Sent to Howard Bloom this morning, in response to his message (see below) that SLS, the core of the NASA program today is...
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You are very right that SLS is a farce and a crisis. At some level Trump became aware of that, and his new space force efforts were the first serious hope in ages of the kind of breakthrough we would need for space politics to be more than futile BS, playing into the hands of those whose supreme goal is to steal more taxpayer money for nonproductive makework.
But Trump has a problem. How do you get ANYTHING done when all the competent people you know (aside from your daughter) are either the real leaders of the swamp or unreliable tricksters?
Following the advice of swamp creatures very close to him, he picked mike griffin to run the new dod space technology push, and a wide range of other things. Griffin is very highly trusted and recommended by folks like Senator Shelby, not because of technical depth and leadership but because of loyalty and reliability. Where did he prove these things and who is he really loyal to? None of the swamp monsters close to Trump told him: it is because of how he followed orders to the letter for Shelby in the 90 day study which emasculated Bush's push to return to the moon. If trump had picked former major general james armor to lead the space force effort, pulling him back into government and insisting he break with atk, I might still be optimistic, but under griffin i am very pessimistic, and i now have no channels to inform him and test whether he really wants results.
I am leaving the country for a couple of months now, for quick brief turnaround in November. (A DOD person has agreed to use our small but conveniently located house somewhat in the meantime.) This morning i have internet access, but i can only guess where I might have a little access between now and november 17. This problem is huge, but is only tip of a bigger iceberg.
The sad truth is that Musk is not the answer either.
In the years when NSF let me fund advanced hypersonics research, the old NSF system let me dig deep and find out what is really going on at a technical level, and get past all the BS and spin game dreams and propaganda. Truth and realistic advanced tech are a lot of work, requiring a dedication to truth, and Lamar Smith (Shelby ally) put an end to the old way of doing business, without which the US will never recover. In some areas, like antisatellite weapons, AI, batteries and quantum technology, China is moving so fast so far ahead of us that guys like Griffin cannot even see it (and wouldn't tell Trump how bad it REALLY is anyway ). But for space launch they rely on less competent parts of their own large nation, and i see little likelihood of similar breakthroughs, from them or from Musk.
But: it is out of my hands now, as I literally sail off into the sunset.
Best of luck. We all need it.
On Sun, Jul 29, 2018, 6:30 PM Howard Bloom <howlbloom@aol.com> wrote:
To: Howard Bloom <howlbloom@aol.com>
Sent: Sun, Jul 29, 2018 5:58 am
Subject: The Space Review: SLS: to be or not to be, or to be something else entirely
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3429/1
SLS: to be or not to be, or to be something else entirely
by Dick Eagleson
Monday, February 12, 2018
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