Congress, NASA

Colorado worries about jobs, Culberson sounds off

Florida isn’t the only state worried about job losses with the pending demise of Constellation. On Monday Colorado’s two senators, Mark Udall (D) and Michael Bennet (D) announced that they had met with NASA administrator Charles Bolden about Constellation, presenting him with a letter to President Obama expressing their concerns. The letter covers a number of standard issues about the decision to end Constellation: job losses (over 1,000 in Colorado, where Lockheed Martin is doing work on Orion), concerns that it is premature to rely on the commercial sector, and impacts on the industrial base that could affect the Defense Department.

“We recognize that there are significant obstacles you must overcome with the Constellation program as it is currently configured, not the least of which is chronic under-funding,” they write in the letter to President Obama. “However, we believe there is a way forward that balances stimulation of commercial service providers with the proven capabilities of NASA and its industrial partners, a way that responsibly uses limited taxpayer dollars and allows NASA to continue to serve as an inspiration to future generations of scientists, engineers, and explorers.” They don’t specify what they have in mind, though.

The meeting with Bolden was no doubt timed to this Thursday’s presidential space conference at KSC, but it also takes place on the eve of the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. The future of Constellation is likely to be a hot topic among attendees (at least those who didn’t get invitations in recent days to go to KSC.) Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) will reportedly talk about “the importance of the Orion program” in a speech Tuesday at the symposium, according to Denver Business Journal. There’s also concern in Colorado, according to the same report, that that Colorado was being “outhustled” by Florida officials, who are apparently lobbying to move some work from Colorado to Florida.

While the language by Sens. Udall and Bennet was pretty mild, the same can’t be said for Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), who spoke out about the cancellation of Constellation in a interview with National Journal’s Hotline On Call. “He’s proposing to cancel America’s manned space program, which is typical of this administration’s pattern of apologizing for America’s success, kowtowing to our enemies, bowing to foreign dictators and their obsession with trying to make terrorists like us,” Culberson says. However, Culberson is bipartisan in his criticism: “This is one of many unfortunate legacies left to us by the Bush administration. Unfortunately, President Bush’s quote, vision for space exploration was nothing more than a press release and a publicity stunt for the 2004 election. Because it was never followed up with sufficient funding to fulfill what he laid out.” Culberson, it should be noted, has served for some time on the subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee whose responsibility includes NASA.

38 comments to Colorado worries about jobs, Culberson sounds off

  • “… We believe there is a way forward that balances stimulation of commercial service providers with the proven capabilities of NASA and its industrial partners, a way that responsibly uses limited taxpayer dollars and allows NASA to continue to serve as an inspiration to future generations of scientists, engineers, and explorers.” They don’t specify what they have in mind, though.

    Reminds of what Rep. Posey said a couple months back when he claimed to have met with the Constellation main contractors and he could guarantee they would significantly reduce the cost of building the project — without explaining how, or more importantly why they’d been spending more than necessary up to now.

    Hypocrites and panderers.

  • amightywind

    And well Colorado should worry. Lockmart would be building the Orion in their Littleton facility. It is good to see such staunch bipartisan support for an issue in the the hyperpartisan political environment that Obama has created.

    The discussion needs to turn to how does the US properly fund Constellation. Calling in US loans to Detroit would be a good starting point.

  • Robert G. Oler

    amightywind wrote @ April 12th, 2010 at 7:41 pm

    The discussion needs to turn to how does the US properly fund Constellation. ..

    it wont.

    Robert G. Oler

  • Robert G. Oler

    http://thespacereview.com/article/1604/1

    I would urge everyone to read this…it is an excellent article and defines the new role of NASA.

    It also addresses the “we must have a goal” statist.

    nice job

    Robert G. Oler

  • Major Tom

    It’s not clear from the article whether the 1,000 “job losses” associated with Orion work in Colorado are current workers or future positions that will never be filled. I’d guesstimate that it’s mostly the latter. If that’s the case, Udall and Bennet don’t have much of a problem, in addition to their inability to propose a solution.

    Culberson seriously needs to take his meds. It takes a special kind of mental illness to conflate terminating a program that was suffering years of schedule slippage and billions of dollars of cost growth with “kowtowing to our enemies” and “bowing to foreign dictators”. Yikes…

    Moreover, when has the Obama Administration ever proposed “to cancel America’s manned space program”? How is extending the life of the space station by five years “proposing to cancel America’s manned space program”? How is adding six billion dollars to the human space flight program “proposing to cancel America’s manned space program”? How is proposing to put in place two domestic providers of crew transport services (years before the prior program would have put in place one) “proposing to cancel America’s manned space program”? How is accelerating the start of HLV development by at least four years over the prior program “proposing to cancel America’s manned space program”? Is Culberson (or his staff) really this out of touch with reality? Do the dead speak to them and swarms of bugs crawl the walls of their offices, too?

    Oy vey…

    “And well Colorado should worry. Lockmart would be building the Orion in their Littleton facility.”

    If we’re going to rationalize civil human space flight costs, construction and refurbishment should be colocated with launch to the greatest extent possible. It may suck for Colorado, but it makes little sense for federal taxpayers to continue paying the costs of transporting large pieces of space hardware more than halfway across the country and accepting inefficient hardware design choices associated with that transport.

    “The discussion needs to turn to how does the US properly fund Constellation.”

    Although the prior Administration and both Republican- and Democrat-controlled congresses failed to meet topline NASA budget commitments in the VSE for half a decade, Constellation actually received more funding than promised in the VSE budget. Despite this, the Ares I/Orion schedule slipped at least three to five years, Orion’s ISS crew was reduced from six to four, and Ares I/Orion overruns ate HLV (Ares V) development and lunar lander (Altair) funding.

    Throwing good money after bad is never a good strategy.

    FWIW…

  • Doug Lassiter

    Culberson is a curious bird. He’s developed some kind of alliance with Pasadena/JPL congressman Adam Schiff, and together they’ve been champing at the bit for astronomy missions that are being developed by JPL. I understand that SIM and TPF are particularly dear to his heart. While his interest in matters scientific is admirable, I’ve never been able to figure out what’s in it for TX-7. He was one of the few members back in 2006 who understood how the Constellation program was sucking funds from space science. He explicitly considered scientific research and robotic planetary exploration to be national security issues, and even once scolded Homeland Security for embargoing $1B that could have been used for this work.

  • GuessWho

    Major Tom – “It’s not clear from the article whether the 1,000 “job losses” associated with Orion work in Colorado are current workers or future positions that will never be filled. I’d guesstimate that it’s mostly the latter.”

    You would guess wrong. Learn the facts before you post.

    “It may suck for Colorado, but it makes little sense for federal taxpayers to continue paying the costs of transporting large pieces of space hardware more than halfway across the country and accepting inefficient hardware design choices associated with that transport.”

    Yeah, it makes more sense to build new manufacturing and test facilities from the ground up rather than utilize existing facilities that are co-located with a highly experienced workforce that has decades of history building spacecraft, all to save a few 10’s of thousands of dollars in transportation costs.

    And what inefficient design choices have had to be accepted to accommodate transport. Some facts please.

  • Major Tom

    “You would guess wrong. Learn the facts before you post.”

    Reference? Evidence?

    “Some facts please.”

    Stone, glass houses, and all that.

    “that has decades of history building spacecraft”

    What human space flight vehicles have been built by LockMart in CO?

    Don’t make stuff up…

  • […] unknown wrote an interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerptSpace Politics. Because sometimes the most important orbit is the Beltway… Colorado worries about jobs, Culberson sounds off. April 12, 2010 at 6:39 pm · Filed under Congress, NASA. Florida isn’t the only state worried about job losses … […]

  • Robert G. Oler

    Well…while anything is possible what seems to be somewhat clearer is that the only “Plan B” that seems to be evolving is that in the minds of space activist and others who want a Plan B.

    In addition opposition to Obama’s plan seems to grow weaker not stronger…

    hence nothing seems to have really changed since the health care bill passed…this plan seems on track.

    Robert G. Oler

  • anne spudis

    Quote from John Holdren (Obama Administration Official – Science Advisor), from address to graduate students at conference on “Innovating the Future: Critical Perspectives in Science & Technology American Association for the Advancement of Science (2011 Conference: Science Without Borders) The National Academies and ST Global Consortium on April 9, 2010

    “It’s not an unmixed or dead loss that other countries are getting better, in some instances in technology.

    Other countries getting better increases their capabilities to improve their economies and as a result ultimately to make the world a better and safer place.

    We can’t expect to be #1 in everything indefinitely. One of the most appropriate responses to this degree of levelization of the playing field is to cooperate more, to exchange more.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBw1WUv4Yrs&feature=player_embedded

  • Robert G. Oler wrote:

    “Well…while anything is possible what seems to be somewhat clearer is that the only “Plan B” that seems to be evolving is that in the minds of space activist and others who want a Plan B.”

    Yeah, I’m just amazed by the number of posts on Florida Today by people who think Obama will be forced to capitulate or compromise, that he’s coming here Thursday to backtrack.

    These people are living in a fantasy world, fueled in part by politicians like Kosmas and Posey who keep telling them they’ll extend Shuttle forever and keep Constellation going too.

    I’m glad Obama will be here for only two hours Thursday. It sends a message that he’s in charge, not them.

    Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that for decades these people have bought into the rhetoric that they’re on the front line of a holy battle against evil Communism for control of the galaxy. That the space program has some sort of special status that makes it immune from budget pressures and national priorities. That it’s okay to blow a budget, to fall behind schedule.

    I want humanity in space too, but this holy crusade attitude has to go.

    The rest of us live in a world where we have to produce on time and on budget, and where we lose our jobs when there’s no longer a demand for our skills. Time for them to come down from the ivory tower.

    We want space access to be “routine.” Well, “routine” means treating it like any other business or profession.

  • The Space Foundation has issued a report concluding that the space industry has grown by 40% over the last five years:

    http://www.spacefoundation.org/news/story.php?id=945

    And that’s in spite of a global recession.

    So much for the claims by critics of Obama’s FY 2011 NASA budget proposal that there’s no demand for commercial space services.

    To quote from the press release:

    This evolution will likely include an increasing role for the private sector through development of commercial space markets and continued space technology spinoff into non-space industries, according to The Space Report. Research performed aboard Earth-orbiting platforms, such as the International Space Station (ISS), and increasing government space activity around the world are two burgeoning sectors of the industry with near-term commercial potential. Military activities in space have already led to the commercialization of satellite timing, positioning, and navigation technologies and satellite imagery, and The Space Report forecasts further advances as additional space capabilities reach the commercial sector.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    Anne Spudis’ quote from one of the perpetrators of Obamaspace is very telling. Holden has also inveighed against American exceptionalism of which space exploration is a prime example.

    It seems that here we have the real motive for Obamaspace. It is not to make space exploration better, faster, cheaper. The purpose is to end it, the better to take the United States down a peg in its overweening pride of having done things like landing on the Moon.

    In the real world, where things get done, enterprises set goals, along with a timetable of things that must be done to achieve that goal. Obamaspace eschews goals because it is meant to do nothing. One wishes that the Obama Zombies in Space would realize that.

  • anne spudis

    A letter from Homer Hickam: Dear Astronauts of the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas
    I just had to write you. I know I said I wasn’t going to comment on NASA anymore in my last blog titled “Homer Shrugs,” but the bad news keeps getting worse so I’m driven to the computer.

    In case you haven’t been paying attention, it appears that the Obama Administration simply is not going to listen to anyone and is going to proceed on its plans to shut down NASA’s human spaceflight program. That means you have a target on your back (and your front, too). President Obama will be making a quick touchdown at Kennedy Space Center to announce this plan on Thursday, probably couching it in obtuse, meaningless inspirational language including a vacuous call to send Americans to Mars. He also will announce an increase to NASA’s budget, then leap back onto Air Force One to go to Gloria Estefan’s Miami mansion for a $30,000 a plate fundraiser…………….

  • Doug Lassiter

    Am not quite sure what point is being made by quoting Holdren about American exceptionalism. Was he referring explicitly to space exploration in his talk, or is this quote perhaps taken out of context for a space exploration forum?

    The idea that we don’t always have to be the best at everything is pretty much exactly right, but hardly an intellectual revelation. A nation makes choices about what it wants to be best at, and makes those decisions on the basis of what offers the greatest benefit to it citizens. The list of things that America could be best at, that would engender a sense of pride and superiority, is a very long one.

    From the fragment of his words that were posted here, I don’t see Holdren having “inveighed against American exceptionalism”, but just pointing out that choices have to be made in what we want to be exceptional at. That’s always been the case.

  • amightywind

    anne spudis wrote:

    “We can’t expect to be #1 in everything indefinitely. One of the most appropriate responses to this degree of levelization of the playing field is to cooperate more, to exchange more.” – John Holdren

    Thanks for this telling quote. Holdren is the likely ring leader of the saboteurs who concocted Obama’s policy. How this nut job malthusian ascended to his high post is one of the tragedies of Obama’s election. Other collaborators are Lori Garver and the space sciences leadership. Bolden is just a useful idiot. Congress must soon decide if they are willing to let these adventurers hijack the national treasure that is human spaceflight.

  • TheTruth

    Dear Anne, Homer, Mark, amightywind,

    Yes, you are absolutely right. The current administration has been taken over by the evil empires and is trying to destroy America.
    Warn all, before it is too late!

  • CharlesTheSpaceGuy

    Orion has not gotten very far in assembly :-) but the plan was that it would be finally assembled in the O&C Building at KSC? What would have been the role of the facility in Littleton? Many of the components would be built all over the country, with sub-assembly in Colorado??

    I wonder how many Orion jobs would have been created in Colorado – not many assembly jobs I bet.

  • MrEarl

    Oler, Peura hs no idea what she is talking about. As I said in my first post in the comments section, Gemini was a test of techniques not technology. As Charles Houston points out in the second comment Peura is long on shiny new catch phrases and short on facts. But then again so is this mew proposal for NASA.

  • “Holden has also inveighed against American exceptionalism of which space exploration is a prime example. ”

    Why do people tout American exceptionalism as if hubris is somehow a virtue? Hubris is a one way ticket to brutal humility down the line. I believe that the US is one of the greatest countries in recent history, but the “we’re the best at everything” model is how France, England, Spain, and Portugal fell hard and fast from their perches. In the purest meaning, exceptionlism is fine, but radical nationalism and blind ignorance to our own shortfalls and failings is a fast track to the third world.

    “It seems that here we have the real motive for Obamaspace. It is not to make space exploration better, faster, cheaper. The purpose is to end it, the better to take the United States down a peg in its overweening pride of having done things like landing on the Moon.”

    No evidence whatesoever wrapped in taglies and snark, the hallmark of a true conspiracy theory.

    “In the real world, where things get done, enterprises set goals, along with a timetable of things that must be done to achieve that goal. Obamaspace eschews goals because it is meant to do nothing. One wishes that the Obama Zombies in Space would realize that.”

    We’ll see on Thursday if we get some goals. Either way, the last American spacecraft that met its goals was mothballed in the Nixon administration. The remaining goal oriented programs have led to lluke-wark results at best and complete failures at worst. I agree, we need at least some degree of further definition, but goals didn’t build the rapid turnaround cheap spaceflight promised by STS and it didn’t replace the shuttle quickly and affordably, let alone get us to the moon by 2015 like Constellation promised. Goals are not a solution, nor are they the sign that a program is any more serious than any other. They are merely a component.

  • Doug Lassiter

    “In case you haven’t been paying attention, it appears that the Obama Administration simply is not going to listen to anyone and is going to proceed on its plans to shut down NASA’s human spaceflight program.”

    Sigh. I’ve never really understood the celebrity of Mr. HIckam, except that he managed to extricate himself from a situation of career oblivion. At least Gloria Estefan had her “Mi Terra” beamed up to Discovery.

    The Obama administration is going to proceed on its plans to shut down a NASA human spaceflight program that never would have gotten us anywhere. It was an illusory space program, not a real one. Let’s just hope that the Obama administration can come up with another one that has a chance to succeed where the previous one failed.

    To get this thread back on topic, I would point out that at least Mr. Culberson seems to understand that.

  • Major Tom

    ““It’s not an unmixed or dead loss that other countries are getting better, in some instances in technology.”

    What the does the obvious observation that other countries are developing economically and technologically have to do with the statements of Udall, Bennet, or Culberson?

    This is a space policy forum. Debates about U.S. policy towards developing countries should be taken elsewhere.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Anne Spudis’ quote from one of the perpetrators of Obamaspace is very telling. Holden has also inveighed against American exceptionalism of which space exploration is a prime example.”

    The quote has no relevance to your argument. Holdren is stating the obvious — that other countries are going to develop economically and technologically. (Holdren goes on to express an opinion that such development is good and that the United States should cooperate with developing countries.) Holdren does _not_ argue that the United States should hold back its own development.

    Don’t put words in other people’s mouths.

    “It seems that here we have the real motive for Obamaspace. It is not to make space exploration better, faster, cheaper.”

    Yes, NASA’s FY 2011 budget request includes billions for rocket engine development, advanced technologies like in-space cryo management and ISRU, and robotic precursor missions because the White House wants to make space exploration worse, slower, and more expensive.

    [rolls eyes]

    What is with the goofy conspiracy theories? Do you also think that aliens are mutilating cows?

    Oy vey…

    “Obamaspace eschews goals because it is meant to do nothing.”

    From flagship technology demonstration missions to robotic precursor missions (both by 2014), NASA’s FY 2011 budget request contains multiple “goals” and deadlines, from flagship-class technology demonstration missions to robotic precursor missions, to enable sustained human space exploration beyond LEO.

    Don’t make stuff up.

    “One wishes that the Obama Zombies in Space would realize that.”

    Now you’re calling other posters names in your very first post in a thread? What is wrong with you?

    Take your ugliness elsewhere.

    Ugh…

  • Major Tom

    As much respect as I have for his old work, Hickham’s blog entry is full of falsehoods and really weird, goofy passages.

    “it appears that the Obama Administration simply is not going to listen to anyone and is going to proceed on its plans to shut down NASA’s human spaceflight program”

    Shuttle is being retired according to the same basic plan that’s been in place for six years now. The ISS program isn’t going anywhere — in fact, it’s operations are being extended by five years. And the prior Constellation plan, which wouldn’t have restored a domestic human space transportation capability until 2017-2019 or started HLV development until 2016 at the earliest, has been replaced by a plan to put in place two domestic providers of human space transportation by 2016 and starts HLV development in 2011.

    Those are not “plans to shut down NASA’s human spaceflight program”.

    “Right now, there are around 120 of you in the Astronaut Office at Johnson Space Center. Most of you are now out of a job whether you are willing to admit it or not. You are NOT going to fly into space.”

    No astronaut is going to fly to or occupy the ISS over the next ten years?

    Really?

    “Space campers are going to laugh at you since the kids will have better training facilities than you do.”

    Wow, the Huntsville space camp has bought T-38 trainers, among other things?

    Really?

    “treachery by NASA Administrator (and former astronaut) Charlie Bolden”

    Bolden is treacherous?

    Really?

    “Show all deference to the President or the Administrator or even John Holdren but after you’re through shaking their hands or saluting them, whatever is proper, turn your back on them. And you might also want to hold up a single finger showing that you believe the United States should still be the #1 space power. The choice of finger is up to you.”

    We’re encouraging NASA astronauts to flip the President and the NASA Administrator the bird?

    Really?

    He’s always been a little out there, but it makes me sad to see Hickham this off his rocker. I hope someone gets him some help.

    FWIW…

  • Major Tom

    “Gemini was a test of techniques not technology”

    Techniques are technology. Hardware is useless if you don’t know how to apply it. Forget space vehicles and operations — this is true for even the simplest tools. A stone axe thrown at a lion’s tail instead of its skull is going to result in one dead caveman.

    “Peura hs no idea what she is talking about.”

    That’s simply not true. She’s right about Cold War context that drove Kennedy’s gambit on Apollo. She’s right about the programmatic differences between Apollo and Gemini. And she’s right about program managers having three fundamental variables — cost, schedule, and performance — available to them. Peura is a professional with a very good grip of human space flight programmatics.

    “Peura is long on shiny new catch phrases and short on facts.”

    You’re kidding, right? Peura is able to quote the number of minutes and seconds U.S. astronauts had spent in space at the time President Kennedy set the lunar landing goal. I’d like to see anyone else on this forum (myself included) pull those kinds of facts.

    “But then again so is this mew proposal for NASA.”

    Only if you don’t bother to actually read NASA’s FY 2011 budget request.

    FWIW…

  • Vladislaw

    When did American exceptionalism start and what exacly does it refer to?

    Was it the exceptional slave markets we operated? Was it the last slaughter of native americans at wounded knee and the land grabs of their last sacred stronghold? Our multinational companies that bypass the express wishes of sovergn nations to grab their resources? We are pretty good at that I have to admit. Is it our exceptional health of our nation and our fast food industries? Our exceptional school systems that graduate the most students? Is it our exceptional pollution controls we have that makes it possible to drink from any stream in America? Is it our over flowing land fills and toxic wastelands? Is it our exceptional energy grid? Our exceptional train systems?

  • googaw

    So much for the claims by critics of Obama’s FY 2011 NASA budget proposal that there’s no demand for commercial space services.

    Back in this galaxy, the boom in real space commerce is in unmanned spacecraft: in real space development which the astronaut fans ignore. The claims that rational people are quite rightly ridiculing are the claims that there is more non-space-agency demand than has heretofore been exhibited for human spaceflight. Over 99% of HSF is government agencies flying astronauts for the sake of astronauts, and the remaining minuscule fraction is piggybacking on spare government seats, the marginal costs of marginal costs. We can’t privatize an economic fantasy, we can only shut it down when people grow tired of subsidizing it.

  • Nobody would know who Homer Hickam is if someone hadn’t made a fanciful movie about his childhood. In no way does it qualify him to know the intricacies of Obama’s budget proposal, other than he was a Shuttle engineer.

    I’m really starting to tire of this drama queen attitude among certain current and former KSC employees. You’re an employee, not the center of the universe. This is the way the rest of the world lives. You’re not exempt from reality.

    The next whining you’ll hear will be when Obama doesn’t personally kiss the butt of each and every employee at KSC on Thursday. I read recently that the last President to address KSC employees directly was Reagan, probably right after the Shuttle program went operational. They need to stop drinking their own Kool-Aid.

  • Vladislaw

    “Over 99% of HSF is government agencies flying astronauts for the sake of astronauts, and the remaining minuscule fraction is piggybacking on spare government seats”

    Most times your arguements make sense, but this doesn’t as it is untested.

    It is like saying 99 percent of fighter jets are owned by the government when only the government is allowed to have them. When has NASA proved your theory and not only embraced open commercial options for human space flight and used them.

    If NASA auctioned off half the seats on the shuttle to the private sector and no one even placed a bid THEN your arguement would hold true. To say what the outcome of what it would be before it has ever even been tried is a false arguement. You say it is only government and a minuscule fraction, that fraction is all that is ALLOWED BY those governments to fly. Russia has over 300 people who have wanted to fly and had the money to do it. they were only ALLOWED to fly that fraction. And NASA fought it just like they fought the idea of MIR being turned into a commercial station that would compete with them.

    The fact that someone has been willing to part with that much money to fly into space not once but twice tells me something about that market.

    In the old soviet union, when they didnt have a very good domestic car production and consumer demand out paced it, they simply required you to have 800 hours of behind the wheel training before you could get a license. Problem solved. It is the same now, pack on almost a year of training to go into space there by lowering the demand and the number of people willing to commit that much time to it. People have paid advanced fares to Virgin galatic for a suborbital ride that will take YEARS to fullfill. That is pent up demand. If their was an actual commercial orbit vehicle that NASA was fully on board with do you honestly believe there is not going to be a waiting list just like Russia has today?

  • Apparently, like the president, Vladislaw is unfamiliar with the meaning of the phrase “American exceptionalism.”

  • Interesting article on CNN.com about “denialism,” the replacing of the open-minded skepticism of science with the inflexible certainty of ideological commitment:

    http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/04/13/specter.denying.science/index.html?hpt=C1

  • Vladislaw

    Rand, I know that Alexis de Tocqueville said of the then, 50 year old United States of America, held a special place in the body of nations because we were made up of immigrants and we were a democracy.

    I find at times though, when people are shouting from the rooftops to the rest of the planet about american execptionalism they take it out of THAT context and somehow apply it to mean that whatever decsion is made by the US by defintion is exceptional. If a person is going to use it out of context then we should BE exceptional in more things than we truely are.

    I feel that so many people choose to live in fear, I don’t.

    To many are afraid to not only admit we have some warts but that we ever had any to begin with.

    I am not afraid to admit our past and talk about it, I am not afraid to admit I am ashamed of aspects of our past and talk about them.

    I am not afraid to look at the unvarnished truths that stare us in the face and talk about them and how to move foreward. I am not afraid to admit that America doesn’t do everything perfect and we are not always exceptional.

    Who said You can always count on America to do the right thing, after they have tried everything else.

    I love my country and do believe we have did a lot of great things and get a lot of things right, but we also do things on the other end of the spectrum and shouldnt be afraid to talk about them.

  • Vladislaw wrote:

    I love my country and do believe we have did a lot of great things and get a lot of things right, but we also do things on the other end of the spectrum and shouldnt be afraid to talk about them.

    Seems to me you shouldn’t have to defend your patriotism in the first place.

    I can’t recall seeing a single bumper sticker that reads, “CANADA — LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!”

    For some reason, there are those who think you have to prove your loyalty to your country.

    So far as I’m concerned, it’s nobody’s business but my own.

    I think these people are incredibly insecure about themselves and somehow afraid that a differing opinion might expose an inadequacy in themselves. This nation was founded on the right to dissent and disagree. You really have to wonder why these people are so afraid of a different opinion than their own.

  • MrEarl

    My quote and Tom’s reply:
    “Peura is long on shiny new catch phrases and short on facts.”

    You’re kidding, right? Peura is able to quote the number of minutes and seconds U.S. astronauts had spent in space at the time President Kennedy set the lunar landing goal. I’d like to see anyone else on this forum (myself included) pull those kinds of facts.”

    You have got to be kidding?! Your defense of her knowledge is the fact that she knew how long Shepard’s Freedom 7 flight was?!
    It’s in Wikipedia for crying out loud and I bet that’s where she got it.

    I expected a better rebuttal from you Tom.

  • googaw

    untested.

    Nonsense. Energia would love to make and fly more Soyuz capsules if private tourists were willing to pay the costs of doing so instead of the marginal costs of marginal costs for unfilled seats. And it can add Soyuz flights for substantially less cost than any spacecraft resulting from the NASA HSF bureaucracy is likely to cost, whether it’s done with a fixed-price contract and called “commercial” or not. Even if the market were untested it’s the people who want to base national policy on hypothetical markets that have the burden of proof, not the people who question these economic fantasies.

  • […] decision to retain Constellation was hailed by Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), who just this week wrote to the president about his concerns over canceling Orion and the rest of Constellation. Udall, according to the AP report, says that decision shows that NASA and the White House […]

  • Gloria Stefan and the Miami Sound Machine is classic but they do make great music~;~

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