Pigs in Space
London, Josh
34 ~o t, ~:~'rl ~ c 1 2 o o o , The American S~ectator 1) i i n he laws of government, like the laws of physics, apply everywhere-whether on earth or in the dark reaches of outer space. When...
...Through NASA, it is said, the nation can invest in its future...
...Another reason is that space research itself is far more cost effective when done 36 November 2000 _9 The American Spectator by satellites and unmanned probes-- most of which can be consistently demonstrated that the phenomenon does not exist...
...Its goal, as expanded by Vice President Al Gore, is Federal bureaucracies swallow taxpayer money whole...
...The GaAs wafer vation of the physiological effects of space...
...NASA's two most significant projects-the shuttle and the space station-serve to illustrate...
...When President Eisenhower created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on July 29,1958 , it was a shining testament to the power and grandeur of big government in its infancy...
...And, like all federal bodies, NASA survives JOSH LONDON iS deputy editor of The American Spectator...
...Well, it was October z9, 1998, when John Glenn was shot back into space...
...In the 31 years since then, NASA has made fantastic progress...
...Yet NASA isn't exactly a stepping stone to technological advancement...
...Most NASA employees can read, write, and do sums rather well...
...Outer space is a place of numerical extremes...
...True, there are some basic differences...
...Florida, Texas, and Alabama were already locked in because much of the station work would be done within their borders...
...The American Spectator _9 ~o v r ~ b e ~ 2 o o o 35 by offering valuable pork to Congress-considering that it started with , rocket launches in one state (Florida) and "mission control" in another (Texas), NASA was seemingly created in a porkbarrel...
...Even Congress couldn't ignore such waste-- at first-- and the project was slated for termination...
...and that's just using NASA's figures...
...The pork was sufficiently succulent to change congressional minds: In 1994, the space station's onevote margin became a hefty 123-vote margin...
...The distances it spans and the amounts of money required to explore it are both measured in digits that make the eyes spin like a slot machine...
...NASA was conhave much data on this from Russia's Mir space station-- vinced that a superior GaAs wafer could be produced in space-though even if we didn't one wonders if it would be worth close the zero-gravity would promote a nearly perfect crystal stnlcture...
...Nothing but plans...
...NASA even sacrificed planned biological experiments on the station itself to compensate for cost overruns in building the station...
...The pro-NASA response-patter is bound tightly with notions of real scientific and technological progress...
...But while the universe expands at a steady, predictable rate, space budgets have an unnerving tendency to inflate suddenly and dramatically...
...In recent years, however, NASA has spread the money to 67 other prime contractors and 35 major subcontractors in 22 states...
...rial and intellectual resources...
...component of the International Space Station becomes upwards of $96 billion, says the General Accounting Office...
...But until there is a return on our Or take the "Mission to Planet Earth...
...MTPE was initially investments into NASA, space exploration won't produce any established by President Bush in an effort to appease environ- new knowledge, only expensive demonstrations of old truths: mentalists...
...The Space Shuttle In 1972, as the Apollo program came to a close, NASA sold the shuttle program as a way to establish routine, low-cost, reliable access to space...
...4 billion...
...spending--not including the $1o billion that was thrown away during the first eight years of the space station project--would not exceed $17...
...Which is one reason why many American scientists oppose the space station...
...But NASA's primary unofficial purpose, like all federal bodies, is to keep its staff employed...
...In effect, NASA offered Congress a jobs and pork bonanza...
...Indeed, Yuri Koptev, the head of the Russian space agency, is deeply involved in Iran's nuclear weapons program...
...launched for the price of a single space-station resupply mission Project cost: $33 billion over 25 years...
...Instead of Expendable Launch Vehicles that burned up after take off, Reusable Launch Vehicles could be used again and again, and save money...
...So it is with NASA...
...As the special presidential advisory commis- So NASA spent a whopping $2...
...The Clinton administration promised that U.S...
...Wasteful and inefficient, with no clear mission, NASA has become just one more massive federal bureaucracy-HUD with booster rockets...
...According to T.J...
...Iran is also known to be working on a 1,zoo-mile missile, the Shahab IV...
...While the funding for Koptev's Iranian activities is unclear, AI Gore has helped subsidize Koptev's space programs with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars...
...In 1993, President Clinton ordered ~ NASA to design a less expensive station that could include Russia as a cost-shar- ~.~:~ ing partner...
...All this despite the fact that NASA's satellite data has of its labor into space...
...Alex Rowland, formerly a NASA historian but now a history professor at Duke University, calculates that, once the development and capital costs of the shuttle are factored in, the actual per-pound cost is $35,ooo...
...Iran's Russian-built Shahab III missile, a renamed North Korean Nodong with a range of 800 miles, was successfully tested in July...
...But NASA was handed a gift: the collapse of the Soviet ~: Union...
...The space agency's first "big hit" was in February 1962 when John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth...
...Why spend "simply ludicrous...
...NASA is somewhat smaller, and HUD isn't rocket science...
...In June 1993 a proposal to cut offfunding for the station lost by only one vote: 216 to 215 . So NASA did what any good government agency would do: It sat down to reinvent and restruct~lre, from head to toe, its lobbying efforts...
...to $1oo billion...
...By 1999, the margin of victory was secure: 245 votes for pigs in space...
...But include the cost of Russian holdups (repairing and updating aging equipment) and bailouts (much of which the Russians cannot account for) and the cost comes closer to $25 billion...
...So over the next eight years NASA went to work, spending $1o billion and producing.., nothing...
...1 111~ ~(,)51...
...Vd~ HI)OH[ 1991, "We do not believe that the space station...can be -'-" ~ $1oo million per wafer versus the Ssoo per justified solely on the basis of the [non-biological] science ~ ~ ~ GaAs wafer cost of the conventional terresit can perform, much of which can be ~ ~ .:~;,~P~ trial variety--not much of a commercial conducted on Earth or by unmanned ~ ~ _ : , ~r162 Pw" i_mprovement...
...When governmental bodies are funded without strict measurable objectives and deadlines, the result will be waste, pork, corruption, and incompetence...
...Initially named "Freedom," the American space station was to measure 500 feet, cost a mere $8 billion, and be launched and ready for activity by 1992...
...It was, as Rodgers put it, redundant zero-gravity fluid control experiments...
...As Albert Wheelon, a former executive at Hughes Aircraft and member of the 1993 presidential space station commission, summed it up: "The [space station] is now just a jobs program...
...Not surprisingly the congressional delegations of all three states were unanimous in their support...
...The make-work nature of t the decision was so transparent that it ~ ~ barely escaped the gravity of congressional objection...
...Concerned that the defense ~ 1 ~ industry would wither in recession after post-Cold War cutbacks, Congress turned to the International Space Station as the aeronautics contractors' way station...
...Add the expected two decades of expensive consulting and repair work and the total price tag for the U.S...
...J o s h London The American Spectator _9 No v e m b e r 2 o o o 37...
...In this to prove the existence of global warming by having a dozen respect, NASA is better than federal agencies like HUD: At satellites hovering around the planet taking the earth's tem- least NASA, at the end of the day, shoots the feeble, feckless fruits perature...
...What value is there in -~::--~al~lb nine hypothesis...
...maker in the country), since the GaAs computer neglected to mention that some of NASA's ~ ~ chip manufacturing process entails destroying experimenting in space is fairly worthless science to _9 ' ! ~ and rebuilding the GaAs crystal, NASAs begin with: What does it matter whether spiders spin k / " ~ experiment was based on an entirely asitheir webs differently in zero gravity...
...And we already is used in producing the GaAs computer chip...
...Allowing the pedestrian facts of economics and politics to hinder space exploration, however, tends to ruffle feathers at NASA...
...Clearly the pursuit of knowledge is slipping down this project's priority list...
...international Space Station As it became increasingly obvious that the shuttle program was a commercial bust, NASA needed a mission to justify the shuttie's--and not inconsequentially their own--continued existence...
...The station's primary contractor is Boeing, with offices in Seattle, Houston, and Huntsville, Alabama...
...Thus, the quest for a new space station...
...Indeed, its most recent achievement was...
...It promised to create a "procurement constituency" of 4o states...
...Already NASA has sacrificed planned scientific shuttle and satellite projects in order to throw more resources at the International Space Station--a triumph of public relations and polities over hard science, particularly since the space station is so scientifically unnecessary...
...And this is only an estimate...
...In other words, the cost of one shuttle flight is not $35 ~ million as NASA claims, but much closer to $2 billion...
...Its next big success, indeed NASA's crowning achievement, was the first manned lunar landing on July zo, 1969...
...Due to this Russian assistance, Iran now has a credible threat against close targets like Israel...
...Something seems amiss...
...Rodgers, CEO'" robots' . ~'Z~ : : ~k : ~ of Cypress Semiconductor (the largest GaAs chip h lrm n of the commissi . rj,jj~" ~ ~ , The c a" a on...
...The CIA's National Intelligence Officer for Strategic and Nuclear Programs, Robert Walpole, recently told Congress that Iran's missile program is "the largest in the Middle East" and rivals that of North Korea...
...Though China and North Korea have also been aiding Iran, Russia has taken the lead...
...About the only research Typical of NASA's scientific experiments is the gallium the International Space Station will excel in is long-term obser- arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor wafer project...
...And that doesn't include the additional $15 billion to $20 billion for shutfie flights to ferry the station's parts out to space...
...The answer lies in the simple, commonplace, and lamentable fact that NASA is today as much a federal bureaucracy as the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD...
...Thanks to the "cost saving" Reusable Launch Vehicles, the price tag of hefting a pound of payload into space has increased from $3,8oo in the 196o's to $6,ooo (in constant dollars...
...hundreds of millions of dollars discovering the effects of The quest for knowledge will always challenge man's mateweightlessness on an aged John Glenn...
...5 billion on five shuttle flights to ~ I L I I I 5GL t O E'V;-IIU;'IL~ IN/3..D/~ - b bpiiL:U bLdULIII [ J l d l l bl.dtC:Ll 111 111;'11~.~ I I V I : k~'i:t-/'k~ ~Vi:tlGIS...
Vol. 33 • November 2000 • No. 9
