’s budget, while not a large fraction of the Federal Budget, is still sufficiently large to accomplish the tasks with the right management and attitude. Excuses will not be acceptable, results are expected. If the landing target date is missed, I will immediately dissolve the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, set up a new National Council of Astronautics and begin the privatization of the American Space Industry. Appropriate space access and heavy lift boosters and launch and regeneration facilities will be retained by the United States Air Force. Everything else, will be auctioned off to private sector corporations with American or Allied ownership. The ways of the past were not set in stone. The present way NASA is doing things, in my opinion, do not adequately further the national interest.

In the coming year we will welcome the partnership of our partners in previous space adventures, but like certain adventures that this country has taken in the past, allow me to say that we are going, with or without you, we are going. We’d like to have company on the trip – a share in the adventure, a share in the risk and a share in the rewards.

As Americans we will take this challenge, as we have challenges in the past, with a deadly seriousness that it deserves, but we look forward to the challenges that it represents. To my political opponents, who will undoubtedly accuse this challenge as being a waste of resources, I say to them, Take a group of poor, inner city school children and take them to the Kennedy Space center and allow them, for a minute to behold the sight of the mighty Saturn V. Then take a look at their faces. Our children are not inspired by everyday live. All children want to be Astronauts, want to explore, want to discover. Let us give them that. We won’t spend more than the previous administration did.

Employees of NASA, you had best start working like your jobs and livelihoods depended on it. You had better be ready to beg, borrow, and steal to get this mission accomplished. Your jobs and livelihood to depend on it.

This is not to say that you have been slacking off in the past, but it is time to put your culture of obsessive safety behind you. Low Earth Orbit has been the extent of Human Space Exploration for over forty years. In the immortal words of a role model of mine, “Risk is our business.” Safety is important and as Americans we do not cavalierly throw life away. I am sure we can continue our climb to the stars in a way that keeps our investments of blood and treasure secure. But the Astronaut Corps has never lacked for volunteers, and I believe strongly that even with a moderately higher risk, the line of people wanting to experience a ride on one of our Ares and Orion boosters will still be as long. If it was a priority for Presidents in the past to expend blood and treasure to achieve goals on earth, then the exploration and human colonization of our own satellite is a priority for this government. Our astronauts, as a representative of our people as a whole, are a brave lot. Ask them to give their lives, and if the cause is just, they will be ready to further the reaches of science and humanity itself. Ladies and gentlemen, we simply do this for the preservation of our race, the continuance of our people. If modern science has done nothing, it has gien us a glimpse of just how tenuous our existence on this blue green marble of a world is. If humanity is left to stagnate on our home world, even without the threats that exist from our own solar neighborhood, and without the challenges of a final frontier, we are doomed to a future of strife, draining and meaningless wars and mediocrity.

Many look to the days of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Programs as the golden age of American Space Exploration. I have to heartily disagree. I believe the golden age of American Space Exploration is in a chapter of the history of this country that has yet to be written, yet we are the authors.


I look forward to the challenges and adventure of the years to come.

Good night.