The glorious success of the Mars Space Lab mission, with its unsurpassed achievement in engineering, creativity, and efficiency at coordinating thousands of people and hundreds of teams, has created a bit of a problem for the "government-can-do-nothing-right" crowd.
I mean, clearly, we have a shining example of the contrary. Not only did a government bureaucracy work well. It did the impossible.
So what can the right wing practitioners of privatization do? They can lie, as usual.
(Rush Limbaugh) But the point is, that guy Ray called, "Look at what all government did." Government did what they always do here. Private sector aerospace companies built everything involved here. Nobody in government built the rover, pure and simple. This is not to put anybody down, just to be accurate about this.
Right. NASA didn't build that. Except that they did. It is true of course that NASA farmed out various things to private companies. As reported by numerous news outlets, the rover, to which Limbaugh alludes, was actually
built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
The rover was built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The Atlas 5 rocket that will carry it into space was built by United Space Alliance, a joint venture equally owned by the Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp.
Yes, there were components that were built by private companies, university research labs, and even other countries.
But big government bureaucrats designed and built the unit. They designed and coordinated the engineering of the transport of the unit and the elaborate, unprecedented wizardry that got it to the surface of Mars.
Catching a right wing asshole in another lie, however, it not my intention here. When I watched, on pins and needles, the successful touchdown of Curious last night, I felt a feeling I haven't felt in a long time. It wasn't pride really. Or the sense of triumph for a great victory.
It was this old feeling of when we used to do great things as a nation. Things that weren't driven by monetary profit. Or conquest. Or even competition, though there was plemnty of that in the old days.
It brought me back to a time when we did things as Americans. There's a difference between nationalism and national purpose. The Moon missions reflected a kind of higher calling both for our nation and as human beings. A higher calling that has been utterly devastated by the encroachment of right wing ideology, greed and savagery on our national spirit.
The Mars mission reminds us of a time when we, as a nation, still had a soul, and we expected our lives to mean more than making a profit.
It also reminds us that government is how we as a people come together to solve big problems, and do great things. The big selling point of free markets is that they promote competition which is supposed to maximize efficiency.
But competition is adversarial by it's nature. And as such, it is no substitute for cooperative, interactive, democratic self governance. In other words, as this Mars mission demonstrated, some times we just have to work together.
This is one of the great crises of our time. The rise of market fundamentalism, with its axiom of every man for himself, and its inherent hostility to government management of any kind, coming at a time when we as human beings have never needed government more.
The problems we face aare going to require the same kind of coordination and planning we saw last night. It's going to need brilliant minds working together, advanced team management, and democratic accountability.
But in spite of last nights success, and living proof of concept, that is not the direction we're heading.
And while that berthing process is still underway and additional hurdles must be overcome, we are witnessing an extraordinary first in space flight: A cargo re- supply mission being carried out by a private company, an American company I might add! This is truly a major milestone in President Obama's ambitious space exploration plan, one that seeks to rely on private industry to take over transportation to low-Earth Orbit so that NASA can focus on the really hard stuff like sending humans to an asteroid and eventually on to Mars.
...Private industry control of access to low Earth orbit (LEO) is rapidly becoming a reality.
Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator
INTERNATIONAL SPACE DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE
May 25, 2012
Wall Street in space. That's what's happening here. That's the agenda. Which may explain the Obama administrations apparent lack of enthusiasm for such an historical accomplishment. From Mondays press gaggle:
Q Yes, I've got a couple for you. Has the President seen the images beamed back from Mars?
MR. CARNEY: I didn’t ask him. I think that was -- you saw the statement that we put out. It’s a remarkable achievement and I think is testimony to the ingenuity of the American people and American companies, and of NASA in particular. But I haven’t talked to him about whether he’s seen these images. It really is quite remarkable.
Wow. The NASA folks must be gleaming with pride at that acknowledgement.
The president's own statement on the mission is no better:
Tonight, on the planet Mars, the United States of America made history.
The successful landing of Curiosity – the most sophisticated roving laboratory ever to land on another planet – marks an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future. It proves that even the longest of odds are no match for our unique blend of ingenuity and determination.
Tonight’s success, delivered by NASA, parallels our major steps forward towards a vision for a new partnership with American companies to send American astronauts into space on American spacecraft. That partnership will save taxpayer dollars while allowing NASA to do what it has always done best – push the very boundaries of human knowledge. And tonight’s success reminds us that our preeminence – not just in space, but here on Earth – depends on continuing to invest wisely in the innovation, technology, and basic research that has always made our economy the envy of the world.
The reason I highlighted the "marks an unprecedented feat of technology" line is twofold. One, it dehumanizes the accomplishment. 'NASA didn't do it, technology did.' He finally gets around to acknowledging all the "the men and women of NASA" at the end. But almost as an afterthought.
The other reason I highlighted this is that it is the same frame that the right wing news has been using. "Technology did it". Nothing about the incredible management and coordination that occurred. Nothing about the super-team that invented and built that technology. To see this play up of the technology angle first on Fox News and many other right wind media outlets while researching conservative responses to the mission, and then see the White House use it, reeks of a PR campaign that, strangely, crosses some lines.
The real fun comes in the next highlighted area. The White House and NASA administrator Bolding have been promoting their privatization of space heavily lately. So it's not completely surprising that Obama decided to shill for it here, despite this supposing to be a big commendation for the people of the NASA MSL mission.
But the interesting word is "parallel." Supposedly, under the Obama plan, NASA will no longer handle low orbit flight like the Space Shuttle once did. That's to be privatized. Instead, NASA will now be free to "push the very boundaries of human knowledge" with trips to Mars and such.
But this vision, as presented, does not reflect NASA's clear trajectory of reduced purpose, and reduced funds. The only mission NASA has planned that can remotely be characterized as pushing the boundaries is the MAVEN, a satellite that will orbit Mars and take atmospheric measurements. After that, NASA's future is uncertain.
There are a lot of people in power who want NASA to go away. And the Obama administration appears to be ceding ground on that point.
The privatization of space has much further ramifications than the end of our higher idealism and sense of common purpose. It is a national security risk, and another usurpation of democratic power for corporate power. If this trajectory continues, with corporations running our schools, prisons, transportation infrastructure, communications infrastructure, and now, the gateway to space, the US will no longer be a country.