June 20, 2010
by: David Williams

Government WasteWatch, Spring 2010

Virginia has received a great deal of national attention recently for passing a law that protects its citizens from government mandates to buy health insurance. Virginia has also received attention for suing the federal government over the newly passed federal health care act, which directly conflicts with the commonwealth’s new law.

Many citizens have asked how the attorney general can sue over this conflict when the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause usually allows federal law to trump state law. Others have asked, if the state government mandates that we buy auto insurance, why can’t the federal government mandate that we buy health insurance?

The answer to the first question is: if a federal law is proved unconstitutional while a conflicting state law is constitutional, the state law will prevail. We in the attorney general’s office feel that the new federal individual mandate – the requirement that everyone be forced to buy government-approved health insurance by 2014 or face fines – is unconstitutional.

Many young boys and girls look to the heavens and dream of being an astronaut. It is exciting to think about space travel and exploration. As people get older the dream slowly fades away, but the fascination with space remains, along with sobering realization that travelling to the moon and space exploration cost billions of dollars.

Since 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been America’s space agency. According to NASA’s website, “NASA has accomplished many great scientific and technological feats in air and space.” There is no disputing that, but given the country’s current fiscal conditions, 2010 is the time to reevaluate NASA’s missions and budget.

A program that is increasingly becoming a symbol of the “old” NASA and what the “new” NASA needs to become is the Constellation program, which was initiated under President Bush with the goal of putting a man on the moon by 2020. Unfortunately, Constellation turned into yet another ill-conceived government program suffering from all too familiar runaway costs, as detailed in CAGW’s Issue Brief, NASA’s Constellation Program: To Fly or Not to Fly.

The programmatic, technical and financial problems with Constellation have been extensively documented by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the recent blue-ribbon Augustine Commission led by former aerospace executive Norm Augustine.

The CBO warned in April, 2009 that “if NASA’s funding was increased to about $21.1 billion annually, the agency would be able to meet its planned schedules for the Constellation program even if cost growth was consistent with the average for past programs. But that amount of funding would not permit NASA to fly the space shuttle beyond 2010 or to support the space station beyond 2015. Moreover, under this budgetary scenario, 15 of the planned science missions would be delayed past 2025.”

According to a September 8, 2009 article on universetoday.com, the Augustine Commission found that, “ any human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit is not viable with the money NASA is expected to receive under the budget for 2010 and beyond. The Augustine Commission proposed several different options for NASA’s future path, which highlighted working closely with other countries and commercial spaceflight companies, as well as extending the life of the space shuttle through 2011. But NASA is on an ‘unsustainable trajectory,’ and going to the Moon or Mars is not possible on the current level of funding… The only way the US could conduct a ‘meaningful’ human spaceflight program would be by adding at least $3 billion annually to NASA’s budget.”

According to an August 2009, GAO report, “NASA estimates that Ares I and Orion represent up to $49 billion of the over $97 billion estimated to be spent on the Constellation program through 2020. While the agency has already obligated more than $10 billion in contracts, at this point NASA does not know how much Ares I and Orion will ultimately cost, and will not know until technical and design challenges have been addressed.” More importantly, NASA seems to have a flexible deadline that has put the program behind schedule, costing more money.

On March 9, 2010, the Washington Post reported that President Obama’s 2011 budget request would nix Constellation’s rocket and crew capsule. Like all Americans, NASA is facing a new economic reality that requires figuring out how to do more with less. On April 15, 2010, President Obama elaborated on his plan to re-direct the savings into a five-year plan to accelerate NASA’s innovation. The program would include a stripped-down version of the Constellation program as a lifeboat for the space station. The President also plans to use some funds to help protect workers who might lose their jobs when eventually these Space Shuttles are no longer in service.

President Obama also stressed that private-sector involvement should be maximized as much as possible to decrease the burden on taxpayers. Specifically, the President is proposing that NASA go to private companies to take over launch duties. This will provide more accountability and incentives for a private company to develop and build private launch facilities. Unlike 1958, there are a number of commercial companies chomping at the bit to provide these services, such as Boeing and Lockheed’s joint venture called the United Launch Alliance (or ULA), Space Exploration Technologies (or SpaceX), and Orbital Sciences. The ULA’s Atlas launch vehicle has more than 80 consecutive successful launches, having safely carried satellites that are critical to homeland security and protecting our troops overseas.

The United States has not made it a priority to visit the moon since 1972, but has continuously been committed to the program. Newspoi.com reported on April 15, 2010 that while the mission won’t be getting off soon, “many felt that it would be a show of power.” However, other countries that have had the opportunity to develop their space programs have not done so. Newspoi.com also noted that President Obama battled these criticisms when he stated that “nobody is more committed to manned space flight, to human exploration of space, than I am,” adding “but we’ve got to do it in a smart way, and we can’t keep doing the same things we’ve been doing.”

This country is at a defining moment in American space exploration. At the end of 2010, there will be no American-made spacecraft capable of delivering astronauts to space and no amount of debate within Congress or the media is going to change that. In fact, every month the government delays moving forward with an alternative is another month taxpayers will be footing the bill to pay a foreign country for a capability pioneered by the U.S..

Increasing the use of the nation’s commercial industry is something the Bush Administration pioneered and Congress has long-supported, but never fully embraced. Relying on American private enterprise and ingenuity to return astronauts to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station will allow NASA to devote its limited human exploration dollars to going to Mars, which should be the destination for human space flight efforts. This approach recognizes that the proper role of government is investing in long-range research and development, not competing with the private sector for services that they can provide much more efficiently and economically.

Boys, girls, and all Americans can still dream about exploring space, but it is past time to rethink how it is done.