Logsdon’s book now sounds worth reading – if instead one doesn’t want to spend time instead researching how Gardner cleaned up the L. Ron Hubbard-KGB (DONALD)/Jack Parson mess, or how Gardner worked on the radar and reconaissance systems of the early 1950’s, or his work with LBJ and the Democrats on the “Missile Gap” in the late 1950’s. Apparently Logsdon still does not yet fully understand Eisenhower’s “Open Skies” effort.

Of course, since my stroke that kind of work is impossible for me now; instead I work very very slowly on Native American history. Typing, spelling, and grammar are difficult, and I can not convert even simple Mayan dates.

As far as Griffin goes, he just bought the ATK line. If you look at how hard it was to kill ARES 1, Griffin’s political estimate was about right, it was his physics and costs that were off – courtesy ATK. I am very pleased to see Griffin working on air launch now, as at current warning times that will be about the only effective means of dealing with 30 to 60 meter dead comet fragments.

“The big problem with Orion is cost per unit which might not be so bad if the thing wasn’t disposable. That is the major turn off… By itself Orion is pretty useless.”

Between the SLS and the MPCV, I see the SLS as the most oppressive program NASA has going. Once that is gone then I would lobby hard for the cancellation of the MPCV, but not until the SLS is gone.

I view the MPCV/Orion as a purpose-built vehicle for an uninspiring return to the Moon. Griffin’s “Apollo on steroids” rehashed old architectures, and did not think about what the true needs were for future exploration.

The MPCV is over-built for being an LEO to lunar orbit transport, as well as not be reusable. For staying in orbit around the Moon, it’s too small to live in for very long, and a dedicated small space station would be better for being a way station to the lunar surface. It has too narrow of a use case for it to be worth the $8B we’re spending on it.

Hmmm. Kraft has been working with an eye on international cooporation since the Mercury days, through the DSTN development, through ASTP and on into shuttle operations. Consistency wenhances gravitas; past is prologue.

As to technology jobs, the solution is to provide better secondary education and college, both technical and academic, at a cost students can actually afford, and jobs they have a prospect of getting when they graduate. After Sputnik, Kennedy and Congress provided very substantial funding directly to schools to improve STEM education. That worked. I benefited from it.

A student of mine recently graduated with a degree in computer engineering and $100,000 in loans. His mother may have to sell their house to pay back the loans. A college education in the US is too expensive for many qualified American students and jobs are few when they graduate. It is senseless to claim spending billions on spaceflight will “inspire” students instead of solving the real problems.

NASA orchestrated the selection of the goal beginning before Kennedy was elected President. Several political events occurred spurring the selection of the moon landing goal. But the original statement is an accurate statement in every way.

No, they didn’t. Again, you’re making it up. You may have the book but NASA “orchestrated” nothing.

Moving on …

Your bringing up Eisenhower is an important aspect – remember NASA was laying out the plan, the requirements and the rationale for a manned moon program in mid-1960, before the election. In large measure the NASA plan was intended to counter the Eisenhower efforts to limit space efforts. NASA decided where it wanted to go and as soon as there was a President elect the NASA defined plan was brought in; the first step was convincing the newly elected officials that the plan was well developed and well supported. When other things clicked into place – the orbiting of Gagarin and the Bay of Pigs, NASA had their ‘elevator speech’ ready and took full advantage.

This is also why an O’Keefe-type figure is important as a well-connected politician and salesman in a leadership position. Griffin, the consummate space engineer, knew exactly what he wanted, even though his design skills did not match his education, but he got no where when it came to interfacing with the political machine. Bolden, the military officer, seems to be great at taking orders, but appears to come up with no ideas of his own and seems to look upon countering Administration officials as somehow unpatriotic.

O’Keefe figured out what NASA needed in the wake of Columbia, rallied the people to develop the Vision plan, and took it direct to the Administration. The return message from the Administration was clear: ‘you have our support but you will not get a lot of extra money so you need to figure out how to do it with what you get.’ Griffin’s Constellation made unrealistic assumptions about getting 20-30% of an increase in budget. He wound up not only killing the Vision at least temporarily, but lost even the previously constant NASA budget; instead he succeeded in getting it cut.

Orion is aiming for the ability to support a crew 21 days. CST100 is only aiming to support a crew for 2.5 days and I doubt that the ccdev version of any spacecraft will aim for more than 4-5 Days. Orion was also designed to support itself without a crew for six months. None of the CCDev craft save dragon in the form of dragon lab are designed for that.

One of the reasons why the ccdev craft are cheaper than Orion is because they can cut a lot of corners (i.e. You can get to and from the ISS a lot faster than to/from the moon and you won’t generate as much heat on reentry nor do you need as much delta V to dock with the ISS as you would need to return from lunar Orbit. Plus you can do with less radiation shielding. ).

The big problem with Orion is cost per unit which might not be so bad if the thing wasn’t disposable. That is the major turn off.

Orion has a role of sorts as a BEO crew transfer vehicle or BEO crew return vehicle. It is just that NASA can’ t afford the rest of the things you need to go with Orion (Habs for long duration missions like NEO, Landers, ect…). By itself Orion is pretty useless.

Its nice to see Dr. Logsdon studying Eisenhower’s space policy. The way I picture it, Eisenhower’s World War 2 experience led him to select great subordinates, and to listen to them. What did Logsdon have to say about Trevor Gardner in his book?

In the future there will be a need for a detailed history of the development of impact science.

I will point people to a couple of very long pieces on my blog:

A Few Observations
An Interesting Side Comment by Michael Griffin

Young people are avoiding science and engineering fields for a number of reasons. Insiders want people to believe it is matter of inspiring and educating said young people. They don’t want to believe reforms are needed in tech fields. Lives for people in tech fields are marked by very poor work-life balance, poor, sometimes abusive management and a lack of progress in various fields. I’ve tried informing people about reform, apparently to no effect.

That’s way too much for now. Jeff, thank you for this blog.