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ARRS VSE Negative 2.0

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1NC – Privatization Counterplan

CPPolitics Multilateral Coop DAEarth Science DACase

Text – The United States federal government should offer a twenty-five year tax exemption to private companies based in the United States that develop and deploy implementation strategies for the 2004 Vision for Space Exploration.

The counterplan is competitive, it solves the entire Aff, and it avoids politics Zimmerman 11 (Robert, is a well known and respected space historian and author.“Bad news for NASA, good news for private space” http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/bad-news-for-nasa-good-news-for-private-space) Earlier this week NASA submitted a report to Congress reviewing the design and construction status of the heavy-lift rocket and manned capsule that Congress has required them to build and launch by 2016. NASA’s conclusion: the space agency doesn’t think it can do the job in the schedule or budget that Congress has provided. NASA does not believe this goal is achievable based on a combination of the current funding profile estimate, traditional approaches to acquisitions and currently considered vehicle architectures. . . . We will not commit to a date that has a low probability of being achieved. NASA’s conclusions here are not surprising. The agency had been having trouble building Constellation on the much bigger budget and longer schedule given to them by past Congresses. For them to build the-program-formerly-called-Constellation for less money and in less time is probably impossible. Nonetheless, this was the response of the Senate Commerce committee: The production of a heavy-lift rocket and capsule is not optional. It’s the law. This is why I have been saying that the money for this program is nothing more than pork. Congress knows that nothing can be built on this budget, but wants the money spent nonetheless, to keep people employed in their districts. Meanwhile, in sharp contrast, Space Adventures yesterday announced a new deal with Russia, whereby the Russians have agreed to build and launch one extra Soyuz capsule per year, beginning in 2013, to fly 3 tourists to ISS. In addition, there is this report today about how SpaceX is successfully meeting all its milestones in building its cargo ferry for ISS. An earlier report last week also noted how Orbital Sciences is also moving forward with its cargo ferry, with a planned first test launch by the end of 2011. All in all, this news is not good news for NASA. The space agency’s manned spaceflight program appears to have two futures , neither of which will involve it continuing to build rockets or fly humans into space. In one option , the new Congress, when it finally sits down to write a budget, will decide that pork and happy constituents are more important than a balanced budget, and will appropriate the money for the-program-formerly-called-Constellation. NASA will struggle hard to build it, but will not succeed. Thus, no government-built manned space program. In the second option, Congress will agree with me and decide that it just doesn’t have money for pork, especially considering the terrible state of the federal budget. Moreover, seeing the success of the private efforts of SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, and Space Adventures, Congress will wonder why it needs to pour more billions into a vain effort by NASA to build something it can’t, when there are other private companies that can do it, and do it for less. In this circumstance, it will be very easy for them to cut the-program-formerly-called-Constellation. Once again, no NASA manned program. Neither scenario is actually a bad thing. What we are actually seeing play out here is the free competition of different companies attempting to

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provide a service to a customer , and the customer eventually picking the best company from which to buy the product . NASA, as a government agency, simply can’t compete, and unless Congress decides to provide them welfare, will lose this competition hands down. The U.S. will still have the capability of getting into space , but for far less money. And having multiple private companies competing to provide this service will also encourage innovation, something the rocket industry has sorely needed these past five decades.

And – Their hegemony and innovation solvency deficits are non-starters – the counterplan spurs a robust aerospace industry and reinvigorates U.S. space leadership BETTER than the plan doesBusiness Recorder ’11 [Business Recorder, “Death of Space Travel or Beginning of Exciting New Era?”, July 10, 2011, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/]As the final space shuttle headed toward the International Space Station, back on Earth debate was raging about what the future of the US space programme holds . NASA has faced harsh criticism from some prominent names, including first man on the moon Neil Armstrong, for the lack of a clear path moving forward, but others see a bright, if dramatically different future. Amid tight budgetary constraints, President Barack Obama killed plans by his predecessor George W Bush to build a spacecraft to return to the moon. Instead he wants the space agency to focus on building a rocket that can take astronauts into deeper space and turn over much of the routine work of ferrying astronauts into low-Earth orbit to commercial firms. "Today's launch may mark the final flight of the space shuttle, but it propels us into the next era of our never-ending adventure to push the very frontiers of exploration and discovery in space," Obama said in a statement after Friday's launch of the shuttle Atlantis. "We'll drive new advances in science and technology. We'll enhance knowledge , education, innovation, and economic growth . And I have tasked the men and women of NASA with an ambitious new mission: to break new boundaries in space exploration, ultimately sending Americans to Mars. I know they are up to the challenge - and I plan to be around to see it." But critics say the new plans do not offer a clear vision and have no realistic, near-term goal. " NASA's human spaceflight programme is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing," Apollo astronauts Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan wrote in a USA Today editorial in May. "After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent." NASA officials faced questions Friday about how they will ever convince the American public of their plans, if even some of their own supporters aren't convinced. Kennedy Space Centre director Bob Cabana thinks it's only a matter of time - once the plans for the next-generation craft are publicised there will be something for people to rally around. "I don't see it as end. I see it as a transition," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, noting the end of the shuttle programme will allow a more clear focus on what comes next - operating the International Space Station and developing the next-generation spacecraft. That system now known as the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle is based largely on the spacecraft called Orion that was part of Bush's plans to return astronauts to the moon. Up to four astronauts will be able to live for 21 days aboard the cone-shaped craft, which is designed to be 10-times safer than the soon-to-be-retired space shuttle fleet. Scott Pace of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University however thinks that ending the Bush-era plans to return to the moon was a mistake because Obama's objective of reaching an asteroid or Mars isn't feasible in the near-term. The move also leaves many international partners cut off from the US-led space programme with little chance that developing nations, like India can take part in the effort. "By neglecting the moon," he said. "It actually undercut areas for international co-operation, particularly with Asian countries." Others fear US leadership in space will slip , with astronauts reliant on Russia for rides to the ISS and China showing no signs of slowing down its burgeoning space programme. "I think other countries will step in and take our place, which is sad because we were one of the leaders along with Russia, and I think it's a shame to relinquish that," said tourist Judy Clavelli as she toured the National Air and Space Museum in Washington this week. But what that leadership looks like is a matter of opinion with advocates of commercial spaceflight pointing to a renewed commitment that will spur a new American industry. "This week, we welcome the arrival of the Commercial Space Age," John Gedmark, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said in a statement. "In fact, thanks to commercial spaceflight, the next decade will see more flights to space than in any previous decade of the Space Age. This marks a historic milestone." NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden stressed that US leadership in space will not end with the shuttle. "American

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leadership in space will continu e for at least the next half century because we've laid the foundation for success, and for us at NASA failure is not an option," he said.

And – Market control of space is key to exploration and colonization – turns their entire Aff and proves that ONLY the counterplan sovles Hudgins 4 (Edward L. Hudgins, director of The Objectivist Center, is the editor of the Cato Institute book, Space: The Free-Market Frontier. “Move Aside, NASA” http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2514) One reaction to President Bush's plan for a permanent moon base and a trip to Mars is, "Great! It's about time NASA stopped going around in circles in low Earth orbit and returns to real science and exploration." Unfortunately, there's not a snowball's chance in the sun that the same agency that currently is constructing a downsized version of its originally planned space station, decades behind schedule, at 10 times its original budget, a few hundred miles up in orbit, will be able to build a station several hundred thousand miles away on the moon. If Americans are again to walk on the moon and make their way to Mars, NASA will actually need to be downsized and the private sector allowed to lead the way to the next frontier. The lunar landings of over three decades ago were among the greatest human achievements. Ayn Rand wrote that Apollo 11 "was like a dramatist's emphasis on the dimension of reason's power." We were inspired at the sight of humans at our best, traveling to another world. In announcing NASA's new mission, President Bush echoed such sentiments, speaking of the American values of "daring, discipline, ingenuity," and "the spirit of discovery." But after the triumphs of Apollo, NASA failed to make space more accessible to mankind. There were supposed to be shuttle flights every week; instead, there have been about four per year. The space station was projected to cost $8 billion, house a crew of 12 and be in orbit by the mid-1990s. Instead, its price tag will be $100 billion and it will have only a crew of three. Worse, neither the station nor the shuttle does much important science. Governments simply cannot provide commercial goods and services. Only private entrepreneurs can improve quality, bring down the prices, and make accessible to all individuals cars, airline trips, computers, the Internet, you name it. Thus, to avoid the errors of the shuttle and space station, NASA's mission must be very narrowly focused on exploring the moon and planets, and perhaps conducting some basic research, which also might serve a defense function. This will mean leaving low Earth orbit to the private sector. Thus, the shuttle should be given away to private owners. The United Space Alliance, the joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed-Martin that refurbishes the shuttle between flights, would be an obvious candidate. Let a private owner fly it for paying customers--including NASA, if necessary -- if it is still worth flying. NASA also should give up the money-draining space station, and sooner rather than later. The station might be turned over to international partners or, better still, to the mostly private Russian rocket company, Energia -- and the Western investors who were in the process of commercializing and privatizing the Mir space station before the Russian government brought it down for political reasons. If need be, NASA can be a rent-paying station tenant. NASA centers that drive up its overall budget but do not directly contribute to its mission should be shut down. If the government wants to continue satellite studies of the climate and resources or other such functions, they could be turned over to other agencies, such as EPA and Interior Department. NASA and the rest of the government should contract for launch services with private companies, which would handle transportation to and from low Earth orbit. Contracting with private pilots with private planes is what the Post Office did in the 1920s and 1930s, which helped the emerging civil aviation sector. Further, to facilitate a strong private space sector, the government needs to further deregulate launches, export licensing and remove other barriers to entrepreneurs. Creating enterprise zones in orbit would help make up for government errors of the past. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher proposes a "Zero Gravity, Zero Tax" plan that would remove an unnecessary burden from "out-of-this-world risk-takers." NASA will also need to do business in new, innovative ways. For example, if a certain technology is needed for a moon mission, NASA could offer a cash prize for any party that can deliver it. The federal government used such an approach for aircraft before World War II, modeled after private prizes that helped promote civil aviation. Even if the federal government foots the bill for a moon base, it should not own it. Rather, NASA should partner with consortia of universities, private foundations and even businesses that are interested in advancing human knowledge and commercial activities. NASA could simply be a tenant on the base. Or consider a radical approach proposed by former Rep. Bob Walker. The federal government wouldn't need to spend any taxpayer dollars if it gave the first business to construct a permanent lunar base with its own money a 25-year exemption from all federal taxes on all of its operations, not just those on the Moon. Think of all the economic activity that would be generated if a Microsoft or General Electric decided to build a base! And the tax revenue from that activity probably would offset the government's revenue losses from such

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an exemption. If we're true to our nature, we will explore and settle planets. But only individuals with vision, acting in a free market, will make us a truly space-faring civilization .

And – The counterplan transforms space into a new axis for economic growth – which independently prevents extinction Collins and Autino 9 (Patrick Collins, Expert in the economics of energy supply from space, professor of economics at Azabu University in Japan, and a Collaborating Researcher with the Institute for Space & Astronautical Science, as well as adviser to a number of companies, AND** Adriano Autino, prolific science and space writer/lecturer for leading magazines, journals, and space advocate organizations, as well as Italian entrepreneur, “What the Growth of a Space Tourism Industry Could Contribute to Employment, Economic Growth, Environmental Protection, Education, Culture and World Peace”, 11 June 2009, http://www.spacefuture.com/archive/what_the_growth_of_a_space_tourism_industry_could_contribute_to_employment_economic_growth_environmental_protection_education_culture_and_world_peace.shtml)The continuation of human civilisation requires a growing world economy , with access to increasing

resources. This is because competing groups in society can all improve their situation and reasonable fairness can be achieved, enabling social ethics to survive, only if the overall "economic pie" is growing. Unfortunately, societies are much less robust if the "pie" is shrinking, when ethical growth becomes

nearly impossible, as competing groups try to improve their own situation at the expense of other groups. Continued growth of civilisation requires continual ethical evolution, but this will probably be possible only if resources are sufficient to assure

health, comfort, education and fair employment for all members of society. The world economy is under great stress recently

for a number of reasons, a fundamental one being the lack of opportunities for profitable investment—as exemplified by Japan's unprecedented decade of zero interest-rates. This lack of productive investment opportunities has led a large amount of funds in the rich countries to "churn" around in the world economy in such forms as risky "hedge funds", causing ever greater financial instability, thereby further weakening

economic growth, and widening the gap between rich and poor. Increasing the opportunities for profitable, stable investment requires continual creation of new industries [16]. Governments today typically express expectations for employment growth in such fields as information technology, energy, robotics, medical services, tourism and leisure. However, there are also sceptical voices pointing out that many of these activities too are already being outsourced to low-cost countries which are catching up technologically in many fields [20]. Most of the new jobs created in the USA during the 21st century so far have been low-paid service work, while the number of US manufacturing jobs has shrunk rapidly [21]. It is thus highly relevant that aerospace engineering is a field in which the most technically advanced countries still have a substantial competitive advantage over later developing countries. Hence, if a commercial space travel industry had already been booming in the 1980s, the

shrinkage in aerospace employment after the end of the "cold war" would have been far less. Consequently it seems fair to conclude that the decades long delay in developing space travel has contributed to the lack of new industries in the richer

countries, which is constraining economic growth and causing the highest levels of unemployment for decades. The rapid economic development of China and India offers great promise but creates a serious challenge for the already rich countries, which need to accelerate the growth of new industries if they are to benefit from these countries' lower costs without creating an impoverished under-class in their own societies. The long-term cost of such a socially divisive policy would greatly outweigh the short-term benefits of low-cost imports. The development of India and China also creates dangers because the demands of 6 billion people are now approaching the limits of the resources of planet Earth. As these limits are approached, governments become increasingly repressive, thereby adding major social costs to the direct costs of environmental damage [22]. Consequently, as discussed further below, it seems that the decades-long delay in starting to use the resources of the solar system has already caused heavy, self inflicted damage to humans' economic development, and must be urgently overcome, for which a range of policies have been proposed in [23,24]. 3.1. Popular

demand is the basis of economic growth The continuing heavy dependence of the space industry on taxpayer funding , despite cumulative investment of some 1 trillion Euro-equivalents, is due to the simple fact that those directing the industry have chosen not to supply services which large numbers of the general public wish to buy. Yet it is elementary that only by doing this can the space industry grow into a normal commercial activity. Doing so will create an industry which raises private investment to develop new, better and larger facilities in order to sell better services to ever-more customers—in the familiar "virtuous circle" of business growth. Eventually this activity may even reach a scale sufficient for the tax revenues it generates to repay the public investment to date. In successful companies, investment is skillfully judged so as to produce goods and services for which there will be large commercial (i.e. non-governmental) demand. If this earns sufficient profits, then the activity will continue to grow spontaneously for decades or more, like manufacturing of cars

or airliners. If, instead, funds intended for investment are spent on developing non-commercial products, such as expensive surveillance satellites or a space station for which the only significant customer is government, then clearly the space industry is doomed to remain forever a small, taxpayer-funded activity—a hindrance rather than a help to economic growth . Economic policy-makers responsible for deciding the public budget for space development must no longer rely exclusively on the advice of the space industry itself, which ever since its origin has had different objectives than

the economic benefit of the general public. That is, economic policy-makers, who are responsible for tens of trillions of Euros of activity,

must take the initiative to ensure that passenger space travel services are developed as soon as possible. There are many ways in

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which private investments in this field can be facilitated and supported, without governments themselves either planning or managing the projects. Among other steps, this will require the important

institutional innovation of collaboration between civil aviation and civil space activities. Since, even with today's knowledge, researchers foresee the possibility of economic development in space growing to a scale similar to terrestrial industry [11]. This field of industry must be considered as having the potential to become a major new axis for economic growth —equivalent in importance to the aviation industry, but with minimal environmental impact, as discussed below—and therefore deserving of the most serious and urgent attention by economic policymakers.

.

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***COOPERATION ADVANTAGE

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1NC Cooperation Advantage FrontlineThe VSE kills international cooperation and trades off with the ISSDupas, 9 — expert in space technologies, industries and policies, professor at the Université de Versailles-St Quentin en Yvelines, Fellow of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University, Senior Advisor for Aerospace to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Director of Strategic Studies at the College de Polytechnique (Alain, “Yearbook on Space Policy 2007/2008: From Policies to Programmes”, European Space Policy Institute, 2009, http://www.springerlink.com/content/n366g03u3971n30g/fulltext.pdf)President Bush’s VSE called for international cooperation : “We’ll invite other nations to share the challenges and opportunities of this new era of discovery. The vision I outline today is a journey, not a race, and I call on other nationes to join us on this journey, in a spirit of cooperation and friendship.” Yet in spite of these nice words, President Bush did unfortunately not invite the leaders of other nations to join the forthcoming programme in person. Moreover, the first step towards the implementation of the VSE has been the definition of a purely American human exploration architecture for the Moon, 403 the Constellation programme outlined in September 2005, and applying a quite nationalistic principle : no foreign systems on the critical path . This approach was very much in agreement with the hierarchy of opportunities that NASA sees the VSE as opening up: Global Prestige and Leadership and National Leadership were put above International Cooperation . Therefore, the practical implementation of the VSE clearly marks a step backwards from the previous, very open and integrated U.S. human space project: the ISS . A first international conference on the VSE in the USA in December 2005 was badly received by the ISS partners and the other nations invited to this event (including China, India, Ukraine, and others): the U.S. leadership was heavyhanded, with no choice being left to the potential partners other than accepting or not accepting the U.S. plan and proposing non-critical additions (for instance, hardware for lunar surface facilities which will not be needed before 2025 at the earliest!). However, the U.S. approach changed at a follow-up meeting in Washington, D.C. in May 2006, when representatives and experts from international space agencies but also from academia and the private sector were convened for what amounted to a brain-storming session on the goals and means of Moon (and to a lesser extent Mars) exploration. This very interesting exercise was well received by the participants and led to a new joint effort by 14 international space agencies 404 to draft a Global Exploration Strategy Framework, which was ready by and published in May 2007.

Cooperation with China turns the affAP, 11 (Associated Press, news source, “US lawmaker wields budget ax over China space ties”, 7/16/2011, lexis)A Republican lawmaker is looking to make the Obama administration pay a price for what he sees as its defiance of Congress in pursuing cooperation with China in science and space technology . A proposal by Rep. Frank Wolf, a fierce critic of Beijing, would slash by 55 percent the $6.6 million budget of the White House's science policy office. The measure was endorsed by a congressional committee this week, but faces more legislative hurdles, and its prospects are unclear. President Barack Obama has sought to deepen ties with China, which underwrites a major chunk of the vast U.S. na-tional debt and is emerging a challenge to American military dominance in the Asia-Pacific region. Among the seem-ingly benign forms of cooperation he has supported is in science and technology. Last year NASA's administrator vis-ited China, and during a high-profile state visit to Washington by China's President Hu Jintao in January, the U.S. and China resolved to "deepen dialogue and exchanges in the field of space." Wolf, R-Va., argues that cooperation in space would give technological assistance to a country that steals U.S. indus-trial secrets and launches cyberattacks against the United States. He says Obama 's chief science adviser , John Holdren, violated a clause tucked into budget legislation passed this year that bars the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and NASA from technological cooperation with China . He says Holdren did so by meeting twice with China's science minister in Washington during May. "I believe the Office of Science and Technology Policy is in violation of the law ," Wolf told The Associated Press, adding that cutting its budget is the only response available to him. Wolf chairs a House subcommittee that oversees the office's budget . The punishment he proposes reflects his deep antipathy toward China, which he accuses of persecuting religious mi-norities, plundering Tibet and supporting genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan by backing Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. He described the Obama administration's policy toward the Asian power as a failure and railed against the president for hosting Hu at the White House. Caught at the sharp end is Holdren's office, whose mandate is to develop sound science and technology policies by the U.S. government and pursue them with the public and private sectors and other nations. Holdren told a Congressional hearing chaired by Wolf days before his May meetings with Chinese Science Minister Wan Gang that he would abide by the prohibition on such cooperation with

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China, but then spelled out a rather large loophole: that it did not apply in instances where it affected the president's ability to conduct foreign policy. At another Congressional hearing shortly afterward, Wolf's annoyance was clear. He threatened to "zero out" Holdren's office .

China says no to cooperationSpace Politics, 10 (“Why can’t the US and China cooperate in space?”, 12/16/2010, http://www.spacepolitics.com/2010/12/16/why-cant-the-us-and-china-cooperate-in-space/)The growth of Chinese space capabilities during time, Kulacki said, means that cooperation with the US is simply not a high priority now. “As far as the technical community, there’s no real incentives. They don’t need anything” from the US, he said. He added that Chinese space professionals aren’t interested in cooperation with the US because it’s “nothing but problems”, interfering with their current efforts . Any push for cooperation would have to come from the political side, but space is not a high priority there, he noted.

China space cooperation fails — ineffectiveness, ITAR, and divergent political systemsRessler, 9 — Major, USAF (Aaron R., “ADVANCING SINO-U.S. SPACE COOPERATION”, Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, April 2009, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA539619)Challenges. Space cooperation between the U.S. and China would not be an easy process to initiate and there would certainly be challenges. While space cooperation is not new, the 2007 Chinese ASAT test has made the idea of working with the PRC even more controversial. 91 One area of increased concern is technology transfer . This is especially true of civil space technology being applied for military use (dual-use technology). 92 For this specific reason, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) limits space cooperation with China. 93 With the intention of preventing the transfer of “sensitive technologies” to other governments, ITAR even makes “normal science exchanges and visits” challenging. 94 If there were to be increased space cooperative efforts between the U.S. and China, ITAR restraints would need to be reexamined and changed. In a Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report for Congress dated September 29, 2008, the author, Jeffrey Logan, mentions a possible challenge of ineffectiveness. 95 He further states that some “argue that increased collaboration will not produce tangible benefits for the U nited S tates .” 96 It is mentioned in the 2006 U.S. NSP that international cooperation is encouraged along the lines of “mutual benefit.” 97 It is also mentioned in NASA Policy Directive (NPD) 1360.2A that “each cooperative project must demonstrate a specific benefit to NASA or the United States.” 98 With regard to the problem at hand (deterring Chinese ASAT operations), both NASA and the U.S. would benefit if the threat of unannounced Chinese ASAT tests were reduced in addition to the benefits mentioned above. It is a given that China is not technologically where the U.S. is with regard to space, but as mentioned before, space AU/ACSC/RESSLER/AY09 17 cooperation with the PRC would still be beneficial with regard to increased transparency, backup capabilities, cost sharing and global stability. Another significant challenge is the different political systems between the two countries, resulting in “difficulty building trust with each other.” 99 This issue has been tackled before between the U.S. and Russia, so while challenging, space cooperation is feasible between China and the U.S. despite different political systems.

Cooperation nowMorring, 11 — senior space editor for Aviation Week (Frank Jr., “U.S., China Agree On More Military, Space Engagement”, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, 1/21/2011, lexis)U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao have agreed to continued engagement between their military and spaceflight organizations as part of the Washington summit between the two leaders Jan. 19. The summit’s formal joint statement, released by China’s foreign ministry, calls for Gen. Chen Bingde, chief of the general staff of the Peoples Liberation Army, to visit the U.S. «during the first half of 2011,» and notes the «successful» visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates to China earlier this month. «Both sides agreed on the need for enhanced and substantive dialogue and communication at all levels; to reduce misunderstanding, misperception and miscalculation; to foster greater understanding and expand mutual interest; and to promote the healthy, stable and reliable development of the military-to-military relationship,» the joint document states. Similarly, Obama and Hu agreed to a visit by Chinese space officials to «NASA headquarters and other appropriate NASA facilities» this year, following the «productive» visit of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden to Chinese space facilities last year . The reciprocal visit had been expected as early as November 2010, but was held up by a U.S. interagency policy review after Republican members of Congress objected to U.S./Chinese human spaceflight cooperation. Among officials in China who expect to visit NASA this year are representatives of the China Manned

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Space Engineering Office, which hosted Bolden at the launch site for Shenzhou human spacecraft at Jiuquan. « China and the U nited S tates agreed to take specific actions to deepen dialogue and exchanges in the field of space ,» according to the joint statement. «The two sides agreed to continue discussions on opportunities for practical future cooperation in the space arena, based on principles of transparency, reciprocity, and mutual benefit .»

No China war — economic interdependencePerry & Scowcroft, 9 — professor at Stanford University, AND resident trustee of the Forum for International Policy (William and Brent, “US Nuclear Weapons Policy,” Council on Foreign Relations, 2009)Economic interdependence provides an incentive to avoid military conflict and nuclear confrontation . Although the United States has expressed concern about the growing trade deficit with China, the economies of the two countries have become increasingly intertwined and interdependent . U.S. consumers have bought massive quantities of cheap Chinese goods, and Beijing has lent huge amounts of money to the United States. Similarly, Taiwan and the mainland are increasingly bound in a reciprocal economic relationship. These economic relationships should reduce the probability of a confrontation between China and Taiwan, and keep the U nited S tates and China from approaching the nuclear brink , were such a confrontation to occur . On other nuclear issues, China and the United States have generally supported each other, as they did in the six-party talks to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. Here, the supportive Beijing-Washington relationship points toward potentially promising dialogues on larger strategic issues.

Lunar ambitions lead to a china-us space raceRitter 08 (Peter, “The New Space Race: China vs. US”, Time WORLD, 2/13/2008, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1712812,00.html)Both the U.S. and China have announced intentions of returning humans to the moon by 2020 at the earliest. And the two countries are already in the early stages of a new space race that appears to have some of the heat and skullduggery of the one between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War, when space was a proxy battleground for geopolitical dominance.

Space race is wrong – all their evidence is media hype Dwayne 7 (Dwayne A. Day, American space historian, Director of Studies for NASA’s Planetary Exploration Program, works for the National Research Council and National Academy of Sciences, doctorate in political science from George Washington University. Text taken from article titled, “Exploding Moon Myths: or why there’s no race to our nearest neighbor,” published November 12th, 2007. Text found at [http://www.thespacereview.com/article/999/1])Germany recently announced that they possibly, maybe, might launch a robotic spacecraft to the Moon. That now brings to six the number of countries with spacecraft at the Moon in development to go to the Moon, or at the very least thinking about sending a spacecraft to the Moon. The others are: China, Japan, India, the United States, and the Russians (who have lots of plans, along with an official motto: “Please send money.”) Just what the heck is going on? The lay press, which has only a superficial understanding of space issues, has taken notice of all this space activity and struggled to understand it. They have reached for explanations, and in the process produced several erroneous theories based upon poor understanding both of what is currently happening, and what has happened in the past regarding exploration of the

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Moon. These Moon Myths include: * These countries are involved in a “space race” to the Moon. * China, Japan, and India are engaged in an “Asian space race.” * The scientific community is newly interested in the Moon and driving these efforts. * There must be something on the Moon that all these countries want—helium-3, other resources, or extraterrestrials. * These robotic missions are precursors to something bigger, such as human missions. There is practically no truth to any of these myths, but they have appeared in numerous articles and, more often, in television news segments. They are worth exploring, if only to shed a little more light on what is currently going on.

There’s no race over lunar resources Dwayne 7 (Dwayne A. Day, American space historian, Director of Studies for NASA’s Planetary Exploration Program, works for the National Research Council and National Academy of Sciences, doctorate in political science from George Washington University. Text taken from article titled, “Exploding Moon Myths: or why there’s no race to our nearest neighbor,” published November 12th, 2007. Text found at [http://www.thespacereview.com/article/999/1])Resources (or little green men) Another common myth, popular among more left-leaning non-American publications, is that all these missions are part of a “lunar gold rush.” Some of this stems from a conspiratorial suspicion about American government motivations—journalists who believe that the United States invaded Iraq to seize oil are just as likely to suspect that the United States is going to send people to the Moon to grab resources there. They then spin off conspiracy theories about Halliburton or lunar property claims. The most commonly cited lunar resource is the isotope helium-3, which Americans supposedly want to burn in their numerous fusion reactors. This theory is sometimes fueled by the statements of Chinese and Russian and even Indian officials, who claim that they are sending robots to the Moon to look for the helium-3 that the Americans supposedly covet so much. (Proof that dubious claims supporting space exploration are universal.) It’s no secret that delusions are more satisfying than reality, but these theories are outlandish. Nobody who pushes them has bothered to check even basic facts or ask simple questions. For starters, if the United States is truly interested in helium-3 for fusion power, how come the American government is spending so little money on fusion research? Fusion research budgets were slashed after the Cold War, and have been anemic ever since, in effect demonstrating what little faith the US government has in the potential of fusion power. (This raises a corollary for space enthusiasts: if you really believe that the Moon has potential as a source of fusion power, you should support dramatic increases in the Department of Energy’s budget for fusion research, possibly even taking the money from space exploration to fund it.)

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2NC VSE Kills CooperationExtend Dupas that Obama’s space policy emphasizes international cooperation and commitment to the International Space Station — it was a shift away from the Bush go-it-alone policy

The status quo promotes cooperation — the plan reverses thatBroad and Chang, 10 — senior science correspondent for the New York Times whose writing was featured in “The Best American Scientific Writing”, AND science correspondent for the New York Times (William J. and Kenneth, “Obama Reverses Bush's Space Policy”, The New York Times, 6/29/2010, lexis)The Obama administration on Monday unveiled a space policy that renounces the unilateral stance of the Bush administration and instead emphasizes international cooperation , including the possibility of an arms control treaty that would limit the development of space weapons. In recent years, both China and the United States have destroyed satellites in orbit, raising fears about the start of a costly arms race that might ultimately hurt the United States because it dominates the military use of space. China smashed a satellite in January 2007, and the United States did so in February 2008. The new space policy explicitly says that Washington will ''consider proposals and concepts for arms control measures if they are equitable, effectively verifiable and enhance the national security of the United States and its allies.'' The Bush administration , in the space policy it released in August 2006, said it ''rejects any limitations on the fundamental right of the U nited S tates to operate in and acquire data from space ,'' a phrase that was interpreted as giving a green light to the development and use of antisatellite weapons. The policy also stated that Washington would ''oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access or use of space,'' a phrase that effectively ruled out arms control. In secret, the Bush administration engaged in research that critics said could produce a powerful ground-based laser, among other potential weapons meant to shatter enemy satellites in orbit. By contrast , the Obama policy underlines the need for international cooperation. ''It is the shared interest of all nations to act responsibly in space to help prevent mishaps, misperceptions and mistrust,'' the new policy says in its opening lines. ''Space operations should be conducted in ways that emphasize openness and transparency.'' Peter Marquez, director of space policy at the White House National Security Council, told reporters on Monday that the policy was reverting to a less confrontational approach that the United States had championed in the past. ''The arms control language is bipartisan language that appeared in the Reagan policy and George H. W. Bush's policy and the Clinton policy,'' Mr. Marquez said in a White House briefing. ''So we're bringing it back to a bipartisan agreed-upon position.'' Jeff Abramson, a senior analyst at the Arms Control Association, a private group in Washington, said the new policy ''sets the stage for progress in space arms control -- without getting into specifics.'' For many years, diplomats from around the globe have gathered in Geneva to hammer out a treaty on the ''prevention of an arms race in outer space,'' which would ban space weapons. Arms control supporters say that China and Russia have backed the process, and that the United States during the Bush administration dragged its feet. In 2006, John Mohanco, a State Department official, told the diplomats in Geneva that as long as attacks on satellites remained a threat, ''our government will continue to consider the possible role that space-related weapons may play in protecting our assets.'' Now, the Obama administration has stopped the saber-rattling and started what might end in a new kind of peaceful accord -- though with plenty of caveats and vague conditions.

The VSE is a US-only programKislyakov, 8 (Andrei, “Outside View: Asian missile power”, UPI, October 24, 2008, lexis)While the space exploration programs within the Asia-Pacific region are gaining pace, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Russian Federal Space Agency -- Roskosmos -- and the European Space Agency cannot decide on a shared direction for their joint space programs. In spite of encouraging official statements on the need to promote international cooperation in space exploration , both the U nited S tates and Europe are set on carrying out their own research, as well as getting useful information to ensure their strategic independence and safety. A good example of such policy is NASA's Constellation Program aimed at developing U.S. space technologies for conducting large-scale space exploration, which does not envisage the participation of other countries .

It’ll be spun as a U.S.-only projectFlight International, 4 (“Yellow brick road: President Bush's announcement of a new US vision for the exploration of space should be the opportunity for a truly multinational effort”, January 20, 2004, lexis)

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Those international partners have made encouraging noises about the US president's v ision for s pace e xploration, but they would be well advised to move forward carefully . There is no doubt, given the relatively modest amount by US standards to be invested in the Bush plan, that more could be achieved, more quickly, if Europe, Japan, Russia and others put their backing behind it. But it cannot have escaped the notice of potential partners that Bush portrayed a return to the Moon as an American endeavour, and only mentioned the potential for international co-operation briefly near the end of his 14 January speech .

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2NC China Says NoExtend Space Daily — the Chinese want to go boldly go alone — they see NASA as an unwelcome, unnecessary, and overly bureaucratic partner in space

China isn’t interested in strategic dialogue or cooperationGertz, 11 — national security editor for The Washington Times (Bill, “China spurns strategic security talks with U.S.”, The Washington Times, 1/10/2011, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/10/china-spurns-strategic-security-talks-with-us/)China ’s defense minister on Monday rebuffed an offer from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to hold strategic nuclear talks, saying military dialogue will be limited to counterpiracy, counterterrorism and peacekeeping cooperation. Mr. Gates, the first defense secretary to visit China since 2005, told reporters in Beijing after a two-hour meeting with Defense Minister Gen. Liang Guanglie that he is “pleased” China will “consider and study ” his plan to launch a strategic-security dialogue on nuclear forces, missile defense, space and cyberwarfare issues. But Gen. Liang largely dismissed the idea of holding substantive nuclear and security talks . “There exists quite a number of forms of dialogue between China and the United States,” he said, noting the strategic economic dialogue and other annual defense talks. “The Chinese side noticed the proposal of Secretary Gates on the conducting of the strategic-security dialogue, and we are studying that,” he said. Former State Department official John Tkacik, a career China specialist, said, “‘Consider and study’ is diplomatic-speak for ‘no way, no how .’”

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2NC Cooperation FailsExtend Ressler — Chinese inexperience in space, US ITAR regulations, and different political systems all block cooperation

Wolf cause prohibits cooperationDiMascio, 11 — correspondent for Aviation Week & Space Technology (Jen, “The Stopper”, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 4/25/2011, lexis)If the Obama administration wants to realize its goal of deepening space cooperation with China, it will have to circumvent Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that controls NASA's purse strings. The 16-term Republican objects to such teaming not just on moral grounds, but for economic and security reasons as well. He says China «has the most aggressive spying program against us of any government in the history of the world,» more extensive than the KGB in the Soviet Union's heyday. He has in his office a video of Chinese prisoners being executed, allegedly so their organs can be harvested by the People's Liberation Army—the same overseers, he says, that are responsible for the Chinese civil space program. And he complains that his computer was breached by Chinese hackers, as were those of 16 other members of Congress. Wolf has already succeeded in including means to stop a wide array of bilateral space cooperation with China or Chinese companies in the bill to fund the government for fiscal year 2011. The proposal would even bar the government from using money to host «official Chinese visitors » at NASA facilities. And that is just the beginning. «We're going to continue,» he says. « We're going to do everything we can» to block any cooperation with China . NASA officials did not return calls seeking comment, but presumably White House officials and Senate Democrats signed off on it during budget negotiations. Wolf's proposal , included in the appropriations bill approved by Congress earlier this month, makes it exceedingly difficult for the space agency to carry out a joint statement the White House issued with China in January to deepen dialogue and «continue discussions on opportunities for practical future cooperation in the space arena, based on principles of transparency, reciprocity and mutual benefit.»

ITAR prevents cooperationZimmerman, 9 — former President of the International Astronautical Federation, former Chief of the NASA International Planning and Programs Office, former Director of the International Affairs Office of the National Environmental Satellite Service at the US Department of Commerce, former Assistant Director for Export, Import and International Safeguards of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, former European Representative of NASA, Fellow in the American Astronautical Society, and Associate Fellow at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (James V., “Approaches to Future Space Cooperation and Competition in a Globalizing World: Summary of a Workshop”, National Research Council, 2009, http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12694)The panel paid particular attention to the impact of U.S. export control regulations on international cooperation—in particular ITAR. Young noted that while it is necessary to maintain an ITAR regime, the implementation of the current regulations has had unintended consequences that may in some cases be hurting U.S. national security objectives. The current ITAR regime, for example, may have accelerated, not slowed, the efforts of some countries to become space capable. Both panelists took the position that ITAR has had a significant impact of space cooperation between the U nited S tates and other countries .5 One consequence of these difficulties, a panelist observed, is that increasingly the U nited S tates is no longer viewed as the partner of choice . The panelists and workshop participants discussed in considerable detail the current impact of and prospects for modifying the ITAR regime. Although improvements to the ITAR process have been made in recent years, further improvements, such as issuing “blanket” licenses on a program basis (for the ISS program, for example), should be considered, several workshop participants suggested. The lack of such “blanket” program-level licenses can inhibit effective communications among the partners, and in some cases could present serious threats to the success and safe conduct of joint projects. Several workshop participants thought that reform of the ITAR process should be treated as a higher priority by the new administration and Congress. Others, including the panelists, noted that some administration and congressional officials are very concerned that any changes to the ITAR regime could undermine U.S. national security. The fact that the ITAR regulations have stimulated foreign manufacturers to develop “ITAR free” satellites is a small price to pay, in the view of these officials. The negative impact that the ITAR regime is having on U.S. industry and on scientific cooperation is also not compelling to those in Congress who prefer to maintain the current ITAR regulations, if doing so will save one American life. As a consequence, changes to the current ITAR regime will be difficult to achieve , they both observed. Several participants expressed interest in taking a proactive approach with the new administration and Congress on how the ITAR process could be revised to

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make it more efficient and effective. A point to be emphasized in such discussions, one panelist noted, is that the ITAR regime as it is currently being implemented is having counterproductive consequences in some cases. The national security panel also discussed prospects for closer civil space cooperation with China . Eric Sterner suggested that if the administration pursues collaboration with China on the ISS, this would introduce the controversies of U.S.-China relations into the space program, such as disagreements over human rights, which could have negative consequences for congressional support for NASA. A workshop participant also noted, however, that a U.S. invitation to China to participate in the ISS program could be viewed as part of an overall effort by the United States to improve its relationship with China. During the national security panel discussion several participants noted that although civil and commercial space cooperation have sometimes been impeded by national security constraints (e.g., ITAR ), cooperation can also contribute to increased national security. If through cooperation space becomes a more routine place for doing business, this could support U.S. national security goals, including the protection of U.S. assets in space, Lennard Fisk (University of Michigan) observed. He added that closer space collaboration with China—which already has extensive trade and financial relationships with the United States—should perhaps be considered from this perspective.

Cooperation impossible — ITAR and capability differencesZhou, 8 (Yi, “Perspectives on Sino-US cooperation in civil space programs”, Space Policy, Volume 24, Issue 3, Pages 132-139, August 2008, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265964608000404)• Strict US policies on non-proliferation, export controls, technology transfer and arms control, especially the US regime for technology transfer, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR): The USA has a strong regulatory regime to prevent the illegal transfer and theft of sensitive technologies, such as space systems, that can be used in the development of military assets by governments, entities and persons that may be hostile to US interests. These restrictions affect cooperation between the USA and other countries, including China , in different space areas. In addition to high-level-cooperative space projects, ITAR affects normal science exchanges and visits . For example, in October 2002, a Chinese delegation could not obtain US visas to attend the 34th Committee of Space Research assembly, which is an international space science meeting open to space research professionals world-wide. In space commerce, US space firms have to face licensing requirements and contend with export controls, which have led to a decline in their market share [14]. As an example, in 2003 Boeing received large fines because the US government thought the company had directly helped China improve its launch technology through a contract with Chinese space manufacturers a few years previously. Yet between 1998, when all US space firms had to leave China's space market, and the present day, China's space development has been far from stagnating. On the contrary, China's space capabilities continue to improve and have made clear progress in the past few years. Now, inside the USA, many companies are arguing that ITAR is a significant trade barrier which acts as a substantial negative subsidy, weakening US industries’ ability to compete. Research agencies and institutions argue that ITAR prevents cooperation on international scientific projects. ITAR even affects cooperation between the USA and its allies [15]. It is time for US policy makers and Congress to consider adjusting these overly strict control policies if Americans wish to retain their important role in space cooperation around the world and the benefits this brings. • On 11 January 2007 (US time), China terminated an aging weather satellite, Fengyun-1: Observers believed that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had used technology to shoot down the satellite which could also be used as a space weapon. This event startled the USA and Europe because it apparently provided evidence of a Chinese space weapons capability. Many claims were made, such as, “China's weapon test is a wake-up call to the space arms race” [16]. NASA administrator Mike Griffin said in an informal meeting: “Some space cooperative proposals with China have been put on hold for the moment.” This event negatively affected the potential for space cooperation between China and Western countries, although the Chinese government has declared that it was no threat to any nation [17]. The incident was certainly not a good thing for international space security, since it created a lot of space debris. Right now, two points should be urgently considered. First, it is time for the international players to sit down together and start to discuss a future agreement, such as an international law restricting space debris, which would prevent a recurrence in any country (something the USA did not consider necessary before China's test). Second, if the USA continues to refuse collaboration with China in space, how can it accurately assess that country's motivations in the future? The USA would only be able to infer and debate internally about what China's intentions might be. • China has no unique advanced capabilities: No single country or region has a monopoly on the ideas or technical capabilities to enable humans to live and work safely in space. The USA certainly knows that. It has been more than 30 years since Americans began to cooperate with the USSR. When such cooperation began, the USSR had strong space capabilities and experience. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the Russian economy and space industry were severely short of funds. The USSR's experienced engineers and professionals, and their capabilities, could have been transferred to other countries, potentially to countries not allied

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with the USA. Such a development might have brought danger to the USA and the world. The USA helped Russia and helped itself at the same time by engaging in cooperation with that country, taking advantage of its rich experiences. Another example is that of Canada, which, while not in the same league as the USA (or Russia), possesses the unique technology of the robot arm that has become an important section of ISS. Today , although China has developed many technologies and capabilities, there is still no other country whose technology is more advanced than that of the USA, which is one reason why the latter lacks a compelling motivation to engage in cooperation with China.

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2NC Cooperation NowExtend the 1NC Morring ev — Obama and Hu just agreed to cooperate on space — and you should prefer Morring — he’s a senior correspondent for a space industry journal

Cooperation now — Bolden visitChina Daily, 10 (“NASA SEES HOPE FOR A CHINESE PARTNER”, 10/27/2010, lexis)BEIJING - NASA chief Charles Bolden said his China visit laid the groundwork for future cooperation between the two countries on manned space flight and space exploration. The head of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration, a former astronaut and veteran of four space shuttle missions, wrapped up a five-day trip to China on Thursday that included a tour of a major space launch center. Bolden said in a statement released on Tuesday by the US embassy in Beijing that he had been given a "very comprehensive visit" of facilities linked to China's manned space flight program and held talks with senior officials. He said the visit had helped the two sides "reach a common understanding of the importance of transparency, reciprocity and mutual benefit as the underlying principles of any future interaction" in the area of space flight . While no specific proposals for cooperation were discussed, Bolden said his trip could "form the basis for further dialogue and cooperation in a manner that is consistent with the national interests of both of our countries". "I am pleased that NASA was able to meet its objectives for the visit," Bolden said. The two sides had said during US President Barack Obama's visit to China in November 2009 that they looked forward to "expanding discussions on space science cooperation " and organizing reciprocal visits by their space chiefs.

<More cards are available in the China DA uniqueness block.>

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2NC No China WarExtend Perry — economic interdependence means no one will start a war — even if relations tank the Chinese government doesn’t want to tank their economic development

CCP solves conflictRoss, 9 — professor of political science at Boston College, associate of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University, and fellow at the Security Studies Program at MIT (Robert, September/October 2009, http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22022)Professor Friedberg’s concluding suggestion that China’s illiberal political system exacerbates the China threat fails to grasp that Beijing’s authoritarian system is its greatest vulnerability. The Chinese leadership dares not risk war; it is acutely aware of its vulnerability to the will of its people and the necessity to minimize strategic adventurism and the risk of military defeat , lest it be the cause of its own demise. A balanced rather than an ideological assessment of the Sino-American dynamic offers the United States the confidence to compete with China and secure U.S. interests, and simultaneously promote U.S.-China cooperation.

Economic factors check conflictDenmark, 9 — fellow at the Center for a New American Security (Abraham M., “China’s Arrival: A Strategic Framework for a Global Relationship”, September 2009)Beijing’s focus on maintaining China’s internal sta bility and economic growth drives a foreign policy that is geared towards preserving China’s economic development and avoiding foreign conflicts and entanglements that may jeopardize these goals, as demonstrated by PRC President Hu’s departure from the G8 meeting in Italy to return to Beijing because of an uprising in Xinjiang province. However, China’s leaders also recognize that global and regional issues increasingly impact China domestically, primarily since China’s economy depends on foreign resources and markets. Beijing must therefore address these issues and examine the development of military capabilities to protect China’s access to needed foreign markets and resources. Avoiding military conflict with the U nited S tates is a major part of maintaining a stable and peace ful external environment , at least in the near term. China ’s leaders understand that China’s economy is closely tied to that of the U nited S tates, and that any conflict would significantly damage China’s economic development . Additionally, Chinese strategists appear to recognize that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s capabilities remain signif icantly behind those of the U.S. military, and that for the foreseeable future China would be unlikely to achieve its political objectives through a conflict with the United States.

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1NC China Cooperation BadCooperation with China lets them steal our techGriffin and Van Cleave, 11 — former administrator or NASA, AND former national counterintelligence executive and former assistant director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (Michael and Michelle, “Working with China opens door to espionage; Cooperating in space: Time for a timeout”, The Washington Times, 7/7/2011, lexis)At the same time, the Chinese have a far-reaching , multilayered program for illicit technology acquisition from the United States. They are keenly interested in space technology, in which America is still the world's unquestioned leader . Just ask 30-year spy Dongfan Chung (Orange County, Calif.) or Shu Quan-Sheng (Newport News, Va.) or Lian Yang (Seattle), now serving time for passing inter alia space-shuttle communication technologies, space-launch cryogenic fuels data and satellite semiconductor devices, respectively. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. We want to open channels that allow the possibility that in the long run, a potential adversary can become a partner and ally. Joint space projects characterized by transparency, reciprocity and mutual benefit can be an excellent way to begin. Is it possible to manage the inherent risks while pursuing our larger goals? If we had an effective counterintelligence capability to identify and disrupt Chinese collection activities, this would be an easier call. Timely tripwires that signal when the other side is stepping across the line would enable us to manage the risk of close interaction and gain the advantage of rare insights into China's space program. Unfortunately, U.S. efforts to build such a strategic capability against foreign intelligence threats have fallen by the wayside, while Chinese espionage continues to grow . We believe the United States is paying an opportunity cost by walking away from possible joint space projects with China, but without a more robust counterintelligence capability, we stand to lose more than we would gain. Nor does it make sense to venture into cooperative activities that may contribute to China's military modernization or global strategic ambitions. The statutory prohibition against bilateral space projects wisely puts the brakes on a downhill rush to engage with the Chinese . In the absence of a larger strategy guiding policy and programs on China, it is unclear whether cooperative space projects would advance or hinder U.S. interests. The Obama administration should use this timeout to take stock and then return to Congress with a coherent approach to space cooperation with China that is more than a raw assertion of the president's authority to conduct foreign affairs as he may please.

That collapses leadershipNewman, 10 — reporter for the New American magazine (Alex, “Chinese Spying in the United States”, The New American, 4/27/2010, http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/crime/3404-chinese-spying-in-the-unitedstates)So what are the aims of the communist regime’s espionage activities? Different experts interviewed by The New American for this story expressed various opinions, but none of the theories are good. “The Chinese are assembling a comprehensive ‘ map’ of the U.S. government and economy while simultaneously looting our high technology for their own industrial and economic purposes,” explained Charles Viar, a former U.S. counterintelligence official and the chair of the Center for Intelligence Studies. The goal , he said, is “to achieve international hegemony — peacefully, if possible. At minimal military cost if not.” “The Chinese are moving forward with building an aircraft carrier, they’re establishing ports all over, and advanced missile systems and satellite systems,” said Roger Canfield, Ph.D., author of several books on the Chinese regime and its espionage operations, including China’s Trojan Horses: Red Chinese Soldiers, Sailors, Students, Scientists and Spies Occupy America’s Homeland. He told The New American that the long-term goal was military modernization on a scale that would someday be able to challenge American power. Chinese dissidents who have experienced the regime’s brutality are acutely aware of the possibilities for danger. “The Communist Party wants to survive, and it will steal for survival — it’s self-interest,” explained Samuel Zhou, the executive vice president of New Tang Dynasty Television and a native-born Chinese who emigrated to America after the Tiananmen Square massacre. In an interview with The New American, he explained: “They need to grow the economy to defend themselves from the mass[es] … so they need economic information. And then there’s Taiwan of course.... Whether they have the power to conquer the world — that’s still far away. But they do want to have at least this kind of control — they want to control others, and once they have this information, they have ways to manipulate people.... I don’t want to make a prediction now, but communism is communism — they have no principles. If they can kill tens of millions of their own people, what could they do to the world? It’s kind of obvious.” Former Canadian Minister of Parliament David Kilgour, also a former Minister of State for the Asia-Pacific region, put it bluntly. “There’s absolutely no doubt that their long term goal is world domination and to put the U nited S tates — as much as they can — out of business , and to become the world’s superpower,” he told The New American. “They want to run the whole planet.”

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Independently, it destroys the tech sectorHSNW, 7 (Homeland Security Newswire, “Chinese espionage ‘single greatest risk’ to U.S. technology sector”, 11/16/2007, http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/chinese-espionage-single-greatest-risk-us-technology-sector)During the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign, Ross Perot said that if the proposed North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were to go into effect, we would all be hearing a “giant sucking sound” made by millions of U.S. jobs heading south for Mexico. There is a new giant sucking sound being heard: That of American and European trade secrets, patents, and other pieces of intellectual property being brazenly and systematically stolen by China in its effort to short- cut its way to global economic pre-eminence . Chinese routine violations of intellectual property laws are a matter of record, and reverse engineering has become an art form there. We wrote the other day how Western European governments have become aware that the Chinese government has instructed its sprawling intelligence community to engage in methodical industrial espionage campaign against European companies in order to steal their secrets and hand them over to Chinese companies (many of these companies are owned, directly or indirectly, by the People’s Liberation Army or the intelligence services). Now there is this: Chinese espionage poses the “ single greatest risk” to the American technology sector , according to a congressional advisory panel. In its annual report, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission accused Beijing of pursuing an aggressive spying program to acquire critical U.S. technology and adopting “destructive” tactics, including cyber attacks, to target American infrastructure. “Chinese military strategies have embraced destructive warfare techniques, including the use of cyber attacks (which) if carried out strategically on a large scale could have catastrophic effects on the target countries’ critical infrastructure,” the panel reported. “Chinese espionage activities in the United States are so extensive that they comprise the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies.”

That’s a key internal link to hegVernikos, 8 (Dr. Joan, writes for Defense & Foreign Affairs on space issues, was Director of Life Sciences at the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Headquarters from 1993 until September 2000, The Internationalization of Space, Defense & Foreign Affairs' Strategic Policy, lexis)THE MUCH-ANTICIPATED AND SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH of Shenzhou VII, the People's Republic of China's third manned mission into space in five years, was a milestone in the evolving horizon of space internationalization. Forty-three countries now own satellites in Earth orbit. But most have to rely on a handful of providers for launch services, making the launch business commercially lucrative. Fifty years since the space era began with the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1958, 2008 has already seen noteworthy activity. In addition to the big four veterans (Russia, France/Europe, the PRC, and the US), countries formerly not competing, such as Japan, India, Europe, as an entity, along with South Korea, Iran, and Israel are now entering the space launch arena. Some plan to send humans into space, to the Moon or even Mars using their own rockets. Space-faring status is an emblem of national pride and prestige. However, pre-eminence in space is not only about the ability to launch, although that is a crucial element. Space research and the supporting technical advances are a valuable national resource providing educational opportunities, inspiration and motivation to the next generation of a country's science and engineering workforce. Space is a proven source of economic benefit because of Earth applications and commercial opportunities for launch services and tourism. Finally, the need for a country's greater self-reliance in accessing space is a serious consideration in its growth and security for communications, imaging, reconnaissance or defense. The increasing amount of space debris, protection from meteorites, the need for refueling or replacement of satellites or merely the rescue, repair or safe disposal of dead or obsolete space assets all require ready access to launching capability. For example, the debris hazard issue has been accentuated by recent events. The upcoming US Shuttle mission to extend the life of the Hubble telescope one more time requires going into a higher orbit than the International Space Station (ISS). According to John Shannon, Shuttle program manager, there is more debris at that elevation - with a one in 185 risk of fatal damage versus one in 300 - than the Shuttle usually faces at the lower ISS orbit. The shooting-down of a PRC satellite, a Russian rocket, and to a lesser extent of a US satellite raised public alarm about the debris hazard. Extensive finger-pointing has led to international discussion. The ISS, meanwhile, is facing serious budgetary problems. The decision to retire the Shuttle in 2010 in the hope that Constellation - the new Ares/Orion heavy launch and crew transport capability - would be ready to take over is faltering. This forces further reliance on Russian transport and the risky extension of Shuttle's working life to support human access to the ISS. The announcement by NASA of a "return to the Moon" as the next step in space exploration stimulated a spate of research robotic missions by many countries to map the terrain, and explore the Moon as an outpost with potential resources that could be used for in situ utilization and for mining minerals or

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transmitting solar power. Plans to explore Mars and possibly land on a meteorite are driven by the search for life elsewhere in the universe. Dreams and plans abound. Leadership in space has become more competitive and within reach of many countries , particularly those with economic growth and a large well-educated technical workforce like the People's Republic of China (PRC), India and South Korea. The momentum towards self- sufficiency is seen as a potential way of offsetting access to US systems. The result has been a series of national space policies or position documents, with programmatic realignments to match, which appeared in 2008, heralding visions and intentions across the globe.

ExtinctionKhalilzad, 95 — Rand Corporation (Zalmay Khalilzad, Spring 1995. RAND Corporation. “Losing the Moment?” The Washington Quarterly 18.2, Lexis)Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.

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***AEROSPACE INDUSTRY ADVANTAGE

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VSE Doesn’t Resolve UncertaintyVSE doesn’t solve aeronautic uncertainty – it’s more unclear than the squoSpudis 7 (Paul D. Spudis, planetary scientist at the Applied Phsyics Laboratory, member of the Clementine Science Team (1994), President’s Commission on the Implementation of US Space Exploration Policy (2004), recipient of NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, Von Karman Lectureship in Astronautics, and author or co-author of over 150 scientific papers and four books. Text taken from article titled “the Space Review: A Moon Full of Opportunity,” published January 22nd, 2007. Text found at [http://www.thespacereview.com/article/791/1])From the beginning, there was dissention within NASA and the broader space community about the meaning of the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). Was it a call for a permanent Moon base? Was it all about sending humans to Mars? Perhaps it was really a stalking horse to terminate human spaceflight completely. The alt-space community whined about it being another big government boondoggle. The Mars Society whined about the focus on the Moon. The scientific community just whined. Much of this confusion stems from preconceived interpretations about the new policy and has been exacerbated by resulting changes to the status quo. This confusion, nurtured by design or misinformation, must be corrected and the Vision’s direction clearly understood.

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Aerospace Industry Strong NowAerospace Industry high nowDouglass ‘06 (John W. Douglass is the president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association.  AIA represents the nation's leading manufacturers and suppliers of civil, military, and business aircraft, helicopters, UAVs, space systems, aircraft engines, missiles, materiel and related components, equipment, services and information technology. found online at http://www.gcxmag.com/gcx/article.asp?magarticle_id=548)Aerospace sales hit a record level in 2005 as the industry's three main sectors — civil aviation, defense and space — all showed strength convergence, according to the Aerospace Industries Association's state-of-the-industry analysis. Sales increased by $14 billion to reach a record industry-wide level of $170 billion in 2005, an increase of 9.2 percent over 2004's final sales number. The figure comes as all three aerospace sectors showed strong growth in the same year. The statistics are reflections on positive developments during the past year, with civil aviation gaining strength and airlines buying new planes, and the new Vision for Space Exploration driving space technologies. The strong defense sales numbers show the Bush administration's dedication to keeping the nation secure. This is good news for the nation's economy because aerospace provides a foreign- trade surplus and is adding jobs. The industry is also vitally important to national security, and the strong defense sales are a reflection of that fact. The outlook for the next year is solid, calling for 8.2 percent growth to $184 billion. That would be another record year. Aerospace remains one of the most important cogs in the U.S. economy, registering a positive trade balance of $37 billion. That reflects an increase of $6.4 billion over last year's surplus. Aerospace is one of the few manufacturing sectors of the economy that consistently shows a foreign-trade surplus, and it posted the highest positive balance of all industry categories in 2004. Civil aviation sales, including commercial jets, general aviation aircraft, helicopters, engines and parts, led all sectors, increasing 20 percent to $39 billion. Orders increased 15 percent to $187 billion, and for the second year the number of commercial jetliners delivered rose, an increase of seven to 290. The backlog of commercial jetliners jumped 39 percent to $98 billion. Military aircraft sales increased 7 percent to $50 billion, missile sales rose 4 percent to $15.3 billion, and space sales grew 3.8 percent to $37 billion. The sales for general aviation, helicopters, military aircraft, space, and related products and services are all new records. Aerospace employment continued its climb, adding a projected 30,900 jobs in 2005to reach 623,900. Aerospace accounted for one-third of all manufacturing jobs added nationwide despite hitting a 50-year employment low in February 2004. Profits rose in 2005 to an estimated $11 billion, the highest level ever. Aerospace industry profit margins increased as well. Even so, profit margins for the broader manufacturing sector as a whole surpassed aerospace returns. Record growth in Aerospace industryAviation Group 4/11 ( Aviation Search Group, is a firm that helps aviation companies recruit employees. April 19, 2011. A report on today’ aerospace industry. Found online at http://www.helihub.com/2011/04/19/recruiter-reports-record-growth-in-military-and-government-aerospace-industry/) You don’t get ahead by standing still. For the veteran-owned Aviation Search Group to remain at the top of the Aviation and Aerospace Industry, they needed to establish an even larger presence with companies that support Government and Military Aviation. Mission accomplished. Rebounding from the economic downturn, the executive and technical search firm has reported a 150% growth in sales; with the largest percentage of growth having been experienced in the Government/Defense Industries. How has Aviation Search Group increased their already significant footprint in these market sectors? “By providing best in class service” says Grayson Barrows, Director of Sales for Aviation Search Group. Barrows goes on to say, “We have always had a strong market share; but our performance and commitment to understanding our customers’ needs has allowed us to remain at the top of these industries and expand our position even further.

Prominent industry leaders prove aerospace is strong nowAerospace 11 (AEROSPACE manufacturing and design online. Contributed by Dr. Saul “Sonny” Barr is the senior economist at Barr Group Aerospace and professor emeritus of economics and finance at the University of Tennessee. His company has provided economic development, consulting, and training services to the Pentagon, Goodyear, Raytheon, Honeywell, Alcoa, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, local airports, and government, as well as many others and Nathan K. Smith Industry Analyst and Brad Curran Senior Industry Analyst Business Unit: Aerospace & Defense Frost & Sullivan, provided their look at the aerospace industry. February 2011, found online at http://www.onlineamd.com/amd-0211-positive-predictions-2011.aspx)

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According to the “Aerospace Economic Report and Outlook 2010,” recently published by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Barr et. al.), major OEMs and primes like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, EADS, and others forecast the near and long term future of aerospace manufacturing on the growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The underlying principal is that the economy changes first, either up or down, and then the industry simply follows suit. Tracking the GDP, one clearly sees the trend of the economy. In 2000, the GDP was slightly more than $10 trillion and peaked at about $14.5 trillion in 2008, a tremendous 45% increase or about 18% in real terms (after inflation). Then, came the fall of half a trillion dollars just one year later, but a much smaller dip than the news media would have us believe. In the third quarter of 2010, we were back above the 2008 peak at $14.75 trillion, that is an economy more than 47% larger than 10 years ago in nominal terms. No discussion – we had a V-shaped recovery. Matter of fact, from Q3 2009 to Q3 2010, the overall GDP was up 4.5%. However, problems like limited investment capital and other issues discussed later persist. In our new post-recession world, trends change.

Aerospace industry strong now – high demandAerospace 11 (AEROSPACE manufacturing and design online. Contributed by Dr. Saul “Sonny” Barr is the senior economist at Barr Group Aerospace and professor emeritus of economics and finance at the University of Tennessee. His company has provided economic development, consulting, and training services to the Pentagon, Goodyear, Raytheon, Honeywell, Alcoa, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, local airports, and government, as well as many others and Nathan K. Smith Industry Analyst and Brad Curran Senior Industry Analyst Business Unit: Aerospace & Defense Frost & Sullivan, provided their look at the aerospace industry. February 2011, found online at http://www.onlineamd.com/amd-0211-positive-predictions-2011.aspx)Indicator #2: Aerospace Capacity Utilization Aerospace capacity utilization, or the percent of total available manufacturing capacity used, fell from its peak in late 2007 of 88% to about 71% in October 2010, up from a near record recession low of about 66%. Obviously, aerospace manufacturers have tremendous idle capacity. IMPLICATION: Due to the increase of air travel and cargo traffic, idle aerospace manufacturing capacity, when utilized, will quickly spark growth in 2011.

Aerospace industry strong now – federal reserve fundingAerospace 11 (AEROSPACE manufacturing and design online. Contributed by Dr. Saul “Sonny” Barr is the senior economist at Barr Group Aerospace and professor emeritus of economics and finance at the University of Tennessee. His company has provided economic development, consulting, and training services to the Pentagon, Goodyear, Raytheon, Honeywell, Alcoa, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, local airports, and government, as well as many others and Nathan K. Smith Industry Analyst and Brad Curran Senior Industry Analyst Business Unit: Aerospace & Defense Frost & Sullivan, provided their look at the aerospace industry. February 2011, found online at http://www.onlineamd.com/amd-0211-positive-predictions-2011.aspx)Indicator #3: Capital to Fund Aerospace Growth With all the talk about how difficult it is for business, especially small- and medium-sized firms to secure investment capital, little is said about the reason why. While large OEMs and primes have easier access to capital from the issue of stocks and bonds, smaller firms, in most cases, either depend upon owner equity or bank loans. Because of the near failure of our banking system, the Federal Reserve has created a safe haven for banks to safely earn back what was lost. Banks traditionally kept about $50 billion of their deposits in non-interest bearing Federal Reserves but now with the Fed paying interest, Federal Reserves made up of bank deposits have grown to more than a trillion dollars. This is money that cannot circulate in the economy as loans to small and medium sized businesses. IMPLICATION: As the banking system continues to recover, the Federal Reserve will force banks to withdraw these funds which will begin to fuel aerospace manufacturing expansion in 2011.

Aerospace industry strong now – corporate profits proveAerospace 11 (AEROSPACE manufacturing and design online. Contributed by Dr. Saul “Sonny” Barr is the senior economist at Barr Group Aerospace and professor emeritus of economics and finance at the University of Tennessee. His company has provided economic development, consulting, and training services to the Pentagon, Goodyear, Raytheon, Honeywell, Alcoa, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, local airports, and government, as well as many others and Nathan K. Smith Industry Analyst and Brad Curran Senior Industry Analyst Business Unit: Aerospace & Defense Frost & Sullivan, provided their look at the aerospace industry. February 2011, found online at http://www.onlineamd.com/amd-0211-positive-predictions-2011.aspx)Indicator # 4: Aerospace Corporate Profits Tracking corporate profits is a great indicator. In our free enterprise system, markets are very quick at telling us whether we are on the right track. At the end of the third quarter of

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2010, of the 20 firms listed to the right, 15 of them – or 75% – beat Wall Street earnings estimates while 95% earned an after tax profit. While overall U.S. corporate profits in Q3 2010 are the highest in history at $1.427 trillion, aerospace company profits have recovered, just not as well. Aerospace company profits peaked at $5.4 billion in Q2 2008 and fell to a low of -$118 million in Q4 2008. In Q3 2010, aerospace company profits are at about $4 billion, a significant V-shaped recovery. IMPLICATION: Aerospace earnings will continue to rise and or remain steady throughout 2011. Aerospace will lead the recovery and overall expansion of the U.S. economy in 2011 Aerospace industry strong now – Planes on orderAerospace 11 (AEROSPACE manufacturing and design online. Contributed by Dr. Saul “Sonny” Barr is the senior economist at Barr Group Aerospace and professor emeritus of economics and finance at the University of Tennessee. His company has provided economic development, consulting, and training services to the Pentagon, Goodyear, Raytheon, Honeywell, Alcoa, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, local airports, and government, as well as many others and Nathan K. Smith Industry Analyst and Brad Curran Senior Industry Analyst Business Unit: Aerospace & Defense Frost & Sullivan, provided their look at the aerospace industry. February 2011, found online at http://www.onlineamd.com/amd-0211-positive-predictions-2011.aspx)Indicator #5: Planes on Order Facts are facts, and the facts are that in the commercial world, planes are on order. The most recent reading from Barr Group reflects an estimate of 7,052 commercial aircraft in the U.S. Of these, 6,505 are currently in active service, with 773 additional planes on order and 547 currently being stored. Air carriers have trimmed their fleets, cut costs, and have become more profitable. They want the newer, more fuel efficient, longer range and larger capacity aircraft. Global military budgets have hit hard economic times and have stalled the purchase or development of new aerospace weapon systems. As a result, the global military aircraft fleet is either mature (51%), old (38%), or new (11%) according to the “Aerospace Economic Report and Outlook 2010.” In a world that continues to prove itself unstable, old and mature aircraft will be replaced with more fuel efficient aircraft. Of great concern to many is the projected cuts in DoD budgets in 2012 and beyond. With commercial and military aircraft orders on the rise, air traffic will be expanding quickly. This trend continues despite the relative rising cost of fuel and fewer airline employees. Looking longer-term, there is better news for MROs and airlines as demand increases. There is a bright light at the end of the tunnel for both, and it is not a fast train moving in their direction.

Aerospace industry strong now – governments supportAerospace 11 (AEROSPACE manufacturing and design online. Contributed by Dr. Saul “Sonny” Barr is the senior economist at Barr Group Aerospace and professor emeritus of economics and finance at the University of Tennessee. His company has provided economic development, consulting, and training services to the Pentagon, Goodyear, Raytheon, Honeywell, Alcoa, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, local airports, and government, as well as many others and Nathan K. Smith Industry Analyst and Brad Curran Senior Industry Analyst Business Unit: Aerospace & Defense Frost & Sullivan, provided their look at the aerospace industry. February 2011, found online at http://www.onlineamd.com/amd-0211-positive-predictions-2011.aspx)Indicator #6: The Business and Political Environment Like no other industry, aerospace is not only dependent on resources and business capacity but on a beneficial political environment. The question industry often face is locating in the right community that not only supports what they do but is willing to be a partner. The rush to pull us out of a downward spiral has driven two major trends that will foster aerospace manufacturing growth in 2011 and beyond. First, business has had a one-time opportunity during the recession to cut costs, trim compensation packages, let go of the worst (least efficient operations), and build upon the best (most efficient operations). Workers, suppliers, OEMs, primes, and many others have all been flexible in trying to turn this situation around. All of this has left many aerospace manufacturing firms with less leverage, better union contracts, and leaner than ever before to withstand the ever increasing global competition. Hence, aerospace continues to be the only major manufacturing sector in the U.S. with a significant trade surplus. Second is looking for local government as a partner. State and local government has come to realize the benefits and future of aerospace. Across the U.S., local government is creating newer and better opportunities for aerospace. For example, Leesburg, FL, (just outside of Orlando) has launched an ambitious project called LEAP (Leesburg Enterprise Aerospace Plan). LEAP offers more than 3,000 acres of industrial land near an interstate highway; opportunities to develop a duty free/free trade zone; low relative utility, housing, and construction costs; a possible reduction in tax rates through Enterprise Florida; and an international airport, which plans to serve more than 60 million passengers a year estimated to fly into the region by 2028 (to find out more see barrgroupaerospace.com).

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Air Power FailsAir Force expansion against national laws and regulations, already at its peak Lyle 10 (Tech. sgt. Amaani Lyle, he is the secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs. “Air force leaders expand force management options” Official web site of the U.S. Air Force, found online at http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123196695 Posted 3/25/2010.)The Air Force needs to shed thousands of extra airmen by the end of Fiscal 2011. —Michael C. Sirak March 26, 2010—The good news is that the Air Force's retention rate stands at a 15-year high despite an incredibly robust operations tempo. The bad news—if one wishes to call it that—is that USAF has thousands of airmen above its allowed active duty end strength ceiling who would choose to stay on if given the choice. Unfortunately, the Air Force doesn’t have the luxury of retaining them all. In fact, so the Air Force can meet its authorized and funded end strength threshold of 332,800 airmen in Fiscal 2012, the service leadership on March 25 instituted a new wave of force-management measures—some voluntary, some not—to thin the ranks of officer and enlisted members between now and the end of Fiscal 2011. "We are talking about a magnitude of several thousand folks in '10 and '11 who will be departing our Air Force," Brig. Gen. Sharon Dunbar, director of force management policy on the Air Staff, told reporters on the eve of the announcement. As of Feb. 28, the Air Force had about 335,500 active duty airmen. Dunbar said these steps are projected to affect two percent of the service's officers (1,373) and 1.6 percent of the enlisted corps (4,376) through Fiscal 2011. Additionally, they will reduce officer accessions by 737 and enlisted accessions by 2,681 over that period, she said. These measures, which build upon initial actions taken last November, also aim to correct overages in certain career areas and shortages in currently stressed fields and emerging sectors by reshaping the force within that ceiling, said Dunbar. "We've gone to great lengths to figure out how to deliberately size and shape the force so that we are operating within that constraint," she explained. The voluntary separation measures will allow personnel to leave the service immediately, while the non-voluntary ones will commence this summer with departures targeted for no later than April 2011, according to service officials. Dunlap said most of the officer reductions would come in Fiscal 2011.

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Air Power BadAirpower fails to deter & insures conflict escalation, involvement, and civilian death. It is the belief that air offers safe war that causes conflicts to start & escalateCrane, 01 [He is the Director of the U. S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, and at the Strategic Studies Institute, 2001 , “ Conrad Crane“ Sky High: Illusions of Air Power.”]Unfortunately, practice has let theory down. Though technology has continued to advance, public expectations and U.S. Air Force promises about airpower's decisiveness and accuracy have advanced faster. As a result, key decisions about the application of military force in most American wars in the air age have been shaped by an overestimation of airpower's effectiveness against military and industrial targets, and disappointing results have led repeatedly to the escalation of aerial operations against civilians --confirming Douhet's theories and confounding America's precision bombing enthusiasts. Such escalations have long-lasting implications. It may be, for example, that current North Korean programs to develop ballistic missiles are motivated by memories of the destruction of most of their cities and towns by American bombing between 1950 and 1953.(n4) Recent air operations over Yugoslavia repeated the pattern of the Korean War: anticipatory claims of decisiveness, followed by disappointment, followed by escalation against civilian targets. Frustrated by seemingly interminable peace talks and the failure of aerial interdiction, American airmen adopted a strategy they called "Air Pressure": coercion through the destruction of key dual-use civilian-military targets. These targets eventually included hydroelectric power facilities, almost every city and town in North Korea, and irrigation dams for rice fields. Again in Kosovo there were high expectations for what airpower, along with the newest precision-guided munitions and information warfare, could accomplish. While airpower was in the end the primary offensive arm that produced a settlement without risking U.S. and allied ground casualties, the results were not at all those envisioned when the campaign started. When the bombing commenced, Pentagon planners and State Department spokesmen admitted that they did not expect airpower alone to force President Slobodan Milosevic to surrender Kosovo. Consequently, President Clinton announced that the operation had three primary objectives: to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, to prevent an even bloodier Serb offensive against civilians there; and to "seriously damage" the Serb military capacity to do such harm.(n5) Bombing did not achieve any of those goals; indeed, it exacerbated the assault against Albanian Kosovar civilians as Serb ground forces responded to the high-tech aerial assault with a low-tech ravaging of the province. As to seriously damaging the Serb military capacity, NATO peacekeepers subsequently discovered that initial estimates of the degradation of Serbian forces from air attacks were vastly exaggerated, primarily due to extensive Serbian use of decoys and deception. NATO officials quickly reduced initial claims of tanks destroyed from 122 to 93, and were then forced to admit uncovering only 26 "kills" when all was said and done. Yugoslav vehicle commanders, it seems, proved quite adept at hiding in villages, using the surrounding community and inhabitants as human shields.(n6)

Airpower fails to deter. The belief that airpower offers safety causes conflicts to start & escalateCrane, 01 [He is the Director of the U. S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, and at the Strategic Studies Institute, 2001 , “ Conrad Crane]Unfortunately, practice has let theory down. Though technology has continued to advance, public expectations and U.S. Air Force o promises about airpower's decisiveness and accuracy have advanced faster. As a result, key decisions about the application of military force in most American wars in the air age have been shaped by an overestimation of airpower's effectiveness against military and industrial targets, and disappointing results have led repeatedly to the escalation of aerial operations against civilians --confirming Douhet's theories and confounding America's precision bombing enthusiasts. Such escalations have long-lasting implications. It may be, for example, that current North Korean programs to develop ballistic missiles are motivated by memories of the destruction of most of their cities and towns by American bombing between 1950 and 1953.(n4) Recent air operations over Yugoslavia repeated the pattern of the Korean War: anticipatory claims of decisiveness, followed by disappointment, followed by escalation against civilian targets. Frustrated by seemingly interminable peace talks and the failure of aerial interdiction, American airmen adopted a strategy they called "Air Pressure": coercion through the destruction of key dual-use civilian-military targets. These targets eventually included hydroelectric power facilities, almost every city and town in North Korea, and irrigation dams for rice fields. Again in Kosovo there were high expectations for what airpower, along with the newest precision-guided munitions and information warfare, could accomplish. While airpower was in the end the primary offensive arm that produced a settlement without risking U.S. and allied ground casualties, the results were not at all those envisioned when the campaign started.

Airpower fails and is a secondary capability

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Collins, 06 [He is professor of security studies at the National War College. He was deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations “From the Ground Up” http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/10/2088164, Joseph J. Collins] Did our allies play a role, or did U.S. air power do all of the heavy lifting for everyone? Most mysteriously, Dunlap insists (does he intend this to be as insulting as this sounds?) that “almost every improvement in the military situation in Iraq and Afghanistan is attributable to air power in some form ; virtually every setback, especially the strategically catastrophic allegations of war crimes, is traceable to the land forces.” In two wars where air assets have become an important but secondary tool , his claim could be true only if our land forces were hopelessly incompetent. Moreover, is there no room for enemy action in Dunlap’s analysis? Can’t the enemy be the author of a setback, or are all setbacks the fault of some defects on the part of the home team on the ground? General Dunlap might want to read up on the Marines in the second battle for Fallujah, the operations of the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad in Operation Iraqi Freedom II and the recent exploits of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Anbar province. Expert observers judged that these ground operations contributed to improvements in the military situation. Other historical examples of air power in action are also not what Dunlap portrays them to be. 1 When Israel’s attempt to fight a Kosovo-style campaign failed, 1 They came on with too little, too late. Israel’s only hope now is that the United Nations or the Lebanese Army will disarm Hezbollah. No one should take bets on that happening. Dunlap gives air power full credit for killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but this came after ground and special operations forces tracked the target for weeks and called for the airstrike. The killing of Zarqawi was a quintessential joint tactical operation. Claiming it as a great victory for air power is an incomplete description, at best . Indeed, if any one element of our forces deserves the laurel for taking out Zarqawi, it is our tactical intelligence assets from all services who found the needle in a haystack the size of California. Dunlap’s description of the early days of the war in Afghanistan is also one-sided.

Air power isn’t effective, collapses other military branches, and inevitably collapses the economyLundy, 2002 (Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations(Derek, , LA Times, 1/13, http://www.cfr.org/publication.html?id=4291]Some analysts, policymakers and politicians already believe that air power can fight and win our conflicts. In the Dec. 3 issue of Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria wrote that many in the Pentagon remain trapped in land-power nostalgia. He urged them to face the facts that bombing works. Similarly, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) has complained that we "underestimate the impact that air power can have." Lawrence J. Korb, assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration, notes there is "a tendency among our political leaders to view air power as a cheap and easy military solution to all our foreign policy problems." Yes, technology such as Global Positioning System equipment, advanced communications, airborne sensors and weapons that can be guided by ground commandos allows us to put a bomb within 30 feet of a target from miles away. During World War II, we were satisfied if we bombed the correct city and lost only 5% of our airmen. Today, we practically expect to hit a windowpane from 30,000 feet without any loss of life. According to Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 90% of the munitions used in Afghanistan were precision-guided, the highest percentage ever in a major U.S. conflict. But victory over the Taliban is hardly the measuring stick we should use to evaluate the future role of U.S. air power in the making of foreign policy. Afghanistan has little infrastructure and few economic centers. The Taliban had virtually no air defenses. Furthermore, Northern Alliance fighters on the ground in Afghanistan were pivotal to the success of our air operations. They forced the Taliban to amass their forces and fight a more conventional war, which created ready-made, easily detectable targets. Air-power promoters tend to gloss over such details and concentrate on how few American lives have been lost in the war in Afghanistan. From here, it's a short step to advocating air power as an alternative to ground troops, a tactic with obvious political appeal. Yet, a decreased tolerance for putting American troops in harm's way, coupled with unrealistic expectations about U.S. air capabilities, is a recipe for misadventure abroad. Policymakers might use air power in humanitarian missions deemed too dangerous, or not important enough, to send in ground troops. That could result in a mismatch between means and ends, with unhappy consequences. Take Kosovo. Many politicians and strategic thinkers consider that mission to have been a victory for air power. Yet, truth be told, complicated political imperatives determined which military tools were employed to achieve the stated goals. From the outset of NATO's involvement, former President Bill Clinton dismissed the idea of deploying U.S. troops in the region, proclaiming that airstrikes alone would prevent then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic from "continuing and escalating his attacks on helpless civilians." But airmen understood that their mission was to destabilize Milosevic's regime, not to aid the refugee population. Aircraft had the ability to bomb fixed targets, but were helpless when it came to stopping lightly armed military police from killing unarmed civilians. If Pentagon leaders are constrained by political imperatives in their use of air power, as in Kosovo, it will leave us unprepared for future threats and limit the overall capability of the military. "Air power is a superbly

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powerful and versatile tool," explains Capt. Jeff Niner of the U.S. Navy, "and only an insane military strategist would want to enter a modern war without it. However, airpower is but one tool in the toolbox. It would mark the strategist equally insane if he thought air power was all that is required for modern warfare." Acceptance of air power as the centerpiece of our military response will inevitably create funding problems in the Pentagon . The push to pump up U.S. air power would at some point cut into the budgets of the other armed forces . For the price of one F-22 , priced at nearly $200 million, the military could buy 30-plus M1A1 Abrams tanks, the backbone of U.S . armored ground forces. There have been attempts in the past to push air power beyond its capabilities. Horrified by the destruction of trench warfare in World War I, air-power advocates sold air war as a quick and decisive alternative to land power. Italian Gen. Giulio Douhet, the father of strategic air power, believed that aircraft alone could win wars, and, accordingly, land and sea operations should be reorganized around air power. The underlying theme in his theory was that bombing attacks on civilian populations would shatter the enemy's morale, making wars shorter and ultimately more humane. Douhet's U.S. counterpart, Gen. William "Billy" Mitchell, wrote in 1930 that air power "is a distinct move for the betterment of civilization, because wars will be decided quickly and not drag on for years." Yet, air power has never lived up to such expectations. It did not end World War II quickly and decisively, despite inflicting heavy civilian casualties— especially in Japan. It was similarly inefficient in Vietnam. It did not topple Saddam Hussein. Nor did it save civilian lives in Kosovo.

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***LEADERSHIP ADVANTAGE

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VSE Not Key to LeadershipVSE not increase leadership---already been to the moon AP 10, an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, "Obama defends privatization of space travel" http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2010/04/15/obama-space-changes.html. 5/15/10He sought to explain why he aborted former president George W. Bush's return-to-the moon plan in favour of a complicated system of public-and-private flights that would go elsewhere in space, with details still to be worked out. "We've been there before," Obama said of the nation's moon landings decades ago. "There's a lot more of space to explore." He said his administration would support continued manned exploration of space "not just with dollars but with clear aims and a larger purpose." Obama's plan is to increase NASA's budget by $6 billion over five years and shift the responsibility for space transportation to private companies, which would be encouraged to "compete to design and build and launch new means of carrying people and materials out of our atmosphere." They would be responsible not just for designing and building the rockets and spaceships, which they largely do already, but also for conducting flights to the International Space Station. "We will extend the life of the International Space Station likely by more than five years while actually using it for its intended purpose: conducting advanced research that can help improve the daily lives of people here on Earth, as well as testing and improving upon our capabilities in space," Obama said.

Loss of spaceflight will not affect our leadership---already have 6 flags on the moonPaul Spudis 10, geologist and lunar scientist. MarsToday,: “The New Space Race” accessed June 25, 2011 from http://www.marstoday.com/news/viewnews.html?id=1376, Feb 9 2010Many in the space business purport to be unimpressed by the idea that China is going to the Moon and publicly invite them to waste money on such a stunt. "No big deal" seems to be the attitude - after all America did that over 30 years ago. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden recently professed to be unmoved by the possible future presence of a Chinese flag on the Moon, noting that there are already six American flags on the Moon. Although it is not currently popular in this country to think about national interests and the competition of nations in space, others do not labor under this restriction. Our current human spaceflight effort, the International Space Station (ISS), has shown us both the benefits and drawbacks of cooperative projects. Soon, we will not have the ability to send crew to and from the ISS. But that's not a problem; the Russians have graciously agreed to transport us - at $50 million a pop. Look for that price to rise once the Shuttle is fully retired. To understand whether there is a new space race or not, we must understand its history. Why would nations compete in space anyway? And if such competition occurs, how might it affect us? What should we have in space: Kumbaya or Starship Troopers? Or is the answer somewhere between the two?

End of constellation program does not hurt US leadership---new opportunitiesAnatoly Zak 10, Space Reporter for BBC and IEEE Spectrum and Contributing Editor, “End of Constellation: It is Not All Doom and Gloom”, Russian Space Web, 2-4, http://www.russianspaceweb.com/sei_end.htmlEven before the White House made a proposal on Feb. 1, 2010, to eliminate funding for the Constellation program, a political hurricane had started brewing in Washington, D.C. Critics alleged that the end of the project, which aimed to return the American astronauts to the Moon, would undermine US space efforts and would even mark the end of the nation’s leadership in space, giving the upper hand to evil powers like China and Russia. The criticism is probably leveled by the same people, who six years ago were blindly cheerleading the Bush administration’s shortsighted decision to start this project in the first place, without any solid fiscal or technical foundation. With a minimum foresight and the knowledge of space exploration history, it was clear from the get go that the Bush plan was underfunded, poorly designed and would have to be scrapped sooner or later. It is just unfortunate that it took six years, nine billion dollars and the change of occupant in the Oval Office to come to this realization. Obviously, for every space enthusiast around the world, it would be sad to see any major space exploration effort to be axed in a budget crunch. The frustration of legislators representing congressional districts with heavy involvement into a discontinued federal project is also understandable. However there is a silver lining. Every failure presents a new opportunity and even more so does the inevitable demise of the Constellation program. NASA still can make it right, make it big, and remain a leader in space, if it chooses to do so.

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Attempts at a Lunar Base will collapse U.S. Space LeadershipChow 11 (Denise Chow, Bachelor’s degreeMasters degree in journalism from New York University, The Case Against the Moon: Why We Shouldn't Go Straight Back”, http://www.space.com/10597-case-moon-return.html)Maintaining a reputation of leadership In addition to his concern that sending more Americans to the moon would tie up resources that could be used to develop Mars-bound technology, Aldrin said engaging in another moon race would jeopardize the legacy of U.S. dominance in space exploration. "Manned missions to the moon should carefully consider U.S. leadership in space as we expand human presence outward into the solar system," Aldrin said. "If we go back to the moon and get there second or third, that is not U.S. leadership. Activities going back to the moon should be led by the U.S. – but not at the expense of leading the world in space and expansion outward." Arguments for human exploration of the Red Planet are no less politically charged. "Given courageous leadership, we could be on Mars by 2020. That should be our goal," Zubrin said. "To say we cannot do it is to say we have become less than the kind of people we used to be, and that is something this country cannot accept and cannot afford."

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Constellation FailsBetter options for leadership--constellation program failsGene Healy, 7/11/11, Examiner Columnist Gene Healy is a vice president at the Cato Institute and the author of "The Cult of the Presidency," http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/07/space-program-was-our-biggest-bridge-nowhereIt was President George W. Bush who announced the shuttle's retirement with his 2004 "Vision for Space Exploration ," which included a moon base and "human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond." But it was President Obama who put the kibosh on that vision, canceling the moon project and leaving "worlds beyond" in doubt. "We are retiring the shuttle in favor of nothing," Michael Griffin, Bush's NASA administrator, wailed to the Washington Post recently. Here, as usual, "nothing" gets a bad rap. I'll be "in favor of nothing" until the advocates of federally funded spaceflight can come up with an argument for it that doesn't make me spray coffee out my nose. NASA's Griffin failed that test in 2005, when he gave an interview to the Washington Post insisting it was essential that "Western values" accompany those who eventually "colonize the solar system," because "we know the kind of society we would get if you, for example, carry Soviet values. That means you want a gulag on Mars. Is that what you're looking for?" Well ... is it, punk? Outside of avoiding the hypothetical horror of Martian gulags, what does the ordinary taxpayer get from the space program? Not much, says Robin Hanson, a George Mason University economist and research associate at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute: The benefits are "mostly like the pyramids -- national prestige and being part of history." Space partisans often point to the alleged technological breakthroughs that come from solving hard problems like keeping humans alive in an environment never meant to sustain them. But, as Hanson points out, you could get similar technological boons from any ambitious project you convince the feds to spray money at -- whether it's robot butlers or floating cities. If we wanted to, we could surely "find other projects with larger direct payoffs."

Constellation program fails---Cant establish lunar basesThe space frontier foundation, 10, "Is NASA's Constellation Program "Too Big to Fail"," http://spacefrontier.org/2010/05/03/too-big-to-fail/“Just as the Senator says, nothing’s too big to fail. The Ares launch vehicles being developed in Senator Shelby’s state are a total failure by every honest measure. They will cost too much, are years behind schedule, and our nation’s top experts say they could not fulfill their intended mission even if they were built,” said the Foundation’s Rick Tumlinson. “It is the space equivalent of Wall Street vultures who happily collected huge profits selling bad investments but then demanded our tax dollars when everything fell apart. It’s time for Ares to be put to sleep.” The Foundation agrees with a blue ribbon White House panel, and other experts across the space field, who have found that the Constellation Program announced under former President G.W. Bush is failing to meet its original goals. In particular, the outrageously expensive Ares rockets, initiated in 2005, have already eaten the seed corn of exploration technology funding. President Obama is cancelling these failed projects in favor of a more affordable and innovative path that sustainably opens the space frontier. But many in Congress oppose this change, and instead want to throw more money at Constellation and Ares – as much as an extra $5-6 billion per year – even as they criticize federal bailouts of the automotive and financial industries. “We think Senator Shelby, and many others trying to protect their local pork, should apply the same logic to the space program they apply to Wall Street,” said Foundation Chairman Bob Werb. “Just because Ares is based at his Marshall Space Flight Center is no reason to ignore the complete disaster it has become.” “We agree with Senator Shelby and his colleagues when they worry about taxpayer bailouts. When an institution has repeatedly failed, we need to clean up the mess and try something new, instead of doing the same thing over and over expecting a miracle to occur,” added Tumlinson. “That applies to NASA and the Marshall Spaceflight Center too” concluded Werb.” “Protecting organizations from their own failures is not good for the nation or the hard working people at NASA. The people on the ground in Alabama deserve better than an unaffordable program that will have to be cancelled sooner or later anyway. They deserve a shot at success – success that will secure their jobs regardless of shifts in the budgetary or political winds.”

Constellation program fails to increase leadership---- expensive, useless, and dangerousRep. Dana Rohrabacher, 7/8/11, member of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, "End of shuttle program doesn’t mean end of American leadership in spaceflight", http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/170373-end-of-shuttle-program-doesnt-mean-end-of-american-leadership-in-spaceflight

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Just as America ended the successful and celebrated Apollo program to blaze a different trail, now we are ending the space shuttle program to follow a different, more flexible path. Ending Apollo didn’t end American leadership in human spaceflight and ending the space shuttle program won’t end it either . This week, Atlantis is scheduled to make the last ever liftoff of the space shuttle program. It is both joyful to see such an expensive, unsafe program end and tragic to see such an accomplished, ground-breaking program end. There can be no doubt that the space shuttle program made the reusability of space vehicles a reality, brought dozens of crew and tons of cargo into space, and facilitated our space science goals for decades. These tremendous vehicles have served as an inspiration to countless Americans, and people around the globe. But there is also no doubt that these vehicles fell far short of what we were initially promised: inexpensive, reliable transportation into space with 50 launches every year. What we actually received was fewer than 50 launches every decade from a technological dead end oftentimes grounded for years at a time due to technical problems. It killed 14 brave men and women and it cost about $1 billion per flight.

Government Spaceflight is wasteful, expensive, and uselessGene Healy, 7/12/11, vice president at the Cato Institute and author of “The Cult of the Presidency, "Space program is the biggest bridge to nowhere" http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/07/space-program-biggest-bridge-nowhereFriday marked the space shuttle program’s swan song, as Atlantis lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center for the program’s 135th and final flight. It was President George W. Bush who announced the shuttle’s retirement with his 2004 “Vision for Space Exploration,” which included a moon base and “human missions to Mars and to worlds beyond.” But it was President Barack Obama who put the kibosh on that vision, canceling the moon project and leaving “worlds beyond” in doubt. “We are retiring the shuttle in favor of nothing,” Michael Griffin, Bush’s NASA administrator, wailed to the Washington Post recently. Here, as usual, “nothing” gets a bad rap. I’ll be “in favor of nothing” until the advocates of federally funded spaceflight can come up with an argument for it that doesn’t make me spray coffee out of my nose. NASA’s Griffin failed that test in 2005 when he gave an interview to the Post insisting it was essential that “Western values” accompany those who eventually “colonize the solar system,” because “we know the kind of society we would get if you, for example, carry Soviet values. That means you want a gulag on Mars. Is that what you’re looking for?” Outside of avoiding the hypothetical horror of Martian gulags, what does the ordinary taxpayer get from the space program? Not much, according to Robin Hanson, a George Mason University economist and research associate at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute — the benefits are “mostly like the pyramids — national prestige and being part of history.” Space partisans often point to the alleged technological breakthroughs that come from solving hard problems such as keeping humans alive in an environment never meant to sustain them. But, as Hanson pointed out, you could get similar technological boons from any ambitious project you convince the feds to spray money at — whether it’s robot butlers or floating cities. If we wanted to, we could surely “find other projects with larger direct payoffs.” The argument for federally funded spaceflight ultimately boils down to “spacecraft as soulcraft,” the quasi-religious notion that, as Post columnist Charles Krauthammer put it, we go “not for practicality,” but “for the wonder and the glory of it.” Space must be an alluring muse indeed, given that it makes Krauthammer, normally a hardheaded neoconservative, sound like a yoga instructor gone lightheaded during a juice fast. He calls space skeptics “Earth Firsters,” deaf to “the music of the spheres.” Apparently there’s nothing more “isolationist” than wanting to stay on your own planet. Krauthammer’s obsession makes sense, in a way, since federally funded spaceflight is the quintessential neoconservative project: a giant, wasteful crusade designed to fill Americans’ supposedly empty lives with meaning. Sorry, Charlie, the public’s not buying it. A 2010 Rasmussen poll showed that more Americans think private enterprise should pay for space exploration rather than the government. By nearly 2-to 1 margins, they also oppose sending federally funded astronauts to the moon or Mars. As far as Americans are concerned, space is the ultimate bridge to nowhere. It’s true that, with a $1.5 trillion deficit, NASA’s $18 billion isn’t what stands between us and our fiscal day of reckoning. But every little bit counts, and this is the rare cut that won’t make the public squeal.

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Private Sector and SQ SolvePrivatization sector key to leadershipPeter Diamandis, 2008, Chairman & CEO, X PRIZE Foundation, “Re-establishing NASA's Leadership,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-diamandis/re-establishing-nasas-lea_b_150297.htmlAs President-Elect Obama takes office, NASA stands positioned to benefit from the change and enthusiasm brought by his new Administration. Five years out from the announcement of a new vision for America's Space Exploration program, important lessons about what NASA should be doing and how it can best meet those goals are available, and must be learned. So long a source of national pride and inspiration as well as cutting edge research, NASA is now losing its position of world leadership . Thankfully, the ingenuity and the talent necessary to reassert America's pre-eminence are still hardwired into the fabric of this nation. NASA and its peer agencies can be in a position to efficiently tap into it and direct it. Engage the Private Community For too long, aerospace contractors have lacked the appropriate incentive to innovate. Internal research and development budgets have been low; the punishment for failure to deliver to specification and budget has been light or absent; and a culture of risk avoidance has kept major breakthroughs out of reach. Recently, a new type of commercial aerospace industry has emerged; one that seeks to access large sources of private revenue--and which therefore must make strategic business decisions that lead to rapid and impressive innovation. To allow NASA to accomplish its lofty goals while simultaneously stimulating the American economy, NASA must continue to engage this new commercial space community . This new commercial space industry should be viewed not as a competitor, but as a critical partner. Therefore, trailblazing commercial programs such as COTS, Centennial Challenges, and the now-defunct Mercury Fund should be renewed, expanded, and emulated throughout NASA's mission directorates.

Squo solves US leadershipSteven Nelson, 11, The Daily Caller, "Fiscal Conservatives call for increased privatization of space," http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/08/fiscal-conservatives-call-for-increased-privatization-of-space/Tuesday morning the Competitive Space Task Force, a self-described group of fiscal conservatives and free-market leaders, hosted a press conference to encourage increased privatization of the space industry. Members of the task force issued several recommendations to Congress, including finding an American replacement to the Space Shuttle (so to minimize the costly expenditures on use of Russian spacecraft) and encouraging more private investment in the development of manned spacecraft. Former Republican Rep. Robert S. Walker of Pennsylvania said, “If we really want to ‘win the future’, we cannot abandon our commitment to space exploration and human spaceflight. The fastest path to space is not through Moscow, but through the American entrepreneur.” Task Force chairman Rand Simberg, of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said, “By opening space up to the American people and their enterprises, NASA can ignite an economic, technological, and innovation renaissance, and the United States will regain its rightful place as the world leader in space.” Also speaking at the press conference was Tom Schatz of Citizens Against Government Waste. Keith Cowing of NASA Watch wrote that he pressed Simberg about his feelings on the Obama administration’s priorities. He wrote that Simberg, “did not think that the President cared either way about space commercialization.”

Privatization still results in lunar baseWilliam Harwood 2010, CNET writer, "Obama ends moon program, endorses private spaceflight" http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10445227-239.html, 2/1/2010Over that same five years, some $7.8 billion will be earmarked for new technology development, including autonomous rendezvous, orbital fuel transfer systems, and closed-loop life support systems. Another $3.1 billion will support development of new propulsion technologies needed by future heavy-lift rockets. And $3 billion will go to pay for a series of robotic missions to the moon and beyond to test systems needed for eventual manned flights . " Imagine trips to Mars that take weeks instead of nearly a year, people fanning out across the inner solar system, exploring the moon, asteroids, and Mars nearly simultaneously in a steady stream of firsts," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told reporters. "And imagine all of this being done collaboratively with nations around the world. That is what the president's plan for NASA will enable, once we develop the new capabilities to make it a reality." No timetables were established for human flights beyond low-Earth orbit, with deputies saying the focus instead will be on enabling technology development and innovation. As for commercial flights to and from the International Space Station, NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver said she hoped a new private-sector launch system, possibly including modified versions of technology developed for the canceled moon program, could be available by around 2016 if not earlier.

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Lunar base is pointless---Privatization solves for colony on marsAnn Compton,7/8/11, American news reporter and White House correspondent for ABC News Radio, " Obama ends shuttle era, says he will live to see Man on Mars," http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/07/obama-ends-shuttle-era-says-he-will-live-to-see-man-on-mars-1.htmlBarack Obama was eight years old when Neil Armstrong made his “one small step for Man” on the face of the Moon, and now as President, Obama has told NASA: “been there, done that.” Instead of aiming toward creation of a base on the Moon, as envisioned by his predecessor, President Obama wants to target deep space. “We’ve set a goal to let’s ultimately get to Mars. A good pit stop is an asteroid,” the President explained at a townhall meeting this week. “Let’s start stretching the boundaries so we’re not doing the same thing over and over again , but rather let’s start thinking about what’s the next horizon, what’s the next frontier out there.” He was asked about the future of manned space flight less than 48 hours before the final shuttle mission lifted off, carrying a small crew of four aboard the Atlantis to deliver food and supplies to the International Space Station. President Obama issued a written statement praising “thousands of dedicated workers who have poured their hearts and souls into America’s Space Shuttle program over the past three decades.” But the era is over. “It propels us into the next era of our never-ending adventure to push the very frontiers of exploration and discovery in space. We’ll drive new advances in science and technology,” the statement read. But it will not be any time soon. “In order to do that,” the President told the townhall, “we’re actually going to need some technological breakthroughs that we don’t have yet.” As for Americans space for the next decade or two he said, “Let’s allow the private sector to get in so that they can, for example, send these low-Earth orbit vehicles into space and we may be able to achieve a point in time where those of you who are just dying to go into space , you can buy a ticket, and a private carrier can potentially take you up there , while the government focuses on the big breakthroughs that require much larger investments and involve much greater risk.”

Space privatization solves economyi.b. times, 10, "Obama moves to privatize space exploration," http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/6240/20100201/obama-moves-privatize-space-exploration-spacex.htmUnder the plan, NASA would pay the companies to carry US astronauts to the International Space Station and other destinations in orbit. "A strengthened U.S. commercial space launch industry will bring needed competition, act as a catalyst for the development of other new businesses capitalizing on affordable access to space, help create thousands of new jobs and help reduce the cost of human access to space , " the White House said. Proponents of private space flight point out the parallel with the early days of air travel, when private airlines had a guaranteed customer in the U.S. government to deliver airmail. NASA would then be a guaranteed customer for the private space companies through 2020.

Obama's VSE solves leadershipRep. Dana Rohrabacher, 7/8/11, member of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, "End of shuttle program doesn’t mean end of American leadership in spaceflight", http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/170373-end-of-shuttle-program-doesnt-mean-end-of-american-leadership-in-spaceflightOur current fleet of space shuttles are not the reusable, routine vehicles we wanted, or what we believed we had built. They are test vehicles, not fully understood, but they have helped to expand our knowledge and improve the capabilities for vehicles yet to come. Now, as we celebrate the accomplishments of the space shuttle, we look forward to blazing that new trail, one which will finally bring us closer to achieving the real dreams and true promise of the space shuttles: inexpensive, reliable, safe human spaceflight . This transformation won’t take place overnight. NASA, Congress and others still have the power to get in the way and create a self-fulfilling prophecy by preventing it from happening, at least in this country. We will only lose America’s leadership in human spaceflight if we prevent the free market from pursuing multiple, independent launchers and vehicles. America’s new space plan is to use commercial space vehicles to reach Earth orbit ; to develop key technologies to enable long-term deep space missions; and to create a new NASA-designed vehicle to visit asteroids, the moon, Mars and beyond. This new plan is an opportunity to leverage America’s greatest strengths to help meet our national goal of inexpensive, reliable, safe, routine human spaceflight. This was the promise of the space shuttle, and that program has certainly paved the way, but it has also served as a warning. For far too long, our space funding has not matched our goals or mission in space, creating a dangerous, frustrating situation with no clear path to success. America’s space goals can only be achieved by partnering with other nations, bringing in funds from the private sector, creating sustainable launchers and vehicles that can serve both public and private markets in Earth orbit. We can free up resources to

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devote to human space exploration, while not abandoning the $100 billion orbiting national laboratory of the International Space Station, by taking these steps and truly fulfilling the purpose and vision of the space shuttle program. Much as William Boeing’s 40A 1920s airplane, built to meet the goal of carrying mail and passengers across the country, ended up paving the way to create industries beyond the realm of imagination, so too will the successors to the space shuttle provide capabilities that can be used for multiple destinations. Whether designed for destinations in low Earth orbit, or out to the moon, Mars and beyond. These capabilities will secure, once again, American leadership in human spaceflight for a generation and lay the groundwork for American leadership through the next millennium, truly serving as the greatest legacy for our magnificent space shuttles. Long live American leadership in human spaceflight.

Squo solves lunar base as well as deep space travel---Constellation failsChris Carroll, 7/6/11, reporter for stars and stripes, "End of shuttle leaves future of manned spaceflight unclear," http://www.stripes.com/end-of-shuttle-leaves-future-of-manned-spaceflight-unclear-1.148536Just over a year into his first term, President Barack Obama told NASA to refocus its human spaceflight efforts on distant exploration and drop the idea of building a manned vehicle to replace the space shuttle in low-Earth orbit. Political consensus or no, the Constellation program was a loser, said the White House Office of Management and Budget — “over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies.” The Augustine Commission, appointed by Obama to study national space policy, had reported in late 2009 that Constellation’s Ares 1 rocket would miss the 2014 launch goal by years. Meanwhile the program was spending billions of dollars in the midst of a serious financial downturn. In a major shift in U.S. space policy, Obama declared that returning the United States to low-Earth orbit would be an effort led by aerospace companies — ranging from entrepreneur Elon Musk’s promising upstart SpaceX to established players including Orbital Sciences and Boeing — and not NASA. “In order to reach the space station, we will work with a growing array of private companies competing to make getting to space easier and more affordable,” Obama said in an April 2010 speech at Kennedy Space Center. Obama in the same speech promised NASA billions to fund research on a heavy lift rocket for deep-space exploration, and said that rather than following Bush’s vision of returning to the moon by 2020, NASA would aim to land astronauts on an asteroid. Later, by the mid-2030s, astronauts would orbit Mars. Low-Earth orbit, an orbital zone a few hundred miles above the surface traversed by the space shuttle and other craft, essentially is a “been there, done that” proposition, say supporters of Obama’s plan. “It’s really a sign of optimism and a belief that the future of government space programs lies in exploration far beyond Earth,” said John Logsdon, professor emeritus at George Washington University and former director of the Space Policy Institute. “All we’re talking about with (commercial spaceflight) is a taxi service to the space station.” John Shannon, NASA’s current space shuttle program manager, says that if private firms manage to take over the quotidian taxi duty, “that frees up NASA to do something we haven’t done since Apollo — go outside low-Earth orbit. “We’re talking about going back into lunar orbit, to the moon, near Earth asteroid activities and maybe eventually to Mars , ” Shannon said. “It’s a pretty exciting time.”

End of shuttle program does not mean end of US human space travel---private sector works betterJohn Logsdon, 7/10/11, Founder, GW's Space Policy Institute; professor emeritus, political science and international affairs, George Washington University's Elliot School of International Affairs, "The end of the space shuttle need not mean the end of the United States' celestial ambitions." http://www.themarknews.com/articles/5949-endangered-but-not-extinctThe 30-year era of space shuttle flights will come to an end with the final mission of Atlantis. With that flight, some have suggested that we are witnessing the end of U.S. human space flight. That is most certainly not the case. If all goes as planned, there will be many American astronauts living and working in space over the next decade, as NASA, at the same time, prepares for human voyages beyond low-Earth orbit after 2020. Now that the International Space Station (ISS), the shuttle’s single most valuable contribution to research, is finally completed, the next decade of U.S. human space flight activity will be focused on utilizing this unique space laboratory. It is certainly embarrassing that U.S. astronauts will be travelling to and from the ISS in Russian space taxis until a crew-carrying U.S. replacement for the shuttle is ready – hopefully by mid-decade – but the fact remains that there will be Americans in space for at least 10 years to come. Then what? Does the end of shuttle missions mark the beginning of a transition to a new era of human space exploration? The answer to that question is not yet clear. No human has travelled beyond low-Earth orbit since the final Apollo mission, Apollo 17, in December 1972. In 2004, then U.S. president George W. Bush laid out what remains a worthy goal: to “implement a sustained and affordable human and robotic program to explore the solar system and beyond.” The first step was to have been a return to the moon by 2020, but, in 2009, the program to develop the capabilities to achieve that goal, called Constellation, was deemed

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“unexecutable” by an expert panel. In response, the White House proposed cancelling Constellation, thereby abandoning the “moon by 2020” goal. However, in April 2010, President Barack Obama called for a continuing commitment to space exploration, saying , “If we fail to press forward in the pursuit of discovery, we are ceding our future and we are ceding that essential element of the American character.” The White House proposed a new strategy for human space flight, initially focused on developing leading-edge technologies, including new rocket engines, in-orbit propellant transfer techniques, and improved life-support systems . After a few years, these new technologies would have been injected into a new generation of launch vehicles and spacecraft. As part of this strategy, NASA would assign the private sector the leading role in developing, as quickly as possible, one or more systems to replace the shuttle’s crew-carrying capability. American industry would operate in a new type of partnership with the space agency while NASA concentrated on preparing for future exploration.

End of shuttle program does not mean end of US leadershipJeff Foust, 7/27/11, aerospace analyst, journalist and publisher. He is the editor and publisher of The Space Review and has written for Astronomy NowThere’s a bit of a lull in space policy now, after the shuttle has landed and with Congress and the administration preoccupied with much bigger, pressing issues. A few items of interest: In the post-shuttle era, NASA administrator Charles Bolden is optimistic, reiterating that the end of the shuttle doesn’t mean the end of NASA human spaceflight. “fact, we are recommitting ourselves to human spaceflight and taking the necessary — and difficult — steps to maintain American pre-eminence. Our leadership will continue because we have laid this foundation for success,” he says in an Orlando Sentinel op-ed. “There’s no doubt that this transition period at NASA is a challenge. But we have always risen to meet such challenges, just as we did during the transition from the Apollo program to shuttle.”

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***LUNAR COLONIES ADVANTAGE

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Lunar Colonies FailLunar colonies fail and are unnecessaryJÄRVSTRÅT 02 (2002, NIKLAS JÄRVSTRÅT Phd, Department of tech, math, computer sci at university west, “ Lunar colonization: why, how & When we start talking seriously about space colonization, excitement is bound to grow.”, http://moon-isru.com/information/AdAstra2002.pdf, nkj)

But it apparently is not yet fashionable to speak about a lunar colony. The concepts proposed are invariably of small-scale, temporarily manned outposts, similar to arctic bases on Earth. If this preoccupation with short-term scientific exploration and even more short-term commercial gain continues, the interest of the general public will quickly wane. Sending probes and bold explorers to Mars will not help much either — red rocks are only faintly more interesting than grey rocks, however far away. When we seriously start talking about space colonization, however, excitement is bound to grow. If you have ever thought about humans in space, the image of cities on other planets and spaceships travelling between them must have flashed through your mind. This is a powerful vision, and although it may be considered unrealistic, unnecessary or perhaps even heretical, most people will not help but find it intriguing. Consequently, any reasonably realistic effort to establish a lunar colony will receive a great deal of publicity, which could attract an increasing number of commercial investors.

Colonization’s impossibleHarris 09 (1/1/09 James W. Harris served as Director of the Test Systems at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. He was responsible for planning, directing and coordinating all directorate activities, including the development, operation and maintenance of specialized range, simulation, and telecommunications facilities and the design, construction, upgrade and maintenance of related infrastructure. Harris joined NASA in 1999 as chief engineer of the Western Aeronautical Test Range at Dryden. He has also served as the chief of Range Engineering Branch, the range manager and Deputy Director of Test Systems before being advanced to Director of Test Systems in January 2008. Prior to joining the civil service ranks, Harris served as the chief of the Research Aircraft Integration Facility / Flight Loads Laboratory Support Branch for Sparta, Inc., a contractor at NASA Dryden in 1998. “Is colonizing the moon possible?” http://jameswharris.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/is-colonizing-the-moon-possible/, nkj)

What Does Colonizing Mean? Explorers are brave women and men who go places no one has gone before – but they go back home when they’re done exploring. Scientific missions are like our bases in Antarctica. Scientists go to live and work in distant lands for long periods but they eventually return home. Colonization is like the people on the Mayflower, they left with no intention of ever going home. The trouble with colonizing the Moon is it will be very hard. Harder than anyone can imagine. Maybe even impossible. People need air, food, water and shelter just to minimally survive. A self-sufficient colony means that at some point the colonists can survive on their own without resupply from Earth. The Moon is essentially airless, but it’s rocks are full of oxygen. There’s a chance of ice being on the Moon. That’s more oxygen, and hydrogen. Something to drink and the basis of creating energy and rocket fuel. Then we need to look for carbon, nitrogen and all the other elements, and rebuild what we have here on Earth. No small task, and we have to face the fact that it might be impossible. It’s a fantastic challenge. But look around you at everything you see that’s manufactured. Think of the mining, industry and manufacturing that went into those products. All those enterprises will have to be built on the Moon for colonization to work. Some people will point out that all nations trade with other nations and no nation lives completely self-sufficient. That’s true on Earth, but what if the Earth was hit by a giant comet and was destroyed? Wouldn’t you, and the future Lunar colonists, want the Moon colony to be able to carry on without Earth? The most important value of a self-sufficient colony on the Moon and Mars is life insurance for our species. There might be huge number of intelligent beings in the universe, or we might be the only one. Either way, it would be a shame for us to go extinct.

Colonization doesn’t solve extinction and long timeframe checksWilliams 10 (Spring 2010, Lynda Williams, Physics Instructor and Lecturer at Santa Rose College, “Irrational dreams of space colonization,” http://www.scientainment.com/lwilliams_peacereview.pdf, nkj)

According to scientific theory, the destruction of Earth is a certainty. About five billion years from now, when our sun exhausts its nuclear fuel, it will expand in size and envelope the inner planets, including the Earth, and burn them into oblivion. So yes, we are doomed, but we have 5 billion years, plus or minus a few hundred million, to plan

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our extraterrestrial escape. The need to colonize the Moon or Mars to guarantee our survival based on this fact is not pressing. There are also real risks due to collisions with asteroids and comets, though none are of immediate threat and do not necessitate extraterrestrial colonization. There are many Earth-based technological strategies that can be developed in time to mediate such astronomical threats such as gravitational tugboats that drag the objects out of range. The solar system could also potentially be exposed to galactic sources of high-energy gamma ray bursts that could fry all life on Earth, but any Moon or Mars base would face a similar fate. Thus, Moon or Mars human based colonies would not protect us from any of these astronomical threats in the near future.

Colonization impossible—lack of energy, tech, water, and high radiationWilliams 10 (Spring 2010, Lynda Williams, Physics Instructor and Lecturer at Santa Rose College, “Irrational dreams of space colonization,” http://www.scientainment.com/lwilliams_peacereview.pdf, nkj)

What do the prospects of colonies or bases on the Moon and Mars offer? Both the Moon and Mars host extreme environments that are uninhabitable to humans without very sophisticated technological life supporting systems beyond any that are feasible now or will be available in the near future. Both bodies are subjected to deadly levels of solar radiation and are void of atmospheres that could sustain oxygen-based life forms such as humans. Terra-forming either body is not feasible with current technologies or within any reasonable time frames so any colony or base would be restricted to living in space capsules or trailer park like structures which could not support a sufficient number of humans to perpetuate and sustain the species in any long term manner. Although evidence of water has been discovered on both bodies, it exists in a form that is trapped in minerals, which would require huge amounts of energy to access. Water can be converted into fuel either as hydrogen or oxygen, which would eliminate the need to transport vast amounts of fuel from Earth. However, according to Britain's leading spaceflight expert, Professor Colin Pillinger, "You would need to heat up a lot of lunar soil to 200C to get yourself a glass of water." The promise of helium as an energy source on the moon to is mostly hype. Helium-3 could be used in the production of nuclear fusion energy, a process we have yet to prove viable or efficient on Earth. Mining helium would require digging dozens of meters into the lunar surface and processing hundreds of thousands of tons of soil to produce 1 ton of helium-3. (25 tons of helium-3 is required to power the US for 1 year.) Fusion also requires the very rare element tritium, which does not exist naturally on the Moon, Mars or on Earth in abundances needed to facilitate nuclear fusion energy production. There are no current means for generating the energy on the Moon to extract the helium-3 to produce the promised endless source of energy from helium-3 on the Moon. Similar energy problems exist for using solar power on the Moon, which has the additional problem of being sunlit two weeks a month and dark for the other two weeks. A Moon base is envisioned as serving as a launch pad for Martian expeditions, so the infeasibility of a lunar base may prohibit trips to Mars, unless they are launched directly from Earth. Mars is, in its closest approach, 36 million miles from Earth and would require a nine-month journey with astronauts exposed to deadly solar cosmic rays. Providing sufficient shielding would require a spacecraft that weighs so much it becomes prohibitive to carry enough fuel for a roundtrip. Either the astronauts get exposed to lethal doses on a roundtrip, or they make a safe one-way journey and never return. Either way, no one can survive a trip to Mars and whether or not people are willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of scientific exploration, human missions to Mars do not guarantee the survival of the species, but rather, only the death of any member who attempts the journey

Humans can’t survive on the Moon Gugliotta 6 (Guy Gugliotta, staff writer for the Washington Post, text taken from article titled, “US Planning Base on Moon To Prepare for Trip to Mars?” published March 26, 2006. Text found at [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032500999.html])The moon is not for the faint of heart. It is a lethal place, without atmosphere, pelted constantly by cosmic rays and micrometeorites, plagued by temperature swings of hundreds of degrees, and swathed in a blanket of dust that can ruin space suits, pollute the

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air supply and bring machinery to a screeching halt. And that says nothing about the imponderables. Will working in one-sixth of Earth's gravity for a year cause crippling health problems? What happens when someone suffers from a traumatic injury that can't be treated by fellow astronauts? How do people react to living in a tiny space under dangerous conditions for six months? "It's like Magellan. You send them off, and maybe they come back, maybe they don't," said planetary scientist Wendell W. Mendell, manager of NASA's Office for Human Exploration Science, during an interview at the recently concluded Lunar and Planetary Science Conference here. "There's a lot of pathologies that show up, and there's nobody in the Yellow Pages." In some ways, the moon will be harder than Mars. Moon dust is much more abrasive than Mars dust; Mars has atmosphere; Mars has more gravity (one-third of Earth's); Mars has plenty of ice for a potential water supply, while the moon may have some, but probably not very much.

Lunar Base fails – technology, lunar dust, sunlight dormany, spacesuitsGugliotta 6 (Guy Gugliotta, staff writer for the Washington Post, text taken from article titled, “US Planning Base on Moon To Prepare for Trip to Mars?” published March 26, 2006. Text found at [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/25/AR2006032500999.html])The templates, cited frequently by moon mavens, are the U.S. bases in Antarctica, noteworthy for isolation, extreme environment, limited access, lack of indigenous population and no possibility of survival without extensive logistical support. "The lunar base is not a 'colony,' " Lee said. " 'Colonization' implies populating the place, and that's not on the plate. This is a research outpost." Once planners choose a base, the astronauts will immediately need to bring a host of technologies to bear, none of which currently exist. "Power is a big challenge," Toups said. Solar arrays are an obvious answer, but away from the poles 14 days of lunar sunlight are followed by 14 days of darkness, so "how do you handle the dormancy periods?" Next is the spacesuit. Apollo suits weighed 270 pounds on Earth, a relatively comfortable "felt weight" of 40 to 50 pounds on the moon, but an unacceptable 102 pounds on Mars. "You can't haul that around, bend down or climb hills," Lee said. "Somehow we have to cut the mass of the current spacesuit in half." And the new suit, unlike the Apollo suits or the current 300-pound shuttle suit, is going to have to be relatively easy to put on and take off, and to be able withstand the dreaded moon dust. After three days, Apollo astronauts reported that the dust was causing the joints in their suits to jam, "and we're not talking about three outings," Lee said of the next moon missions. "We're talking about once a week for 500 days -- between 70 and 100 spacewalks." Dealing with dust is also a major concern in building shelters on the lunar surface. Toups said it

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might be possible to harden the ground by microwaving it, creating a crust "like a tarp when you're camping." Otherwise, the dust pervades everything, and prolonged exposure could even lead to silicosis. Dust also makes it virtually impossible to use any kind of machinery with ball bearings. Civil engineer Darryl J. Calkins, of the Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, warned that the combination of dust, low gravity, temperature swings and the high cost of flying things to the moon is going to define the lunar tool kit in unforeseen ways. "You can't put a diesel up there; you can't put a 20,000-pound bulldozer up there; and none of our oils or hydraulic fluids are going to survive," Calkins said in a telephone interview. "We may have to go back to the 19th century to find appropriate tools -- use cables, pulleys, levers."Colonization’s impossible—lack of ability to terraformFowles 78 (1978, JIB FOWLES is Chairman of the program in Studies of the Future at the University of Houston at Clear Lake City. Dr. Fowles is the author of Mass Advertising us Social Forecast and editor of the Handbook of Futures Research. “ The Improbability of Space Colonies” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6V71-463XY04-10-1&_cdi=5829&_user=1111158&_pii=0040162578900422&_origin=&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1978&_sk=999879995&view=c&wchp=dGLzVzz-zSkzS&md5=78a1d92c77927c8d6ba69ac8067c3222&ie=/sdarticle.pdf, nkj)

Even if space settlements have no purpose in terms of human visions or pocketbooks, could they be built anyway? It is commonly assumed that they could be. As compared to the cultural or economic features, it is the technological aspects of colonies that have received the bulk of the attention so far. Thus these matters should be the most resolved, the least confounding. O’Neill does insist that the whole project could be carried off at “present technological levels.” But let’s consider this for a moment. Even permitting him a bit of license, the engineering problems still seem oustanding. At the moment we do not even have the capability of getting to the moon; not only do new advances have to be made, but old ones have to be regained. Once we do manage to establish an efficient earth-to-moon transportation system, it is no easy task to proceed from there and build a habitat in space for 10,000 people that will have a reconstructed ecology, adequate agriculture, and nonpolluting manufacturing facilities-all of this at the end of a hypothetical supply line of lunar material. Although progress is being made with the mass driver that is to fling the material off the lunar surface, the carriers and trajectories that will bring the matter to the colonies is still at the conceptual stage. The factories that in zero gravity can take that material and convert it into items of value have not yet been designed. Nor have the ways to maintain and repair the colony, which after all is just a big piece of machinery. Ships go into dry dock, and airplanes into hangars, but space colonies must make other arrangements. The list of unaddressed and unsolved technical problems is lengthy. Especially vulnerable to technical criticism are O’Neill’s proposals for the ecological and biological aspects of the colonies. When O’Neill suggests that nitrogen is not needed because humans can do without it [Ref. 20, p. 1191, ecologists and agronomists are troubled since they realize that no environmental system can be established without a nitrogen cycle. Paul and Anne Ehrlich [4] have responded pointedly: the problems of maintaining complex artificial ecosystems within the capsule are far from solved. The micro-organisms necessary for the nitrogen-cycle and the diverse organisms involved in decay food chain5 would have to be established. as would a variety of other micro-organisms necessary to the flourishing of some plants. “Unwanted” micro-organisms would inevitably be included with-or would evolve from“desirable” ones purposely introduced. Furthermore in many cases the appropriate “desirable” organisms for introduction are not even known to us. Whatever type of system were introduced, there would almost certainly be serious problems with stability-even if efforts were made to include many co-evolved elements. We simply have no idea how to create a large stable artificial eco-system [p. 141. The person who knows the most about the creation of what the Ehrlichs [4] identify as “a large stable artificial ecosystem” may well be John Todd of the New Alchemy Institute, where such an effort has been going on for several years: our understanding of whole systems is primitive. There are sensitive, unknown. and predictable ecological regulating mechanisms far beyond the most exotic mathematical formulations of ecolotjsts. I would consider it unsafe to attempt to simulate liveable environment.

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From our present biologcal knowledge.. I think that when people talk of colonizing space they really don’t have any genuine perception of what it will involve lp. 201. Those are strong words. They reveal that the ability to construct large stable artificial ecosystems would rest on gains in knowledge of several orders of magnitude-something that cannot happen soon. The technical problems are far from solved.

No colonization—pollution and lack of essential elementsFowles 78 (1978, JIB FOWLES is Chairman of the program in Studies of the Future at the University of Houston at Clear Lake City. Dr. Fowles is the author of Mass Advertising us Social Forecast and editor of the Handbook of Futures Research. “ The Improbability of Space Colonies” http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6V71-463XY04-10-1&_cdi=5829&_user=1111158&_pii=0040162578900422&_origin=&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1978&_sk=999879995&view=c&wchp=dGLzVzz-zSkzS&md5=78a1d92c77927c8d6ba69ac8067c3222&ie=/sdarticle.pdf, nkj)

A number of writers have rallied to the defense of the modes of life that have accounted for 200 years of economic advance, arguing that these systems are sufficiently resilient to be largely self-correcting and that the problems are to some extent in the eyes of the beholders [5, 7, 13, 161. The counter arguments stress that the most thoughtful demographic projections anticipate world population leveling off in the 21st century at less than 10 billion [8]. Rutting aside the matter of hydrocarbons for the moment, resource supply seems ample for the time ahead; all the other most extensively used elements (with the possible exception of phosphorus) are available in sufficient concentrations from resources that will last millions of years [IO]. Since pollution is of our own making, it is also under human control; the question is one of striking the optimal balance between pollution and industrial production L21. Even if these three problems did exist in the magnitude suggested by O’Neill, it is not at all clear that space settlements would constitute a satisfactory answer. O’Neill states that it is conceivable for the reduplication of space colonies to absorb over a half-billion humans in 30 years’ time [Ref. 20, p. 2211. But calculations using a more reasonable rate of growth for space colonies would indicate that they could have only the slightest effect on the ongoing reduction of population growth [Ref. 11, p. 1801. O’Neill considers space to be rich in resources, which the colonists will exploit first through mining the moon, and later by capturing asteroids. It is easy to think of the lunar surface as being full of mineral wealth, but it is not. Even the richest known deposits on the moon have only two or three times the metal content of ordinary soil on earth [Ref. 11, p. 861. It will take a great deal of processing to extract the minerals that are scarce there but relatively common here. It should be noted that the moon cannot supply the crucial elements of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen, and that these will have to be obtained elsewhere. At first glance, asteroids would seem to be a good source [9]. However, the logistics of finding and snaring them, much less the costs of transporting and processing, make them poor candidates, given the plentitude on earth. Moreover, the pollution that would result from the extensive manufacturing necessary to sustain a space settlement will present far greater problems there than here. If the earth can tolerate certain levels of pollution, a colony could absorb far less. Solid waste will present a grave dilemma, but so would liquid by-products of the manufacturing, most especially excess water. Seen from earth, space settlements may come to resemble giant dust balls.

Focus on colonization destroys earthWilliams 10 (Spring 2010, Lynda Williams, Physics Instructor and Lecturer at Santa Rose College, “Irrational dreams of space colonization,” http://www.scientainment.com/lwilliams_peacereview.pdf, nkj)

Life on Earth is more urgently threatened by the destruction of the biosphere and its life sustaining habitat due environmental catastrophes such as climate change, ocean acidification, disruption of the food chain, bio-warfare, nuclear war, nuclear winter, and myriads of other man-made doomsday prophesies. If we accept these threats as inevitabilities on par with real astronomical dangers and divert our natural, intellectual, political and technological resources from solving these problems into escaping them, will we playing into a self-fulfilling prophesy of our own planetary doom? Seeking space based solutions to our Earthly problems may indeed exacerbate the planetary threats we face. This is the core of the ethical dilemma posed by space colonization: should we put our recourses and bets on developing human colonies on other worlds to survive natural and man-made catastrophes or should we focus all of our energies on solving the problems that create these threats on Earth?

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***SATELLITE SCENARIO

US-India satellite cooperation solvesHindustan Times 7/19 (7/19/11, " Full text of India-US joint statement ", http://www.hindustantimes.com/Full-text-of-India-US-joint-statement/Article1-722986.aspx nkj)

The US – India Joint Space Working Group on Civil Space Cooperation met in July 2011 in Bangalore. Building on the successful Chandrayan-1 lunar mission, NASA and ISRO reviewed potential areas for future cooperation in earth observation, space exploration, space sciences and satellite navigation. Both sides agreed for early finalization three new implementing arrangements for sharing satellite data on oceans and global weather patterns. Recognising the research opportunities available on the International Space Station, both sides agreed to explore the possibilities of joint experiments. NASA reiterated its willingness to discuss potential cooperation with ISRO on human spaceflight activities. The two sides also agreed to expand upon previous work in the area of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) with the goal of promoting compatibility and interoperability between the US Global Positioning System, India’s Navigation systems, and those of other countries.

Solves airpower satellitesHindustan Times 7/19 (7/19/11, " US-India to cooperate on flight navigation systems ", http://www.hindustantimes.com/US-India-to-cooperate-on-flight-navigation-systems/Article1-722918.aspx nkj)

US aviation watchdog Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Tuesday said it would cooperate with the Airport Authority of India (AAI) on developing the ground-based augmentation system (GBAS) used for flight navigation. "AAI has shown keen interest in strengthening and developing GBAS. We will cooperate with them," J. Randolph Babbitt, chief administrator of FAA, said at an industry event. GBAS is a critical safety system that uses the global positioning system (GPS) for efficient and safe navigation and flight operations like landing, departure and surface operations within its area of coverage. According to Babbitt, aviation safety was a key area in which FAA would increase its cooperation with the Indian authorities. "We are also looking at runway safety and new technologies like satellite-based navigation system which will increase safety," he said. Babbitt is a member of the delegation led by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is on a three-day visit here. Babbitt praised India's very own GBAS -- the GPS-aided geo augmented navigation (GAGAN) system which helps in better navigation.

Satellites from constellation empirically failRed Orbit 9 (1/6/2009, “ Officials Still Investigating Security Satellite Failure”, http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1618645/officials_still_investigating_security_satellite_failure/, nkj)

Officials are still examining the failure of a classified Northrop Grumman Corp.-built missile warning satellite, known as DSP 23, four months ago. The Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite was owned and operated by the U.S. Air Force, and was launched into geosynchronous orbit around the Earth in November 2007. By mid-September of last year the satellite had stopped responding to commands. A Reuters report cited one U.S. defense official that likened the current investigation to "sophisticated, long-distance detective work." "There's not that much data available," the official told Reuters. "You have to go back and recreate what might have been going on," said the official, adding that there may never be "great certitude" about what caused the malfunction. According to defense officials, possible reasons include natural phenomena such as a solar flare, defective parts, software issues or even space debris. A deliberate attack was also a possibility, officials said, but highly unlikely. Last February the U.S. government shot down a smaller classified satellite amid concerns about a toxic fuel tank. The satellite had experienced software problems and failed shortly after it was launched in December 2006. Lockheed Martin Corp was subsequently forced to rewrite the software code for its Space Based Infrared Satellites (SBIRS), which will succeed the DSP program. While it is unclear whether similar software problems might be responsible for the latest failure, officials said the possibility is being closely examined. Since 1970, the U.S. government has launched 23 of Northrop's DSP missile-warning satellites, two of which failed to reach orbit. According to experts, seven are still working, roughly twice the number needed to watch the entire planet at once. However, analyst Loren Thompson of

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the private Lexington Institute said unless new satellites are launched soon, DSP 23’s failure raises the risk that the U.S. could fall short in its ability to detect enemy missiles in the future. "Everybody expects the oldest satellites to fail, but when you lose your newest satellite, you're taking years off the tail end of how long the constellation is going to be effective," Thompson told Reuters.

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***CASE TURNS

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VSE Fails

Lack of early strategic planning makes Bush’s VSE failCox and Hsu 9 (2/20/2009, Feng Hsu, Ph.D. Sr. Fellow, Aerospace Technology Working Group Ken Cox, Ph.D. Founder & Director Aerospace Technology Working Group, “ Sustainable Space Exploration and Space Development - A Unified Strategic Vision” http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=30702, nkj)

There have been heated debates in the public as well as within the space-science, industry and technology communities regarding the wisdom of the current Vision for Space Exploration (VSE), and its proposed implementation, as crafted and set out by the previous administration. More than 5 years have now gone by since its announcement in early 2004. It has become increasingly apparent that the thoughts and rationale that went into the formulation of the existing VSE and its implementation were quite problematic, and perhaps even lacked a strong strategic merit, to say the least. In fact, many of us in the space and intellectual communities find the VSE's lack of strategic vigor not much of a surprise, especially considering the rudimentary decision-making apparatus and processes of the previous administration, which led to many other lackluster major decisions on national and international imperatives. In our view, there were several fundamental problems with the Bush Vision and its implementation for Space Exploration inherited from the get-go: (1) Due to the lack of well-informed debate, engaging a broad range of the space and science community, policymakers, and the general public, the Bush VSE was crafted without the thorough reviews and studies necessary at the strategic space policy level. And in particular, such an almost-Apollo-style, huge national program of long-lasting impacts on national resources and sustainable space development was imposed to the American people, without learning the lessons of major program failures, successes, and key performance history of NASA since the Apollo era. (2) The VSE lacks strategic merit, which can only be built upon a sufficiently vetted decision-making process of logic and analytic rigor. Especially, such process should have been scrutinized through hearings to engage the American public and politicians. Instead, the Bush VSE was a product of a blind and near-childish emotional response to a series of domestic and international geopolitical events that occurred in 2003, such as the launch of China's Shenzou-5 manned spacecraft on the 15th of October and the STS-107 (Columbia) Space Shuttle disaster in early February. (3) Most notably, the political motives behind the sudden announcement of VSE by the Bush White House were severely undermined by the fact that the American public and politicians alike were largely distressed by the then chaotic situation of the war in Iraq, in which our nation and the executive branch were confronted with huge financial and political burdens from the two ongoing and costly wars in the Middle East. (4). The budget necessary to fulfill Bush's VSE and the planned implementation for Space Exploration has far exceeded any financial resources available to this nation, as indicated by a recent GAO report. Therefore, many escalated budget cuts to earth monitoring, space science and robotic exploration programs may be inevitable in order to compensate for the extremely costly Constellation program, which was sold to congress in a hurry, with such unbelievable timing. (5) The VSE falls short of addressing the national and international needs of human endeavors for space development objectives. Especially, the Bush VSE missed (or lacked) almost entirely any strategic vision and goals for supporting and enabling space-based human economic expansion or industrialization in space. Such critical aspects of human space activities are fundamentally unique, and are quite different kinds of challenges from the space exploration activities undertaken by NASA. (6) The current thrust of the Bush VSE to return humans to the Moon (and to build a costly lunar post without international participation and support) lacks political resonance. The American public and its political constituency in the U.S. congress is largely uninterested in supporting such a costly Apollo-all-over-again national program: "Been there, done that" rules apply. As a result, after receiving less than adequate funding from the Administration that proposed it, the Bush Vision for Space Exploration is unlikely to get more support from any new Administration, much less a chance of getting continued support from an Administration (like President Obama's) that is largely surrounded by visionaries and leaders with strategic and intellectual strength. Undoubtedly, change must be brought about to rectify the Bush VSE and its implementation plan. And more importantly, a renewed or unified space vision--one addressing the comprehensive needs for sustainable space exploration and space development and that has high strategic merit, strong political support and financial affordability strategies from the American public--needs to be brought to light.

NASA Space programs empirically fail—VSE’s next

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Cox and Hsu 9 (2/20/2009, Feng Hsu, Ph.D. Sr. Fellow, Aerospace Technology Working Group Ken Cox, Ph.D. Founder & Director Aerospace Technology Working Group, “ Sustainable Space Exploration and Space Development - A Unified Strategic Vision” http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=30702, nkj)

Clearly, due to the space race, the Apollo program started without much strategic vision or planning from the get-go, so America's space program was destined to lose direction soon after winning the space race. And this explains why the hardware and launch & crew vehicle systems were created, either without any strategic values, or they simply lost any such long-term applications (if there were any) immediately after the completion of the program. In fact, the lack of documentation and well-managed institutional and corporate memories on critical technologies from the Apollo project speaks for itself. Because of this lack of memory and well-kept technical heritages within the space agency, NASA and its current Constellation program has experienced great difficulty in the past few years in trying to understand and benefit from some critical technical achievements (such as the Saturn-V launch vehicle systems, etc.) that were successfully dealt with back in the Apollo project.

As a nation striving to prosper and build our financial and technological strength during today's post-cold-war times and under an increasingly globalized and mutually dependent world economy, America cannot (and must not) afford another such huge spending space exploration program--one that might end up winning (or even provoking) an unwanted space race, or winning tactical space goals (such as beating others in building a costly lunar post first), but ultimately end up failing the nation in skyrocketing debt, or hurting America's long-term interests from wasteful space programs of little strategic and economic values.

Obviously, given the existing status quo and the political governance paradigm of the U.S. space agency that evolved from the space race era, what NASA cannot deliver are any successful, affordable or sustainable space programs (especially any space transportation or infrastructure development programs) without severe budget overruns or schedule delays during a post-cold war international geopolitical environment. That is why under such a systemic paralysis of NASA, huge cost overruns or schedule delays have become the rule rather than the exception. That is also why some of us within the space community have been either reluctant to accept or very much against any ideas of a broader international collaborations strategy in human space exploration or development endeavors.

Furthermore, with the existing NASA structure, we tend to amplify or exaggerate the threats of any space achievements from other nations, such as when the launch of China's Shenzhou-5 was perceived as a big threat, and became the primary drive behind the quick sale of the Bush VSE. So the lack of strategic vigor is almost destined to repeat the failures of the agency and thus ultimately hurt our strategic interests. Has anyone imagined why we needed to even respond to a "space race to the Moon" when America won the race four decades ago?! Has anyone imagined what the Bush's VSE or the Constellation architecture would look like back in late 2003 had the Changhe-1 of China been designed to be a Mars Lander, instead of a lunar orbiter? We believe that a responsive vision for space exploration with independent wisdom and strategic merit is good for America, but a responsive space vision largely influenced or misled by external events without strategic merit can be detrimental, not only to America's long-term interests, but the interests of all humanity as well.

The inability of NASA to efficiently handle space exploration programs aimed at peaceful discoveries is precisely because during the "peace-time" environment, all the needed budgetary and political support to sustain the operations of the ten-plus NASA centers and organizations was largely diminished, and replaced with the complex issues of fierce competing battles to survive (fund) within NASA organizations. Given such organizational deficiencies of NASA hierarchies as it was created, it simply became a organization severely incapable of planning or doing anything with strategic vision or value. The post-Apollo NASA, as it has been for the past 40 years, simply became a visionless jobs-providing enterprise that achieves little or nothing in space infrastructure development, especially in the effort for reusable or affordable launch-systems development.

Indeed, this explains why in the past, numerous NASA programs or proposals with excellent design concepts were discarded, whereas wasteful projects with costly or unnecessarily complex and risky designs survived. To name just a few: the Shuttle II, Shuttle-C, and the National Launch Systems (NLS) were replaced by the current architecture of the Space Shuttle; and the X-30, National Space Plan (NASP), the X-33 Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO), the Space Launch Initiative (SLI), and OSP (Orbital Space Plane) were cancelled one after another.

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It is quite clear that without adequate reform and without long-overdue overhaul of NASA's organizational and political governing infrastructures right after the completion of Apollo project, NASA was destined to deliver wasteful or failed programs. In fact, the selection of the Space Shuttle system design concept and configuration was heavily influenced by NASA's internal and inter-state politics, a textbook case of such organizational deficiencies. That's why we believe that the current Constellation program is at high risk of repeating the post-Apollo "track record" of NASA and we strongly urge the reform of NASA and recommend, as elaborated in the following two sections, how the nation's space enterprise should be adequately chartered, managed, and guided by the proposed USV, to take on the concurrent challenges of fulfilling the strategic goals of space exploration and space development.

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Privatization TurnNASA doesn’t have the continuous funding needed to continue Constellation properly – private sector competition would better revolutionize human exploration.Washington Post, 9 (“Spaced Out; NASA’s Vision for Human Exploration Needs Some Hard Questions and Perhaps an Entrepreneurial Boost” Washington Post, 9/11/2009, A12 – lexisnexis)"SHOOT FOR THE moon," goes the old saying. "Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." Lately, this seems to be NASA's strategy. Its vision for human space exploration, the Constellation Project, envisions landing on the moon by 2020 and on Mars by 2037. Devised after the commission investigating the Columbia shuttle disaster found that the space program suffered as much from a lack of vision as from technical failure , this lofty mission sought to fill the vision vacuum and encourage a new generation of Americans to look upward. The vision came at a price. Although proponents noted that the Constellation Project was small in the grand scheme of the federal budget, the plan would cost billions of dollars. So it is little wonder that the Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee has been expressing concern. If the committee's public comments are any indication, its findings will be grim: NASA's recent budget cuts render the current manned mission plan impossible . This is not the first time NASA's plans have suffered from lack of fiscal foresight: Once the international space station is completed next year, the current budget calls for deorbiting it by 2016. Maybe it's time to take a step back to assess the right role for a manned space program that requires billions of dollars annually -- and for what? Certainly, boldly going where no man has gone before is an American creed. But with the advent of increasingly complex and precise instruments, science in space requires less and less input from astronauts. Groundbreaking research can occur without humans -- witness the Mars Rover and Hubble telescope. NASA should not have to sacrifice programs that are truly ground-breaking -- researching dark matter, black holes and gravitational fields of space objects -- to keep the international space station manned and supplied. Now that the station is nearly complete, this might be an optimal time to open space to entrepreneurs. Many companies claim they possess the capacity to transport humans and payloads into space; the review committee found their reports convincing enough to suggest that these space entrepreneurs could take over the transport of astronauts and supplies to the space station after the shuttle program ends. It's time to boldly go where no man has gone before. That means opening space to the kind of private-sector competition that revolutionized cyberspace and mak ing sure the next human exploratory efforts are based on real scientific need .

Private launch companies are more effective and affordable than Constellation.Spotts, 10 (Peter N., Staff Writer for Christian Science Monitor, Obama’s budget would scrap NASA’s moon mission; President Obama’s budget for NASA seeks to end its back-to-the-moon program, rely more heavily on private companies, and invest in new technologies for human space exploration”, The Christian Science Monitor, 2/1/2010,<http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T12379310206&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T12379310212&cisb=22_T12379310211&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=7945&docNo=3>– LexisNexis)The Obama administration Monday unveiled a 2011 budget request for NASA that would change the agency's approach to human spaceflight. The White House has redlined the agency's flagship Constellation program , which includes building a replacement for the space shuttle to allow astronauts to reach low-earth orbit, a second more-powerful rocket, and modules for a moon base. Instead, NASA would rely on private- financed rockets built by commercial launch companies, to ferry astronauts and cargo to and from the I nternational S pace S tation. The administration is asking for $19 billion for NASA for fiscal 2011, which is a 1.5 percent increase over the budget request in 2010. By 2015, the administration anticipates a NASA budget of $20.99 billion. The budget proposal would extend US involvement with the space station by some five years to 2020, and perhaps beyond. It seeks billions for research and development aimed at new types of rocket motors and other elements needed to build larger, more powerful rockets than the US currently lofts, as well as capabilities for storing and transferring rocket fuel on orbit. The goal is to develop what NASA official call "transformative" technologies for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit. The budget request follows virtually chapter and verse one of five families of options set out by the Review of US Spaceflight Plans Committee (known as the Augustine Committee) last September. The budget plan will allow the US to "pursue a more sustainable and affordable approach to spaceflight , " said NASA administrator Charles Bolden Jr., during a briefing Monday. The alternative was financially

unappealing, according to James Kohlenberger, chief of staff at the president's Office of Science and Technology Policy. The Constellation program emerged at part of former President George W. Bush's Vision for Space Exploration , announced in January 2004. But it failed to receive budgets to match the vision . "The fact that we've poured $9 billion into an unexecutable program really isn't an excuse to pour another $50 billion and still not have an executable program," Mr. Kohlenberger says. Lawmakers slam shift Reaction from some lawmakers has been swift and pointed. "The president's proposed NASA budget begins the death march for the future of US human spaceflight," said Sen. Richard Shelby (R) of Alabama, who counts employees at NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Ala., among his constituents. Sen. Bill Nelson (D) of Florida argued in a statement Monday that the budget proposal for NASA would replace lost space-shuttle jobs "too slowly, risking US leadership in space to China and Russia, and relying too heavily on unproven commercial companies." Others say the shift is long overdue. "It's really good to see this

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approach," says Ray Williamson, a space-policy analyst and executive director of the Secure World Foundation, a think tank that focuses on sustainable uses of space.

The effort to more deeply engage commercial launch providers - including companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin - in human spaceflight has been building for years , he says. But that effort has faced "a lot of push-back from the centers," he says, referring to major NASA facilities such as the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Marshall center, and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The budget plan faces several significant challenges. Key lawmakers signaled their displeasure at notion of using more private companies as early as last summer. At a House hearing on the Augustine Committee's report last September, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) of Arizona and chairwoman of the House's space and aeronautics subcommittee, expressed skepticism that private companies could step in to replace the Ares 1 and its Orion crew capsule. Riding on space entrepreneurs One of NASA's biggest hurdles, analyst Mr. Williamson says, will be "sorting the folks with real promise from the ones who do mostly view-graph engineering. "Much, he continues, will be riding on the shoulders of space entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, who heads the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation in Hawthorne, Calif.. His company has conducted successful launches with its Falcon 1 rocket, and is building a more powerful sibling, the Falcon 9, as well as a capsule for carrying cargo and crew. If he and others can be successful in demonstrating human spaceflight capabilities, "then that will make the biggest difference" in building traction for the administration's proposed direction for spaceflight.

Squo solves – privatization is better – it’s cheaper and boosts the economySt. Petersburg Times, 10 (“Plan for NASA Lacks Vision”, St. Petersburg Times, 2/6/2010, Pg. 10A - LN)Obama's five-year budget plan would increase NASA's spending by $6 billion, to $100 billion. Much of that money would pay for private companies to develop launch vehicles and take over the space shuttle's job of transporting astronauts to the I nternational S pace S tation. The White House was notably silent on any destination or timetable for venturing beyond low-Earth orbit. The administration rightly wants to end the trouble-plagued Constellation return-to-the-moon program, but the plan does much more than that. NASA would move away from operations and into a research and development arm, with private companies handling manned space transport. Billions more would be spent on space-based research, launch facilities and rocket technology. A presidential panel declared last year that the Ares I rocket project was so delayed that the Constellation program was not likely to return humans to the moon until "well into the 2030s."Clearly, the manned space program needs new direction and a sense of immediacy. It also makes sense to jump-start the commercial aerospace industry, which could revolutionize the economy and shift the burden for space exploration from taxpayers to the private sector.

Private companies are a more affordable and more sustainable approach to space exploration.Chang, 10 (Kenneth, Qualification, “Under Fire, Administrator Defends NASA’s New Direction”, New York Times, 2/26/2010, Pg. 17– LN)Maj. Gen. Charles F. Bolden Jr., the administrator of the N ational A eronautics and S pace A dministration, faced skeptical, sometimes hostile questioning on Thursday from members of a key House committee who said they opposed the Obama administration's plans to revamp the nation's human spaceflight program. General Bolden told the Committee on Science and Technology that the president's $19 billion budget proposal for NASA -- which would cancel the agency's program to send astronauts back to the Moon , invest in new space technologies and turn to commercial companies for transportation beyond low-Earth orbit -- would provide a ''more affordable and more sustainable'' approach to space exploration .

NASA has failed since 1972 – it’s time for the commercial sector to step up.Spotts, 10 (Pete, Staff Writer, “Despite uproar, Obama holds firm on NASA space exploration plans; Lawmakers and former astronauts have lambasted President Obama for scrapping a moon mission. Thursday, Obama will defend his vision for NASA space exploration through human spaceflight”, The Christian Science Monitor, 04/14/2010, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/hottopics/lnacademic - LN)Choose a design for a new heavy-lift rocket that could take astronauts and cargo beyond Earth orbit by 2015 - two years earlier than would have happened under the Constellation program. Pursue "stepping stone destinations" such as asteroids or orbiting Mars during the decade of the 2020s, all in anticipation of eventually landing humans on Mars. But if advocates for the Bush-era Constellation program - and its deadline for putting Americans back on the moon - were hoping to see the president outline significant changes to his blueprint for NASA after two months of withering criticism, they are likely to be disappointed. "It's not a radical departure" from the plan the administration outlined in February, when it released its fiscal 2011 budget proposals, says James Lewis, a senior fellow specializing in space and technology policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The president's planUnder the president's plan, the Constellation program - aimed at returning US astronauts to the moon by 2020, but which many analysts say was underfunded to achieve that goal - would be virtually eliminated. The shuttle program would fly out its final three mission by early 2011. US participation in the International Space Station would extend to at least 2020. And the task of transporting cargo and eventually astronauts to the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit would fall to privately financed and operated rocket companies. "They're very committed to the idea of turning low-Earth orbit transportation over the commercial sector," says Howard McCurdy, a space -policy specialist at American University in Washington. " How many times do you get to swing the bat? NASA's been at the plate since 1972 trying to develop a low-cost, low-Earth-orbit transportation system, and it hasn't been very successful at that," he says. "The administration's attitude is: It's time to get NASA to work on other things and let the commercial sector" pick up the travels to low-Earth orbit. Those "other things" would include developing technologies - included a powerful, so-called heavy-lift rocket - to enable astronauts to make pioneering trips to destinations beyond low-Earth orbit. The plan has been the target of scathing critiques from federal lawmakers who have NASA centers in their districts and states. Veterans of the space program have also taken aim. In an open letter published Monday, 27 former NASA astronauts and former agency officials argued that the new approach will reduce the human spaceflight program to mediocrity. "NASA must continue at the frontiers of human

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space exploration in order to develop the technology and set the standards of excellence that will enable commercial space ventures to eventually succeed. Canceling NASA's human space operations, after 50 years of unparalleled achievement, makes that objective impossible," they wrote. Following Augustine's advice. The approach the White House is proposing closely mirrors an option for a fiscally sustainable human spaceflight program set out last summer by a presidential panel headed by former aerospace executive Norman Augustine. The option included destinations such as asteroids, Lagrange points on the Earth's orbital path around the sun that could be sites for space stations, and Mars. Meanwhile, the new decision not to scrap the Constellation's Orion crew capsule but to convert it to a space station lifeboat will save "critical high-tech contractor jobs in Colorado, Texas, and Florida," the White House says. Even before Congress approves a budget NASA for next year, the agency's centers around the country have gotten word of their changing roles. Last week, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and his deputy, Lori Garver, unveiled new assignments for the centers that reflect the shift the White House envisions. This may seem like handing Congress a fait accompli, but Dr. McCurdy notes that historically, Congress has acted more as a review board for White House actions "than as an initiator of space policy." If lawmakers "continue to fulfill their traditional role, they'll tinker at the margins, but not change the basic direction," he says.

Privatization is more affordable and more efficient than Constellation, achieves human travel faster, and adds more jobs to the economyMalenic, 10 (Marina, U.S. Aerospace Reporter, graduate of Georgetown University and University of Chicago, “Obama Revives Scaled-Down Orion Program For NASA”, Defense Daily, 4/16/2010, Vol. 246 No. 11 – LN)Pledging a "transformative agenda" for NASA, President Barack Obama said his new national space plan aims to send Americans to an asteroid and eventually to Mars in the 2030s. "Nobody is more committed to human space flight than I am," Obama said in a speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "But we have to do it in a smart way." Under his proposed plan, the United States would begin testing spacecraft for deep space exploration by 2025. "And, by the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth," he added. "We will actually reach space faster and more often under this new plan ." Last week, top NASA leaders defended Obama's Fiscal 2011 agency budget, which includes the proposed cancellation of the Constellation effort, the successor program to the Space Shuttle (Defense Daily, April 9). The program had been made up of the Ares I launch vehicle and Orion capsule and future Ares V heavy-lift rocket. ATK [ATK] has been the prime contractor for the Ares I first stage, Boeing [BA] has developed the Ares I upper stage, and Lockheed Martin [LMT] has been making Orion. The Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, a blue-ribbon panel led by retired Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine, found last year that Constellation, begun during the Bush administration, was facing major schedule problems and had not been adequately funded. Obama yesterday said his NASA budget would grow by another $6 billion over five years. Specifically, the plan revives a scaled-back version of the Orion spacecraft, which would be launched unmanned to the I nternational S pace S tation to serve as an escape capsule for astronauts. And a heavy-lift rocket would be built by 2015 for the launch of new spacecraft into deep space and in preparation for a manned flight to Mars. " Unlike the previous program, we are setting a course with specific and achievable milestones ," he said. Obama also said his plan will add more than 2,500 space industry jobs to the economy, will the potential for more than 10,000 more as a private space transportation industry takes root over the coming decades.

Space privatization is key to space exploration.Gingrich and Walker, 10 (Newt and Robert S., Conservative Politicians and renowned public speakers, “Obama's brave reboot for NASA; Privatizing isn't just for Republicans”, The Washington Times, 2/15/2010, Pg. 3 –LN)Despite the shrieks you might have heard from a few special interests, the Obama administration's budget for the N ational A eronautics and S pace A dministration deserves strong approval from Republicans. The 2011 spending plan for the space agency does what is obvious to anyone who cares about man's future in space and what presidential commissions have been recommending for nearly a decade.The Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry in 2002 suggested that greater commercial activity in space was the proper way forward. The Aldridge Commission of 2004 , headed by former Secretary of the Air Force Edward C. "Pete" Aldridge, made clear that the only way NASA could achieve success with President George W. Bush's Vision for Space Exploration was to expand the space enterprise with greater use of commercial assets . Most recently, the Augustine Commission , headed by Norman R. Augustine, former chief executive of Lockheed Martin, made clear that commercial providers of space -launch services were a necessary part of maintaining space leadership for the U nited S tates.

Commercial/Private companies will ensure independent American space access, new jobs, improved economy, and more opportunities.Gingrich and Walker, 10 (Newt and Robert S., Conservative Politicians and renowned public speakers, “Obama's brave reboot for NASA; Privatizing isn't just for Republicans”, The Washington Times, 2/15/2010, Pg. 3 –LN)The use of commercial launch companies to carry cargo and crews into low earth orbit will be controversial, but it should not be . The launch-vehicle portion of the Constellation program was so far behind schedule that the U nited S tates was not going to have independent access for humans into space for at least five years after the shutdown of the shuttle. We were going to rely upon the Russians to deliver our astronaut personnel to orbit. We have long had a

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cooperative arrangement with the Russians for space transportation but always have possessed our own capability. The use of commercial carriers in the years ahead will preserve that kind of independent American access . Reliance on commercial launch services will provide many other benefits. It will open the doors to more people having the opportunity to go to space. It has the potential of creating thousands of new jobs , largely the kind of high- tech work to which our nation should aspire. In the same way the railroads opened the American West, commercial access can open vast new opportunities in space. All of this new activity will expand the space enterprise, and in doing so, will improve the economic competitiveness of our country .

Private/Commercial launch vehicles are reliable and they’ll be approved by NASA and FAA before launches.Gingrich and Walker, 10 (Newt and Robert S., Conservative Politicians and renowned public speakers, “Obama's brave reboot for NASA; Privatizing isn't just for Republicans”, The Washington Times, 2/15/2010, Pg. 3 –LN)Critics likely will raise the issue of safety and reliability. However, there already are rockets in the American inventory that are trusted by our government to launch billion-dollar satellites and have proved to be quite reliable . Those vehicles can be modified to carry human crews safely. New rockets under development have been designed from the outset with manned missions in mind, and with the assurance of NASA business, necessary large-scale development can be done so they can be added to the commercial inventory. The plan is to have both NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration provide licensing oversight, determine safety requirements and approve all launches .

Constellation failed – we should try a different method – privatization will help us reach space faster and more often.Luscombe, 10 (Richard, Journalist at West Atlantic Media, “Obama unveils new vision for spaceflight: First crewed missions beyond moon by 2025 President under fire from Armstrong over cuts”, The Guardian, 4/16/2010, Guardian International Pages Pg. 30 – LN)But in an address at Florida's Kennedy Space Centre, and accompanied by Armstrong's Apollo 13 crewmate Buzz Aldrin, a key supporter, Obama attempted to quell dissent by unveiling an "ambitious" new direction for space policy. The plan includes an extra $6bn for Nasa over five years; $3.1bn for "vigorous new technology development" that could result in a pioneering heavy-lift rocket to take astronauts to Mars, with future "stepping stone" missions into deep space to help get them there; support for those losing jobs when the space shuttle programme ends this year and the salvaging of Constellation's axed crew capsule for use at the international space station. He expected the first crewed missions beyond the moon by about 2025, and to orbit Mars by the middle of the following decade . "A landing on Mars will follow. I expect to be around to see it," he said. " What we're looking for is not to continue on the same path, but to leap into the future. Pursuing this new strategy will require that we revise the old strategy, in part because it was not fulfilling its promise in many ways. We can't keep doing the same old things we've been doing and think it'll get us where we need to go. We will reach space faster and more often under this new plan." It remains to be seen if Obama's critics will be appeased. The financial content of the speech, such as money for commercial enterprises to develop private space "taxis" for cargo and crew, was announced in the president's budget proposal to Congress in February.

Handing off to private countries opens up NASA to better develop technologies.Spotts, 10 (Peter N., Staff writer, “What’s next for US spaceflight, if not the moon?, The Christian Science Monitor, 2/16/2010, < http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0216/What-s-next-for-US-spaceflight-if-not-the-moon> –LN)By handing off space -taxi services to private companies , administration officials say, NASA would be free to focus on developing technologies that would lead to far more powerful rockets and other capabilities to support human exploration of destinations that could include the moon, nearby asteroids, and, eventually, Mars. The goal is to lay the groundwork for a truly national space transportation system, just as the government did nearly a century ago for aviation. " Rather than setting destinations and timelines, we're setting goals for capabilities that can take us further, faster, and more affordably into space ," said Lori Garver, NASA's deputy administrator, during a budget briefing earlier this month.

Privatization relieves a heavy burden from NASA and allows NASA to advance technology.Spotts, 10 (Peter N., Staff writer, “What’s next for US spaceflight, if not the moon?, The Christian Science Monitor, 2/16/2010, < http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0216/What-s-next-for-US-spaceflight-if-not-the-moon> –LN)What would be the biggest change for NASA? The agency would be relieved of much of its remaining operational role in long-term human spaceflight. It would also increase its focus on pushing the technological frontier in ways

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that could help human explorers extend their range within the inner solar system. " This brings NASA back to its roots as an engine of innovation," said former astronaut Sally Ride during the budget proposal's rollout.

Constellation failed – we need better alternatives and privatization is faster and more efficient.Nohlgren, 10 (Stephen, Staff Writer, “To Mars and Beyond, St. Petersburg Times, 04/16/2010, National; Pg 1A –LN)Saying Americans would land on Mars during his lifetime, Obama outlined several intermediate steps. By 2015, NASA will choose specifications for a new "heavy-lift" rocket that can carry crews and cargo into deep space, he said. That would put big rocket design two years ahead of previous timetables. NASA will fully test that rocket by the early 2020s and have crews flying by 2025, including a first-ever visit to an asteroid. By the mid 2030s, he said, crews will orbit Mars and return - a journey now estimated to take three years. He also predicted a landing on Mars, the planet most experts view as the most likely for sustaining human life beyond the Earth. " Nobody is more committed to manned space flight, to human exploration of space than I am," Obama told a few hundred reporters and space center employees. " But we've got to do it in a smart way and can't just keep doing the same old things we've been doing. "

Privatization adds more stable jobs to the economy than Constellation and stimulates necessary research.Nohlgren, 10 (Stephen, Staff Writer, “To Mars and Beyond, St. Petersburg Times, 04/16/2010, National; Pg 1A –LN)His plans would add 2,500 new jobs at the space center by 2012, he said, more than under the Constellation program. Among other things, his budget would: - Increase NASA spending by $6 billion over the next five years. - Spend $2 billion over five years adapting the Kennedy Space Center as a launching pad for commercial as well as governmental space flight. - Invest $6 billion over five years in a new Commercial Crew Development Program at the space center to foster private launches into Earth orbit and to the International Space Station. - Spend $6 billion over five years on a Flagship Technology Demonstration project, headquartered in Florida and Texas, to stimulate research into deep space necessities like big and fast rockets, radiation protection systems, refueling in space and ways to grow food during multi-year journeys to asteroids and Mars. - Resurrect a scaled-down version of the six-person Orion crew capsule from the defunct Constellation project as a U.S. escape vehicle from the space station and to be "part of the technological foundation'' for advanced spacecraft in the Mars project. That drew rousing applause from workers because Orion is assembled at the cape.

Privatization is a more financially sustainable plan.Spotts, 10 (Pete N., Staff Writer, “Obama NASA plan: Mars shot as next generation's Apollo mission; According to President Obama, NASA needs a goal beyond the space station and the moon for human spaceflight to inspire the nation as the Apollo mission did. He has chosen Mars.”, The Christian Science Monitor, 4/15/2010, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/–LN)The US human spaceflight program is on a course for Mars - future budgets, presidents, and Congresses willing. In a speech delivered at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Thursday afternoon, President Obama aimed to answer charges leveled by lawmakers, former astronauts, and former National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) officials that his plans for the space agency spell doom for the country's human spaceflight program. In February, the White House released a proposed budget that canceled former President George W. Bush's Constellation program, which set a deadline of 2020 to put US astronauts back on the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission. Instead, the White House opted for what a presidential commission identified last year as a more financially sustainable program - one that would allow American astronauts to leapfrog the moon and begin visiting more-distant solar-system destinations during the decade of the 2020s and beyond. Through a speech delineating destinations and rough timetables, however, Mr. Obama appeared to be setting out something potentially more sweeping than raw budget documents indicate - an attempt to build a foundation for the U nited S tates to become a spacefaring nation , not just a spacefaring government.

NASA has failed numerous times – it’s time for a new, more money-efficient plan.Spotts, 10 (Pete N., Staff Writer, “Obama NASA plan: Mars shot as next generation's Apollo mission; According to President Obama, NASA needs a goal beyond the space station and the moon for human spaceflight to inspire the nation as the Apollo mission did. He has chosen Mars.”, The Christian Science Monitor, 4/15/2010, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/–LN)More than simply setting a goal for NASA to develop the technologies and missions needed to send humans beyond the moon, he has challenged the commercial space industry to take u p the journeyman tasks that NASA would abandon - such as ferrying astronauts to and from the space station - hoping it will kindle the rise of a true space economy . "Fifty years after the creation of NASA ," he said, " our goal is no longer just a destination to reach. Our goal is the capacity for people to work and learn, operate and live safely beyond the Earth for extended periods of time, ultimately in ways that are more sustainable and even indefinite." Obama's Earth-to-Mars timeline. Under the administration's plan, by the early 2020s, astronauts will be conducting test flights of rockets and hardware needed to support exploration not just beyond low-Earth orbit, but beyond the moon. By 2025, the president's approach envisions sending the first humans to visit an asteroid. By the mid 2030s, "I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth. And landing on Mars will follow," he said. Referring to arguments that the moon should be the next immediate destination - a destination US astronauts have reached six times already - he explained that "what we're looking for is not just to continue on the same path; we want to leap into the future. We want major

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breakthroughs, a transformative agenda for NASA ." For many of the administrations critics, the speech did little to mollify their anger. Rep. Rob Bishop (R) of Utah, where Alliant Techsystems is a prime contractor for the Ares 1 rocket NASA was building under the Constellation program, accused the administration "of relinquishing our position as the global leader in space and missile defense to Russia, China, and India." Rep. Bill Posey (R) of Florida gave a nod to the president's willlingness to visit the Kennedy Space Center. But he added that the president's effort to end the shuttle program within the next eight months "is deeply disappointing to me." A fresh vision? But others applaud what they see as a fresh vision for the US human spaceflight program. The speech "was truly inspiring," says Louis Friedman, founder and executive director of the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif. Before founding the society, Dr. Freidman worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was deeply involved in several pioneering robotic space missions. "No president since John Kennedy has gone out on the road to sell his space program," he says. "This is American leadership, to do things that have never been done before." Norman Augustine - who headed the presidential commission whose "flexible path" option the president has elected to follow - noted after the president spoke that during the panel's public hearings, members heard from young people who referred to a return to the moon as "my grandfather's space program." Indeed, the criticisms from many Apollo-era astronauts of decisions being taken by or supported by more-recent astronauts - both on the Augustine panel as well as the current head of NASA - give the appearance that a generational tug of war is underway over the program's future. To some extent that may be true, Friedman acknowledges. But he points to space program veterans such as Buzz Aldrin, who supports the president's approach, as well as himself as indicating more is at play that a generational transition. "It's an outlook thing, too," he says. "It's those who want to think about the glory of the past and try to recapture it. This new approach is about the future. And it's about engaging industries that didn't exist 40 years ago ." Privatizing trips to the space stationHe cites the president's aim to turn over to private companies astronaut transport to and from the space station in low-Earth orbit. NASA has tried several times to develop more-cost-effective launch systems for transporting people and cargo to and from low-Earth orbit. They either failed to deliver the cost benefits as promiesd - as in the shuttle's case - or the development programs became too drawn out and expensive to continue. " NASA should be working the frontiers, and not doing the routine," Friedman says. Indeed, the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a Washington-based industry group advocating commercial human spaceflight, backs the president's plan to the hilt. But turning to the private sector as the future of transport to the space station now puts the onus on commercial rocketeers to deliver. Next month, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), headed by one-time Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, is set to launch its new Falcon 9 rocket from a pad at the Kennedy Space Center. In December 2008, NASA selected SpaceX and another firm, Orbital Sciences, to provide cargo and later crew transport to and from the space station under the agency's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program. Members of the so-called NewSpace aerospace companies are acutely aware of what's at stake. "The opportunity that we're faced with is terrifying and wonderful," said Jeff Greason, a member of the Augustine panel and the head of XCOR Aerospace, speaking at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., earlier this week, according to the space-policy website The Space Review. "If we blow it this time, I don't know that we're going to get another chance, because I'm not sure there's going to be a United States space industry for us to work for," he said.

Constellation failed and was full of problems – it’s time for private companies to emerge.St. Petersburg Times, 10 (“SPACE PROGRAM NEEDS LIFT FROM THE PRESIDENT”, St. Petersburg Times, 4/14/2010, National; Times Editorials; Pg. 10A –LN)President Barack Obama has a chance this week to sharpen his administration's fuzzy vision for NASA. Obama should use a summit meeting in Florida on NASA's future to lay out a more compelling strategy for reviving the manned space program. He also needs to underscore federal support for robotic exploration, research and commercialization of space. The space program is too important to the nation and to Florida for the agency to lose direction or become a shell of its former self. Obama's budget proposal in February called for ending the problem-plagued Constellation return-to-the-moon program. He would redirect that money in the near term toward privatizing manned space flight, and over the long term spend billions on the development of new heavy-lift rocket systems. The strategy is half right. Constellation was years behind and billions over budget; it would not have put an American on the moon before the 2030s. But Obama didn't make the leap and draw any new destination or timetable. He also failed to distinguish clear roles in space for the public and private sectors.

Constellation failed and it’s time to seek a new strategy – the commercial industry plan will make NASA stronger and more efficient.St. Petersburg Times, 10 (“SPACE PROGRAM NEEDS LIFT FROM THE PRESIDENT”, St. Petersburg Times, 4/14/2010, National; Times Editorials; Pg. 10A –LN)The stakes for Florida are high, and they go far beyond any debate over extending the life of the space shuttle beyond 2010. The shuttle fleet will be retired soon enough. The challenge now is to retain, redirect and grow a highly skilled and well-paid work force . Obama's budget would do

several good things for Florida. It would extend the life of the space station, invest in robotic research and space-based applications, and soften the shuttle fallout by spending billions to modernize Kennedy Space Center for both government and commercial launches. But the aerospace industry also needs a strong sign that the administration is committed to research and development for the long haul. Given the time and expense it takes to bring any product from the research and development stage to the market, the industry will need to see a serious partner on the public side to commit its own money. Obama also has a chance to send a strong message to the Florida Legislature in the closing days of this year's session. Space Florida, the state's aerospace development arm, has done a good job preparing the state to absorb the loss of thousands of shuttle-related jobs. Whether Obama's plan will make NASA stronger remains to be seen. But state lawmakers should ensure that Space Florida is in a position to either capitalize on the good or make do with the bad.

Private companies – like SpaceX – have the ability to build powerful rockets.Moskowitz, 11 (Clara, Senior Writer for Space.com, “Huge Private Rocket Could Send Could Send Astronauts to the Moon or Mars”, Space.com, 4/6/11, <http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/news/spacexunveilsplanforworldsmostpowerfulprivaterocket>– The Mars Society)But the Falcon Heavy's increased power could also be put toward traveling beyond low-Earth orbit and out into the solar system, said SpaceX' s founder and CEO Elon Musk during a Tuesday press conference. "It certainly opens up a wide range of possibilities, such as returning to the moon and conceivably going to Mars ," Musk said. Traveling

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that far requires more lift than most rockets flying today, including NASA's space shuttle. But the Falcon Heavy, which is designed to generate 3.8 million pounds (1,700 metric tons) of thrust, would be able to do the job, Musk said. "The Falcon 9 Heavy could go much farther than low-Earth orbit," Musk said. The heavy-lift rocket could fly on its first test flights as soon as 2013, he added. A private moon rocket ? The Falcon Heavy booster is designed to have more lifting capability than any other rocket in service today, and about half the capability of the most powerful rocket ever built, NASA's towering Saturn 5 booster, which sent the Apollo astronauts to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Falcon Heavy may not be able to carry everything needed for a mission to the moon in a single go, but it could potentially launch various components separately. For example, the astronauts and moon lander could be launched in one trip, with another liftoff following to deliver the vehicle that would ferry the crew back home, Musk said. SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has so far made two successful test launches, one of which carried SpaceX's Dragon capsule to orbit for the first time. Both rockets will initially fly unmanned, but have been created with flying people in mind. " As far as human standards are concerned, they are designed to meet all of the published human standards," Musk said. SpaceX's commercial plans The Hawthorne, Calif.-based company hopes the Falcon rockets will be used to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, and possibly beyond, after the space agency's space shuttles retire this year. SpaceX already has a $1.6 million contract to haul cargo to the space station aboard the Falcon 9. In addition to NASA missions, the Falcon Heavy could prove useful for other commercial space ventures. For example, the Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace is designing a commercial space station, and eyeing establishing a private moon base. Such a destination would require a vehicle to help build it, as well as a rocket to ferry space tourists and other clients to and from the base. Even farther destinations like Mars are not out of the question with the Falcon Heavy, Musk said, though such a trip would probably require multiple launches. He brought up the possibility of a mission to collect samples of Martian dirt and return them to Earth for study ing – an endeavor that has so far proven prohibitively complicated. "The Falcon Heavy has so much more capability than any other vehicle, I think we can start to realistically contemplate missions like a Mars sample return," Musk said. And the company isn't content to stop at the Falcon Heavy. SpaceX is also considering building an even more powerful rocket called a "super heavy-lift" vehicle that would have about three times the capability of a Falcon Heavy, or about 50 percent more power than the Saturn 5 . Such a vehicle would likely have no trouble reaching the moon, Mars or beyond. Musk said SpaceX has a small contract with NASA right now to explore the possibility of building the super heavy-lift rocket.

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Mars Tradeoff TurnConstellation trades off with more important Mars mission.St. Petersburg Times, 10 (“OBAMA'S AMBITIOUS AGENDA FOR SPACE”, St. Petersburg Times, 04/18/2010, Pg. 2P – LN)The sharper vision for NASA that President Barack Obama provided last week is good for the space program, private industry and the state of Florida . In a visit to the Kennedy Space Center, the president set a clear destination and timetable for exploring deep space. He offered new incentives to retain highly skilled aerospace jobs . He also clarified his strategy to have the private sector play a larger role in space. The administration will have to back up its vision with real money. Obama's visit was largely an effort at damage control after the fuzzy vision he laid out in February for NASA. In that sense, what the president did not do - retreat in the face of political pressure after canceling the troubled Constellation program - was as important last week as holding hands at Cape Canaveral. There is little value in returning to the moon. It would sap precious resources away from where the nation needs to spend its money and expertise - flying to Mars. Obama gave NASA a deadline of 2015 to design a deep-space rocket and said a manned flight should orbit Mars by the 2030s.

Abandoning a lunar base concept is key to a much earlier human spaceflight to MarsCovault, 8 (Craig, Staff Writer and Contributing Writer for Aerospace America, “MOON STUCK; With the U.S. presidential electionlooming, space leaders prepare tooffer an alternative to Bush?s visionfor exploration. Instead of a lunarbase, humans might land onasteroids and NASA would boost?green? missionsto planet Earth”, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 01/21/2008, World News & Analysis; Pg. 24 Vol. 168 No. 3 –LN)Top U.S. planetary scientists, several astronauts and former NASA division directors will meet privately at Stanford University on Feb. 12-13 to define these sweeping changes to the NASA/Bush administration Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). Abandoning the Bush lunar base concept in favor of

manned asteroid landings could also lead to much earlier [hu]manned flights to Mars orbit, where astronauts could land on the moons Phobos or Deimos. Their goals for a new array of missions also include sending astronauts to Lagrangian points, 1 million mi. from Earth, where the Earth?s and Sun?s gravity cancel each other out and spacecraft such as replacements for the Hubble Space Telescope could be parked and serviced much like Hubble. The ?alternate vision? the group plans to offer would urge far greater private-sector incentives to make ambitious human spaceflight plans a reality .

The Moon is a stumbling block for human Mars missions.Covault, 8 (Craig, Staff Writer and Contributing Writer for Aerospace America, “MOON STUCK; With the U.S. presidential electionlooming, space leaders prepare tooffer an alternative to Bush?s visionfor exploration. Instead of a lunarbase, humans might land onasteroids and NASA would boost?green? missionsto planet Earth”, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 01/21/2008, World News & Analysis; Pg. 24 Vol. 168 No. 3 –LN)If alternative-vision planners have their way, the mission could instead be flown to an asteroid in about 2025 (see p. 27). Participants in the upcoming meeting contend t here?s little public enthusiasm for a return to the Moon , especially among youth, and that the Bush administration has laid out grandiose plans

but has done little to provide the funding to realize them on a reasonable timescale. Planners say the Bush plan is beginning to crumble, with only companies that have won major funding still enthusiastic about the existing plan. ? It?s becoming painfully obvious that the Moon is not a stepping-stone for [hu]manned Mars operations but is instead a stumbling block ,? says Robert Farquhar, a veteran of planning and operating planetary and deep-space missions. The prospect of challenging new manned missions to asteroids is drawing far more excitement among young people than a ?return? (as in going backward) to the Moon, says Lou Friedman, who heads The Planetary Society, the country?s largest space interest group.

Skipping the Moon means accelerating our pace to Mars.Covault, 8 (Craig, Staff Writer and Contributing Writer for Aerospace America, “MOON STUCK; With the U.S. presidential electionlooming, space leaders prepare tooffer an alternative to Bush?s visionfor exploration. Instead of a lunarbase, humans might land onasteroids and NASA would boost?green? missionsto planet Earth”, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 01/21/2008, World News & Analysis; Pg. 24 Vol. 168 No. 3 –LN)Under the alternative VSE, even smaller, individual lunar sorties would be reduced, or perhaps deleted entirely, says Noel W. Hinners, who had extensive

Apollo lunar science and system responsibility at Bell Laboratories before head ing all of NASA ?s science program development . He also led

Lockheed Martin Spaceflight System. Hinners believes the group should examine dropping all the lunar sorties to accelerate the human push to Mars in the revised VSE proposal to the new administration. The James Webb Space Telescope, with a 21.3-ft.-dia. mirror, will be launched in 2013 to one of these ?L? points. With little fanfare, it was recently approved to carry a lightweight Crew Exploration Vehicle docking system just in case a manned CEV has to make a house call a million miles from Earth for emergency servicing.

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The moon not only is less scientifically rewarding than Mars but it’s also a detour.Singer, 4 (S. Fred, Atmospheric Physicist; Professor of environmental science, founder of science and environmental science (Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Federal Science) known for his Space Research, “To the moon of Mars; Saving the Bush Initiative, Washington Times, 3/15/2004, OPED; Pg. A23–source)President Bush's "bold" space initiative , announced at NASA headquarters Jan. 14, seems to be dead - at least until after the November elections. The vision of a permanent manned base on the moon , to be followed by expeditions to Mars and the great beyond, didn't excite much public acclaim and got a cold reception on the Hill - even from Republicans who normally support the president. The sure sign: It was not featured in the Jan. 20 State of the Union address. The main problem seems to be money, but the goal itself may be questionable. While no firm figures have been suggested for the whole package, the numbers bandied about reach into the hundreds of billions. The "down payment" is certainly modest enough, but everyone still remembers the price tag of $450 billion for the Space Exploration Initiative of Bush 41. And Congress suffers from feelings of guilt after its spending spree of the past two years. What better way for members to demonstrate their probity and fiscal restraint than by dumping on space projects? To many, however, a moon base is simply the space station writ large . It's not "bold" and it's not new. It does little to advance science, human adventure or the prestige of the U nited S tates. On the contrary , it diverts scarce resources from more worthwhile programs. A "stepping stone" to Mars? More likely a detour . It looks like a rather transparent ploy to back out of the space station. Sort of trading one white elephant for another. It is likely to backfire politically [Bush "Moondoggle"]. Or: "If you like the space station, you'll love the moon base." What will a moon base accomplish? The scientific return is minimal - certainly when compared to Mars . And you always have to ask: Can the same job be done without a manned base? Resource exploitation? Helium-3 mining for nuclear fusion, when a working fusion reactor on Earth is just a gleam in someone's eye? Ice near the lunar poles? We have a lot of that right here on Earth. A solar power supply for beaming energy to Earth? Wrong place - even if you believe in space solar power. Stepping

stone for manned interplanetary flight? What tech nology will they test on the moon that cannot be tested in the space station ? Even worse, you cannot test the effects of zero gravity on the moon.

A Mars mission is much cheaper, easier, and more rewarding than a base on the moon.Singer, 4 (S. Fred, Atmospheric Physicist; Professor of environmental science, founder of science and environmental science (Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Federal Science) known for his Space Research, “To the moon of Mars; Saving the Bush Initiative, Washington Times, 3/15/2004, OPED; Pg. A23–source)Can the White House initiative be saved? To achieve the plan at a much lower cost - and much sooner - all one really has to do is change one word: from "setting up a manned base on the moon and Mars " to "setting up a manned base on the moon of Mars. " This would be infinitely easier, almost as dramatic, full of good science and definitely less costly. Such a program - to explore Mars from close up - can be done for not more than $30 billon over 15 years - well within the current NASA budget.

The lunar mission will sidetrack Mars missions for years and years.Chow, 2/11 (Denise, Staff Writer, “The Case against the Moon: Why We Shouldn’t Go Straight Back”, SPACE.com, 2/11/2011, http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/news/thecaseagainstthemoonwhyweshouldntgostraightback - The Mars Society)Launius said returning to the moon could address important scientific questions, such as the existence of water ice, but with the objective of traveling to

Mars on the horizon, he wonders whether it would cause NASA to be "sidetracked with years upon years of lunar exploration ."

"I'm less excited about a human mission back to the moon," Launius said. "I remember the first ones – they were cool. I'd love to see us go to Mars, but it's

much more complex and difficult. And I really question whether we're going to be able to develop the expertise to take a task like that on." Others agree Mars is a more exciting destination and that a return to the moon should come eventually but should not top the space agency's list of priorities . "A return to the moon should not be NASA's primary goal or focus in this decade," said Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars

Society. "Rather, the proper goal of NASA's human spaceflight program should be human missions to Mars . From a technological point of view, we are much closer today to being able to send humans to Mars than we were to sending men to the moon in 1961, and we were there eight years later

The development of a lunar base would drain resources needed to go to Mars – that inability crushes our space leadership.Chow, 2/11 (Denise, Staff Writer, “The Case against the Moon: Why We Shouldn’t Go Straight Back”, SPACE.com, 2/11/2011, http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/news/thecaseagainstthemoonwhyweshouldntgostraightback - The Mars Society)In addition to his concern that sending more Americans to the moon would tie up resources that could be used to develop Mars-bound technology, Aldrin said engaging in another moon race would jeopardize the legacy of U.S. dominance in space exploration. "Manned missions to the moon should carefully consider U.S. leadership in space as we expand human presence outward into the solar system," Aldrin said. "If we go back to the moon and get there second or third, that is not U.S. leadership. Activities going back to the moon should be led by the U.S. – but not at the expense of leading the world in space and expansion outward." Arguments for human exploration of the Red Planet are no

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less politically charged. "Given courageous leadership, we could be on Mars by 2020 . That should be our goal," Zubrin said. " To say we cannot do it is to say we have become less than the kind of people we used to be, and that is something this country cannot accept and cannot afford ."

A short time-line to Mars is key.Seattle Astronomy, 11 (“Zubrin: Human Could be on Mars by 2018”, 1/24/11, <http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/tms-in-the-news/zubrinhumanscouldbeonmarsby2018> –The Mars Society)Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin scoffs at the ridiculously complicated and expensive missions that planners keep proposing for getting humans to the Red Planet. Zubrin says that if we decided to go today, we could be there in seven years with a program of Mars exploration that is relatively inexpensive. Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin, author of The Case for Mars, signed copies of the book after his talk Saturday at the Museum of Flight's Mars Fest. Zubrin says if we decided now to go to Mars we could be there by 2016. Zubrin gave a talk Saturday as part of the Mars Fest at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. He said that it’s important for us to explore Mars. “Mars is the closest planet to us that has on it all of the resources needed to support life and therefore civilization,” he noted. A short time-line is critical , according to Zubrin, who says if we set a goal to get to Mars in 30 years it will never happen .

We have the technology to get to Mars.Zubrin, 11 (Dr. Robert, Aerospace Engineer, Ph.D, Leader of Mars Society, “To Replace the Shuttle: A Mission to Mars”, 6/29/11, <http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/tms-in-the-news/marssocietypresidentinterviewedonnprssciencefridayprogram>And we are ready . As I show in detail in my just updated book, "The Case for Mars," we are much better prepared today to send humans to Mars , despite its greater distance, than we were to send men to the moon in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy started the Apollo program. We got to the moon eight years later. Future-fantasy spaceships are not needed to send humans to Mars. The primary real requirement is a heavy-lift booster with a capability similar to the Saturn V launch vehicle employed in the 1960s. This is something we fully understand how to engineer. The mission could then be accomplished with two launches. The first would send an unfueled and unmanned Earth Return Vehicle (ERV) to Mars. After landing, this vehicle would manufacture its own methane/oxygen return propellant by combining a small amount of hydrogen imported from Earth with a large supply of carbon dioxide acquired from the Martian atmosphere. The chemistry required to perform this operation has been widely practiced on Earth since the gaslight era. Once the propellant is manufactured, the crew is sent to Mars in a habitation module launched by the second booster. After a six-month voyage to Mars, the hab module is landed near the ERV and used as the crew's base for exploring the Martian surface. Using spacesuits for protection in the thin Martian atmosphere, the astronauts would then spend the next year and a half exploring for past or present life, and then enter the return vehicle for a six-month voyage home. The hab module is left behind on Mars, so each time a mission is flown, another habitation is added to the base. There is nothing required by such a plan that is beyond our technology. The issue is not money. The issue is leadership . NASA's average Apollo-era (1961-73) budget, adjusted for inflation, was about $19 billion a year in today's dollars, only 5% more than the agency's current budget.

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Mars GoodMars has political support and is the one location key to “getting off the rock”.Thompson, 11 (Dr. Loren, COO of Lexington Insititue, CEO of Source Associates, Deputy Director of Security Studies at Georgetown, Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “Human Spaceflight”, Lexington Institute, April 2011, <http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/Defense/HumanSpaceflight-Mars.pdf>)Mars is the sole destination for the human spaceflight program that can generate sufficient scientific benefits to justify the scale of expenditures required. It is also the only destination likely to sustain political support across multiple presidential administrations. Mars is the most Earth-like place in the known universe beyond our own planet, and it is the one location that could conceivably support a self-sustaining human colony . It has water, seasons, atmosphere and other features that may hold important lessons for the future of the Earth, but unlocking those lessons would require a sustained human presence on the Red Planet’s surface.

Human missions to Mars are the ONLY way for NASA’s program to survive – the moon doesn’t matter.Thompson, 11 (Dr. Loren, Ph.D, COO of Lexington Institute, CEO of Source Associates, Deputy Director of Security Studies at Georgetown, Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “New Study: Human spaceflight – Mars is the Destination that Matters”, Mars Society, 4/25/ 2011, http://www.marssociety.org/home/press/announcements/newstudyhumanspaceflight-marsisthedestinationthatmatters>)There is only one way that the human spaceflight program can be rescued from the decaying orbit into which it was launched by the Challenger disaster in 1986: NASA must define a goal for the program that justifies the vast expenditures required and inspires the nation in the same way President Kennedy did in 1961. Going back to the Moon or visiting an asteroid won't do the trick. Only a series of [ hu]manned missions to Mars will . Our astronauts will need to go to other places before they attempt a landing on the Martian surface, but if those missions aren't justified as initial steps in a long-term plan to visit the Red Planet, then they aren't going to happen. To put it bluntly, the public doesn't care about spending hundreds of billions of dollars to go someplace we already went a generation ago. It needs a new destination and a new rationale to convince it that NASA 's human spaceflight program still makes sense .

Mars must be our ultimate goal – that’s key to NASA’s human spaceflight program.Thompson, 11 (Dr. Loren, COO of Lexington Insititue, CEO of Source Associates, Deputy Director of Security Studies at Georgetown, Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “Human Spaceflight”, Lexington Institute, April 2011, <http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/Defense/HumanSpaceflight-Mars.pdf>)In the current fiscal and cultural environment, there is only one goal for the human spaceflight program that has a chance of capturing the popular imagination: Mars. The Red Planet is by far the most Earth-like object in the known universe beyond the Earth itself, with water, seasons, atmosphere and other features t hat potentially make it habitable one day by humans. In addition, its geological characteristics make it a potential treasure trove of insights into the nature of the solar system -- insights directly relevant to what the future may hold for our own world. And Mars has one other key attraction: it is reachable. Unlike the hundreds of planets now being discovered orbiting distant stars, astronauts could actually reach Mars within the lifetime of a person living today, perhaps as soon as 20 years from now. This report makes the case for reorienting NASA ’s human spaceflight program to focus on a n early [ hu]manned mission to Mars . It begins by briefly reviewing the history of the human spaceflight program and explaining why current visions of the program’s future are unlikely to attract sustained political support. It then describes the appeal of Mars as an ultimate destination, and the range of tangible benefits that human missions there could produce. It concludes by describing the budgetary resources and scientific tools needed to carry out such missions. The basic thesis of the report is that human missions to Mars can be accomplished within NASA’s current ly projected budget s; that proposed missions to other destinations such as near-Earth asteroids should be reconfigured as stepping-stones to the ultimate goal of the Red Planet; and that if Mars does not become the official goal of the human spaceflight program, then the program will effectively be dead by the end of the current decade .

Mars is the only other place in the solar system holding the capacity to sustain a human colony.Thompson, 11 (Dr. Loren, COO of Lexington Insititue, CEO of Source Associates, Deputy Director of Security Studies at Georgetown, Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “Human Spaceflight”, Lexington

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Institute, April 2011, <http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/Defense/HumanSpaceflight-Mars.pdf>)Among the various destinations that have been proposed under the flexible path -- a return to the Moon, visits to asteroids, etc. -- only the goal of a manned mission to Mars offers the hope of generating scientific benefits sufficient to justify the amounts of money required . This potential for a big scientific payoff arises from the fact that Mars is the most Earth-like object in the reachable universe, and the only other planet in the solar system that could plausibly host a self-sustaining human colony someday. Although the Martian environment is a harsher setting than anyplace on Earth, it has water , it has an atmosphere , it has seasons and it has other attributes typically associated with the cycle of life on our own planet. Its geophysical and climatological features offer lessons about the past and future of Earth that cannot be gleaned from any other destination. And it presents scientists with a number of puzzles, such as the presence of methane typically produced by living organisms, that can only be resolved through human exploration.

Constellation won’t generate political support – Mars is key.Thompson, 11 (Dr. Loren, COO of Lexington Insititue, CEO of Source Associates, Deputy Director of Security Studies at Georgetown, Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, “Human Spaceflight”, Lexington Institute, April 2011, <http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/resources/documents/Defense/HumanSpaceflight-Mars.pdf>)This all makes sense from a budgetary and scientific perspective. What’s missing is a grasp of the rationale required to sustain political support across multiple administrations. While exploration of the Moon’s far side or nearby asteroids may have major scientific benefits, those benefits are unlikely to be appreciated by politicians struggling to reconcile record deficits. NASA’s current research plans do not connect well with the policy agendas of either major political party , and the flexible path will not change that. To justify investments of hundreds of billions of dollars in human spaceflight over the next 20 years while entitlements are being pared and taxes are increasing, NASA must offer a justification for its efforts commensurate with the sacrifices required. Mars is the only objective of sufficient interest or importance that can fill that role. Thus, the framework of missions undertaken pursuant to the flexible-path approach must always be linked to the ultimate goal of putting human beings on the Martian surface, and the investments made must be justified mainly on that basis. The American public can be convinced to support a costly series of steps leading to a worthwhile objective, but trips to the Moon and near-Earth objects aren’t likely to generate sustained political support during a period of severe fiscal stress.

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***ESA CP SOLVENCY

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ESA Solves VSE (Generic)ESA Solves Best –framework of cooperationRendleman and Faulconer ’10 (James D., Colonel, USAF (Ret.), Colorado Springs, Colorado and J. Walter, Ellicott City, Maryland, “Improving International Space Cooperation”, HYPERLINK "http://strategicspacesolutions.com/Public-papers/Intl-Space-Coop%206-5-10.pdf" http://strategicspacesolutions.com/Public-papers/Intl-Space-Coop%206-5-10.pdf]ESA’s complex governance structure has worked; it has rationalized European space efforts, usually allocating expenditures among members based on their relative technical strengths. It has also helped achieve standardization and interoperability among Europe’s space systems. Still, member nations have to reconcile their industrial space priorities with those emphasized by ESA’s leadership. They may differ. Internecine squabbles have generated much rhetoric. ESA’s spending priorities have been criticized; some snort that the framework unfairly favors French, German, and Italian interests in spending, but the same nations are also among its larger contributors. Still, France’s space agency receives a budget which is double the amount it contributes to ESA. However, without the ESA funding framework, France arguably would never have been able to put together resources to fund the immense Ariane rocket system and the spacecraft buses used by Europe’s EADS Astrium and Alcatel Alenia Space. Thus, cooperation has been a tremendous boon to France’s national space aspirations, and to other European consortiums and industrial concerns that are now able to participate in space activities. Resource and risk sharing. Cost motivations dominate this equation. It is the most important rationale given for cooperation. Why? Space endeavors have proven to be very expensive. For that reason they are highly debated and discussed, especially the returns on investment. International cooperation offers the potential to reduce the burdens to gain access to space by even the poorest of nations. It does this by spreading the resource investments and expenditures among cooperating nations. Observers have concluded that as per-partner costs decrease, the per-partner utility of international cooperation increases. 15 Cooperation reduces exposure by spreading the risk of failure. With cooperation, a space fairing state can draw in outside resources. There is therefore a strong incentive to engage in cooperative activities when they provide this increasing utility. This is especially compelling for nations whose resources are insufficient to attain any substantial space operational and technical goals. Given the large costs involved in accessing space—satellite system research, concept development and system design, manufacture, launch and operation—cooperation is needed by all but the largest space-faring nations. ESA has even engaged the U.S. and Japan to join what were previously traditional European science missions as a way to rescue their mission portfolio from increased cost growth. 16 International cooperation offers the opportunity to improve the efficacy of the expenditures. Resources can be rationalized, standardized, and made interoperable to bring about the best and most efficient use of research, development, procurement, support, and production resources. This fosters effective operations. So if a hypothetical space partnership involves two nations, one with sophisticated remote sensing engineering capabilities, and the other, spacelift, a rational approach would allocate program activities in accord with these strengths.

ESA Willing to fundRendleman and Faulconer ’10 [James D., Colonel, USAF (Ret.), Colorado Springs, Colorado and J. Walter, Ellicott City, Maryland, “Improving International Space Cooperation”, HYPERLINK "http://strategicspacesolutions.com/Public-papers/Intl-Space-Coop%206-5-10.pdf" http://strategicspacesolutions.com/Public-papers/Intl-Space-Coop%206-5-10.pdf]Volatility in international and domestic politics. National political processes can bring uncertainty to international agreements. For example, in 2004, President George W. Bush unveiled his Vision for Space Exploration which put a near-term emphasis on returning humans to the moon. International partners, especially in Europe did not immediately adopt this policy because they were more interested in performing Mars missions. However, after four years of international workshops, bilateral meetings, then intense hectoring and haggling, a collective ―global vision‖ was forged with the U.S. prospective partners, especially ESA. ESA then cajoled its members to support the Vision. Then, just as ESA was announcing that its membership had synched its planning and programming roadmap to match the Bush Vision, the United States led by a newly elected internationalist President, announced interest in a radically different space vision, that is, the one recently identified and described by the Augustine committee. The United States has now abandoned the Vision’s ―lunar base‖ concept and moved to a ―flexible path‖ to manned space exploration. The change devastated the ESA partners.

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ESA Solves ExplorationESA Solves Moon and Mars Exploration – Aurora program Zimmerman ‘3 [Jim, “International Considerations”, The Planetary Society, April, http://planetary.org/programs/projects/aim_for_mars/workshop_zimmerman.html]If Europe participates in a future human exploration initiative, it is likely to do so through ESA. With this in mind ESA has established the Aurora program to plan future robotic and human exploration missions - both European led and in cooperation with other partners. At the same time France, Italy, Germany and other European countries maintain bilateral interests that could provide additional opportunities for cooperation in preparing for and conducting future exploration programs. Interests: The objective of the Aurora program is to formulate and implement a long-term European plan for robotic and human exploration. For ESA and its member states Mars is the primary interest. The Moon continues to be an attractive additional destination. The prospective missions under study by ESA under Aurora include: A human mission to Mars undertaken in the 2025-2030 time frame. A robotic outpost at the Moon or a possible human mission to the Moon undertaken in the 2020-2025 time frame. One or more Mars Sample Return missions undertaken in the 2011-2017 time frame. Aurora is currently a study program funded at the level of approximately $4 million per year through 2004. ESA hopes its member states will significantly increase Aurora program funding in 2005 and thereafter so that ESA can pursue a series of robotic precursor missions. Some of these missions would be ESA-led; others would involve European participation in international missions. The ultimate goal of Aurora is to position Europe to play a "prominent role" in an international scenario of human exploration of the Moon and Mars "consistent with Europe's traditions and ambitions." While this could lead to one or more European-led exploration missions, most ESA and ESA member state officials assume that the major human exploration initiatives will be pursued in partnership with the U.S. and/or other countries. Aurora is intended to develop European capabilities for such initiatives.

ESA can solve Lunar Base- Tech available through the Aurora ProgramRuess, Schaenzlin, and Benaroya ‘6 [F., J., and H., “Structural Design of a Lunar Habitat”, Journal of Aerospace Engineering ASCE, July, “Structural Design of a Lunar Habitat”, http://coewww.rutgers.edu/~benaroya/publications/Ruess%20et%20al%20ASCE%20JAE.pdf]On January 14th, 2004, President George W. Bush announced a new course in America’s space program. After completing the International Space Station by 2010, the Space Shuttle will be retired. The next generation of space vehicles will be the Crew Exploration Vehicle, ready for flight by 2014. This new vehicle will enable a return to the Moon, and future explorations beyond, as early as 2015. The extended human presence on the Moon will enable astronauts to develop new technologies and harness the Moon’s abundant resources to allow manned exploration of more challenging environments. A human presence on the Moon could also reduce the cost of further exploration, since lunar-based spacecraft could escape the Moon’s lower gravity using less energy at less cost than Earth-based vehicles. The experience and knowledge gained on the Moon will serve as a foundation for human missions beyond the Moon, beginning with Mars. Other nations have plans to visit the Moon as well. The Chinese lunar program, named Chang’e after a legendary Chinese goddess who flew to the Moon, aims to eventually place an unmanned vehicle on the Moon by 2010. Plans also call for a vehicle to land by 2020 that would collect soil samples and conduct other tests, possibly in preparation for a manned lunar base. The European Space Agency’s Aurora Program also aims to set out a strategy for Europe’s solar system exploration over the next 30 years that eventually includes manned expeditions to the Moon and Mars. A human mission to the Moon, proposed for 2024, would demonstrate key life-support and habitation technologies, as well as aspects of crew performance and adaptation to a long-distance space flight. One part of these ambitious visions will be the construction of a lunar base. This work summarizes the lunar environmental conditions, a classification of structural concepts being considered for lunar habitats, the preliminary and structural design of a possible lunar base, the construction process, and challenges for future research. More details can be found in the first writer’s Master’s thesis Ruess 2004.

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ESA Will CooperateESA cooperates with NASA over lunar baseSauser ‘9 [Brittany Sauser, “Who Will Be the First to Return to the Moon?”, Technology Review, 3/6/2009, http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/23071/]Last year, the European Space Agency (ESA) approved funding for launching a lunar lander between 2017 and 2020. The approval was based on studies that the agency conducted in cooperation with NASA that helped define what returning humans to the moon and building a sustainable long-term human presence there would involve. The study called for such things as fixed and mobile habitation units with integrated life-support systems, autonomous robotic systems that can prepare for human exploration and work with crews, and power-generation and storage systems to support energy needs. The study also called for building systems that can produce resources from materials on the lunar surface. ESA and NASA agreed that the Europeans could build a cargo lander to supply resources--food, water, oxygen, fuel, etc.--to astronauts during the construction of a human lunar base. But ESA has its sights set on its own lunar lander and is asking the industrial community (including non-space companies) to provide input on its lunar project through a Request for Information (RFI).

ESA Solves US tech- Works with NASA, NOAA, and USGSESA ’10 [“Global Cooperation- Cooperation with the USA”, Space Situational Awareness, http://www.esa.int/esaMI/SSA/SEM44HCKP6G_0.html]Europe enjoys a long and successful history of cooperation with US space-related agencies . Today, ESA maintains contacts with the US government at large but its main partner agencies are the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Geological Survey (USGS). In addition to ESA and NASA's long-standing and extensive cooperation in human spaceflight, space science, satellite navigation, meteorology and earth sciences, to name just a few, the two agencies have enhanced their mutual support in the areas related to infrastructure and operations. In March 2007, ESA and NASA signed an agreement in Washington, DC, extending the two agencies' long-standing cooperation in the areas of satellite tracking, spacecraft navigation and mission operations. The two agencies' tracking station networks now regularly support each others' missions, and data are seamlessly exchanged using open, international technical standards. In May 2008, ESA mission controllers used Mars Express to monitor and record the entry and descent of NASA's Phoenix mission to the Red Planet. On several occasions, Mars Express has relayed pictures and data from NASA's Mars rovers operating on the planet's surface, proving the benefits of interplanetary networking between missions. Closer to home, SSA highlights Europe's regular use of orbital object data supplied by the US Defense Department, specifically, the US Space Surveillance Network. The US Joint Space Operations Center (JSPOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, has long provided debris avoidance warnings to ESA and other European satellite operators. By establishing its own independent surveillance capability, Europe will enhance its partnership with the USA to the benefit of both. This will enable, for example, the accuracy of predicted high-risk conjunctions to be cross-checked, potentially saving precious fuel and extending the useful life of operating satellites. ESA is already collaborating with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in space weather monitoring and in the development of new user services. In 2010, ESA began providing ground station support for the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) mission to ensure the availability of the satellite's real-time data for a global user community. Cooperation with international bodies ESA has a long history of sharing research results, operational experience, infrastructure and expertise with international bodies in many areas, including disaster response, environmental monitoring, space debris studies, space weather effects and near-earth object detection.

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ESA Solves CooperationESA Solves Global Cooperation Through Planetary Defense Conference Koschny ’11 [Dr. Detlef, space scientist in ESA's Space Science Department (ESSD) at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, The Netherlands, whose work focuses on meteor astronomy, “Defending the planet against rocky invaders”, “Global Cooperation vital to asses NEO risk”, European Space Agency- Space Situational Awareness, March 15, http://www.esa.int/esaMI/SSA/SEMRJ1YTVKG_0.html]The 2011 Planetary Defence Conference (PDC2011) is the fourth in a series of global meetings that bring together scientists, space experts, industry, academics and policy-makers to share research results and consider options for a global response should an Earth-impacting threat be discovered. There are over 400 000 asteroids known in our Solar System; more than 7700 of these are near-Earth objects (NEOs), meaning their orbits come close to that of Earth's. NEOs could hit our planet and, depending on their size, produce considerable damage. While the chance of a large object striking Earth is very small, it would produce a great deal of destruction. NEOs thus merit active detection and tracking efforts Global cooperation vital to assess NEO risk The most recent significant impact occurred in Siberia, Russia, in 1908, when an object estimated at 30–50 m in diameter entered the atmosphere and exploded. The blast levelled more than 2000 sq km of forest. "Within Europe, we have developed world-class capabilities and expertise in observing, discovering and assessing NEOs," says Detlef Koschny, Head of the NEO Segment at ESA's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme office. "Assessing the risk and developing response strategies cuts across national, geographic, jurisdictional and disciplinary lines, so conferences like PDC2011 are absolutely vital for sharing information." ESA's SSA programme is developing services and infrastructure to enable Europe to observe NEOs, predict their orbits, produce impact warnings and be involved in possible mitigation measures and civil response. It will also provide services to monitor man-made debris objects in orbit that can pose hazards to satellites and to monitor the effects of space weather phenomena on space and ground assets.

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***PRIVATIZATION CP SOLVENCY

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CP Doesn’t Kill Leadership US Space Leadership Inevitable despite Private CompaniesChinadaily ‘11 [Chinadaily.com.cn, “Atlantis Opens Next Chapter, Says NASA”, July 3, 2011, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/]WASHINGTON - The Atlantis mission to be launched by NASA on July 8 will not be an end to the space age, as some media suggest. Although it is the final mission of the space shuttle, it will open up "the next chapter" in the United States' space exploration, NASA's administrator Charles Bolden Jr said at the National Press Club in Washington on Friday. "When I hear people say - or listen to media reports - that the final shuttle flight marks the end of US human space flight, I have to say . . . these folks must be living on another planet," he said. "As a former astronaut and the current NASA administrator, I'm here to tell you that American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we have laid the foundation for success - and for NASA, failure is not an option," he said. One of the foundations is the "unprecedented" research capabilities the International Space Station (ISS) now possesses, largely thanks to the space shuttle missions. Although some media imply that "the game will be up" once the ISS is out of orbit in 2020, he said the splendid research results and rich knowledge astronauts and scientists have accumulated through more than 1,200 experiments since 1998 have laid out "a stepping-stone to the rest of the solar system and the tip of what comes next". As NASA turns a new page, it will "focus on deep space exploration", while leaving US private companies to operate low Earth orbit transportation systems for tourism and business, he said. NASA will develop "a deep space crew vehicle and an evolvable heavy-lift rocket," he said. The moon, asteroids and Mars will be the next destinations for humans to live and work, he said. "We will maintain and grow US leadership in space and derive all the benefits that flow from it. Tomorrow's space program is taking shape right now," he said.

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Cooperation with NASAPrivate Companies will work with NASASmith ‘11[Les Smith, “To boldly go where no one has gone before”, The Daily Gleaner (New Brunswick), July 15, 2011, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T12414094098&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T12414097404&cisb=22_T12414097403&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=306536&docNo=7]NASA will now focus on deep space exploration and other projects with private companies handling missions to the International Space Station. Charles Bolden, NASA administrator, in a recent interview, said, "We will use the space station as a test bed and stepping stone for the challenging journey ahead. We are changing the way we do business, fostering a commercial industry that will safely service low earth orbit so we can focus our energy and resources on sending astronauts to an asteroid and eventually to Mars." He goes on to say that, "American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half-century because we have laid the foundation for success - and failure is not an option." Many people have contributed to the success of NASA and the shuttle missions. Commander Ferguson recently told reporters that while the astronauts are in space, their lives are in the hands of those on the ground. "We count on those guys to get us through," said Ferguson. But contribution to NASA's success has also come from unexpected sources. In the 1980s, for instance, NASA challenged Lockheed Martin to cut the weight of the huge external fuel tank that forms the structural backbone of the shuttle by several thousand pounds. The effort stalled at the last 800 pounds. As the blue-ribbon engineering team turned its attention to increasingly lightweight materials, one of the line-workers made a suggestion: stop painting the tank. The 200 gallons of white paint that covered the tank added 800 pounds to a device whose life-span in flight was only about eight minutes and whose fate was to end up at the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Lockheed Martin was recently awarded a contract by NASA to work on designing and building a new space craft for exploration beyond earth's orbit and into the moon's. NASA has a goal of sending astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.

Privatization empirically solves US Leadership – leads to cooperationSpace Daily ’11 [Space Daily, “Sierra Nevada Space Systems Completes Milestones For Commercial Crew Program”, July 1, 2011]Jim Voss, Vice President of SNC's Space Exploration added, "These were important milestones in our program, whose successful accomplishment sets the stage for completing significant work during the CCDev2 Program. NASA aerodynamicists, engineers, and managers from the Commercial Crew Program evaluated the work and participated as active participants in the review. The rapid development enabled by our partnership with NASA and the world class space companies on our team will ensure that our Nation retains its leadership in human spaceflight."

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Solves Aerospace AdvantagePrivatization solves better – its cheaper, more efficient, and it spurs innovations that spread throughout the Aerospace industryVartabedian and Hennigan ’11 [Ralph and W.J., “Space agency struggles to set new course; With plans for the next exploration mission still vague, many are growing frustrated with NASA”, July 19, 2011, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/lnacui2api/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T12414094098&format=GNBFI&sort=BOOLEAN&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T12414097404&cisb=22_T12414097403&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=306910&docNo=5]"Human spaceflight is not ending with the space shuttle program," said NASA deputy chief Lori Garver. "Indeed, American leadership in spaceflight will continue at least for the next half century." NASA still has its share of the space station, which will provide a research platform until at least 2020 and possibly long beyond. Officials from NASA and the aerospace industry say that puts the agency in a better position than the years before the shuttle program, when spaceflight was suspended. But that sunny view belies a reality that NASA's current condition is the product of repeated failures over the last two decades to develop a new launch capability. The U.S. has started and retreated from ambitious new launch systems at least three times, and now has no new hardware in development. Even top NASA leaders acknowledge that the agency faces serious erosion in its industrial base and in-house expertise, as the experienced engineers, scientists and technicians of the shuttle era retire. It is trying to hold onto its know-how as best it can, said William Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator of space operations. "It's naive to say that we have it well in hand," he said. "This is a very difficult thing to do in how to capture this knowledge and pass it on. We're trying our best." The end of the shuttle is having a profound effect across the space industry. The cost of liquid rocket engines, for example, has jumped 300%, because overhead costs have to be spread out over less business, said Dan Collins, chief operating officer of United Launch Alliance, which orbits military and civilian payloads for the government. If NASA does shrivel in coming years, the center of gravity for U.S. spaceflight will shift back to military programs. John Pike, executive director of GlobalSecurity.org, estimates that the total space budget for national security and the military is $40 billion to $50 billion, more than double NASA's entire budget. But only the most pessimistic experts think NASA is headed toward utter failure. At Lockheed Martin Corp., engineers are working under a $6.4-billion contract to build the Orion spacecraft, designed to visit an asteroid and possibly Mars by the 2030s. It will be able to carry up to six astronauts. "We don't want the nation to give up on the exploration mission," said Cleon Lacefield, the Lockheed program manager and a former NASA shuttle flight director. "The angst we have is that we know there are budget issues, and we hope NASA does not lose the exploration mission." The first Orion flight would occur in 2016, but first NASA must figure out a launch system for the capsule. The fate of that system is in the hands of the Obama administration's Office of Management and Budget, and Garver said the program was undergoing "trade-offs." Meanwhile, NASA is hoping to drive down its costs to get astronauts to the space station by turning the job over to private industry. The agency has provided seed money and signed development contracts with Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp., Blue Origin and Hawthorne-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX. Boeing, which has built every manned spacecraft in U.S. history, has the largest funding for the effort. Elbon, Boeing's program manager, describes his capsule as nothing fancy. It would pack seven astronauts into a low-cost vehicle for an eight- or nine-hour automated trip to the space station or back to Earth. "Imagine seven people in a minivan," Elbon said. "It is crowded, but OK. It is an enabler, not an end in itself."

Privatization solves Industry – renewed commitment Business Recorder ’11 [Business Recorder, “Death of Space Travel or Beginning of Exciting New Era?”, July 10, 2011, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/]As the final space shuttle headed toward the International Space Station, back on Earth debate was raging about what the future of the US space programme holds. NASA has faced harsh criticism from some prominent names, including first man on the moon Neil Armstrong, for the lack of a clear path moving forward, but others see a bright, if dramatically different future. Amid tight budgetary constraints, President Barack Obama killed plans by his predecessor George W Bush to build a spacecraft to return to the moon. Instead he wants the space agency to focus on building a rocket that can take astronauts into deeper space and turn over much of the routine work of ferrying astronauts into low-Earth orbit to commercial firms. "Today's launch may mark the final flight of the space shuttle, but it propels us into the next era of our never-ending adventure to push the very frontiers of exploration and discovery in space," Obama said in a statement after Friday's launch of the shuttle Atlantis. "We'll drive new

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advances in science and technology. We'll enhance knowledge, education, innovation, and economic growth. And I have tasked the men and women of NASA with an ambitious new mission: to break new boundaries in space exploration, ultimately sending Americans to Mars. I know they are up to the challenge - and I plan to be around to see it." But critics say the new plans do not offer a clear vision and have no realistic, near-term goal. " NASA's human spaceflight programme is in substantial disarray with no clear-cut mission in the offing," Apollo astronauts Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Eugene Cernan wrote in a USA Today editorial in May. "After a half-century of remarkable progress, a coherent plan for maintaining America's leadership in space exploration is no longer apparent." NASA officials faced questions Friday about how they will ever convince the American public of their plans, if even some of their own supporters aren't convinced. Kennedy Space Centre director Bob Cabana thinks it's only a matter of time - once the plans for the next-generation craft are publicised there will be something for people to rally around. "I don't see it as end. I see it as a transition," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, noting the end of the shuttle programme will allow a more clear focus on what comes next - operating the International Space Station and developing the next-generation spacecraft. That system now known as the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle is based largely on the spacecraft called Orion that was part of Bush's plans to return astronauts to the moon. Up to four astronauts will be able to live for 21 days aboard the cone-shaped craft, which is designed to be 10-times safer than the soon-to-be-retired space shuttle fleet. Scott Pace of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University however thinks that ending the Bush-era plans to return to the moon was a mistake because Obama's objective of reaching an asteroid or Mars isn't feasible in the near-term. The move also leaves many international partners cut off from the US-led space programme with little chance that developing nations, like India can take part in the effort. "By neglecting the moon," he said. "It actually undercut areas for international co-operation, particularly with Asian countries." Others fear US leadership in space will slip, with astronauts reliant on Russia for rides to the ISS and China showing no signs of slowing down its burgeoning space programme. "I think other countries will step in and take our place, which is sad because we were one of the leaders along with Russia, and I think it's a shame to relinquish that," said tourist Judy Clavelli as she toured the National Air and Space Museum in Washington this week. But what that leadership looks like is a matter of opinion with advocates of commercial spaceflight pointing to a renewed commitment that will spur a new American industry. "This week, we welcome the arrival of the Commercial Space Age," John Gedmark, executive director of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said in a statement. "In fact, thanks to commercial spaceflight, the next decade will see more flights to space than in any previous decade of the Space Age. This marks a historic milestone." NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden stressed that US leadership in space will not end with the shuttle. "American leadership in space will continue for at least the next half century because we've laid the foundation for success, and for us at NASA failure is not an option," he said.

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Solves Leadership

Counterplan pushes for privatization in the status quo and solves Leadership along with current NASA plansCarey ’11 [Colette, “HDNet’s NASA Celebration to Include a Special ‘Dan Rather Reports’ Roundtable Discussion on the Future of U.S. Space Exploration”, HDNet, July 6, 2011, http://www.hd.net/press_articles/hdnets-nasa-celebration-to-include-a-special-dan-rather-reports/]In “Dan Rather Reports: The New Space Race,” Rather is joined by Walter Cunningham, Apollo 7 pilot; Leroy Chiao, Expedition 10 commander; Bobby Braun, NASA’s chief technologist ; and Ken Bowersox a former astronaut and now VP of Astronaut Safety and Mission Assurance at a private space company, SpaceX. These men join a conversation covering the scientific and technological accomplishments and discoveries made over the last 30 years of the space program, the opportunities for space exploration that lie ahead, and the imminent changes for the program when it comes to government-run vs. privately-run space flights. The panel also discusses why it is important for the U.S. to continue to lead the way in meaningful space exploration, the possibilities for eventual space travel for average citizens and the potential trip to an asteroid – and even Mars. “I would argue that our space program today is positioned to maintain U.S. technological leadership– to contribute to our economy, to create jobs– and to have lasting scientific benefits,” states Bobby Braun. ” In terms of where our space program is headed– we are, at the same time that the commercial industry is focused on getting astronauts up and down to low Earth orbit, NASA is gonna focus on going out into deep space, for the first time, perhaps going back to the moon, perhaps going farther, to an asteroid– to orbit Mars.”

CP solves US Leadership and Aero Industry – prevents outsourcing Dignan ’11 [Larry Dignan, “Can the U.S. really endure a manned space hiatus?”, CBS News, July 7, 2011, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/] In many respects, Bolden noted that the U.S. needs to outsource low-orbit to the private sector. When I hear people say - or listen to media reports - that the final Shuttle flight marks the end of U.S. human spaceflight, I have to say . . . these folks must be living on another planet. We are not ending human space flight, we are recommitting ourselves to it and taking the necessary - and difficult - steps today to ensure America's pre-eminence in human space exploration for years to come. But we have to do things differently. For one, we have to get out of the business of owning and operating low Earth orbit transportation systems and hand that off to the private sector , exercising sufficient oversight to ensure the safety of our astronauts. We need to focus on deep space exploration, while empowering today's innovators and entrepreneurs to carry out the rest. This new approach to getting our crews and cargo into orbit will create good jobs and expand opportunities for the American economy. And let me be crystal clear about this: I believe that American companies and their spacecraft should send our astronauts to the International Space Station , rather than continuing to outsource this work to foreign governments. That is what this Administration is committed to, and that is what we are going to do. Along with supporting the ISS and commercial crew transportation, NASA will pursue two critical building blocks for our deep space exploration future -- a deep space crew vehicle and an evolvable heavy-lift rocket. And we will make the technology investments required to begin the era of deep space exploration today. In other words, the future of manned flight will depend on companies like SpaceX, Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) and Boeing. (NYSE:BA) If the U.S. can go through the transition to private low-orbit vehicles, maintain leadership and keep focused on going to Mars and deep space perhaps this three-year hiatus is worth it. In the meantime, many folks will wonder if that Atlantis lift-off is a time to celebrate or mourn. (This piece originally appeared on our sister site SmartPlanet.

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Solves ExplorationDifferent Companies can solve Lunar Base – Japanese Space Agency provesGilliand ’11 [Ben Gilliand, “Robots reach for the Moon; METROCOSM SCIENCE & DISCOVERY”, Metro UK, Edition 1; Scotland, July 18, 2011, http://www.cosmonline.co.uk/blog/2011/07/18/robots-reach-moon]For the Americans, Nasa has proposed a plan called 'Project M', which has the ambitious goal of putting a humanoid robot on the Moon in 1,000 days (that's a thousand days from the day the plan gets approval, not from today). The 'Project M' robot could be based on Nasa's Robonaut 2, which was recently installed on the International Space Station, but it also has other bots in the works. Its wacky research arm, Darpa, has funded robotics company Boston Dynamics to create an even more advanced bi-pedal robot that mimics human behaviour and can even run (that's one in the eye for C3PO). Once on the Moon, Nasa's Robonauts, which would be controlled from Earth, could carry out many of the tasks planned for its (now cancelled) lunar programme. Meanwhile, the Japanese space agency, Jaxa, has an even more ambitious plan to not only send robots to the Moon, but to create a lunar base that will be built by robots and inhabited by robots. Its £6.6million robot, called 'Maido-kun', is also being developed by a private company - the wonderfully named Space Oriented Higashiosaka Leading Association (SOHLA).

Privatization solves Mining and Lunar Base Energy Digital ’11 [Energy Digital, “Mining Helium-3 will Transform Dark Sideof the Moon”, May 9, 2011, http://www.energydigital.com/global_mining/mining-helium-3-will-transform-dark-side-of-the-moon]Helium-3 is a non-radioactive hydrogen isotope with one neutron and two protons. It is carried through space via the Sun's solar winds, but burns up as it enters Earth's atmosphere, making it almost non-existent here on our planet. However, an abundance of helium-3 has built up on the Moon's surface over the millennia as confirmed in soil samples collected by the Apollo 17 lunar mission, and it is just waiting to be mined. Why you ask? Because, helium-3 can fuel non-radioactive nuclear fusion reactions to produce safe, clean, abundant energy, and can completely transform our energy future. Helium-3 nuclear fusion reactions release non-radioactive protons that can be harnessed to create electricity directly. This type of nuclear fusion is safer and far more efficient than the nuclear fission reactions used in nuclear plants today, which use heat to run steam turbines, losing energy in the conversion process and creating radioactive waste as a byproduct. Projections estimate that on a commercial basis helium-3 would be worth around $40,000 per ounce. Roughly 100 tons of Helium-3 could power the entire population of Earth for a year and scientists estimate that the Moon could contain approximately 1 million tons-10,000 years worth of energy. But is mining the Moon realistic, and who would spearhead such a risky endeavor? announced the "Google Lunar X PRIZE" competition in 2007, in which the Internet giant challenged privately funded spaceflight teams from across the globe to send a robot to the moon's surface. The first successful team will win $30 million in prizes. As of February 2011, 29 teams from various nations are officially competing for the prize, and several will be launching within the next two years. The US state of Florida is also offering a $2 million prize to the first private spaceflight launched from its soil. NASA is even willing to pay $10 million or more for data collected from private lunar missions. Caterpillar-a top name in mining machinery and equipment-has invested in Carnegie Mellon University's Astrobotic Technology, a company vying for the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Already having experience in automated machinery, Caterpillar will use the partnership with Astrobotic to propel its own lunar program. Caterpillar Automation Systems Manager Eric Reiners says,"Caterpillar makes sustainable progress possible by enabling infrastructure development and resource utilization on every continent on Earth. It only makes sense we would be involved in expanding our efforts to the 8th continent: the Moon." Richard Branson-the man, the myth, the legend-has started up Virgin Galactic. With his own private fleet of spaceships and a spaceport in New Mexico (USA), Branson is already booking spaceflights for those who can afford the $200,000 ticket price. Initial flights will be sub-orbital, with the goal of eventually setting up a lunar resort, in which the elite can take a vacation to the Moon. While no official statements have confirmed Branson's intentions to mine the Moon, media contacts from Virgin Galactic have hinted that it is not out of the realm of possibility. The governments of Russia, China and India have all made public comments on exploiting the Moon's resources, and the Russian space company RSC Energia has proposed a permanent lunar base to be completed by 2025 as a hub for helium-3 mining operations. According to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, Moon mining does not seem to violate any international agreements. However, there is debate over who would own the rights to the materials mined. Mining the Moon would, in fact, create an entirely new industry completely with a radically different kind of supply chain. Shackleton Energy Co., a subsidiary of Stone Aerospace, is planning on developing orbital rocket fueling stations by 2020, so spaceships will be able to fill up on their way to the Moon and back. There is a dark side, however, to mining the Moon. Let us not

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forget that the Moon's orbit dictates the ebb and flow of various systems here on Earth. From sea tides to weather patterns, animal mating habits to plant growth, even plate tectonics, a number of the Earth's systems are reliant on the Moon's consistent circumnavigation of the planet to function properly. If we remove millions of tons of helium-3 and other minerals from the moon and bring them to Earth, the celestial balance that drives those patterns may be thrown off. What's worse, mining activities tend to use explosives, and in low gravity, who's to say that we may not fracture the moon entirely, hurling giant lunar meteorites toward Earth? Transforming the Moon into a mining hub is certainly risky business, but it's bound to be a profitable reality very soon!

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Global Cooperation Solving NowISECG (International Space Exploration Coordination Group) Solves Lunar BaseESA ‘8 [European Space Agency, “Space agencies continue coordination of exploration plans”, July 14, http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Aurora/SEMULBTHKHF_2.html]Representatives of 11 space agencies from around the world gathered in Montréal, Canada, 10-12 July to continue the coordination of programmes to extend human and robotic presence throughout the Solar System. In May 2007, multilateral space agency discussions resulted in the release of ‘The Global Exploration Strategy – The Framework for Coordination.’ This ‘framework document’ – the product of a shared vision of space exploration focused on solar system destinations where humans may someday live and work – represented an important first step in coordinating space exploration efforts toward common goals. The Framework Document envisioned a coordination mechanism to facilitate international planning, leading to the establishment of the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG). During the Montréal ISECG meeting, hosted by the Canadian Space Agency, the participating agencies made significant progress in a number of areas that will facilitate cooperation. Among accomplishments were the establishment of an ISECG secretariat, that will be initially hosted by ESA, plans for conducting effective public engagement, and development of tools for sharing information on exploration capabilities and mission plans across agencies. The participants also took steps toward identification of critical space infrastructure interfaces - such as between spacecraft, lunar rovers and lunar habitats - which, if standardised, would increase opportunities for international cooperation. The participating agencies also reaffirmed the importance of maintaining an open dialogue as the space exploration architecture plans of individual agencies continues to progress. The group set the next ISECG meeting for March 2009 in Japan. Attending the Montréal meeting were representatives from Australia, Canada, ESA, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Ukraine, United Kingdom and the United States.

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AT: International Law BarriersCompanies can set up on the moon – no law barriersPesta ’11 [Billy Pesta, DePaul University, “Private Companies Pioneer Space Race”, http://www.socialtechpop.com/2011/07/private-companies-pioneer-space-race/]One such company nestled in the hills of Silicon Valley has seemingly high expectations. Moon Express, lead by internet billionaire Naveen Jain is positioning itself as a future Federal Express for Moon deliveries, so if you hove something you want to send to our celestial neighbor, they would like to bring it. Deliveries are not the only thing the company plans to capitalize on in the commercial space race. “In the near future, the Moon Express lunar lander will be mining the Moon for precious resources that we need here on Earth,” said a written statement by the company. Sounds like a bad sci-fi movie but the fiction could become reality very quickly as the company does not appear to face any legal hurdles. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, approved by 100 nations including the United States, bans any country from claiming sovereignty over any part of the Moon , but does not prevent private companies from setting up shop. As for mining the Moon, it could fall under similar legal parameters as fishing in international waters. “It’s probably the biggest wealth creation opportunity in modern history,” said Barney Pell, a former NASA computer scientist turned entrepreneur and now a co-founder of Moon Express. While Moon Express might initially make money by sending small payloads, the big fortune would come from bringing back platinum and other rare metals, Dr. Pell said.

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AT: Links to PoliticsFailures in the Public sector have lead to congress’ support for the private industryDyson et al. , President, professor and world renowned scientist and intellectual, 2010 (Freeman, Freeman Dyson: Congress Should Reject H.R. 5781, Choose “Right Side of History”, 9-10-10, http://www.parabolicarc.com/2010/09/10/freemon-dyson-congress-reject-hr-5781-choose-side-history/)Drs. Freeman Dyson, John S. Lewis and Lee Valentine released the following statement about the House’s funding bill for NASA on behalf of The Space Studies Institute:We believe there is a great benefit to our Nation in the opening of the space frontier. Space is about more than science or exploration. Frontiers are about creating prosperity and realizing potential. The contribution of American space efforts to our national economy and to human welfare has barely begun. We face many challenges: ensuring a permanent supply of clean, low-cost energy, strategic metals and, providing robust protection against asteroid impact. Affordable space transportation is necessary to enable all of these benefits. The present House bill will delay the time when space can make a greater contribution to our national welfare. The most useful thing this Congress can do to lower the cost of launch is to create a market for space transportation services. The Kelly Act of 1925, which contracted for private air mail delivery, is a successful example. A consequence of the Kelly Act was the development of the DC-3. As students of history note, the commercial DC-3 ( re-designated the C-47) was an important element in winning WWII. American industry — rather than Russian — will soon be able to supply commercial transportation to the ISS and to commercial space stations. NASA purchase of commercial crew services would accelerate the maturation of this industry. There is another important role for government to play in space development. That is financial support of pre-competitive research and development. That is the role the NACA played until 1958. The NACA performed critical pre-competitive research on topics necessary to build aircraft. NACA reports are models of clarity. These reports are still used today in the development of the U.S. commercial space industry. By contrast, little of economic utility has come from the past few years of NASA R&D. Development of the unnecessary and wasteful Ares vehicle crowded out useful and necessary research. We support the administration’s request to reinstate funds needed to pursue precompetitive research. There are several areas that are critical to America’s regaining leadership in space development. The topics of interest require the development of human capital. Congress must give the long-term support needed to develop human capital in the form of engineers and scientists with technical expertise that we have lost.The magnitude of benefits from space development could be a significant annual addition to our economy within a few decades if the Congress chooses to foster a commercial industry. The benefits include satellite solar power. Clean renewable energy from space could be a $500 billion annual export market in a few decades. Asteroidal resources could supply a resurgent American manufacturing industry with the resources to dominate world markets and ensure prosperity at home.It is difficult to predict the future. Yet, we already have sufficient knowledge of the resources in space to predict a bright future for space development if transport costs are driven low enough to open the space frontier. For good reasons, government developed transportation has been costly and uncompetitive. A classic case is Samuel Langley’s government funded attempt to invent the airplane. Langley spent one hundred times as much money as the Wright brothers did. They succeeded, and he failed. Another example is the British government-funded effort to build passenger dirigibles between the world wars. The government-funded R101 crashed on its maiden voyage, but the commercially developed Vickers R100 dirigible flew successfully. NASA’s failures at every new launcher program in the past two decades are more recent examples.The competition represented by the government’s developing its own unique launch vehicles hinders the emergence of a competitive and improving space transportation sector in the United States. The current House bill perpetuates that mistake. This Congress can choose to be on the right side of history–or on the wrong side. You can elect to help your country build wealth and prosperity, or you can choose to waste money and talent building an unaffordable you now, and in the near future, if you make the wise choice.Prof. Freeman Dyson, PresidentProf. John S. Lewis, V.P., ResearchDr. Lee Valentine, Exec. V.P.

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***MISC

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Cooperation Advantage CounterplanText: The United States federal government should: — strengthen exchanges and communication, increase mutual trust, foster friendship and promote cooperation— hold yearly meetings to exchange views and concerns on space— jointly explore fields where the two sides could cooperate— eliminate obstacles and boost mutual trust to develop China-US cooperative ties.

CP solves 100% of the aff — official statementsBBC, 6 (British Broadcasting Corporation, “China offers four-point proposal to boost Sino-US space cooperation”, 9/25/2006, lexis)Beijing, 25 September: China has offered a four-point proposal to boost Sino-US space cooperation , said Sun Laiyan, administrator of China National Space Administration. Sun was speaking on Monday during an interview. He held formal talks with his US counterpart Michael Griffin, administrator of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in Beijing on Sunday. " The two sides expressed willingness to jointly promote Sino- American space cooperation to further contribute to constructive and cooperative relations ," Sun said. China's proposals, based on this consensus, were : - to strengthen exchanges and communication, increase mutual trust, foster friendship and promote cooperation . - to hold meetings every year to exchange views and concerns on certain issues in an effort to cement the stable development of bilateral space cooperation. - to jointly explore fields where the two sides could cooperate . - to eliminate obstacles and boost mutual trust to develop China-US constructive and cooperative ties , Sun said. "Griffin's visit begins a new chapter in China-US space cooperation", Sun said, adding that the visit follows the implementation of the consensus reached between the two countries during Chinese president Hu Jintao's visit to the United States last April. China will boost bilateral collaboration in fields such as space and earth science, as well as the moon exploration programme based on the principles of "equality, mutual benefit, peaceful utilization and joint development," Sun noted. "China is fully committed to cooperating with foreign countries, including the United States, on space exploration and to making its own contribution to the peaceful utilization of outer space and the well-being of the human race," Sun added.

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VSE CounterplanBush’s VSE approach failsAldrin 3 (12/5/2003, Buzz Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer, retired United States Air Force pilot and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history. On July 20, 1969, he was the second human being to set foot on the Moon, “Fly me to L1” http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/05/opinion/fly-me-to-l-1.html?src=pm, nkj)

For the last 24 hours, news reports have been soaring into orbit that President Bush and NASA are busy preparing their vision for the future of America's space program -- and that this vision may involve sending astronauts back to the moon, and perhaps

establishing some sort of permanent base there. I applaud the instinct, but I think that a moon shot alone seems more like reaching for past glory than striving for new triumphs. Instead, I think the next step in our space program should be to create a floating launching pad for manned and unmanned missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond. This is not a task for the unfinished International Space Station, which is intended to be a floating laboratory rather than a bridge to the heavens. A much more practical destination than the moon or the space station is a region of space called L 1, which is more than two-thirds of the way to the moon and is where the gravity fields between the Earth and Moon are in balance. Setting up a space port there would offer a highly stable platform from which spacecraft could head toward near-Earth asteroids, the lunar surface, the moons of Mars and wherever else mankind decides to travel. Unlike the Moon and the International Space Station, which is in low-earth orbit, L 1 is not the site of strong gravitational pulls, meaning that spacecraft can leave there without using much energy. Thus L 1 would be the most sensible position for a base that would function as a test area and way-point for robotic flights as well as a support station and safe haven for human exploration of the solar system. It would also be relatively cheap, at least in terms of space travel. To create a port at L 1 we can use the building methods that have already proved successful for Skylab and the International Space Station -- and we can probably get it up and running for $10 billion to $15 billion, significantly less than the International Space Station, which will likely exceed $100 billion in the end. We can also save money by shifting away from using the space shuttle as the transport

vehicle and by developing a new, more flexible launch vehicle and crew module to get people and cargo up to the L 1 port. Unfortunately, NASA's work on future vehicles -- including

the much-ballyhooed ''orbital space plane'' -- has stalled since the disaster with the Shuttle Columbia. And even before then, the agency had been focusing on the wrong sort of craft: one limited to transporting four astronauts at a time with little or no cargo-carrying capability. Such a craft would essentially be duplicating what the Russian Soyuz craft already does adequately: bringing several astronauts up and back from a

space station, but little else. Moreover, NASA's ''Supersized Soyuz'' approach focuses only on serving the International Space Station, rather than working toward a more expansive vision.

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Earth Science Trade-Off Link

Lunar base trades off with Earth Science – empirics proveBeattie 7 (Donald A. Beattie, former NASA manager, managed programs at National Science Foundation and Department of Energy. Text taken from article tiled, “Space Review: Just how full of opportunity is the Moon?” published February 12th, 2007. Text found at [http://www.thespacereview.com/article/804/1])NASA’s 2005 authorization indicated that a majority in the 109th Congress supported the Vision. But the full impact on other NASA programs of that support had not been (and still has not been) fully defined and seems to be a moving target as NASA scrambles to fund contracted commitments. The 110th Congress will confront many problems, old and new, and has indicated that science programs will have to compete with other high-priority programs in future budgets. It will require many congresses and administrations to agree to fulfill the goals of the Vision. Further complicating this issue, Congress must decide how to prioritize all of the programs contained in NASA budgets to assure future benefits for the country from NASA research. Should a large percentage of NASA’s budget be spent on a single objective—returning to the Moon—that has little scientific value and no real economic benefits other than job creation? The fear among critics is that the current goal to return to the Moon is not sustainable under projected budgets. In the meantime, to support this goal, traditional NASA programs are being canceled or severely cut back. A recent example, among many, is the reduction in funding for Earth observation programs. Grandiose promises, with little substance to back them up, must be carefully examined. The Vision that NASA is following has not undergone such a careful examination.

The plan would cause earth science funds to be reducedSvitak, ’11 (Amy, writer for space news, “House group proposes shifting Earth Science funds to “Manned Spaceflight”, Space News, 2/8/2011, http://www.spacenews.com/policy/110208-house-earth-science-funds-manned-spaceflight.html)WASHINGTON — A group of Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives is proposing to shift funds from NASA’s climate change research coffers to the agency’s manned spaceflight program, an effort they say could preserve what they described as the agency’s core mission even as the new GOP-controlled House seeks to make good on vows to roll back federal discretionary spending this year. “With your help, we can reorient NASA’s mission back toward human spaceflight by reducing funding for climate change research and reallocating those funds to NASA’s human spaceflight accounts, all while moving overall discretionary spending toward [fiscal 2008] levels,” states a Feb. 7 letter to Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-

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Va.), chairman of the panel’s commerce, justice, science subcommittee that oversees NASA spending.

Funding for the plan will trade off with Earth Science fundingSpacepolitics.com, 11 (“Human spaceflight versus Earth sciences?”, spacepolitics.com, 2/9/2011, http://www.spacepolitics.com/2011/02/09/human-spaceflight-versus-earth-sciences/)A letter signed by several members of Congress is the latest evidence that a new battle line is forming over NASA funding: human spaceflight versus Earth sciences. In a letter to House Appropriations committee chairman Rep. Hal Rogers and CJS subcommittee chairman Frank Wolf, six Republican members of Congress asked the appropriators to prioritize NASA funding on what they consider to be the agency’s primary mission, human spaceflight. To do that, they argue that funding for NASA’s climate change research be redirected to human spaceflight accounts. “With your help, we can reorient NASA’s mission back toward human spaceflight by reducing funding for climate change research and reallocating those funds to NASA’s human spaceflight accounts, all while moving overall discretionary spending towards FY2008 levels,” the letter’s authors—Reps. Bill Posey (R-FL), Pete Olson (R-TX), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Sandy Adams (R-FL), and Mo Brooks (R-AL)—argue.

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Spending Links

The plan costs a ton of moneyCongressional Budget Office, ’04 (“Estimating Potential Cost Growth for NASA's Exploration Vision Using the Historical-Average Approach”, Congressional Budget Office, 9/2004, http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=5772&type=0&sequence=3)NASA has projected that costs for its human lunar exploration program and robotic support missions will total about $95 billion between 2005 and 2020--or roughly $66 billion for human exploration and $29 billion for robotic support missions. However, in estimating cost growth, CBO based its projection on total costs of about $68 billion, or about 25 percent of NASA's total projected budget needs through 2020. That decision was made because most of the projected robotic support missions were not defined well enough to analyze them on the basis of historical cost growth. Thus, only about $2.3 billion of NASA's projected costs for those robotic missions was considered under this analytical approach.

The sun shield is 10 billion dollarsWillis, 08 (C.R., “The Solution to Global Warming”, Google, 1/5/2008, http://www.androidworld.com/prod60.htm)The cost of this project would be surprisingly low. Since the very very vast majority of material would come from the Moon, that part will be FREE. All we need to pay for is the startup facilities. The startup facilities would consist of a large electromagnetic projectile launcher (EMPL) built on Earth and configured to throw its payloads to the Moon - as in Jules Vern's Moon gun (cost about $5 billion). We would require just one robotic mission to the Moon to put in place the initial manufacturing capability (cost about $1 billion). Other costs include sending additional materials to the Moon via the EMPL. These would include robots, computers, and other parts which could not be built easily on the Moon from materials found there (cost about $2 billion). We will also require one mission to the orbital site of the shield which would put the initial assembly equipment in place (cost about $1 billion). Finally, there would be the cost of supervising the construction of the shield over 22 years (cost about $1 billion). Thus the total cost of the Sun shield which would solve the global warming problem would be about $10 billion .

No matter how much money is spent on VSE, it will always require moreBusiness Wire, 11 (“CAGW Issues Spending Cut Alert: NASA Constellation Program”, Business Wire, 1/14/2011, http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110114005762/en)On October 11, 2010 President Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, which provided $10 billion to fund existing contracts for Ares and Orion over the next three years. Nonetheless, NASA delivered a report to Congress this week that concluded that it still can’t build a rocket that “fits the projected budget profiles nor schedule goals outlined in the Authorization Act.” The Orion space capsule has already cost the government $4.8 billion , requires another $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2011, and will not be operational until 2014. As WESH in Orlando has noted, commercial providers have already demonstrated the same capabilities at one tenth of the cost of the still in development Orion capsule.

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Politics Links

President doesn’t like the plan-has already cancelled and scaled back many of the VSE projectsFaith, 10 (G. Ryan, space author; member of the Space institute, “President Obama’s Vision for Space exploration”, The Space review, 4/19/2010, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1610/1)President Obama’s new space policy makes use of an analogous risk management approach, but implements this approach differently. First, the new policy has cancelled the launchers planned under the Constellation program, and will scale back the Orion crew capsule for use as a lifeboat on the ISS, complementing the Russian Soyuz capsules already docked at the station. Secondly, the plan shifts significant funding to commercial transportation of both crew and cargo.

The president has already cancelled the plan-obviously he doesn’t like itSchrope, ’10 (Mark, writer for nature news, “Obama outlines vision for space”, NatureNews, http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100416/full/news.2010.189.html)The President's plan calls for a $6 billion increase over the next five years in NASA's overall budget, which is currently just under $19 billion. Besides expanding Earth observations, key components include ending the Constellation programme initiated by former president George W. Bush, which aimed to develop new rockets and capsules that would put astronauts back on the Moon, but which is behind schedule and over budget. Instead, Obama wants NASA to enlist private companies to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, whose lifespan the President would extend by 5 years from 2015 to 2020. He also set specific goals of sending humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars by the 2030s.

Legislators in the space states like the planSchrope, ’10 (Mark, writer for nature news, “Obama outlines vision for space”, NatureNews, http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100416/full/news.2010.189.html)Still, it is unlikely that the President's speech quashed the concerns of legislators in Florida or other states, such as Texas and California, that have major economic ties to the space programme . Legislators have criticized Obama's vision for being too dependent on private industry and too vague to offer confidence that the goals can be met or the promised jobs created.

Obama supports the space program, just not moon missionsCNN, ’10 (news association, “Obama outlines new NASA strategy for deep space exploration”, CNN, http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-15/politics/obama.space_1_space-investments-constellation-program-international-space-station?_s=PM:POLITICS)President Obama pledged his full commitment to the space program Thursday, outlining a new strategy that ends current programs while funding new initiatives intended to propel humankind farther into the solar system. In a speech at the Kennedy Space Center, Obama outlined his proposal to pump an additional $6 billion into NASA's budget over the next five years while halting a project to resume lunar missions . The new spending would be for research on a propulsion breakthrough to travel deeper into space , as well as development of technologies to allow humans to transport necessary supplies to work and stay longer, Obama said.

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Plan has used PC in the past and still willSpace Politics, 04 (“Election aftermath”, Space Politics, 11/4/2004, http://www.spacepolitics.com/category/campaign-04/)With the 2004 election now behind us (sooner than I had imagined—or feared), Florida Today examined what Bush’s reelection and the Republicans’ hold on Congress meant for space policy. According to those interviewed, the election gives NASA an opportunity to solidify the Vision for Space Exploration through CEV development, an initial lunar robotic mission, and related activities. The article cautions towards the end, though, that budget pressures could cause problems for the program—and presumably NASA in general— down the road. (Ignore the reference to a $7-trillion budget deficit, though.) The success of the vision appears to depend on the answers to a few key questions: Will Congress be more willing to support and fund the VSE now that Bush has been reelected? Will the President be willing to speak out and use political capital to support the VSE if Congress isn’t willing to fully support it? Will Sean O’Keefe be “promoted” to a higher, possibly Cabinet-level position next year, as has been frequently rumored? If so, when does he leave (before or after RTF), and who might take his place?

CAGW hates the plan because it wastes money.Business Wire, 11 (“CAGW Issues Spending Cut Alert: NASA Constellation Program”, Business Wire, 1/14/2011, http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110114005762/en)WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Citizens Against Government Waste ( CAGW) issued its weekly spending cut alert aimed at the Constellation Program, NASA’s multibillion dollar Moon/Mars initiative. As CAGW noted in both an Issue Brief and the June 2010 Porker of the Month, the cost of the Constellation program has gone into the stratosphere, and is no longer affordable. “fits the projected budget profiles nor schedule goals outlined in the Authorization Act.” Despite having spent more than $10 billion on the program to date, NASA is no closer to sending an astronaut to space than it was when the program began, according to the Augustine Commission. In 2010, the President signed into law legislation cancelling major components of the program, including the Ares 1 rocket. However, due to a provision included in NASA’s fiscal year (FY) 2010 Appropriations Act, NASA will nonetheless spend an estimated $500 million on the rocket. On January 2, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “in the last days of last Congress they funded five hundred million dollars for a rocket program at NASA that’s already been shut down. That can’t be too hard to undo.”