Gee, let’s see…..

You blamed Congress for lack of proper oversight. Can’t argue with you there. (Although I imagine if it had done proper oversight of everything the admin did for the last six plus years, Bush and/or Cheney might well be out of office by now. Be wary of what you wish for….)

You blamed NASA for poor implementation. Can’t argue with that, either.

However, you do appear to absolve Bush of any responsibility for overseeing the signature space initiative of his two terms. I don’t agree with that. He can’t just delificate something and then accept no responsibility for when it goes awry. Bush does that far too often, and that’s what I’m saying.

You want to argue that on facts, fine. It will be a very long debate, and I’ve got a lot of examples.

Fair enough. But GP-B still bled lots of dollars and schedule well after Geveden took the helm. It was more parochial Congressional commitments to complete GP-B at any cost than a change in management that allowed GP-B to incur massive overruns and still reach the launch pad.

I’ve also been much more impressed with Scolese in my (admittedly limited) interactions with both managers, but that’s neither here nor there.

FWIW…

I really have to take an exception to Geveden having a checkered track record. In fact, he was the one who really pulled GP-B out of the tank. Stanford University is an outstanding academic institution. Unfortunately, its skills in project management are not as stellar.

But all of this is water under the bridge now. Both Geveden and Scolese are exceptional individuals, and both have outstanding credentials.

The many out there that have a Bushphobia for reasons of their own(overwhelmingly unrelated to VSE) AND also wish to see Nasa succeed in the VSE may be singing the blues as another President, far less friendly to Nasa moves into the WH.

Execution of the mission? No comment. The Horowitz departure is channelling some serious negative vibrations on that score isn’t it?

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know the answer. With other crushing national priorities, along with extrication from the war in Iraq, U.S. government-sponsored civil space flight will take a back seat. It would be far more compassionate for the government to euthanize this part of NASA rather than have it languish on as a living relic.

Oh well, hopefully next year.

Worded somewhat differently, this is a very prescient question. If 5-10 years from now, Bigelow is running private space stations in LEO, Musk is transporting astronauts and supplies to them, and NASA’s human space flight programs are still fumbling around with the ISS and government-owned and -operated LEO transport to the detriment of any real human space exploration investment while robots on Mars and elsewhere perform real space exploration, will NASA human space flight become irrelevant? Will there be any role left for government-sponsored astronauts?

FWIW…

My 2 cents is that the problems with Ares I/Orion that we’ve been discussing for months have finally begun to hit Griffin, and he’s rearranging his management team to compensate. Notice that Horowitz is not the only one leaving. Griffin’s replacement of Rex Geveden with Chris Scolese in the Associate Administrator’s position (also announced yesterday) substitutes someone with a checkered technical and management track record (Geveden was manager for GP-B) with a very technically astute and proven spacecraft program manager (Scolese held various EOS and HQ Space Science management positions). I hope that bodes well for the 9th floor coming to grips with and making course corrections on Ares I/Orion. I don’t expect Griffin to make a major shift to a new launch vehicle or architecture that will accelerate the timeline or create savings, but they’ve got to make some substantial design changes (smaller capsule, different upper stage, etc.) to close the system with adequate margins and get out of the technical trap they’re currently in.

I’ve heard from a couple sources that Horowitz has been asked to leave, but he could still have a real family need (sick child, etc.) at home. That aside, I agree with Mr. Fansome that the timing is suspect at a minimum. Major Ares I contracts have yet to be put in place, and I can’t imagine that Horowitz (or anyone else so wedded to their own LV design) would leave, even with some family pressures, before their vehicle was locked in with those contracts.

It will be most interesting to see who succeeds Horowitz. I hope for another hard-nosed, technically astute, and proven manager like Scolese. NASA doesn’t need anymore unproven managers from the astronaut corps taking senior positions in the agency.

Finally, I found the discussion at nasaspaceflight.com interesting, especially the revolving door list of 14 NASA managers and astronauts who have formerly held positions as ATK managers or lobbyists.

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=8780&start=16&posts=29

FWIW…

Oh, go fuck yourself. The American government is the problem, and the American people know that beyond any shadow of a doubt now.

Scotty the whore can go rot out in Utah with the rest of the freaks.

The VSE/ESAS problem is just a sideshow at the Bush carnival.

The American people elected incompetant criminals to the highest offices in the land, and now they’ll just have to figure out how to clean up the mess. I’m not even sure if the mess is salvageable, but us patriotic Americans will try to clean it up anyways, the stench alone is enough to just about gag ya.

If you believe that everybody who has concerns with ESAS (the Griffin version of VSE) is a Bush-basher, I recommend that you listen closely to the Republicans on the 3:45 pm panel at NewSpace 2007 next Friday, July 20th in Crystal City. There are many prospace Republicans who have problems with what this Administration is doing (and not doing).

For some reason, I doubt that these Republicans will be “pining” for “the good old days of W2.”

http://www.space-frontier.org/Events/NewSpace2007/#fridayanchor

3:45 pm NewSpace for a New President?

2008 will see a U.S. Presidential election just five weeks after NASA’s 50th anniversary. Can any space issues break through the background noise of the campaign? What “space status quo” will a new occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania inherit on January 20, 2009? Will the “Vision” still be relevant? Will a new President grant a reprieve to the Shuttle’s death sentence? In a world of threats to military space assets, global environmental concerns, and Virgin Galactic, will anyone care about NASA’s human spaceflight? Will NewSpace see new opportunities for policy innovation and political support? Answering this and other questions will be a panel of people who have worked in space policy positions for the last four U.S. Presidents.

James Muncy (chair) – PoliSpace
Lori Garver – Capital Space
Alan Ladwig – Whitney, Bradley & Brown, Inc.
Courtney Stadd – Capitol Solutions