Smith is right, there is nothing unique about Huntsville, the work can be done anywhere else.

DCSCA stop embarrassing yourself, and don’t post unless you know something.

Inaccurate. Suggest you bone up on the very long history of the Redstone Arsenal, located in Huntsville, its designation as a rocket center (before Von Braun and his missile team were transferred there BTW, after they’d fired off all the captured V-2’s from White Sands, including the Juarez incident) and the development of the Redstone missile which Von Braun’s team worked on – for the U.S. Army. Carried a nuke of the era about 4,000 miles. =sigh=

Old news old boy…

I know but it never hurts to keep reminding the forces of anti commercialization that its working elsewhere Robert G. Oler

Old news old boy. DoD has been doing this for the past ten years via DSCS. This is merely the continued ramp-up of DoD use of commercial broadband capabilities with a twist; they are trying to contract directly now with the comsat owner/operators to increase flexibility, reduce turnaround time for bandwidth acquisition, and hopefully lower costs (but that part remains to be seen). Try to keep up with the times.

Is JSC the center of the HSF world? Is it the belief? Because be ready for it to be shattered soon.

I’ve been reading a lot of books lately about the history of NASA’s early years. The rivalries and jealousies between the various space centers was quite fierce as they jockeyed for primacy in the Apollo program.

Of course, there’s really no reason (other than political) to have the space centers scattered all over the country. In the private sector, NASA would have consolidated long ago, but they can’t because of the Congressional porkers.

The only reason there’s a space center in Huntsville is because of Wernher von Braun. The Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) sent his team there when they outgrew their operation at White Sands. When NASA was created by consolidating existing government space agencies, von Braun threatened to quit until he was promised Huntsville would be the missile test center. Otherwise there’s nothing unique about Huntsville.

The only reason there’s a space center in Houston is Lyndon Johnson.

Why Cape Canaveral? Turns out the Cape wasn’t the first choice. After von Braun’s White Sands team accidentally launched a V-2 into Juarez, Mexico, ABMA started looking around for a bigger range. Their top choice? Not the Cape. It was El Centro, CA. They wanted to launch down the Baja peninsula which would make it easy to establish tracking stations. But the president of Mexico said no, after what happened in Juarez. The Cape was the #2 choice.

Since the location of a launch range should be remote and near the ocean, NASA needs the Cape. But they don’t need Houston or Huntsville. Nothing is unique about either location.

The correct place for the payload, astronaut and mission project office(s) could be somewhere else. Possibly in Texas. This new project office will no doubt appear eventually.

even the Pentagon is going commercial Robert G. Oler

NASA Centers Get New Work Assignments

“What they will throw at it, even more effective than money, is bureaucratic red tape. It is the hallmark of control over every cheaper innovation preventing it’s fiscal benefit being realized.”

Unfortunately that is part of the territory, regardless of who is leading Congress or in the White House. All the more reason to slowly pry it out of their hands.

This whole thing is starting to look like the airline industry industry where the workforce migrates to whichever Corporation gets the contract. The complaints I’m hearing sound familiar…”

I don’t get this reference (my background is manufacturing) – could you elaborate?