NASA administrator Charles Bolden gave a speech Tuesday morning to the National Association of Investment Companies in which he strongly endorsed the idea of entrepreneurial space ventures as key to keeping people—students in particular—interested in space for the benefit of the nation as large. An excerpt:
What if you did not have to choose between getting rich, doing good, and going to space? What if you could do all three at the same time? Who here in this room would make that choice?
What if you were a seventh grader and you knew that if you buckled down, and studied hard at math and science, that you could go to space? Not because you would be the one of the very few who might become a NASA astronaut, as I was so privileged, but because you saw hundreds of people of all nations traveling into space each and every year, and knew in your bones that you could soon be one of them?
What if you were a college student, and you knew that you could build real hardware in a semester engineering class, and that before the end of the semester your experiment would fly in space, and that you would get the results back from space before you got your grades?
This day could come soon.
Some of the most exciting companies in America today go by the names of SpaceX, Blue Origin, Armadillo Aerospace, Virgin Galactic, Xcor, Bigelow Aerospace, Masten, Flag Suit, and Ad Astra. And today I add a new name to the list … Peter’s Robotics. What these companies, and others, are doing is nothing short of inspirational.
Today, we at NASA are devising ways to work with these companies and others who will come. I urge you, and all other investors, to take notice. Space may someday soon become the new thing in investing.
Though not the major point of the speech, I’m glad he mentioned the following in regards to students’ interest in NASA, space & science:
“I still get a highly positive reaction from kindergarteners, first and second graders. But somewhere after that time we lose them… Study after study shows we are losing them in the middle grade school years”
I completely agree, and get somewhat frustrated at how a large chunk of education, PR and marketing of space is aimed at young grade-schoolers, but falls short for middle, high-school and college students. As far as I remember from my own recent schooling, the first time we learned about “space” and “the universe” was in 3rd grade, a time where I was hardly old enough to grasp the concepts, but then never revisited at great length again.
Perhaps a little personal frustration included in there, being how space is currently of great interest to me it seems too late to go back and try to make a career out of it myself. Hopefully, now that the leadership realizes the problem of “losing them in the middle grade school years” future generations will not have such regrets!
It’s nice that the new NASA Administrator is taking notice of entrepreneurial space activitie. But it’s sad that it’s limited to the context of exciting students (as nice as that is). NASA needs to be greatly expanding (in the case of prizes) and mainstreaming (in the case of commercial space transport) these sources of innovation and economy, and shutting down their government-owned and -run parallels in favor of new research and exploration activities. If NASA’s leveraging of entrepreneurial space activities is relegated to the equivalent of science fair projects, then the agency has done little but tax its limited budget to achieve the same results as a few scholarship programs that would be cheaper by an order of magnitude or more.
FWIW…
I concur completly with both earlier post.
There are two problems in human space flight and they go hand in hand together. The first is that there is no market for it (right now that seems to be changing) and the second is that there is not a two way street between industry and government efforts in human spaceflight.
At the end of WWII turbojet development and markets were the military. the entire industry would not have existed save for the needs of national security. At some point the needs of the commercial market drew equal to military needs as a driver of turbojet development…and now it is firmly (as it should be in a Republic with a free enterprise system) in the hands of private concerns. There is still some military “spin offs” but there is also a large amount of “spin in” (to use Jim Oberg’s term) from commercial development.
What is really ludicrous in the entire “vision” thing (well the entire thing is a sham but avoiding the gratuitous slug at the last stupid administration…sorry) is the concept of NASA designing a launch vehicle. For the 9 billion spent on Ares with little to show for it, what they could have done is gone out to industry and said “we need this lift at this price in this time span,” what do you have…and see what they came up with…
The military at least did that in the 50’s in terms of airplanes and there is no reason NOW with a industry that has shown its maturity to develop Atlas/Delta/Falcon (the rocket not the little kid)/Taurus…even if one wanted a clean sheet could have come up with something.
Industry (from providers to users) has to be able to gain access to the infrastructure provided by the government at a fair price and a fairly timely manner with reasonable access requirements.
the arguments NASA uses for most of its highly restrictive rules reminds me a great deal of the bogus line that the airlines use to stop cellphone use in flight. The nice looking flight attendant might tell you it has something to do with interfering with “the planes navigational facilities” but that is so bogus. The airplanes and their navigational gear are tested against all RFI emissions including cell phones. (actually the far more powerful celltowers). It is just a way to control access.
NASA needs to open that access.
Robert G. Oler
I do think inspiration is important. Unfortunately, there is a lot more required than simply inspiring the young to build a technical workforce for tomorrow. I discuss this topic at more length in my blog posting, Aerospace Workforce Issues.
Reform is needed in quite a few ways for quite a few reasons.
One of the major issue with aerospace today is that there is very little US citizens in aerospace schools, especially true in grad schools. It is a major concern of the industry as they cannot find the “right” people to replace the old generation. There is a gap that has formed and very little chance to fill it anytime soon. Places like those mentionned in the private space community offer a chance for bright students to go to aerospace. The youth needs challenges AND cash. The old aerospace giants unfortunately offer neither or at least not together. Once you are hired there you end up in a cubicle and have to look for charge numbers to get a job. And even though it may not be true at time of hire the dirty nose of the charge number will eventually show itself sooner or later. So why would any one go to such a place when with the same skills they can go to Google say?
This is a major issue I believe Charles Bolden was trying to address.
common sense, what you say reflects what numbers of people are saying. We keep erecting barriers to entry not just in aerospace, but in all sorts of tech fields. For instance, in IT, there is now a demand that you have the precise skill set that an employer wants so that you can begin the work at top speed. I recently had a phone interview that was obviously going nowhere after the interviewer found out that I did not have SQL _5_. The fact that I knew older versions of SQL did not seem to matter.
“We keep erecting barriers to entry not just in aerospace, but in all sorts of tech fields.”
This is very true. However I suspect what you are experiencing is more the result of the current economic tragedy since it gives employers the opportunity to choose their employees more “carefully”.
However I will say that aerospace has had the problems for years and those who did not have their head in the sand way back when already knew it was coming. Don’t forget that on top of what I said about cubicles and charge numbers you must add the addtional clearances that few want to go through (just look as an example as what happened at JPL recently and it was not even a DoD clearance). Some of those giants provide 9/80 workweek, so it gives you 1 day off every other week but you still have to put your 80 hours just more hours every other week. Google, again, used to provide you with 1 day of the week when you’d do “what you want” at work that fosters innovation. Don’t know if it is still true but regardless, check the benefits there and at any aerospace giant… Again if you have the skills you will not go for an aerospace giant. Period.
Some people are beginning to say that there is a war on the middle class. I’ve heard that 40% of people in their 50s are losing their jobs. Most are not ready for retirement at that age. People are losing their life long savings, their homes, etc. Yes, I know people in that category. One woman I know went from living in a five bedroom house to a three room apartment.
Chuck…I do not like the word “war” in this instance…but there is an assualt on the middle class by the folks who are spending the money in DC.
What the founders never counted on is that The Republic would deficit spend in times of peace…they figured it would be done in times of war…but they defined war far different then Bush and the right wing do…ie it was when we were attacked and the nations existence was in peril.
The very sad legacy of Ronaldus the Great, whom I mostly adore is that we have gotten use to deficit spending…and over the last 9 years (Bush the last and Obama the current) it has just gotten out of any semblence of control.
Worse what has happened is that almost all the spending is now going to things which 1) have no long term value to the growth of The Republic, 2) have no short term value and 3) are designed to prop up institutions and people who have failed at almost everything that they have tried.
An example of the first type of spending is our little adventures in Iraq and Afland, the second is space spending, and the third is all the bailouts which are going to almost everyone and everything who DID NOT PLAY BY THE RULES who played loose and fast for short term gain…and who without the bailouts would be selling apples instead of riding around in corporate jets.
Everyone says about space spending “its only 3 billion more dollars”…and yet it is just the kind of wasteful wont change the present or future of The Republic kind of spending that is sinking the country and the middle class.
And it is all borrowed.
When Carter was running for a second term Reagan and his campaign pilloried and I mean beat him upside the head for the budget being 10 billion (or so I dont recall the exact number but it was double digits) out of balance. Now its near 2 trillion and really there is no end in sight…and the left wants health care and the right wants to attack Iran.
My wife and I have been sorting out what to do with our bonus money…after going completly debt free..the big question is how to hold on to things so that well a dollar at least stays worth a dollar.
It is really quite amazing how this has progressed. Had the attacks on 9/11 happened and instead of DOING ANYTHING the Republic had done nothing (and that was not acceptable) we would be several trillion better off. It is hard to see how we would have been worse off had we just let some of the financial institutions that are hosing all their clients…go under.
And NASA should get no more money until it becomes relevant
Robert G. Oler
What is really ludicrous in the entire “vision†thing (well the entire thing is a sham but avoiding the gratuitous slug at the last stupid administration…sorry) is the concept of NASA designing a launch vehicle.
There was nothing intrinsically in the Vision for Space Exploration that required NASA to design a launch vehicle. That was Mike Griffin’s decision.
Rand…yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
this is the problem with the last administration…policy execution was left in the hands of people with I*3…idiots, ideologues, and incompetents.
one can differ with the policies, but they were elected…yet the execution on almost everything was flawed.
Robert G. Oler
If Obama and Bolden are really concerned about inspiring young people about space exploration, one mistake that he might want to avoid repeating is another Christa McAuliffe Teacher in Space disaster.
Children are not going be be inspired if we are unnecessarily killing off their heroes. Cheaper is fine only so long as it does not compromise safety.
What would be interesting to me would be competition between Aries I and the commercial sector. Commercial would have to get serious about man-rating. NASA would have to seriously look at reducing their organizational cost overhead.
I believe that long-term (25 years from how) commercial orbital tourism is going to dramatically reduce costs and improve safety to LEO. However, at the moment most of their solutions are powerpoint slides or scale models.
What is it about Ares supporters not being able to spell Ares?
It’s already a statistically significant trend across space forums.
NelsonBridwell cheap had nothing to do with Mission 51-L going bang…
It was faulty decision making by folks like Jay Green and a few other genius rocket scientist who thought that they were smarter then everyone else
Robert G. Oler
“What would be interesting to me would be competition between Aries I and the commercial sector.”
Hmm. Looks like the competition happened and was lost by the Ares I team. But we’ll see soon.
“Commercial would have to get serious about man-rating. ”
How do you know they are not serious? Would they have to be as serious as NASA on Constellation? What is your metric for “seriousness”?
“NASA would have to seriously look at reducing their organizational cost overhead.”
Yep but that will not happen if Ares I and the current Constellation plan go on.
“I believe that long-term (25 years from how) commercial orbital tourism is going to dramatically reduce costs and improve safety to LEO. However, at the moment most of their solutions are powerpoint slides or scale models.”
Not sure what you mean here. Like what commercial providers are you talking about? How much further is NASA in their POR?
Yes, there was a “cheaper” component to the Challenger disaster. One of the top priorities of the Shuttle design was to reduce launch costs. They did not even suit up the crew or provide them with any launch escape capability. The crew survived the explosion, and died from the 200G impact of the crew compartment slamming into the Atlantic.
The main selling point for commercial crew launch is that they can potentially provide services at a significantly lower costs per pound.
For orbital tourism to seriously take off (which I am certain that it will), this is a necessity.
For NASA, however, crew launch costs to LEO are probably a very small fraction of the total manned exploration system cost. To me, going with the more expensive but safer Ares I makes sense. The consequences of an Apollo 1 or Challenger disaster are just too severe.
Just about none of these commercial rockets were designed from the ground up to be man-rated. These firms are small and have limited resources, which motivates some of them to look for shortcuts when it comes to safety. You can hear this when you listen to comments from Space X about adding a window and controls to Dragon, and their arguments that Dragon is already partially man-rated because ISS astronauts would be entering COTS modules to retrieve cargo.
There are several other reasons, but the most important is that the commercial sector is simply not yet ready. NASA needs to give them limited challenges (COTS) that they can currently handle, and give them the needed time to grow and mature.
If Boeing enters the picture then they will possibly significantly change the equation.
Cheers,
Nelson
“Commercial would have to get serious about man-rating”
Now, this phrase just infruriates. Can we sorta kinda ban it like the ‘n-word’?
‘Man rating’ is a made up, inconsistent (see waivers) BS moniker that keeps NASA behind forever . An Atlas EELV (the one I am familiar with), for example, is already ‘man rated’ since it freaking flies bulti billion dollar payloads for NASA and NRO!!!!
For HSF it just need a LES and an instrumentation on the engines to trigger the LES activation. And EELV’s engines instrumentation is already top notch for EXTREMELY expensive payloads. Billions of dollars over operational lives.
Frak!!!!!
Robert,
Using the word “war” might be a bit over the top. I am just using the word that others have used in other fora.
I will also comment that people on other fora have added that the assault or war is being done by more than just government. Some consider the way corporations have been run, seemingly for the benefit of the few at the top without regard for the long term health of the company, to be part of that assault.
Nelsoln Bridwell I find little to agree with in your post…I’ll address three points.
First Challenger. Sorry your logic doesnt work from a safety or operational or anything standard. In all accidents there are “root causes” and “prime causes”. Lets stay away from space and examine RMS Titanic. The “prime cause” the boat sank is that it ploughed into an iceberg. It is that simple. Had they not hit the iceberg then the ship would have made it back and forth from London to NY and return until they decided to scrap her. In fact her two sisters did just that until one was sunk by a torpedo (or internal mine if you like conspiracy theories and an “OK” Movie).
Now had her steel/rivets been of better design and had QC been better as she was built…well she might have survived because fewer of her plates would have buckled. The steel their science could not have known much about, the rivets on the other hand were just not QC’ed well. Having said that remember her two sisters plied along very well with the same steel and same rivets.
So the fact that Challenger did not have an escape system had nothing to do with the accident. Sorry
Next point “To me, going with the more expensive but safer Ares I makes sense. ” what do you base “Ares 1″ is safer on? The word of the rocket scientist at NASA? It is a paper booster, all we have are the words of people who have spent a lot of money done a lot of viewgraphs and some of which were involved in both shuttle accidents. Atlas and Delta in their current form however have flown “lots” of times and have yet to go bang. Tell me how is Ares safer
Finally “but the most important is that the commercial sector is simply not yet ready. NASA needs to give them limited challenges (COTS) that they can currently handle, and give them the needed time to grow and mature.” this is the Jeff Hanley argument and sorry you dont make it any better then he did. Atlas and Delta are on a routine basis doing “COTS”…Atlas just flawlessly delivered a weather satellite, which for all intents and purposes could have been crew resupply or even crew itself.
NASA is the only organization which has killed by negligence and stupidity 14 astronauts. And learned nothing from it in the process.
Sorry
Robert G. Oler
Chuck Divine I concur completly. At some point the American people are going to say “enough” destroy both political parties and figure out how to stabilize the ship
Robert G. Oler
Robert G. O:
Might I ask what is your technical background upon which you pass judgement upon the capabilities and competence of NASA?
Am I correct in assuming that if you had real space vehicle design, test, and operational experience, you would probably not be posting comments on the end of spacepolotics.com articles?
Each of us is entitled to our opinions, but some people have slightly more relevant experience.
Cheers,
Nelson
Each of us is entitled to our opinions, but some people have slightly more relevant experience.
Could you explain to us how argument from authority invalidates other’s ‘opinions’? Just the fact, Nelson.
Facts : thrust oscillation, launch drift, poor aerodynamics, insufficient control, high dynamic pressures, exorbitant development costs, large operational costs, low flight rates, duplicative efforts, little or no mission credibility and zero value to environmental, energy and health care problems which drive of our economic and national security problems.
Can you tell us what your facts our validating the Ares I design?
Am I correct in assuming that if you had real space vehicle design, test, and operational experience, you would probably not be posting comments on the end of spacepolotics.com articles?
No, you would not be correct. A number of people posting here have such experience. Whence comes this bizarre reverence for NASA, which hasn’t successfully developed a launch system in over three decades, with many failed attempts, and the last one it developed (Shuttle) failed to meet all of its program objectives, and killed fourteen astronauts?
@NelsonBridwell:
It looks like some people (a lot?) have this interesting blind faith with NASA, e.g. safety. Now I would like to revertse the question to you Mr. Bridwell: What kind of experience do you have in human space program? See, some people here do have such experience, some within NASA and some around NASA. Save for those actually working Ares I, those who fear losing their job, rightfully so might I add, that are telling you all that is good about the launcher. The facts are that as of today it still is a paper rocket; Ares I-X only being a “surrogate” and we have to see whether it flies correctly. Btw, it does not mean going up like the MLAS did recently but I am sure you know because of your experience right? So I suggest before denigrating commercial companies that actually are trying to build LVs and some even RVs on shoestring budgets that you get informed. Then please come back and tell us all you learned. In the mean time the Ares I party-line is coming to the end of its life, and, if not, then HSF will probably come to an end at NASA. Don’t take my words for it, please! Just go check THE FACTS.
“… none of these commercial rockets were designed from the ground up to be man-rated.”
That’s simply not true. See slides 7-8 this presentation by astronaut Ken Bowersox, for example:
http://www.system-safety.org/~issc2009/Speakers/briefings/Bowersox_Final.pdf
“Might I ask what is your technical background upon which you pass judgement upon the capabilities and competence of NASA?
It doesn’t matter what your background is if you’re throwing around false statements.
And if you can’t do that, then don’t post here.
Bleah…
“For HSF it just need a LES and an instrumentation on the engines to trigger the LES activation. And EELV’s engines instrumentation is already top notch for EXTREMELY expensive payloads. Billions of dollars over operational lives. ”
This a common belief about LES. The only time one actually worked was I believe a Soyuz pad abort (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_T-10-1). However, it is not clear that the added complexity in your LV/RV/LES system will not play against safety. Remember that the complexity may very well kill the crew. I am not saying we do not need a LES just that it based more on belief than actual flight experience.
Okay you could mention ejection seats but the flight envelope is a lot smaller than that of a LES.
FWIW.
common sense,
LES at least ‘makes sense’ as a req for being granted the ‘man rating’ grade. Sure you don’t pull out expensive sats and save them, but you do one better for a human vehicle.
The rest of the 1.4 or whatever of NASA’s ‘man rating requirements’ are not worth the paper they are written on.
That is what ‘man rating’ should really mean, plus just plain demonstrated reliability… or the launcher in question. *That* should be the metric. The reliability regardless of the nature of the payload.
“or the launcher in question” in my previous reply should be “of the launcher in question”
But like I said, I’d just ban the ‘man rating’ as a word combination as it makes no sense and has no precise definition.
@eng:
I am not disputing the potential safety of an added LES. Only that one has to be careful and that a LES is no assurance of anything, not even “man rating”. I am only saying that there is no conclusive proof that a LES will save a crew anytime, except for that Soyuz pad abort. And a LES “alone” cannot be just the “man rating” requirement. As I am sure you know it is a system of systems and until it is shown that the safety is improved with a LES then…
The Orion LAS may actually introduce more hazards than it mitigates, due to its complexity. It has dozens of things that can go wrong and kill the crew, even on a nominal flight. As far as I know (and I worked on it in Phase II) no one ever did a real PRA to determine whether or not it actually made crew safer. It was simply the politically correct assumption that the vehicle had to have an escape system.
@eng:
So basically all I am “disputing” is the “man rating” requirement. It should be a leaving requirement in the sense that as technology develops it ought to change. For example, if we ever go back to Shuttle type vehicles, the associated LES will be entirely different, if any. Therefore “man rating” will have to change…
NelsonBridwell wrote @ October 22nd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Each of us is entitled to our opinions, but some people have slightly more relevant experience….
the statement you make about safety and cost indicates that either the experience you have was not put to good use in terms of knowledge or that you have failed to get past the bias you have.
People as you point out are entitled to their opinions. Jay Greene had his as he sent Challenger off into history and Linda Ham had her’s as she ignored solid suggestions that the foam might matter and doomed Columbia.
the statements you have made about safety are clearly at odds with good engineering and management concepts.
Robert G. Oler
NelsonBridwell wrote @ October 22nd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Robert G. O:
Might I ask what is your technical background upon which you pass judgement upon the capabilities and competence of NASA?…
Nelson. Go read The Rogers Commission or the CAIB conclusions about both the Challenger and Columbia “events”. They are the ones who say some pretty damning things about the capabilities and competence of NASA. Plus then there are the results 14 dead astronauts and two lost orbiters…
Robert G. Oler
Hands up if you have ever worked for NASA or any other governmental space related agency such as USAF, ESA…My hand is down.
Hands up if you have ever worked for any company that is in the space launch business such as Lockheed Missles and Space, Arianne…My hand is down.
Hands up if you have any degree (PhD, MS, BS) in Aerospace Engineering. My hand is down.
Hands up if you have any engineering degree. My hand is up. (Engineering + Computer Science.)
No need for all of us experts to be so shy!!!
Hands up if you have ever worked for NASA or any other governmental space related agency such as USAF, ESA…My hand is down.
Hands up if you have ever worked for any company that is in the space launch business such as Lockheed Missles and Space, Arianne…My hand is down.
Hands up if you have any degree (PhD, MS, BS) in Aerospace Engineering. My hand is down.
I’ve done, and continue to do, all of the above. So has Jeff Greason. Not that this has any relevance to your inability to evaluate technical and statistical arguments, and instead rely on logical fallacies and blind NASA worship.
Actually, No, Jeff Greason’s degree was not in aeropsace engineering. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cal Tech… He never worked for NASA or any space-related governmental agency…
He was an Intel manager up in Portland, Oregon, woring on Pentium processors back in the 90s. I know because I worked in the same group…
“Actually, No, Jeff Greason’s degree was not in aeropsace engineering. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cal Tech… He never worked for NASA or any space-related governmental agency…”
So? What is the point? The Wright brothers did not have a degree in Aerospace as far as I know…
BTW, it’s “Caltech” not “Cal Tech” http://www.caltech.edu/
CS, when I ask for medical advice, I lmake sure that I am getting it from a doctor, not any old quack….
Space exploration is all about engineering. Anyone can have an opinion about where we should go from here, but whether or not it will work is largely a question of engineering analysis and scientific research.
If you assert that the best engineers of NASA are stupid morons and you are right, it is only natural that people will wonder about your qualifications.
That is the point.
“If you assert that the best engineers of NASA are stupid morons and you are right, it is only natural that people will wonder about your qualifications.”
Not sure when I or any one said that. BUT note that it is NASA engineers who showed a flawed sidemount concept for crew. It is NASA that finally admitted escape was their worst issue with it. Not Greason.
Are you somehow suggesting that the panel was made of “stupid morons” when compared with NASA?
And also you are the one admitting you do not work for any form of HSF, so only you has the right to an “expert” opinion about NASA or HSF?
What kind of logic is that?
He never worked for NASA or any space-related governmental agency…
He has managed and delivered hardware on NASA contracts. Ahead of schedule and within budget.
“Hands up if you have ever worked for NASA”
“Hands up if you have any degree (PhD, MS, BS) in Aerospace”
Yes to both. So what?
It took a PhD in physics who had never worked anywhere in the aerospace sector to demonstrate that the o-rings in the SRBs were the cause of the Space Shuttle Challenger accident.
“Actually, No, Jeff Greason’s degree was not in aeropsace engineering. He has a BS in Electrical Engineering from Cal Tech… He never worked for NASA or any space-related governmental agency…”
So what? Mr. Greason’s company has successfully developed crewed, rocket-powered vehicles — something that NASA hasn’t done since the 1970s.
And those vehicles have operated with a perfect safety record — something that NASA hasn’t done since the 1960s.
Appeals to authority are a waste of your time and ours. Either make your argument based on facts and logic or go away.
“He was an Intel manager up in Portland, Oregon, woring on Pentium processors back in the 90s. I know because I worked in the same group…”
You do realize that criticizing someone whose credentials are the same as yours is the height of hypocrisy, right? (Actually, Mr. Greason’s experience with crewed, rocket-powered vehicles grants him much better credentials.)
If you have a grudge against Mr. Greason, then send him an email at his XCOR account and leave us alone. Old, personal vendettas have no place here.
Bleah…
Actually, I have no grudge against Jeff, or you for that matter. I am glad that he has found something even more interesting to do with his career. And I think that his work experience since he left Intel probably counts for quite a bit more than a degree in Aerospace.
What I do find comical are some of his attacks on Ares. I think that he has a valid case that he could make, but not the way that he is going about it.
It reminds me of my first wife, who was very, very overweight, and was at one point trying to start up a weight loss business. I couldn’t tactfully say anthing to her, but several months later she confided to me that the “ask me how to loose weight” button she had been sporting really wasn’t very effective…
Enough about Greason’s background. What about you guys? Since you are regulars, here, I would like to hear about your technical experience, as well as your ideas/concepts/impressions. I promise that I won’t make any comparisions against overweight women if you won’t
Cheers,
Nelson
I think that he has a valid case that he could make, but not the way that he is going about it.
I’m not sure that he knows any other way to go about it other than to describe reality. The claims made for Ares’ safety are completely specious and unfounded.
Rand:
So you think that the Ares I design was randomly pulled out of thin air and it’s only claim to safety was a rubber stamp of approval?
Surely, you jest!
Cheers,
Nelson
So you think that the Ares I design was randomly pulled out of thin air and it’s only claim to safety was a rubber stamp of approval?
No, I think that it was a political preference by people in the astronaut office and at Orbital Sciences Corporation, and its claims of safety were rationalized after the fact. I think this based on the history and personalities involved. Jeff has described the reality of Ares 1’s “safety.” You don’t get a safe vehicle by rarely flying it, regardless of its design. To claim that a paper rocket is safer than one with a real-world track record of dozens of flights without failure is ludicrous.
Rand is correct. I would add that it was the “political” thing to do since people (WH and Congress) wanted to save the Shuttle’s workforce. Don’t ignore that! This is a VERY political game, in case you had not realized.
And if you, Nelson, had been in this business you’d know as much. It all started after O’Keefe left NASA…
Oh well…
So you think that the Ares I design was randomly pulled out of thin air and it’s only claim to safety was a rubber stamp of approval?
If you had been paying attention four years ago you would know that to be exactly the case. People like you are the problem, not the solution, Nelson.
Why, pray tell, do you think Obama ordered a review of the program?