George Bush’S Great America [EN]: Chapter 155

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The budget allocated by the George W. Bush administration to NASA was reminiscent of the Cold War space race. The NASA director, responsible for budget spending, received such a large sum that he openly wondered, “Are we really allowed to receive this much?”

Congress was quite critical of this investment, but Bush believed that failing to widen the technological gap now would leave them with no future solution. Thus, he initiated numerous projects. To be precise, these were projects slated for the future, but there was no rule against starting them now, was there?

NASA was more technically advanced and passionate about space exploration than ever before. They simply needed sufficient budget and resources.

So, Bush invested heavily.

“But is this the result of increasing the budget?”

“They say there aren’t enough personnel to maintain these projects.”

The problem was initiating too many projects simultaneously. The number of space-related professionals on Earth was limited, and the United States had reached its limit. Bush’s presidential executive order launched projects including the development of a new space shuttle, the Orion crewed spacecraft, the Constellation program for a lunar base, the Lunar Gateway program (linked to Constellation for a lunar orbit space station), and even a crewed Mars exploration program.

This resembled the Artemis program proposed in 2017, but on a different scale. The Ares rocket’s required performance was increased from 190 tons to 300 tons in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) transportable weight, and it was required to be reusable.

The Orion crewed spacecraft was required to reduce costs to less than half of the existing one, with a reduced passenger capacity, and to be completed by 2010, before the space shuttle’s complete retirement in 2011. The Lunar Gateway was to be completed by 2012.

Furthermore, the demand to build a military space shuttle drove NASA crazy. While NASA is famous for space, it’s not solely a space-focused organization. After all, NASA stands for National ‘Aeronautics’ and Space Administration.

From the beginning, NASA was rooted in aeronautics as NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA’s predecessor]. Despite its decentralized structure and organic operation through affiliated facilities, there were limits. They couldn’t simply hire foreigners to fill the personnel gap, could they? Some affiliated organizations could hire foreigners, but they were a small part. Preventing the outflow of core national technology was an unavoidable choice.

Moreover, even outside of aviation, NASA had been developing various technologies to compensate for budget constraints since the Cold War or even earlier. For example, NASA developed the ‘quantum computer’.

“Who gave these morons so much budget?”

“The President.”

“Ah, me?”

‘Aha! That’s right! It was me!’ Bush, overwhelmed, grabbed the back of his head. The stress from the astronomical figures caused by the rocket explosion triggered an unusually severe headache, as if brain cells were being destroyed in real-time.

“How many hundreds of millions have been lost?”

“Do you want to hear how much NASA’s firework display cost?”

“No, don’t.”

The Chief of Staff wanted to speak but remained silent. He feared that shocking the President would delay the report’s processing, which he wanted to avoid at all costs.

While reviewing the report, Bush, questioning the space shuttle’s retirement, asked,

“But why did you retire a perfectly good space shuttle?”

“You ordered it, Mr. President.”

“Aha! That was me too!”

He pounded the desk with both hands, his excitement carrying him away. But upon calm reflection, he couldn’t recall why he had issued such an order.

“Why did I do that?”

“Didn’t you insist that OV-102 [Space Shuttle Columbia] would definitely have a major accident within a year or two?”

“Ah, ah. That’s right, I did.”

OV-102 was retired under a presidential executive order because it was old and destined for destruction in 2003. Insulation damage to the wings had a fatal effect, and NASA had to dismiss valuable personnel. But now, if nothing went wrong, that wouldn’t happen. OV-102 is now in a museum.

“Are we going to take it out again?”

The Chief of Staff looked slightly absurd. But the cruel and bizarre reality was that if Bush ordered it, it could happen. Fortunately, that wouldn’t happen.

From the perspective of those around him, retiring a perfectly operational space shuttle led to frantic speculation about the intentions of the most capricious president in history. The sudden decision spawned conspiracy theories and rumors, such as the President retiring it after seeing the future, a subtle warning to NASA for demanding endless budgets, or the imminent replacement of all space shuttles with next-generation aircraft.

Ultimately, the most conspiracy-like theory—retiring it after seeing the future—was correct. Regardless, everyone agreed that they wondered if he was taking strange medicine or needed to be.

“No, it’s okay. It’s best to leave it in the museum.”

Anyway, an accident happened due to insufficient personnel. What kind of nonsense is that?

‘I thought this was completely good, but when I looked at the reality, it was completely good. Should I hold a memorial service so it doesn’t explode?’

It was a relief that the explosion involved an unmanned test spacecraft, not a manned one. However, the cause was the yard-pound system [Imperial units]. NASA’s safety insensitivity was a known issue, but this time was different.

The overlapping busy schedules exhausted people, leading to the accident. No matter how capable, a tight deadline hinders proper quality control.

“It’s going to be difficult if other projects are like this.”

“I’ll make sure to hire more people.”

Working at NASA was a valuable career, so many were eager to join. NASA was also the most civilian-friendly national institution in the United States. They could hire as much talent as they needed.

“Haven’t we already hired almost everyone?”

“We don’t necessarily have to use A-grade talent.”

Ideally, everyone would be the best, but time is limited. To meet deadlines, they needed to use some less-than-top-tier personnel.

“Now we’re even creating jobs in the space business.”

“Think positively. You’ve created the most jobs in history in almost every field and attracted the most people. You can be proud.”

The Chief of Staff’s words were pleasing, but praise wouldn’t make the reports disappear. Someone said the president’s position was a publicly elected slave, and that was accurate.

“In the future, if there’s a budget surplus, I’d like to support AI-related companies.”

“AI?”

The idea was so absurd that the Chief of Staff was speechless, thinking, ‘Suddenly AI? Did he recently read a moving sci-fi novel?’

“Is it too far off?”

“To be honest, it’s still too early.”

Considering that high-capacity HDDs were around 100GB, and USBs were just becoming common, the CPU performance was unsatisfactory from Bush’s perspective.

Of course, these devices weren’t crucial. NASA landed Apollo on the moon with punch cards, not floppy disks or CDs, right?

“Let’s talk about this later.”

One thing was certain: the first country to develop strong AI would drastically reshape the existing landscape. A future where machines develop machines and technology develops technology on its own.

Calling it a bright future was debatable, but it was. ‘Poor’ would refer to those who could only afford ‘food, clothing, and shelter,’ and human jobs would be greatly reduced.

‘Then there will be other problems.’

At least it would be better than people starving to death because they couldn’t find a single meal. Bush realized he had considerable wealth. He lacked it as Kim Kap-hwan, but now he had more than he could handle.

Bush himself was initially a millionaire, but his wealth had grown significantly in the past year through lobbying. He was approaching billionaire status, thanks to overseas sources, from the Afghanistan and North Korea reconstruction projects.

This was possible because lobbying was legal in the United States. Receiving lobbying didn’t guarantee compliance, but if they insisted on offering a token of sincerity, he should accept it.

He had something he wanted to do with that wealth.

“Should I make a donation?”

“A donation?”

Again, a nonsensical statement without context. The Chief of Staff was frustrated.

“Yes, a donation. If I donate, wouldn’t others follow suit?”

“Well, that’s true. But why suddenly a donation? And where are you thinking of donating?”

“Here and there evenly?”

“I won’t interfere in personal matters. Do as you please.”

However, seconds later, he sensed something amiss. Recalling that Bush wasn’t motivated solely by goodwill, he felt uneasy.

“Do you have other intentions?”

“Well, I heard some friends use donated money in strange ways. So, I’m thinking of doing some ‘inspection’ to see if my money was used very beautifully.”

“That’s right.”

“What?”

“I think it’s a great idea. I want to participate and will donate 2 million dollars.”

“Really? You think so too? It will be really fun.”

The Chief of Staff was sweating. He never imagined making a mistake. He realized he had made a big one.

‘Should I have aimed lower?’

He couldn’t retract it and say, ‘2 million is too much! Let’s do about 400,000 dollars!’

“You look quite dark?”

“Hahaha, how can I look dark when I’m doing something as happy as donating? The fluorescent light must be broken. So, how much are you thinking about, Mr. President…?”

“I’m thinking of about 50 million dollars for now.”