Promises From Candidate Obama Different From Actions Of President Obama

By Wes Oleszewski

A few days ago my seven-year-old daughter was deep into a book about exploration of the moon. When she asked me about some of the pictures, the book attracted my attention because it featured several unique photos from Apollos 15, 16 and 17. Most kid’s books simply re-hash the same old Apollo 11 and 12 images. I answered her questions, pointed out a couple of glaring errors in the text and then told her that when I was a boy I sat in front of my TV and watched those guys walking on the moon as it happened. Her eyes widened. I asked if she would like to see the astronauts walking on the moon on TV? She excitedly exclaimed “Yeaaaaah.”

Hustling to my office I plucked my Apollo 16, Spacecraft Films DVD set from the shelf. Since she was reading about rocks and boulders I decided to show her EVA 3, Station 11 and the “house rock” at North Ray crater. For those of you unfamiliar with that moment in history, it was an event that dramatically demonstrated what lunar “Exploration” was really all about as well as what we humans did and did not realize about the lunar environment. Astronauts John Young and Charlie Duke had stopped at a designated “station” to do some sampling. While there, what appeared to be a fair sized boulder a short distance away caught Duke’s attention and the two decided to stroll over and sample it. To understand what happened next, you must understand one simple fact about depth perception on the moon… for the most part, there is none. You see, in the earth’s atmosphere, even on the clearest of days, there is always some sort of particulate floating around that causes haze to some degree. Our eyes look through that haze and our brain is hard-wired to interpret that information and judge depth and distance. Although this is not the only component in depth perception, it is a major component. On the moon, there is no atmosphere and thus no haze and the human brain is simply not hard-wired to compensate- so a very large object far away can appear as a smaller object close by. What Young and Duke did not realize was that the rock they were headed for was the size of a three story house and nearly a city block away. As the two astronauts bounced off toward the rock, they appeared to shrink and the rock appeared to grow as the viewer’s brain began to reconcile the image on the TV. I saw the same look of amazement on my daughter’s face that I must have had on mine in 1972, watching as the event actually took place. Afterward she went back to her book about the moon with a new outlook.

After a short time she asked, “Daddy, when are they going to the moon again?”

For me, as a parent, that was a painful question to respond to. After all, in our household things like science, math, aviation and spaceflight hold a stature that most households reserve for sports teams. When my kids ask about the weather they get answers that delve toward the physics and actual science behind the movement of the atmosphere. When they ask why toast gets brown, they get an explanation that they can understand and carry around as to how that happens. They get the truth of the situation and not some pop-culture fluff. So, why should I hold back about why the United States is no longer going to return to the moon? I answered factually.

“No, sweety… we’re not going back to the moon.”
“Why?” she enquired as any seven-year-old would.
“Because President Barack Obama canceled the program.” I responded.
“But, you said I could go to the moon someday.” She said as she thumbed through her book of lunar surface photos.

What I saw unfolding before me was an up close and personal result of what will soon prove to be one of the greatest failures of leadership in United States history. It is one result of a deliberate bait-and-switch tactic whose only goal was the election of a president. You see, the same person who canceled the chance of my daughter one day walking on the lunar surface, got himself elected by promising to do exactly the opposite.

Nine days prior to the 2008 Democrat Convention, where the party’s candidate would be selected, the Barack Obama 2008 campaign published a paper titled, “Barack Obama: Advancing the Frontiers of Space Exploration” It outlined what, if elected, candidate Obama would do about the nation’s space program.  Although at the time of the paper’s publication Obama was seen as a shoe-in for the position of presidential candidate, an earlier statement made by him was seen as a trouble spot. Back in January of 2008 Obama made a classic politician’s mistake by actually telling the truth in public. When speaking about NASA and the Bush proposed Constellation Program to return to the moon, he stated that he would delay the program by five years and take that money and give it to education. That anti-space program sentiment ruffled more than a few feathers in the state of Florida where, at the time, spaceflight was a major employer and Constellation was geared up to take the place of the retiring Space Shuttle and take in a large portions of the people working on the shuttle. Obama’s “delay” would cost thousands of jobs and his remark could cost him both Florida and the election. So, as the likelihood of an Obama candidacy loomed large, the campaign was not taking any chances with Florida. They needed a cleverly worded policy statement that completely covered-up the candidate’s actual intentions. Then, once elected, he could do whatever he wanted with the space program and it would cost him little more than additional cover-ups. It was a clever bait and switch scam similar to those used for years by unscrupulous retailers and politicians alike- the only difference being that retailers can go to jail for doing it.

In the first paragraph of the “bait” paper the Obama campaign calls for “A robust and balanced program of space exploration and scientific discovery.” Let’s take some time and cherry-pick some ripe statements from the paper. To begin with it states “Barack Obama believes the United States should maintain its international leadership in space while at the same time inspiring a new generation of Americans to dream beyond the horizon.” Funny… I did not see such inspiration in the eyes of my seven-year-old when I told her that our return to the moon had been canceled by President Obama.

In the second paragraph of the “bait” paper the title is “The Challenge” and the Obama campaign accurately points out that “…the Bush Administration set and ambitious agenda for NASA, (The VSE and Constellation Program) but has since failed to provide adequate funding or leadership to move forward…” Indeed, although Constellation was fully and adequately funded by two Congresses, the Bush Office of Management and Budget (OMB) elected to short NASA nearly $3 billion every year from 2005 to 2008. You see, OMB cannot award more to an agency than Congress appropriates, but under the direction of the president they can award less. It is a slick way of cutting an agency’s budget in a nearly silent manner that was first used by Richard Nixon. Thus, the paper indicates that Obama saw this as a major funding issue- but what would he do about it? Well after the Obama Administration took power, his own OMB did nothing to restore the annual near $3 billion shortfall imposed on NASA by the Bush OMB. In other words, Obama’s response to Bush’s failure “…to provide adequate funding or leadership to move forward.” was to fail on an equal level.

Another answer to the NASA’s problems came in the “A Comprehensive Vision” portion of the “bait” paper. There Obama states that when elected he “…will reestablish…” the National Aeronautics and Space Council which advised presidents on the space program from1958 to 1973. Great idea, however, as of this writing some two and one half years into the Obama Presidency, NOTHING has been done in that direction. In fact, in the administration’s last official document released on the subject of “National Space Policy” in June of 2010, no mention of the reformation of the council was made. Does anyone reading this think that we’ll see the council formed before the end of the Obama Presidency? Anyone?... hands… anyone?

Of course the largest bait in the “bait” paper comes in the section titled “The Gap.” As the Bush OMB was short-changing NASA’s funding, the Congress was imposing a couple of protracted Continuing Resolutions which delayed funding and caused even greater delays in the future development of the Constellation Program. Such delays created a rapidly growing “gap” between the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the operational beginning of Constellation hardware. As the Apollo/Shuttle gap showed, even a short gap between programs causes the rapid loss of skilled spaceflight workers, and once those workers depart for other jobs, the rarely come back to spaceflight. Additionally, in order for United States personnel to get to the International Space Station, which $100 billion American tax dollars paid to build, NASA decided they would rent seats on the Russian Soyuz. Such seats originally cost from $51 to $55 million each, but as the actual gap drew closer our Russian “partners” saw fit to raise the price to $64 million per seat. (It is interesting to point out by the way that the Russians fly tourists to the ISS for just $22 million per seat.) The “bait” paper states that, “Barack Obama is committed to the necessary INVESTMENTS to ensure we close this gap as much as technically feasible and to minimize the reliance on foreign capabilities.” By now we all know what Obama means by the word “Investments” and it is not a reference to buying stock. “Investments” translates into Federal dollars. However, when President Obama drew a line through the Constellation program he, in fact, extended the gap from an estimated five years to- indefinitely. He thus also extended “…the reliance on foreign capabilities.” by the same factor. Additionally, his “ObamaSpace” FY2011 budget proposed taking nearly all of the “investments” in manned spaceflight and handing them over to selected private companies and so by doing that he proposed to effectively deleted the “investments” for ALL manned space exploration.

Continuing, the “bait” paper also states in the same paragraph noted above that: “He will also work with the space industry to ensure that retention of workforce and technical capabilities during the transition from the shuttle to its successor.” Yeah… just ask the thousands of workers laid off at KSC how ensured they feel right now. Then drive around the space coast and talk to the thousands of small business owners who depend on that workforce and will be going under post-shuttle. Remember- it is a vulgar play on words to say that we spend money in space. Not one dollar has ever been spent IN space. It is all spent here on the ground and it soaks back into the US economy.

Following that paragraph in the “bait” paper the Obama campaign lists four bullet points that the candidate will do.

• “Retain options for additional shuttle flights.” (Note the plural “flights” yet the following fine-print text details just a single flight. With Obama, reading the fine print is critical,) Rather than canceling that additional shuttle flight- Obama stood silent ( or voted “present”) while the single additional flight was scheduled and funded by the Congress and somehow got past the Obama OMB- so from the Obama perspective, he kept this promise.
• “Speeding the next generation vehicle.” Obama canceled all of the next generation vehicles that were in work at NASA when this paper was written. It took Congress to over-ride Obama and re-instate the Orion MPCV and push into development the SLS launch vehicle in place of the Ares vehicles that he canceled.
• “Using the private sector.” He kept this promise- in fact he attempted to “use” the private sector to castrate NASA’s entire human spaceflight program. Again, Congress stepped in and moderated the Obama agenda.
• “Working with international allies.” Here it states that Obama will enlist the help of the international partners to support the ISS. This, of course, happened by default when his cancelation of the Ares launch vehicles left the United States with zero capability to go into space once the shuttle was retired.

Jumping ahead a bit we find the “Embracing Human Space Exploration” section of the “bait” paper. It states that “Human spaceflight is important to America’s political, economic, technological and scientific leadership.” Sounds pretty good until you look into the future where Obama has United States astronauts riding Soyuz for an undefined time at $64 million or more per seat. The text goes on to state that Barack Obama “…endorses the goal of sending human missions to the moon by 2020 as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars.” He canceled that.

Where I come from, when someone tells you they are going to do one thing while fully intending to do the opposite, we have a traditional word for that act- we call it “lying.”

Like all political papers the “bait” paper rambles on and on, however, the sections that most applied to my daughter’s disappointment are all that I have elected to highlight here. The common retort to what I have presented is normally “Well, all politicians make promises they don’t keep.” That is true, but this one goes beyond the chicken in every pot bloviating. This paper, in contrast to his “delay Constellation for five years and give that money to education” statement added to what he has done while in office to date demonstrates a clear and systematic effort to deceive voters who, unlike the candidate himself, have a clear concern and interest in United States human spaceflight and manned exploration beyond earth orbit. In short- he lied to help get elected. Worse than that, he later took the heart that has pumped new technology and innovation into American society for over a half century and cut it out without a second thought.

Look past the wall of static currently being produced by the Obama Administration’s operatives who lecture, who do the talking head bit, who blog and who actually spend their entire workday surfing the Internet looking for editorials like this to respond to. These people expertly toss out a lot of circle talk about “can’t-do” and “someday in the future” and point toward completely undefined "game changing" and "path breaking" technologies garnished with the glories private space companies all of whom have never had a manned launch. Look, instead, directly at the person in charge, the one individual who made the decision to stop this nation from returning to the moon in your lifetime.

Just as JFK will go down in history as being the one individual who directed the United States to the moon, Barack Obama, who was elected by way of some of the greatest bait and switch sales jobs in US History, has directed that our children will wilt in an America withering into a technological third world nation rather than aspiring to walk on the lunar surface. One wonders if his campaign had stuck to the truth- that if elected he would cancel United States human space exploration- would he have been placed in the position to do so by the voting public?

FMI: www.whitehouse.gov, www.nasa.gov