If the Augustine commission really didn’t want to review the Sidemount and DIRECT concepts, they just just should have said so!

Oh, wait. I forgot. We can’t have a level playing field.

Never mind.

If I were an American Taxpayer I would be immensely proud of the Committee on Human Spaceflight. Not that any of the Panel were paid anything more than expenses. Their task was… IS monumental and their public analysis and decision making: even handed. Short of letting an independent body, like Roskosmos, take over! Joking aside the one thing that really impressed me, as an external observer of the process; luckily able to watch most of the proceedings and read much of the documentation: was the allowance of submissions from both ESA and Roskosmos to the process. Only a year earlier such submissions would have been unthinkable; as America went its own way with a solitary Vision.

From everything I have seen the panel are all clearly space enthusiasts and despite all having personal/ private agendas, as do we all, have put these aside and comported themselves impeccably. At great service to your Nation. The above none too subtle piece of propaganda, however, does them a disservice and by extension the vested interests that no doubt funded it. It reeks of the “status quo”. Not at all in keeping with a country dedicated to permanent revolution.

Whilst I have every confidence that the experts and advisors that President Obama has enlisted to support him in these troubled times will transform reasoned ‘options’ into solid ‘recommendations’. Once Congress gets hold of them…

“An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self sustained.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1927)

Or as James Thurber so wisely said:
“Moral: Anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country.”

Don’t know much history eah ? Take your political blinders off and maybe you will be able to “see” some of reality.

The “blame” for the US space program being in the groove/rut it is in has many parents reaching back to LBJ& Nixon not to mention all the excessively gutless Congresses along the way. Many are the guilty parties and few are ever noted in public. Time to do your homework there junior. Or maybe you’ll just ask for new talking points from your handlers which is the path to insanity.

Time to choose.

And all you naysayers are gonna be real surprised as the path forward unfolds going forward. Stay tuned.

I guess Bush himself beat the “liberals” to it.

However much I (and I am sure others as well) enjoy your support of commercial space, it’d be way more constructive if you were to refrain from the political nonsense such as below since it is this current WH that is trying to promote commercial space, a very capitalist stand, is it not? Please make an effort.

“It was well know prior to the election the Liberals wanted to derail the Bush deep space plan and get back to the rudderless to go nowhere…”

“However do not let the left kill the deep space driver.”

My recollection, and I will admit I’ve been proven wrong before, is that the 4 segment SRB was not able to lift the “then” CEV. At that time a 5 segment option was explored which brought all kinds of other problems since now the vehicle was going real fast real low. Bear in mind that at that time there was no redesign of the propellant inside the SRB. Things have probably changed since then (2005-2006) as we all know…

FWIW.

“The real question is what will replace the current strategy.”

It will be Deep Space with commercial crew to LEO and:

– most effective bang for buck: option 7 (i.e. EELV, if they find out what to do with ATK workforce).
– most politically effective solution (the least expensive of below but risky development costs):
. option 6 (Ares Lite).
. option 7S (Shuttle derived)

http://www.nasa.gov/ppt/378554main_01%20-%20Integrated%20Options_2009Aug12.ppt#478,29,Slide 29

http://www.nasa.gov/ppt/378656main_04_-_Presentation4.ppt#257,2,Slide 2

I think you mean Aldridge Commission. Stafford Commission was Bush’s father’s commission.