As usual you keep proving my point every time you post something about your “arch nemesis” Elon Musk (who doesn’t even know you exist).

First you say:

“The only people talking about changing goal posts are Musketeers who’ve yet to get any skin in the game.”

Then you say:

“NBC News has reported SpaceX may try to orbit crews in 3-4 YEARS, if then.”

You make this seem like a big surprise, but the only surprise is that you think this is a surprise.

If you were capable of understanding information (instead of having it fed to you by 2nd hand news sources), you would know that SpaceX has never announced it was going to create a crew system ahead of the NASA CCDev program. In fact Musk has always said that they intend to wait on their crew system until they get more experience with the CRS deliveries.

Of course your ability to be clueless about simply facts is definitely no surprise. Oh sure you can cite book and verse from moldy Apollo manuals, and try to correct people about arcane statements made 60 years ago, but all that does is reinforce the perception that you’re out of touch with today’s reality. A situation you still have time to change…. tick, tock, tick, tock

Rutan’s retired and no longer in the picture. Plenty in NASA should have gone long before Burt. Pity.

Interesting point. This may explain why even though Constellation has officially been cancelled, in practical terms it has just morphed into the Orion/HLLV program with no mission but almost the same budget, freezing out anything productive. What I still cannot understand is why NASA was so ready to pull the plug on Shuttle when it was finally working fairly well and we had nothing to replace it with. What were we thinking?

As to the engine on the SSII, it was one of Rutan’s few errors. Hybrids simply do not make sense for any reusable system. To minimize operating cost he needs to go with LOX/RP like everyone else.

If Branson is your pick for “how it gets done”, why aren’t you moaning about how he doesn’t have an engine for his suborbital craft yet?

Tick tock, tick tock. VG is having engine problems while SpaceX orbits the Dragon.

Does it sting yet? I’ll check back in December and we’ll compare notes.

Me? I want them both to succeed, but then I am not blinded by a bizarre mental problem with one of the companies.

All of the companies contributing to non-governmental space flight deserve our support. Why don’t you understand that?

Since it is an SES position, only the Selecting Official knows whom he’s seriously considering among whomever applied.

The single greatest mistake of this Administration vis a vis the radical change in direction of America’s space efforts, is that it has attempted to implement that change while keeping just about every single legacy manager in place who believed in the old paradigms. I can’t imagine a new Board of Directors hiring a new CEO, telling him to implement a 90 degree change of direction in the company – and then expect that two years later not a single legacy manager would have been changed out. Yet that’s what’s happened here – with negative results that are there, but not yet fully visible.

As I noted, though, vis a vis commercial space, it is NOT too late – but only if a strong, experienced and dedicated person is put at the helm of commercial space development at HQ.

“Tick-tock, tick-tock.”

You may think of this phrase as time passing by, but I’ve come to think of it as a countdown timer until you change goals again.

You’ve done it more than once, including after SpaceX orbited and retrieved their Dragon capsule.

Soon your refrain will be “but SpaceX has orbited no one around Pluto, NO ONE…

Actually, they are related as part of the ‘cargo’ SpaceX is supposed to eventually haul up to the ISS aboard Dragons are ‘human crews.’ So far, SpaceX has orbited a wheel of cheese and returned same but in practical terms, have not flown any cargo to the ISS via Dragon– except in a Powerpoint presentation. Meanwhile Soyuz ferries crews and Progress supplies and been doing so successfully to various space stations for decades. And to date, Space X not launched, orbited or returned any crews safely.

@ Coastal Ron wrote @ May 28th, 2011 at 9:56 pm: Tick-tock, tick-tock.

“Insisting as to why Spacex is not flying manned spaceflight now is complete insanity on your part. ”

That’s not unusual for him.