No, it wasn’t me, and the reason has nothing to do with pseudonyms (although there are several “Nemos” around here). It has everything to do with you failing to trace the thread back to its origin. My first post in the thread was in response to this question by Alex:

Does anyone have a link to the actual O’Keefe Multiple EELV Lunar Architecture proposal?

who in turn was replying to this post by Donald Robertson:

On to the subject at hand, maybe it’s time to go back to Mr. O’Keefe’s original “vision” of a minimum lunar infrastructure launched with small spacecraft on top of EELVs.

OK, back to your post:

NASA’s the one that commissioned the CE&R studies. There were a total of twenty produced over the two rounds, at not insignificant cost.

So what? NASA commissions outside studies all the time, and doesn’t always follow their recommendations. Even if O’Keefe intended to follow their recommendations, the fact remains that Griffin terminated O’Keefe’s Roadmap Committees before they could arrive at an architecture, much less publish anything.

So which group was the insider trying to discredit?

Nemo, “O’Keefe Architecture” was your nomenclature, as in “The “O’Keefe Architecture” is like a Rorschach test for space fanboys; they saw in it what they wanted to see.” (If that wasn’t you, that just shows the dangers of pseudonyms)

NASA’s the one that commissioned the CE&R studies. There were a total of twenty produced over the two rounds, at not insignificant cost. As I said, there was a lot of really good information packed in those reports… and some not so good information. (You should take the time to look through them) But at least the taxpayers could see what was going on. We don’t have as much of that now, and that’s why you see folks leaping on any scrap that falls loose from NASA’s grip.

This is not a race. I repeat, this is not a race. We have had the chance to really look things over and lay out a good national strategy that involved more than NASA to start pushing outward. We were going through that process (and were we continuing it we’d probably have some folks knocking together some hardware by now). When O’Keefe left we were presented with a space insider and a pre-packaged space program that was essentially done when the CE&R process was being undertaken. Why then did ATK not compete?

I don’t think I’m off-base here. All that input was exterior to NASA and none of the specifics were officially endorsed by anyone at NASA who really mattered (i.e. Steidle level or above) prior to O’Keefe’s departure, to my knowledge.

So Rand is right – there was no “O’Keefe architecture”. A proposal to use small capsules adaptable to multiple EELV types was doubtlessly one of the industry proposals, and Donald is certainly free to advocate such an architecture, but calling it the “O’Keefe architecture” is giving O’Keefe way too much credit, besides giving a misleading picture of how far along NASA’s architecture process was at the time O’Keefe left.

It is worth reminding people that practically as soon as Griffin walked in the door at NASA HQ, he terminated all of O’Keefe’s roadmapping committees because they were taking too long and hadn’t produced any products, and replaced them with his own architecture study.

Get a grip cIclops”

CNN is that still being broadcast? Anti NASA drivel must have fitted in perfectly with their anti US anti Bush spin.

Is that tight enough Cowing?

Gosh, wake the kids – and by all means alert CNN – they featured me – live – twice today on CNN International (my 20th or 40th appearance? on CNN). And while you are at it, National Review should be warned of the clear and present threat that Rand Simberg and his subversive comments represent ….

Get a grip “cIclops”

There was no “O’Keefe architecture.” What there were was a number of architecture studies by various contractors, all of which NASA essentially ignored to come up with ESAS.

The studies used a variety of architectures, some with L-1, some without. Some used modified STS architectures, some used EELVs. Nemo’s off-base on this one. There was actually a lot of really, really good input provided to NASA by industry.

IDEA — What about adding $800M to COTS, and picking *several* more COTS winners? We would then have something really exciting. We would probably have at least 5 winners. (As it is, the current $500M is likely to get two COTS winners. Whatever happens, some high-potential ideas almost certainly will not be funded.)

The result — a huge outbreak of entrepreneurial space development.

If Griffin was really serious about COTS, and if he could see the writing on the wall about the VSE, he would see that an extra $800M would buy a LOT more in COTS than throwing it towards the giant sucking sound.

– Nemo2