NASA

Albrecht: NASA has become a “risk-averse feudal empire”

If you’re looking, in this era of reduced budgets, cost overruns, and battles over various program, for someone with an optimistic view of America’s space ambitions, well, Mark Albrecht probably isn’t the person for you.

“The civil space program, in my opinion, is broken,” Albrecht, who had been executive secretary of the National Space Council during most of the George H.W. Bush Administration, said Wednesday evening at an event at George Washington University about his recent book, Falling Back to Earth (reviewed here). “And, quite frankly, I think the national security space program is not far behind.”

He cited several examples to support that assessment, from the current gap in US human spaceflight access to the cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope to the expense and “marginal scientific utility” of the ISS. He was also skeptical about the future of the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket, likening it to a “bridge to nowhere” foisted on NASA by members of Congress “who kludged together pieces of the Space Shuttle infrastructure and without a compelling mission rationale,” he said. “It will likely be another contested, overrun, late, and ultimately cancelled program.”

Albrecht sees NASA as an organization slowed by bureaucracy, becoming a “risk-averse feudal empire” where the power lies at the center level. “We’re spending more and more and getting less and less,” he said. That is not a recent transition: much of his book talks about how he and others at the White House during the Bush 41 administration tried to reinvigorate the agency with the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI), only to run into opposition from NASA itself. “We were naive,” he recalled. “We believed that offering a floundering agency, NASA, a lifeline of support, and vision, and resources, would be met with an enthusiastic response. We were wrong.”

So what prescription for reform and reinvigoration would Albrecht offer NASA today? He touches on that briefly at the end of his book as well as in Wednesday’s talk. The future of NASA requires seeking to solve a “worthy and compelling” program that requires a multidisciplinary approach and one that can’t be compromised: “you can’t go halfway to the Moon.” NASA itself must also be restructured, he said, eliminating redundant programs as well as those not part of its core mission, citing as one example the nearly $150 million it spends per year on education programs. The agency, he argued, needs to be both raised and razed: “it needs to be raised in terms of its performance and much of it needs to be flattened.” Albecht said that Congress also has a role to play in rebuilding NASA, as it needs to “lay off the micromanagement and pork barrel spending.”

Once difference between the current situation and the failed SEI effort two decades ago is that there is a more vibrant commercial space industry today, with a number of ventures seeking to take over roles, including crew transportation to LEO, previously within the government’s domain. Albrecht, who served as president of International Launch Services, a Russo-American commercial launch venture, after leaving the White House, said he wasn’t sure if commercial ventures were ready to take over those responsibilities, but it was time to find out. “We’re in a gray period right now,” he said. “It’s time to at least try it… It’s the right thing to do because it’s eventually going to happen.”

Another difference from two decades ago was the existence then of the National Space Council. The council hasn’t been in service since the end of the Bush 41 administration; in his 2008 presidential campaign Barack Obama proposed reestablishing it, but has not done so since taking office. Albrecht, though, didn’t say that the council was absolutely needed. “It’s not always the right answer,” he said, adding it was the right answer during the Bush administration, when there was a desire to view space as a “national enterprise” and not just a NASA or DOD program. “It depends on the time and it depends on the leadership.”

72 comments to Albrecht: NASA has become a “risk-averse feudal empire”

  • For reference, click here for the Space Exploration Initiative files on the NASA web site.

    I was there in D.C. on July 20, 1989 when Bush I gave that speech. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were on the dais in front of the National Air & Space Museum. Only invited guests could sit up close; we unwashed masses were kept far away behind fences.

    The SEI was a precursor to Bush II’s Vision for Space Exploration. Both offered grand visions. Both wound up in the dumper.

  • amightywind

    The editor has again mined the news wires for yet another rogue Republican with fringe views. You can try, but I don’t think that you’ll succeed in vindicating the NASA leadership for bringing us to the current state of chaos. ‘Feudal’ organisations dominate the government and business worlds. Any organisation arranged hierarchically is feudal. The pollyanna notion that you can somehow reform the feudal nature of human organisation echos the ‘hope and change’ pablum we had to endure in 2008. I’d rather have a feudal, but functional NASA. Want to reform NASA? Cut the head count dramatically and get rid of the lowest performing 20%. Make the bosses accountable and prune the leadership regularly. Fewer people make better decisions, even in feudal organisations. Oh, and tell me that Nerdspace companies aren’t the private fiefdoms internet narcissists.

  • John Malkin

    amightywind wrote @ November 11th, 2011 at 9:36 am

    for yet another rogue Republican with fringe views

    Well you don’t need to look very far.

  • John Malkin

    SpaceFlightNow.com
    NASA announced this week it has signed on to a long-sought proposal by Lockheed Martin Corp. for a $370 million unmanned orbital test flight of the Orion capsule in early 2014, clearing the way for final contract negotiations for launch on a Delta 4-Heavy rocket.

    http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1111/10orioneft1/

    So the US taxpayer needs to pay $370 million for an unmanned orbital test flight. How much did way pay SpaceX for COTS Demo 1? What is Lockheed’s profit margin on it? I doubt they are doing it for cost. This doesn’t include all the ground tests of Orion either or the fact Orion will never go anywhere without Ares V Lite (SLS Lite).

    This is an example of the old way of doing business with the private sector and it shows this isn’t even close to cost effective. These are the comparisons that NASA and Congress will need to explain to the American tax payer.

  • A Lurker

    I agree 100%. I think its time to shut NASA down before they contimate the rest of the space industry. At the least its a very good argument to kill both Commercial Crew and the Senate Launch System before its too late.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Risk aversity is entirely justifiable if you don’t have any compelling rationale. You take risks for a reason. NASA, and Congress as well, are just admitting that they haven’t figured out the reason. So criticism about risk-averseness is really criticism of second order. But at least his call for a “worthy and compelling” program touches on that reason.

  • Yes, NASA is risk averse because what it is doing isn’t important. That’s also why Congress gets away with all the pork.

  • Mark R. Whittington

    The reason that NASA is risk averse is that taking risks has very bad political results when things go wrong. While it is an institutional problem at the space agency, it did not originate there. Standing completely down for over two years every time a crew is lost is not an incentive to take risks.

  • Jeff Foust

    “The editor has again mined the news wires for yet another rogue Republican with fringe views.”

    Actually, Mr. or Ms. Wind, I didn’t “mine” the news wires; that’s my summary of the Albrecht talk I attended.

    “You can try, but I don’t think that you’ll succeed in vindicating the NASA leadership for bringing us to the current state of chaos.”

    I was making no attempt in “vindicating” current or past leadership, simply reporting on what someone with both experience in and strongly-held opinions about space policy was stating.

    You are, though, welcome to express to your opinions, no matter how outré they may be…

  • Doug Lassiter

    Rand Simberg wrote @ November 11th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
    “Yes, NASA is risk averse because what it is doing isn’t important. That’s also why Congress gets away with all the pork.”

    Good point. Of course, while risk averseness stifles accomplishment, it most certainly doesn’t stifle pork. The money flows just as freely whether or not things are getting accomplished, and even when things go wrong. In fact, the money flows freely even when the agency doesn’t understand what it’s supposed to be doing. The most sustainable mission at NASA is thus pork. Congress has figured that out.

    But let’s be clear, taking risks has very bad political results when things go wrong when there is no compelling rationale.

  • amightywind

    I was making no attempt in “vindicating” current or past leadership, simply reporting on what someone with both experience in and strongly-held opinions about space policy was stating.

    The fact remains that a high proportion of posts lately cite GOP support for CCDev, which is clearly a minority view in the party. Far less attention is now paid to the views of mainstream, and politically unpopular supporters of the issue. Heck, it’s is your blog, you can post what you want. You could imagine what my version of spacepolitics would be like! But I contend you are biased in favor of CCDev. There is nothing ‘out there’ about that conclusion. Respectfully, amightywind.

  • Rhyolite

    ““who kludged together pieces of the Space Shuttle infrastructure and without a compelling mission rationale,” he said. “It will likely be another contested, overrun, late, and ultimately cancelled program.””

    Precisely correct.

  • The fact remains that a high proportion of posts lately cite GOP support for CCDev, which is clearly a minority view in the party.

    A tiny minority of the GOP are even aware of its existence.

  • The fact remains that a high proportion of posts lately cite GOP support for CCDev, which is clearly a minority view in the party.

    A majority of GOP members who actually understand space policy (e.g., Rohrabacher, Gingrich, Walker, Albrecht) strongly support it.

  • Coastal Ron

    amightywind wrote @ November 11th, 2011 at 2:30 pm

    You could imagine what my version of spacepolitics would be like!

    There’s those that talk, and there’s those that do.

    Jeff Foust has done a great job of creating a forum that attracts a wide range of discussion, and I am always interested to see what the next topic will be. Sometimes it interests me, sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s the same for all mass media content.

    You yak a lot, but I doubt that you would have the ability to do a blog that would attract a robust discussion of anything, much less space-related topics. However if you work up the courage to put yourself out there every day to be judged, let us know, and we’ll provide the same type of comments that you have become famous for on Space Politics. ;-)

  • Byeman

    “You could imagine what my version of spacepolitics would be like!”

    Because you are a fringe element and not representative of anything reassembling coherent and logical thought.

  • Alan

    “Actually, Mr. or Ms. Wind, I didn’t “mine” the news wires; that’s my summary of the Albrecht talk I attended.”

    Go get ‘em Jeff!

    Windy is such a broken record.

  • amightywind wrote @ The fact remains that a high proportion of posts lately cite GOP support for CCDev, which is clearly a minority view in the party.

    Rand Simberg wrote @A tiny minority of the GOP are even aware of its existence.

    That my friends is something we at TPIS are slowly changing every day of the week from all corners of the country! Slow and steady our progess will eventually pay off.

    Gary Anderson
    TPIS

  • Ben Joshua

    Despite the rationalizing flights of fantasy here and there, and the occasional display of crassness, reminiscent of the castle guard in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the comments on this site rank with the best of the blogs in other areas. I wish more space-interested outsiders could enjoy (and benefit from) the insights of thought and experience here.

    Albrecht’s “gray period” popped out at me, because it describes in two words so much of the current state of affairs, and not just in space policy and budgets. It is also a good descriptor of the apparent lack of clarity, direction, and oomph behind NASA HSF since… when?

    There seems to be a lack of interest, enthusiasm and awareness of spaceflight, NASA and private, in contrast to the immensity of the NASA infrastructure and the long timeline and vast operational “grayness” of SLS.

    It is my hope that a few years from now, CCDev will fulfill its potential, and a post-recession expansion in space activities can offer purposeful work in place of make-work. How long a gray period we have, may depend upon all of us letting go of cherished assumptions, Just as Robert Gilruth and company had to start with a largely blank slate, (a blessing in disguise) so many years ago.

  • It is also a good descriptor of the apparent lack of clarity, direction, and oomph behind NASA HSF since… when?

    1965 or so.

  • ROBERT OLER

      Mark R. Whittington wrote @ November 11th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
    The reason that NASA is risk averse is that taking risks has very bad political results when things go wrong. While it is an institutional problem at the space agency, it did not originate there. Standing completely down for over two years every time a crew is lost is not an incentive to take risks./////

    When has NASA been penalized for taking risk? Or are you now labeling the incompetence surrounding the two shuttle launches. RISK?

    If so goofy

    RGO

    Sent from my iPad

  • Y’know, I really scratch my head every time some pundit or politician claims we lack clarity or direction or focus.

    You may not like it, but there’s a LOT going on right now, more than any time perhaps in the history of U.S. human spaceflight:

    International Space Station
    Commercial cargo and crew
    Space Launch System and Orion
    Historic probes to Mars, Pluto, etc.

    The ISS is our first full-time long-duration microgravity laboratory in space. It can serve as a testbed for flights to Mars and/or a permanent lunar colony, as well as medical and astronomical research.

    Commercial cargo and crew — it’s been a long time since we’ve had anything this novel. The commercial companies are free to innovate, because it’s mostly their money and they accept the risk up front in exchange for a potential NASA contract. How cool it is to see several capsule concepts along with the space plane Dream Chaser that will finally fulfill the vision of the X-20 designers 50 years ago.

    As for Space Launch System, regular readers know I think it’s a joke, but at least we have the pretense of a system to explore beyond Low Earth Orbit. This administration, at least, seems intent on keeping SLS within budget, unlike the prior administration which really didn’t give a fig.

    We have Mars Science Laboratory scheduled to launch in two weeks. Take the time to watch this mission animation on YouTube. It’s an entirely new approach to delivering rovers to Mars.

    New Horizons won’t arrive at Pluto until 2015, but I’m really starting to warm up to this mission. Pluto is no longer a full-blown planet, but the more we study the Kuiper Belt, the more fascinating it becomes.

    Who knows, maybe the Webb telescope will get its act together and surprise us.

    Bottom line … There’s a lot going on. I can’t think of any other time in NASA history that we’ve been branching out in so many different ways with multiple technologies.

    By 2020, we may look back and say this was the greatest decade in NASA history since the 1960s. Even with SLS being a pork program.

  • Bennett

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ November 11th, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    Really well said. These things, combined with unprecedented access to videos of the progress being made, makes our era very exciting for those who follow space programs.

    Miss a launch? No problem as the video of it will be up on youtube within hours, or days at the most!

  • Doug Lassiter

    Stephen C. Smith wrote @ November 11th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
    “Y’know, I really scratch my head every time some pundit or politician claims we lack clarity or direction or focus.”

    There are very good things that NASA does, and yes, there is a lot going on, but a list of good things doesn’t translate cleanly into clarity, direction, and focus of an enterprise. With regard to HSF in particular, ISS and commercial crew are great, and even “cool”, but the direction of ISS sure isn’t clear, and calling the somewhat shaky funding of commercial crew an act of focus doesn’t quite ring true. That SLS provides a pretense of exploration is exactly right. You want to check the clarity, direction or focus box on that one?

    The science plans do have some semblance of clarity, direction, and focus, at least in that they try to conform to consensus Decadal plans that answer to the needs of the science community. Though with a ten-year horizon, those Decadal plans have limited value in establishing long term priorities. JWST has been featured in how many decadal surveys now?

    I think part of the problem here is that the clarity, direction, and focus we’d like to see in NASA planning has to be a result of both the agency and Congress, who come at that planning in very different ways.

  • Martijn Meijering

    The future of NASA requires seeking to solve a “worthy and compelling” program that requires a multidisciplinary approach and one that can’t be compromised: “you can’t go halfway to the Moon.”

    The problem with that is that you can in fact go halfway to the Moon, even though that is less compelling. LEO is halfway to anywhere as Heinlein taught us, and L1/2 is halfway from LEO to anywhere. And using these intermediate locations as short term stepping stones (and long term staging orbits) is precisely what we should be doing, even though it is less exciting than the lunar surface.

  • Explorer08

    Ben Joshua wrote:

    “Despite the rationalizing flights of fantasy here and there, and the occasional display of crassness, reminiscent of the castle guard in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the comments on this site rank with the best of the blogs in other areas. I wish more space-interested outsiders could enjoy (and benefit from) the insights of thought and experience here.”

    Well, Ben, as one of those “space-interested outsiders” that your wrote of I am horribly dismayed by all the name calling on this site. I wish you space experts could just stick to thoughtful discourse without all the juvenile slamming.

  • KDP

    Jeff,

    I read a number of space-related websites each day, but seldom post.

    I’m writing today to say your site stands out for its unbiased and straightforward reporting of what people are doing and saying in the field. Even though your site is pointedly about politics, by sticking with what people SAY or DO you successfully stay out of the muck that so often characterizes everything political.

    However, when posters try to talk about WHAT people are, the conversation goes downhill pretty fast. The empty rhetoric is more about the poster than the subject. Those individuals might learn from your example.

    Thank you for your excellent website.

    Ken

  • John

    Not only has NASA been stymied by bureaucracy but by monopolies as far back as the Nixon administration. That is the main reason why the United States does not have a reliable crew, cargo and HLV program today. When Nixon gutted the Apollo program they should have at least retained the F-1A.

  • Vladislaw

    The almighty bloviator wrote:

    “The fact remains that a high proportion of posts lately cite GOP support for CCDev, which is clearly a minority view in the party. Far less attention is now paid to the views of mainstream, and politically unpopular supporters of the issue. Heck, it’s is your blog, you can post what you want. You could imagine what my version of spacepolitics would be like!”

    The fact remains you are so disconnected from reality you wouldn’t know a fact if it kicked you in #(@

    What is a “high proportion” of posts? One on Dana and? How many posts has there been on Armstrong, Griffin, Krantz, Cernan, Shelby, Nelson, et cetera, et cetera.

    If anything there has been more posts on porksters than people who actually support a true exploration policy.

    We can all imagine what a blog of yours would look like. You are in a very small minority here and would be on your own as well. You would simple delete every post that disagreed with your myoptic view.

  • vulture4

    The question is not whether NASA is or is not willing to taking risks. NASA is not willing to take risks, yet it takes them anyway.

    Having sat through dozens of NASA safety meetings, I would suggest that the problem is that NASA does not have anyone with enough practical hands-on experience to have any idea what the risk is. There is no shortage of “safety experts” who will provide “risk assessments” and “risk mitigation strategies” using the famous red-green-yellow charts. But in reality they have never put their hands on hardware and have no engineering common sense. The Shuttle had many redundant systems which did nothing to improve safety, while at the same time it had hazards that were not mitigated.

    My first requirement for a safety engineer would be somebody who had built an aircraft with their own hands and then trusted their life to it.

  • Daddy

    The pendulum swings…. Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia…. Tragedy strikes and NASA is labelled reckless. Sticker shock hits with Constellation’s robust reliability, and NASA is labelled “risk averse”. Even with some of the technical challenges and criticisms thrown at Ares and Orion, their system architecture promised far more reliability than any of the commercial challengers out there. The problem is after billions in investment to learn the hard lessons of vehicle and crew survivability, and the evolution of greater space flight reliability, the fickle public, ignorant politicians, and dismissive commercial space entrepreneurs have become impatient with the hard work of reliable space travel. NASA is a victim of its own success. Prodding processes dedicated to minimizing risk in a very risky business.

    Decades from now if this nation one day regains its determination to be a great world leader, we will ask where the NASA expertise went and how come they weren’t supported in the early 21st century. The answer will be that their expertise was dismissed as over-cautious, wasteful, and too caught up in the details. After years of commercial space blunders, failed companies, and even catastrophic space tourism exploits, the pendulum will again swing back. The public will wonder why those details were dismissed by a dollar-driven industry… Like the adventurist barn-stormers of the early 20th century, “Sure, I’ll take you for a joy-ride over the state fairgrounds for five dollars.”

    I don’t buy the NASA criticism… Quite frankly, no one has yet to do it better. The Russians might be able to get there, but their on-orbit capabilities are dwarfed by NASA. And those that throw stones have never managed complex manned space flight systems. They are all too busy writing blogs and going to space policy conferences.

  • Justin Kugler

    There are some important elements that you’re missing, Daddy.

    First, you’re completely ignoring the financial aspect. NASA can’t go explore if it is spending most of the human space flight budget just getting to LEO. Constellation made the fatal assumption that more money was going to come, instead of figuring out how to meet the goals given us by the policymakers with the money we had. I am deeply concerned that history is about to repeat itself. Instead of allowing NASA to set SLS requirements that will emphasize lower lifecycle costs and compete the design, Congress is centralizing SLS development and design for the sole purpose of retaining the Shuttle workforce.

    Second, you’re ignoring the fact that there has been no compelling purpose articulated for human space flight in national policy since Apollo ended. We that work in the space flight industry have to stop laboring under the assumption that America would just give us money if they knew what we want to do. America will give us money if we’re doing things that clearly make the country better. For Apollo, it was beating the Soviets. In this era, it has to be about meeting clear economic & strategic needs. It is up to us, much like the science community does with the decadal surveys, to work with policymakers to design a human space flight strategy that meets national needs, while still leaving the technical people with the freedom to actually do their jobs.

    Third, you are making assumptions that I don’t think you can necessarily back up. How can you say with such certainty that Ares/Orion would have been more reliable than any of the commercial options? EELVs are among the most reliable rockets ever flown. They are entrusted with the most expensive national security payloads ever built. Falcon 9 has at least actually flown and delivered hardware to orbit. We can’t say that for Ares because it doesn’t have any flights to compare against. I’ll take actual flight heritage over estimated reliability any day of the week. So did the Aldridge Commission, which told NASA not to build new boosters for Constellation unless there was a clear need that could not be met with existing rockets.

    Fourth, John Shannon himself has suggested that maybe Constellation would have gone differently if there were more people with experience operating and flying Shuttle and Station had been involved. It’s only after NASA streamlined the organization and gave Lockheed Martin more responsibility that they’ve got Orion/MPCV under control. That suggests to me that NASA did not carry the “hard lessons” forward in Constellation because the people that actually had that knowledge were all busy with flight ops. We’re losing that knowledge now because Congress has no interest in building a Shuttle 2.0 and those same policymakers utterly failed to set a budget and policy that would transition those workers to new projects where their experience could be put to good use.

    We cannot ignore the problems in our own backyard that helped get us in this situation, nor can we foist all of the blame on the public, policymakers, or the newcomers. Quite frankly, we’ve been drinking our own bathwater for far too long. We’re not a victim of our own success. We’re a victim of the luxury of a monopsony.

    We need strong public-private partnerships with an appropriate balance of risk to be able to afford to do anything meaningful and worthwhile with human space exploration. We need innovations and bridges in both the technical and policy worlds to thrive. We can’t afford to rest on our laurels.

  • Coastal Ron

    Daddy wrote @ November 12th, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    Sticker shock hits with Constellation’s robust reliability, and NASA is labelled “risk averse”.

    Wrong. “NASA” didn’t choose the Constellation design, Michael Griffin did. NASA was on a path to competitively choose both a CEV and a rocket to launch it, but Griffin cancelled both without internal NASA input after he took over. That was a failure of leadership, not of internal NASA processes.

    Constellation was cancelled because it lacked a business case, and would require far too much money for even NASA to afford. Even if the original program plan had been followed (Shuttle ended, ISS ended, etc.) the U.S. would have been absent from space in any meaningful way for at least two decades. TWO DECADES! That would have been unconscionable.

    Even with some of the technical challenges and criticisms thrown at Ares and Orion, their system architecture promised far more reliability than any of the commercial challengers out there.

    Griffin was caught using fudged numbers for Ares I reliability, so don’t even try to imply that solids provide a bottom-line safety advantage over liquids. Ares I/Orion needed a 10 ton LAS with bone-crushing acceleration in order to provide any hope of escape from a rocket that could not be stopped, only blown up. No wonder no one is interested in the Liberty rocket.

    Liquid fueled rockets have a much more benign failure mode, and don’t need the same amount of non-value-added mass to provide the same safety result – the safety and survival of the crew. And that’s really the metric that should be measured, which is how likely the crew will survive, not how many times a rocket failed to make it to orbit. The Shuttle used SRB’s, and when one finally failed it took out the whole vehicle – solids may not fail as often as liquids do, but when they do you’re less likely to survive (as the AF stated with Ares I).

    If anything NASA has become more and more influenced by politics, which takes away the chance for NASA to experiment. Obama proposed a 5 year period to find the best technologies to use for a heavy lifter, and Congress demanded that they use specific technologies that were supported by specific Congressional districts. Where was the ability for NASA to determine risk? It was Congress doing the risk-taking.

    As long as NASA is being manipulated directly by politicians we won’t see any true innovative (i.e. risky) development.

  • Coastal Ron

    Daddy wrote @ November 12th, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    And those that throw stones have never managed complex manned space flight systems. They are all too busy writing blogs and going to space policy conferences.

    Or writing clueless posts while posing as an anonymous authority figure… ;-)

  • Christopher

    Pray tell what proof is there of Constellation’s “robust reliability”?

    And piles of requirements and papework do not equal safety/reliability.

  • Daddy

    Justin,
    Good points…
    I recall the Griffin vision being force fed as well. The same for John Shannon’s recommendation. A lot of money and hubris needed to be swept away. But that does not negate the value of the investment that went into bringing it forward over the 5 years it was active. And the extensive effort NASA put into crew survivability research following Columbia. It was and is being heeded as the designs are evolving.

    Ron,
    Axial vibration and acceleration have been a known unknown for some time with respect to Ares. There were and are solutions to those challenges. And solids represent an order of magnitude less complexity than liquid fueled propulsion. It is still up in the air to what extent reliability figures were “fudged”. There is some variation in the multiple models and their respective proponents. It is fairly clear, however, from what I’ve seen that Ares design offered considerably more reliability than anything else in its class. I am not privvy to any extent of reliability modeling done for Falcon 9… Benign failure modes don’t do too much to engender confidence in mission success, although I can certainly appreciate the human value.

    And Ron,
    I do have just a little bit of a clue… At least a learned opinion. And I take the advantage of anonymously offering up provocative opinions on the off chance I will learn more from those I inspire to respond. Justin’s response was thoughtful and valued… Your response was entertaining… ;-)

  • Daddy

    Justin
    I neglected the compelling human space business case… There really isn’t a good business case, which makes the point that this isn’t a game for the commercial sector to lead. What about the “human” case? We’ve got to get off this planet and establish an “off-world” infrastructure. Whether man is the reason for global warming or not, the earth is changing, growing, and arguably becoming less habitable. If we a re serious about perpetuating the human species, we better get a move on.

    Constellation at least offered a vision of humanity establishing a permanent beach-head on the Moon and looking to initiate a resource mining and manufacturing foot hold. The quickest way to establishing an off-world presence is to get started exploiting (yes I said exploiting) the Moon’s resources and relatively easy access to BEO destinations.

    Is there a monetary profit here??? Certainly not for decades, if not centuries. Which is why it must be led by the government.

  • Bennett

    @ Daddy “…the earth is changing, growing, and arguably becoming less habitable.”

    If your LV arguments are as flawed as what I quoted, you have no credibility whatsoever.

    A warmer planet with more CO2 is FAR more habitable than it has been since the MWP ended and the Little Ice Age started. We are finally recovering from that downturn in temperatures and the world will be a far better place because of it.

    Life In The Little Ice Age

    You really need to do some research before making sweeping statements that are fundamentally incorrect.

  • Doug Lassiter

    That establishing an off-world presence must be led by the government is an odd presumption, given that in the NASA Authorization bills, which is what Congress wants NASA to do, and in the NASA budget and National Space Policy documents, which is what the Administration wants NASA to do, such off-world presence, as in settlement and colonization, is NEVER brought up as a priority. OK, the government might have to lead it but, you know, the government doesn’t seem to want to do it!

    The government wants to “expand permanent human presence beyond low-Earth orbit”, which is not settlement and colonization to perpetuate the human species. Not by a long shot. When our government says that we’re out to preserve humanity you might have a leg to stand on.

  • Coastal Ron

    Daddy wrote @ November 12th, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    Axial vibration and acceleration have been a known unknown for some time with respect to Ares.

    Yes, that was very public, but I didn’t bring it up.

    I’m more concerned with overall safety. The design of the Ares I/Orion system seems to require passengers that are very durable, since the LAS has such high acceleration. Maybe that’s not an issue right now since NASA can afford to screen out people with marginal physical durability, but it’s not a design that lends itself to sending up any qualified astronaut.

    Commercial crew vehicles are positioned to fly a greater percentage of the potential passenger population, and with their full-flight profile abort systems they have a number of advantages over the Ares I/Orion stack.

    The two transportation systems were also meant for different purposes. Ares I/Orion was more of a mission critical type design, with acceptable risks for crew safety. Commercial Crew is oriented towards passenger safety, though the rockets they will ride will be reliable enough. Small amounts of exploration crew vs larger amounts of general purpose passengers. Truly apples and oranges.

    However the Ares I/Orion can be replaced by Commercial Crew by using LEO crew transfers, but the Ares I/Orion can’t replace the general purpose Commercial Crew vehicles because of cost and other limitations.

    This is all kind of academic, since Ares I/Orion is gone, and Ares I Light (aka Liberty) has no customer demand. It will be interesting to see what happens with the crew version of the SLS once the MPCV flies on the Delta IV Heavy, since that would be an opportunity for Congress to cut some of the cost out of the SLS while still supporting the usual Congressional largess. We’ll see if the Alabama Congressional contingent pushes that…

  • vulture4

    Daddy wrote: It is fairly clear, however, from what I’ve seen that Ares design offered considerably more reliability than anything else in its class.

    Would you care to provide some details regarding what you have seen?

    I carefully read the Exploration Systems Architecture Study and the preceding material supposedly comparing the cost and reliability of the EELVs with the “Stick”. They included such questionable tactics as claiming that the Stick had perfect reliability over 200 flights, because it was based on the Shuttle SRB, and every Shuttle launch was counted double. But Challenger was not counted against the reliability o SRBs because the design was so different as to be irrelevant. Yet the historical reliability of the Titan IV, which has SRBs, was used to estimate the reliability of the Delta IV Heavy, which does not have SRBs. On the cost side, it was assume that the EELVs would have to be launched from the 40-year-old facilities of LC-39, and that the LC-39, and that the VAB, MLPs and pad would have to be modified to accomodate them, even though they obviously already have modern launch complexes and the Delta is designed for horizontal integration, not the vertical assembly required by the VAB.

    If you know any of the people who performed these studies, please ask them to join us so that we can debate the accuracy of these documents line by line. Since Griffin had already made clear what answer he wanted, i can understand their agreeing with him. He is not a person who accepts an answer different from his own.

    Moreover, Republican backers of Constellation have never explained who would pay for it when their party demands endless tax cuts.

  • aberwyse

    “But let’s be clear, taking risks has very bad political results when things go wrong when there is no compelling rationale.”

    This is an interesting quote, since it links politics to what NASA does. Look around at places like NIST. How much of their fundamental research
    is influenced by politics? How much game playing are they subject to during the passback period by OMB? Historically, not a heck of a lot. Look closer at who has been historically responsible at OMB for NASA’s budget vs. the budgets of other agencies in the same funding stream as NASA and you’ll find an interesting career pattern there…

  • Coastal Ron

    Daddy wrote @ November 12th, 2011 at 9:15 pm

    Constellation at least offered a vision of humanity establishing a permanent beach-head on the Moon and looking to initiate a resource mining and manufacturing foot hold.

    This is a romantic view of what Constellation could have done more than 20 years from now, but it is not based on anything Congress had funded.

    At most Constellation was truly Griffin’s “Apollo on steroids”, with short exploratory missions costing huge amounts of money. Nothing was designed to support sustainable exploration, nor leave any infrastructure along the way that could be reused. And with NASA’s paltry budget it could not sustain more than two major activities at a time, such as operating the ISS and building/flying the SLS – not much leftover for sustaining a permanent operation on the Moon 1000X further away than the ISS is to Earth.

    The quickest way to establishing an off-world presence is to get started exploiting (yes I said exploiting) the Moon’s resources and relatively easy access to BEO destinations.

    We already have an off-world presence with the ISS, and we’ll see tomorrow whether our 10+ year streak of keeping it occupied is going to be extended or reset. Such is the fragility of living just 200 miles from Earth, and it will be significantly harder and more expensive if we’re 224,000 miles away.

    Our first step has to be in making a more robust infrastructure for supporting our operations in space, regardless if they are at LEO, EML-1, on the Moon, or venturing out BEO. No lifeline, no life. The SLS doesn’t do that, because it’s exploration oriented, not built for lowering the cost of doing things in space. Focus on cost, and everything else will follow.

    My $0.02

  • Byeman

    “Constellation would have gone differently if there were more people with experience operating and flying Shuttle and Station had been involved. ”

    Actually, that was the opposite of the problem. There were too many people with only experience operating and flying Shuttle and Station involved and few with space system development experience involved.

  • Martijn Meijering

    There is no need for NASA to take risks in order to be able to explore or to be able to stimulate development of cheap lift. Taking needless risks is stupid and government agencies aren’t well suited to that sort of thing anyway.

  • Byeman

    Daddy,

    You got it all wrong. It was 5 years of waste and little return for 10 billion dollars.

    The few tenths of a percent increase in design reliability of Ares I is not worth the extra billions it would have cost over existing EELV’s. Neither vehicles will fly enough times to make such a difference in design reliability matter. Operational processes will have a larger influence on reliability and a solid motor is more sensitive to these than liquids.

  • Daddy

    @Bennet,
    Do you honestly expect earth to remain habitable in perpetuity??? Do you honestly expect us to keep our population in check?

    @Doug,
    You are right. The government isn’t talking about it and its a shame. “Permanent presence” is what needs to happen before settlement, and I would expect another body of government, or perhaps an enterprising band of pilgrims, to take on the settlement challenge. But you have to establlish the infrastructure to get there in the first place.

    @Ron,
    Good points on the Ares/Orion technical challenges. I just don’t see the same extent of performance substantiation from any of the commercial ventures yet….

    @Vulture
    You are citing the same “Griffin-biased” data I am familiar with on SRB reliability. I just don’t see it as cynically as you do. The Shuttle SRB history is more palatable than most give it credit in my opinion. 51L failed due to the system’s vulnerability to the SRB joint failure. As difficult as it is to acknowledge, the joint failure itself did not defeat the booster’s performance. The Titan III and IV data speaks for itself. With few exceptions the solid booster performance was very reliable. I witnessed the Titan 34D failure at Vandenberg in 1986 and was privvy to the investigation results. It was a manufacturing error that is easily detectable in hindsight and has been avoided since.

    @Byeman,
    I recognize that Constellation was a tumultuous 5 years, with some costly fits and starts. I was a victim in my own small world to the problems. However, it was gaining some traction and had a “noble” objective as others have observed. I would have preferred a slower approach to the noble objective than throwing everything away.

  • Daddy

    Oh, and @Ron,
    A valuable $0.02!!! I agree with virtually all of your last statement. We just need to get rid of Congress and take a slice of the DoD budget. Defense writes the book on waste!!! If NASA had just a sliver of what DoD wastes every year we would have been to Mars and would have a viable Moon base by now.

  • Coastal Ron

    Daddy wrote @ November 13th, 2011 at 11:51 am

    We just need to get rid of Congress and take a slice of the DoD budget.

    DoD and NASA get their money from the same pot, so I don’t see it as a competition between the two. Congress can easily increase NASA’s budget by making up any reason they want, or reducing any other budget line item they want. However until there is something that creates a compelling need to increase NASA’s budget (UFO’s turn out to be real, an asteroid threatens us, etc.), we’ll have to live within what we have.

    Because of that I tend to focus on how to stretch NASA’s budget further, which is why I advocate for those things that lower the cost to access space. The more affordable you can make it to move mass in space, the more mass you can afford to send out there – it’s the same pattern that has lead every major human expansion in the past couple of centuries.

    Again, my $0.02

  • vulture4

    Just to set the record straight, the assertion of the Constellation crowd that reliability is a fixed number that can be predicted based on design is simplistic and naive. So is the pretentious claim, in a Constellation safety meeting, that safety can be assured simply by requiring contractors to make all systems “failure tolerant” through redundancy.
    As Chan demonstrated in his classic paper “Space Launch Vehicle Reliability”, most launch vehicle failures are deterministic, due to design flaws, not the random deterioration of components. Consequently redundant systems are not effective because they often fail simultaneously (classically, the primary and backup O-ring on Challenger). Conversely, once a failure occurs the design can almost always be corrected at the component level; consequently launch vehicle failure rates are not constant but decrease rapidly with flight experience. As a result unique “man-rated” designs with very low anticipated flight rates such as SLS are unlikely to ever achieve the level of reliability of designs that are also used for launching unmanned payloads.

  • Daddy

    @Ron,
    Not true… DoD and NASA are in completely different appropriations bills. Different subcommittee scrutiny and authorization.

    @Vulture,
    NASA began the Orion design using a systems reliability approach… System architecture as well as component reliability and redundancy trades.

  • Coastal Ron

    Daddy wrote @ November 13th, 2011 at 2:46 pm

    Not true… DoD and NASA are in completely different appropriations bills. Different subcommittee scrutiny and authorization.

    The “pot” I talk about is the budget as a whole. There are no constitutional limits on what percentage of the budget NASA gets, so there are no limits to how much Congress could allocate to NASA if it so chooses – regardless how much the DoD, DoE, DoS, CIA, EPA or any other department or agency get.

    Congress as a whole is fine with the amount of money NASA gets now, with only small variations between the House and Senate. Space is not a big priority, so we need NASA to be very efficient with the little that it gets.

  • Doug Lassiter

    Daddy wrote @ November 13th, 2011 at 11:43 am
    “Permanent presence” is what needs to happen before settlement, and I would expect another body of government, or perhaps an enterprising band of pilgrims, to take on the settlement challenge.”

    Excuse me? Which other body of government is going to take the reins away from NASA and take on the “settlement challenge” of outer space? Oh, maybe Housing and Urban Development? Probably won’t be in their “Sustainable Housing” office, though.

    My point is the government has no “settlement challenge”. That challenge exists in the minds of some space advocates, but nowhere else. And that is precisely why, as I said, government leadership in establishing an off-world presence for settlement and colonization doesn’t make a lot of sense.

    An enterprising band of pilgrims? Sounds fine to me. Which body of government is going to be leading them in their off-world challenge? You did say that government leadership would be necessary for this.

  • Robert G. Oler

    vulture4 wrote @ November 12th, 2011 at 1:20 pm

    The question is not whether NASA is or is not willing to taking risks. NASA is not willing to take risks, yet it takes them anyway. …

    you are in my view to be commended for some excellent post in all threads, but in particular this thread on the subject(s) of risk, safety, and NASA taking them.

    I would add this. One cannot determine if risk are worth taking; unless one understands the possible rewards.

    There are as you note two types of risk. I would classify them in the spaceflight (as well as other) business as technical risk and then program risk. Technical risk should be well in hand particularly now. There is little unknown about the space environment and about how different things perform in that environment…and with proper technological effort those risk should be able to be minimized. One reason Cx (and SLS) are “risky” is that the systems are old and were designed to “the minimium dollar and max performance” and nothing that can be done on the side minimizes that.

    But program risk are another matter. The Movie “Saving Private Ryan” is a good (although it is a subplot) discussion of program risk. How many people was it worth to save one? The scene on Normandy beach (and the entire movie is more or less afictionalized account but doubtless those scenes happend) where they are trying to get inland and the Tom hanks Character sends body after body toward the objective until finally deciding to risk himself a bit…is illustrative of program risk. There is nothing technological about it…it is simply “how much is the objective worth’.

    NASA doesnt take those sort of risk anymore (and has not since Apollo and maybe Skylab) because to the nation the goals it has pursued in human spaceflight really are not worth much risk at all. Had Apollo 11 terminally failed we would have clearly tried again…what I dont know is how many times we would have tried…the nation was wearing thin of the “goal” and had the human cost gotten to high it might have completely wavered…although we were losing a lot a week in Vietnam and that didnt seem to slow anything down.

    The space station effort is really not only to lowest bidder but lowest risk…and the utility of the vehicle shows it. It is unlikely that any future goal in the reasonable future will carry the justification for much risk at all…there seems to be little reward in it.

    again nice points Robert G. Oler

  • Bennett

    Daddy wrote “Do you honestly expect earth to remain habitable in perpetuity??? Do you honestly expect us to keep our population in check?”

    “Perpetuity” is not the issue. We may be re-entering a golden age of climate benevolence, with harvests unheard of in modern times. That, coupled with the emergence of capable private sector initiated LVs makes any argument for “cost-plus-business-as-usual” NASA pork space flight more than contemptible.

    It’s time to let those who want to lead the next stage of space access do so, without pouring billions of tax dollars into duplication or bridge-to-nowhere projects.

  • Justin Kugler

    Daddy,
    I personally believe that our species’ continued survival eventually depends on us building a spacefaring civilization. It’s why I got into and stay in this business. That doesn’t pay the bills, though.

    Neil deGrasse Tyson points out in his talks on space exploration that there are three reasons civilizations do grand projects – wealth, war, and wonder. The military has “war” covered and “wonder” doesn’t close the business case. That’s precisely why JWST is struggling right now. For human space flight to thrive, I think we have to focus on economic security.

    At my sister-in-law’s wedding celebration this weekend, a lot of people wanted to talk to me because I work at NASA. They wanted to know what we were doing now that the Shuttle is retired. I talked about the ISS National Laboratory and all of the sustaining work that’s going on, but I also gauged their responsiveness to the notion of being focused on economic security.

    Every single person I talked to was amazed when I told them about the resources that are out there. If NASA was focused on breaking down the cost and technical barriers to accessing those resources for the national benefit, I think we’d have much stronger public support because our mission would be relevant.

    Congress doesn’t care about perpetuating the human race. They would care, though, if NASA was building the technology to make it cost-effective to deploy space-based solar power systems that would eliminate the dependence of our forward military bases on fuel convoys for generators. They would care if NASA spun that technology off to private companies for commercial systems. They would care if we could figure out how to mine rare earth metals on Near Earth Objects and break China’s near monopoly on that market.

    If we can lower the price point of getting to orbit and provide real, direct benefit back to the nation, the rest will follow and we’ll really get to build that spacefaring civilization.

  • Dennis

    We talk about space colonization, yet the one factor keeping us from doing just that is MONEY! If the cost to space for a person was at the price of say an airline ticket, we would be colonizing the Moon and Mars now. Until the cost drops drastically for the normal man, or the government pays for it, colonization wont happen in our lifetime.. Hell if a flight to the Moon or Mars, were the cost of an airline ticket Id go in a heartbeat, and help colonize either one of those distant worlds.

  • Coastal Ron

    Dennis wrote @ November 14th, 2011 at 12:17 pm

    We talk about space colonization…

    Not really. Most talk is about where we should set up small research outposts, not where Walmart should open it’s first off-world store.

    …yet the one factor keeping us from doing just that is MONEY!

    Mr. Obvious has spoken.

    If the cost to space for a person was at the price of say an airline ticket, we would be colonizing the Moon and Mars now.

    Dennis, you don’t understand what you are talking about. For your colonization fantasy to work someone needs to have paid for building all the transportation and destinations before you can sell cheap tickets to wide-eyed tourists. Where is that money coming from? The profit from the cheap tickets? You?

    You seem to get your ideas from Cloud Cuckoo Land. Tell you what, stop talking about this subject until Virgin Galactic starts selling sub-ortibal rides on SpaceShipTwo for $500. Deal?

  • common sense

    “Another difference from two decades ago was the existence then of the National Space Council. ”

    “it was the right answer during the Bush administration, when there was a desire to view space as a “national enterprise” and not just a NASA or DOD program.”

    “It depends on the time and it depends on the leadership.”

    I was hoping for a rebirth of the Council too. I do agree that it is worth having it if “space is a national enterprise”.

    I disagree that under Bush it was any more of an enterprise than it is today except of course for Constellation, inasmuch as a few states make it a “national enterprise”.

    I would argue that the original intent of the VSE and the O’Keefe approach is very much like what this current Administration initially proposed.

    Here “leadership” does not mean much in this regard. Policy is what it is all about. Policy is not the result of leadership but rather a consensus.

    Note that if such a council were to include industry as a participant it would then become relevant in this day and age. Unfortunately I believe that Congress would very much oppose such a council that would be yet another voice against their ridiculous spending, most likely to request the end of SLS/MPCV.

  • Byeman

    “had a “noble” objective”

    The ends do not justify the means. Anyways, it is not the job of the US gov’t to settle outerspace.

    “NASA began the Orion design using a systems reliability approach… System architecture as well as component reliability and redundancy trades”

    Which fell to the wayside as Ares I wasn’t up to the task.

    Also, if your ground rules are flawed so will the end product ( component reliability, absolute reliability, arbitrary numbers, etc). There was cost vs effectiveness studies on the groundrules. Designing to X number of times safer than the shuttle is meaningless.

  • @Byeman
    “Also, if your ground rules are flawed so will the end product ( component reliability, absolute reliability, arbitrary numbers, etc).”

    Right on. In my former profession of Software Engineering, we had a term for that concept. GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

  • Byeman

    edit

    There WERE NO cost vs effectiveness studies on the groundrules.

  • DCSCA

    The only true ‘risk averse’ entities along the space frontier are the toadies in commercial HSF who steadfastly refuse to fly because the risk for profiteers outweighs the value of the return. That’s why gvernments do it and have done it since 1961. Commercial HSF- not so much– in fact, not at all. And the clock is ticking.

    “The civil space program, in my opinion, is broken,” [says Chris] Albrecht. And you’re entitled to your own opinion Mr. Albrecht, but not your own facts. =yawn= This from a fella who is trying to sell books, and represents the Bush Administration/GOP POV with a dismal fiscal and executive record of poor decision-making which literally ‘broke’ the US of A. On 1/17/61, President Eisenhower warned of the creeping problems of procurment and ‘influence’ in the councils of government by the military-industrial complex, of which civilian space is a stepchild. Any perceived failings in the bureaucratic operations of the civilian space program lay with the failings of the executive ‘talents’ in previous administrations, such as Albrecht, to keep the agencies and how they’re administered in check. To paraphrase WS, the fault, dear Albrecht, lay not in our stars, but in ourselves.

  • Frank Glover

    @ John:

    “Nixon gutted the Apollo program they should have at least retained the F-1A.”

    I would’ve said NERVA.

    Either way, the reply would’ve been something like; “For what?” They were done with any visions larger than the Shuttle, and it required neither of the above.

    @ Daddy:

    “Constellation at least offered a vision of humanity establishing a permanent beach-head on the Moon and looking to initiate a resource mining and manufacturing foot hold.”

    You can’t afford to ride Constellation to that beach. Fortunately, it isn’t the only way to get there…

  • Robert G. Oler

    DCSCA wrote @ November 14th, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    The only true ‘risk averse’ entities along the space frontier are the toadies in commercial HSF who steadfastly refuse to fly because the risk for profiteers outweighs the value of the return. …

    there are no facts to support that analysis…but you are happy to have your own opinions, they are like anatomical parts…everyone has a few RGO

  • DCSCA

    @Stephen C. Smith wrote @ November 11th, 2011 at 7:35 am

    “I was there in D.C. on July 20, 1989 when Bush I gave that speech. Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were on the dais in front of the National Air & Space Museum. Only invited guests could sit up close; we unwashed masses were kept far away behind fences.

    The SEI was a precursor to Bush II’s Vision for Space Exploration. Both offered grand visions. Both wound up in the dumper…”

    Have the 7/20/89 event on tape but don’t see you waving. Do see Dan Quayle. ‘Nuff said. In fact, the VIP area was set up for Apollo folks and family who made it happen, as clearly seen in the pans across the crowds with wives and astronauts in the crowd. SEI and VFSE withered and died for the same reasons- no bucks. And as we all know, “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”

  • Daddy

    @Justin,
    I could not agree with you more!!! NASA has not made the case for expanding our exploration horizon or what resources and opportunities may be within our grasp… Our leaders haven’t focused on the ultimate vision long enough to learn what’s out there.

    Thanks for sharing your views!

  • vulture4

    Daddy: “NASA began the Orion design using a systems reliability approach… System architecture as well as component reliability and redundancy trades”

    : The point I am making is not that the SRBs are unreliable. The point I am making is that the Constellation program’s approach to reliability, and in fact the entire NASA approach, based on component reliability estimation and fault tree analysis, would be considered laughable in most private industry.

    I have personally seen NASA civil service safety professionals perform a safety assessment by choosing three “order of magnitude” estimates of the reliability of a component and them simply pick one of the three. I have personally seen NASA safety professionals base a prediction of the failure rate of the Ares I on the specification for launch availability, since of course the contractor would be required to meet the specification.

    Can you imagine the FAA using NASA procedures to establish the safety of an airliner? They could do the certification entirely on paper, and take off with a full load of passengers on the first flight.

    The NASA approach has very fundamental flaws, not least that they estimate component failure rates without data, assume these failure rates are constant, assume failure modes are predictable (if they were, we would obviously change the design to eliminate them) and assume launch vehicle failures are random (they are usually deterministic).

    The Shuttle program was kept afloat by numerous USA contractors who really did know their jobs (not all of course, but a commendable fraction) and who fixed the problems and prepared the viewgraphs for the civil service people to show at the launch readiness reviews. All those people are gone now.

    Aerospace safety is a serious business, and there are people who know how to fly safely, even some at NASA. But NASA is obviously no more qualified than SpaceX or Boeing to say whether a launch vehicle or spacecraft is safe.

  • Byeman

    “And you’re entitled to your own opinion Mr. Albrecht, but not your own facts”

    Pot calling the kettle black. DCSCA, your posts are void of facts.

  • Coastal Ron

    DCSCA wrote @ November 14th, 2011 at 8:00 pm

    The only true ‘risk averse’ entities along the space frontier are the toadies in commercial HSF who steadfastly refuse to fly because the risk for profiteers outweighs the value of the return.

    I’m glad you still have enough active brain cells to pick up new words (i.e. “toadies”), which you had just seen me use on another post (flattery, etc.).

    Too bad those same brain cells can’t understand that no U.S. companies are being paid to fly U.S. astronauts (or anyone else) to LEO. Which kind of refutes your allegation of “steadfastly refuse to fly…blah, blah”.

    Of course I already knew that this was way over your head, but I had hoped if you could learn one new word a day maybe you could learn one new concept a day too. I guess I was wrong…

  • “The civil space program, in my opinion, is broken,” [says Chris] Albrecht.

    Jeez, you’re such a moron you can’t even get his name right.

  • DCSCA

    Apologies on the typo- Mark.

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