Reply-to: a2s2-public@hvcn.org
From: RICKTUMLIN@aol.com
Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1999 15:20:20 EDT
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Zubrin's 6/13/99 Transhab letter]
Mark, Keith, friends and anyone else not yet tired of this craziness.
I've had it. There are so many things wrong with Mr. Zubrin's attitude, style, integrity and competence when it comes to making strategic decisions that I wont even try to go into all of them, but my coffee is kicking in and I cannot bear a fool. As I know many of you did not get my original notes on this issue, including those that refute his assertions about my positions (based on AOL date stamping and delivery dates) I shall try and set the record straight on this... I feel I have been called out...when I was trying to help the one who wants to shoot me...but then...I am a Texan...so let's dance.
1. Differeing rellocetions of phone calls are the stuff of courtroom dramas...but Mr. Zubrin is lying when it comes to his characterization of my statements...as I followed our phone talk with a written statement that restated my positon and said i disagreed with the Societies (his) position. A note that he has seen and conveniently not posted on his "truth" site. (more later on this)
I told him I parted ways with Rohrabacher and Muncy on Mars, not transhab. If, in the interests of truth, he had posted the rest of my statement(s) from what was a rambling conversation, he would have had to mention I also told him (rough translation, I do not record my telephone conversations, as Bob must to get such an exact quote from me...) "please Bob, stay the xxxx out of it for now and go build a Mars base so we can build public support, as trans hab is being worked behind the scenes."" I have asked him repeatedly and for a couple of years to back off Dana, and have been trying to work Mr. Rohrabacher around to a frontier position on Mars. However the Congressman holds a view on large NASA projects shared by many on the Hill, including NASA's bosses in the White House, who flatly banned NASA from dealing with humans to Mars and indirectly caused this mess.
{{{An aside from the direct point of this email: NASA was tasked with the wrong jobs in the form of shuttle and station and has blown its management of the station project massively, and until they drop the tar baby they cannot and will not get any serious political support for Mars, nor should they. (I did visual interactive demonstration of this in front of the Mars Society last year, using Bob as my helper...asking him to be NASA, I tossed him several books representing the station, shuttle and Mars...he had to drop the station and shuttle to catch Mars......it is sad that even that direct a lesson failed to awaken a spark of understanding in him).
My belief and that of much of the TRUE frontier leadership is that NASA cannot and should not get funding for Mars until they have begun serious efforts to pull out of their controlling role on the Near Frontier. I also believe that Washington will not support such a taxpayer funded effort until this process is clearly underway.
AND I will fight it if they do. (But I will and am working my ass off to make sure we get both.)
This process is too slow for Mr. Zubrin, who would rather stir up a humans to Mars push that is unsupportable after the first few missions...when the taxpayers turn away out of boredom as they did in Apollo. I laid out a realistic path to our goals in my responses to Zubrin's first disgorgement...I will repeat it in print at another time, but here are a couple of key points:
Without a strong and robust private sector economy in the Near Frontier Mars settlement is unsupportable. (Bob has no exports except unobtainium...his arguments in this regard are hollow and easily refutable, for example, he talks of patents created by folks on the edge of the frontier (Heinlein used them in "Stranger in a Strange Land"...unfortunately his zealot's blinders cause him to forget that everyone else in all the other frontier locations in the Solar System will also be generating patents and new technologies....)
-- end of side note}}
-- NASA tried to slip this funding into the wrong place. The station design is locked, and should be after a decade of redesigns and tinkering...otherwise we keep feeding the addict... If they had used a different path they might have succeeded AND given a huge boost to efforts at privatizing and commercializing ISS while saving taxpayer dollars. Some of us are working to try and clear that path for them, but Mr. Zubrin's flailing about and waving of hands has soured the effort.
-- His issuance of Muncy's email showed a complete lack of integrity and judgement, and also shows the Mars Society has no real management or policy development structure other than Bob's computer.
Muncy's email was written with the expectation of privacy. Such behind the scenes discussions are vital and necessary to get things done in the real world beyond Mr. Zubrin's tiny bubble. Without the ability to talk and yes even flame privately between friends then all is reduced to shouting from across barracades (Jim and Mr. Mckenzie, the original recipient of the note, all came from the O'Neill/SSI family, and they knew each other for years...and as many of you know, on our side of the movement it is like an Italian family...it's loud but their is a lot of love).
Shouting being one of Mr. Zubrin's fortes I can understand his reasons for trying to destoy true communication paths.
Jim Muncy is one of my best friends and a co-Founder of the Space Frontier
Foundation etc. We spent years trying to get proFrontier staffers to this
level and he has done us all proud by his work to push our agenda. Considering
I had just cut the MS a check for $100k (Mine was the Societies largest
and first grant...Speaking of truth - Bob asked me not to mention it until
he could bundle it with his other announcement of funds...Also, more truth
- I believe he paid Buzz Aldrin and Sharespace $20k or so in the form of
studies for the favour of the apparent spontaneous introduction to the
big Silicon Valley guy..smart for Buzz, a good move...but would have been
nice to hear the whole truth there from one so pure as Bob.)
Back to screwing Jim Muncy...even if one buys Bob's Big Red Brother
attack on privacy, it was just plain dumb to screw the best friend of your
biggest donor first time out. He was literally mounting this attack as
I mailed him the check. In some corners it is called back stabbing. I will
now have to encourage other major donors to think twice before working
with the MS while he is there leader and in fact will discourage them from
doing so.
I was out of town when this flap began. I did not pick this fight nor want it. When I saw the emails in my box late one night I answered and sent my replies back up the wire they had come down. Unfortunately, Mr. Zubrin's system is designed for output only, and my notes were sent into some grey area called "other people's opinions". Yet, even after I made my anger known on this issue, he held and waffled on removing my statement from his WEB site...(hate to raise this again, but if you had a 100k donor who was demanding you retract and apologize for a falsehood, what would you do?).
We all want to open Mars as part of (yes Bob "part of" the rest of the Frontier...you are selling California while trashing the rest of the New World...stop it.) Meanwhile, the big names and other leaders he enrolled in the group are letting him destroy its credibility.
ONE IRONY - I have had many discussions with the real players in the Trans Hab debate, from staffers, to JSC, to at least one private firm that wanted to build such a thing, and it is clear there is a path for it to be done that is acceptable to all, but it will take a few months to make it work, if we even can now that Z has started shooting those involved on sight. The irony is that if nothing happens or the bill at hand is changed in any way, even if by those with level heads actually on the job and for their own reasons, Bob will claim victory....while setting the cause back by years...
Look folks, I am the poster child for space advocates in black facepaint, my side has been called everything from the Mujahadeen of space to the most effective space group on the planet (thanks Z) yet I nor none of my associates have ever played the game this way, even in the height of battle. It must stop now.
---As a Mars Society Steering Comittee Member and donor, I think it is time for the MS members to take over their own group, rebuild their corporate legal structure to insure an open organization, institute democratic methods, policy creating and dissemenination mechanisms and get this branch of the movement back on track. In fact, the Mars Society needs to replace it's leadership or change its name to the Zubrin Society.
---As donor I am going to ask strongly for the Mars Base Project to be seperated from the Society's current leadership and given its own organization, with credible managers and scientists in charge, as I do not believe the current leadership is capable of making it happen and delivering a truely unbiased scientific/engineering result. (FINDS will NOT be continuing its contributions under the current leadership, and I will argue against others doing so.)
In the meantime, feel free to Zubrinize this email...cut it and paste it to anyone you wish...misquote me, lie about my intentions, and above all, work hard to demonstrate the incompetence and lack of character we need so bad right now, as we are on the verge of getting what we all want...
For my own part, I am far too busy trying to open the frontier to give this silliness much more time. Mars and the frontier are calling...
Rick N. Tumlinson (Member - Mars Society Steering Comittee)
Executive Director F.I.N.D.S.
President, The Space Frontier Foundation
Confused Guy
Reply-to: a2s2-public@hvcn.org