Reply #48: I am not disputing the Pentagon's ambitions

[pmbryant]

And the fact that NASA is, to a large extent, pork for the aerospace industry.

What I disagree with is the idea that the Pentagon needs to put up some sort of false front NASA project in order to achieve its goals. This makes no sense.

You've presented a lot of info here but none of it indicates any connection, much less a deep connection, between the Pentagon and NASA. You've got a lot of NASA-specific info, and a lot of Pentagon-specific info.

It is incredibly naive to view NASA and the Pentagon as seperate entities. Indeed, without the support of the military industrial warriors in this administration, from PNAC's ambitions, from DARPA's, the money that funds the space program would evaporate.

No, it is not naive, it is a fact. The Pentagon has its own internal agencies that deal with the space-oriented stuff it does. According to one of the website you link to, these are (1) Advanced Research Projects Agency, and (2) United States Strategic Command.

The space community lost control over NASA long ago when it let the military fund its projects. Now the missions and the funding are inseperable.

This doesn't make sense. NASA has its own funding and does not rely on the military to fund its projects.

Anyway... I agree that Bush, PNAC, et al want to militarize 'space' -- i.e., Earth orbit; not the Moon, Mars, or anything else impractically far away. And I agree that the aerospace contractors (and Bush et al as a result) just love all the money they get via both NASA and Pentagon contracts for space-oriented projects.

But viewing NASA as some integral part of the campaign to militarize space is just not plausible, based both on common sense and my experience. And I haven't seen any significant evidence to change my mind. (A link to a NASA site about "Other Space Agencies" that, not surprisingly, lists a couple Pentagon space agencies does not come close to establishing a connection.)

When Bush et al decide to build space-based weapons, they will do it through the Pentagon directly. That way, they will have much more money, and much more discretion to do whatever they want. (The Pentagon is notorious for not being able to report where there money is spent.) For the Bushies, NASA is much too public (and too small) of an agency to allow to handle that kind of work.

--Peter