Comments on: At a hearing about NASA’s future, discussion of its present and past

By: DCSCA

DCSCA — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 23:44:17 +0000

@DCSCA wrote @ April 12th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
LA gets Endeavour and KSC gets Atlantis. My error.

By: DCSCA

DCSCA — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:25:43 +0000

amightywind wrote @ April 12th, 2011 at 8:19 am
there is an -R- (party) in the word poRk

“Remember, you canâ€™t spell democrat without RAT.”
C’mon, Windy– And you can’t spell conservative with out ‘CON.’ Right wing lying and prattle is not helping much. The objective is to try to save the nation’s space program, not snipe at each other. The budget cutting deal made last Friday acually gave the DoD a $5 billion INCREASE. This is why NASA belongs tucked under the wing of the DoD.

By: DCSCA

DCSCA — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:21:15 +0000

Watched the hearing. Bolden is useless. About the only thing he sounded the least bit authorative on was his repeated assertions that the disposition of the orbiters were HIS decision to make. So LA gets Atlantis; NYC gets Enterprise; Smithsonian gets Discovery and KSC gets Endeavour.

Yep, tough decisions by this guy.

The hearing brought tears to the eyes. America’s space program is dead.

By: common sense

common sense — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 21:20:46 +0000

@ amightywind wrote @ April 12th, 2011 at 8:19 am

Ah… Still not there where you belong amightywind.

“Those pesky safety requirements! Maybe it is better to rain flaming rocket debris on Charleston?”

Ever read this report about Ares?

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=31792

Funny because the USAF talks about Ares not F-9: Ares has the flaming debris flying around possibly killing the astronauts. Not such thing about F-9… Anyway.

Ah also, you know repugnant starts with repu… Just to be fair to the rats.

By: amightywind

amightywind — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:19:36 +0000

there is an -R- (party) in the word poRk Remember, you can't spell democrat without RAT. KBH has ever been a friend of NASA, especially these last 2 years in which she has helped fight off Obama's newspace pirates. For example, SpaceX had to wait several months last year while the USAF dictated the self-destruct system for the Falcon 9 test. Those pesky safety requirements! Maybe it is better to rain flaming rocket debris on Charleston?

By: Stephen C. Smith

Stephen C. Smith — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:14:52 +0000

And where would SpaceX be if it didn’t have to wait for NASA/Air Force approvals?

For example, SpaceX had to wait several months last year while the USAF dictated the self-destruct system for the Falcon 9 test.

By: Eugene C. geno Bravo

Eugene C. geno Bravo — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 07:50:50 +0000

Falcon based Heavy-lifter is best bet. Also Dragon is right on schedule Nuf said….!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

By: Nelson Bridwell

Nelson Bridwell — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 06:58:15 +0000

Thanks for the coverage, Jeff!

By: John Sullivan

John Sullivan — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 06:37:55 +0000

(Continued) …. and so one major concern I share is that of Republican Kay Bailey Hutchinson – who proves that there is an -R- (party) in the word poRk by her continued support for things that don’t make much sense for a space program, but after all it’s not about space anymore, NASA has long ago degenerated into a jobs program. She asks who I think is the greatest NASA Administrator in History why isn’t Orion being used to fit, in layman’s terms, on an Atlas 501 or Delta IV heavy being that Orion is cancelled. The answer cites another poRk of those in the ( -R- ) party, Mike Shelby, Senator from Alabama who oink oink (and with him you can believe it) doesn’t allow for anything to circumvent home-State Pork. As a fellow Republican, I find that the worst offenders of “doing the right thing” happen to be those speaking of NASA’s Space program when it was never about space, it was about pork. I notice that
Thad Cochran, another porkster with proof that there is an -R- in PORK only seemed concerned about his own Stennis center.

Let me submit to you, based on the number of WX delays as called by internal Shuttle Weather Flight Officer Kathy Winters resulting in scrubs over the years, that Florida’s weather is too unstable to be a suitable space launch facility. No pork here, just go find someplace else to launch rockets that is more suitable. You see, I can be fair. Yes I can. Because for me, it’s a SPACE program, not a Jobs Program. And when you do launch that next rocket from a better place, let it be aboard Atlas, Delta or Dragon. I don’t care.

By: John Sullivan

John Sullivan — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 06:28:10 +0000

I thank you very much for this. The Air Force and DoD contractors bailed out of the Shuttle after Challenger and over the years a number of great customers who would launch satellites, commercial or military have found great solace and success in the developing Atlas, Delta, Dragon and others in the EELV program – although Space X has yet to do much of anything so far as contract work providing revenue to the effort. Yet like Japan’s H-2B rocket which was incredibly successful in landing a payload so close to the ISS twice that the Station’s Arm need only reach out and touch some… thing, Space X seems very capable already of doing what Japan has already done without incident on the first two tries. After Columbia was lost in 2003, one of the better NASA Administrators, Sean O’Keefe along with the White House OMB and Congress’s CBO worked with all of the local pork interests in the various Districts to provide NASA funding for something called ORION/ARES which was great on paper but unfortunately attempted to fit a square peg into a round hole. In my opinion the fatal plan was proved too expensive and useless for the rocket ARES IX when at least four fatally flawed problems showed up on Launch Pad 39-A and the test, never intended to go even as far as the SRB Boosters do, was a total non-starter, especially given the money invested in the project. And here along comes Space X – to be fair assisted all along the way by technical guidance and expertise from NASA, to do more on the pioneer audition from Cape Canaveral on a fraction of the cost – including several orbits, a capsule deobrit and a successful pinpoint landing than NASA did with exponentially greater costs involved in lobbing a dummy payload just a few hundred miles off the coast. With pinpoint precision, Space X hit the WEST Coast of California, not the East coast off the “launch range.” (TBC)