And you think you have problems???

At KSC, thanks to the “Vision of Space Exploration” and the decisions made in 2004, we are losing the Shuttle, 8000 jobs, and the only workforce in the world with hands-on experience maintaining reusable launch vehicles and spacecraft. Over a thousand person-centuries of hard-won experience, that simply cannot be replaced, is disappearing as we speak. What will we do when we finally figure out that the public won’t pay for human spaceflight even at $20M a seat?

Nonsense. But then, every circus has a few clowns who clap in approvingly of the sideshow shills.

It is impossible to destroy that which doesn’t exist. The truth is that SLS is a blatant attempt to create a capability in a place where it isn’t needed not needed (because it’s available elsewhere, because we don’t need an HLV etc.), as a make work project.

I have in middle age accepted with some resignation but a dose of reality that I will never be universally loved. I was very unpopular here when shortly after Bush the last announced his vision for the lunar deal, I noted that it would flounder, why, and when…and although I missed the “when” by one year…I sadly was correct.

It’s amazing how many people think it’s more important to be “popular” than it is to be right.

I disagree with Rand’s politics, but he’s 100% right when it comes to U.S. space policy and I applaud him for that. He says what has to be said.

The same goes for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who’s been a lone voice on the House space subcommittee for years. He’s called out the porkers and challenged the conventional wisdom. I may not agree with everything he says, e.g. obsessing about asteroids striking the Earth, but he’s one of the few who isn’t playing the porkfest game.

NASAspaceflight.com is full of crazy people living in a bubble, so that would be a compliment. Always an amusing read though.

http://www.spacepolitics.com/2008/01/02/obama-clarifies-his-space-policy/

Nonsense. Which policy- there heve been several, two i the campaign alone and the current policy is going no place fast. His ‘space policy’ is guided only by the politics of the moment. And at the moment, it’s in ‘free drift.’

Example: “[Obama] distributed a campaign document in 2007 that proposed a five-year delay in the Constellation program in order to finance a proposal for early-childhood education. He abandoned that idea in 2008 to heartily support the manned space program during his successful courtship of the pivotal swing state of Florida, home of the Kennedy Space Center.” – source, HoustonChronicle 6/11/09

And, of course, we’ve seen where that ‘hearty support’ for the manned space program has gone– abandoned and literally lost in space. He has no interest in America’s manned space program. No matter– at the rate he’s going for 2012,– he’ll never win Texas or Florida anyway.

“Well, I think that after the CAIB report it was pretty unlikely that any sidemount vehicle would be the preferred choice.”

If “I” had been Griffin and had to have functioned as he did (I would have resigned) but…what Griffin should have done is divorced cargo from people, moved the people to Delta/Atlas and then kept all the technowelfare programs going for Shuttle C…which could launch the parts.

This is what “I” recommended in a piece published in AV Leaks “Commercial Space” some years ago (it folded the next issue however so sigh perhaps I did it in…grin) but figured out eventually that unless one went to a “Skylab type” station then one wasnt going to gain anything by having a Shuttle C…and NASA was never going to a Skylab type station.

As an aside the arguments in that era were entertaining…the same arguments that are now being made for NASA heavy lift, were made against it (just the counter point).

Thinking about Shuttle C as I watched the Backyardigans with Lorelei it came to me as Pablo was talking about treasure, the reason Griffin did not want to put people on Atlas/Delta and develop Shuttle C…and wanted to have his own people/payload lifter.

At somepoint someone would notice the difference in cost between flying a pound on Atlas/Delta and a pound on Shuttle C …and well that wasnt going to work. It was only when the cost to fly on Ares 1 and 5 were both so high as to be unreasonable that there would never be a comparison…

As Pirate Pablo would say “ARRGH”

Robert G. Oler

“Robert,

You are very unpopular at more sites than just NASAspaceflight.com!”

ZOUNDS

I have in middle age accepted with some resignation but a dose of reality that I will never be universally loved. I was very unpopular here when shortly after Bush the last announced his vision for the lunar deal, I noted that it would flounder, why, and when…and although I missed the “when” by one year…I sadly was correct.

I will simply have to make do with the unconditional love of my children, my wife, and most of our pets…I am sure my newest daughter expected around 9 December is going to love me as well.

Robert G. Oler