“Romney has positive things to say about cold fusion.”

Yes, he said:

“I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with — with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.”

He tries so hard. He does. You can tell he’s really interested in certain things, but then he just racks his brain for things to say that sound presidential and he ends up advocating for passengers opening windows on airplanes and such.

One other thing to wonder about him – why are his science frames of reference so far in the past? Why couldn’t he have mentioned high-efficiency gas turbines that can use the CNG coming from all the fracking going on, or the work being done to upgrade our national electricity grid (i.e. Smart Grid). Those are much more likely to affect the national GDP than cold fusion.

Maybe this is why his handlers don’t want him to be discussing details too much…

I can’t say I’m surprised, just disappointed.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/transcript-of-our-interview-with-mitt-romney/article/992671#.UGEnsq72ZLd

For a fella who considers Russia our biggest foe, even though we partner with them on the ISS and capitalist McDonald’s is in Red Square, it’s par for the course. At first, you’d want to give him the benefit of the doubt and lay it with another aborted attempt of humor, but reading the text and listening to it on the tube, it’s clear he’s just ignorant- or to borrow your refrain, ‘goofy’ about it– and most likely other aviation, aerospace and defense matters. Expect him to insist submarines need screen doors installed to get some more fresh air to sailors after he tours the Electric Boat Works in Connecticut then give a policy speech to thwart global warming by using less fresh air by breathing through one nostril. But his space policy is crackerjack… isn’t it. A prize in ever box. What it is, remains a mystery. Apologies for typos.

“Rand said: “Man rating” is a meaningless phrase.

DCSCA said: Not to the men who have to ride it”

Ask the men and women that risked their lives riding the Shuttle about “human rating”. Ask them what they were told to do when something went wrong.

“Human rating” seems to be whatever NASA wants it to be at the moment. Now that the Shuttle is retired, they want something better (which is good), but they were fine for 30 years with something pretty fragile.

The Commercial Crew systems (rockets + spacecraft) will be far safer on day one than the Shuttle ever was, and that’s before NASA requirements are added.

Can can stop your huffing and puffing.

“Perhaps that’s what Boeing are concerned about.”

Could be. It could be legitimate concern, or it could be their way of getting more money out of Congress.

Let’s remember that Boeing is a very savvy government contractor, and they know how things work in Congress. Also, it looks like there is no currently identified funding to build the Atlas V launch infrastructure (remember Boeing is a co-owner of ULA), so if they could get Congress concerned about a lack of competition with Commercial Crew, then maybe they could get Congress to make sure it gets funded soon.

This has a ways to go before we know if it’s a concern.

“Man rating” is a meaningless phrase.

Not to the men who have to ride it– but then you’re on record on this forum holding the value of the hardware higher than the people who’d have to ride it. For shame.

For a fella who considers Russia our biggest foe, even though we partner with them on the ISS and capitalist McDonald’s is in Red Square, it’s par for the course. At first, you’d want to give him the benefit of the doubt and lay it with another aborted attempt of humor, but reading the text and listening to it on the tube, it’s clear he’s just ignorant- or to borrow oyur refrain, ‘goofy’ on it– and most likley other aviation, aerospace and defense matters. Expect him to insist submarines need screen doors installed to get some more fresh air to sailors after he tours the Electric Boat Works in Connecticut then give a policy speech to thwart global warming by using less fresh air and treathing through one nostril. But his space policy is crackerjack… isn’t it. A prize in ever box. What is is, remains a mystery.

“merely because you have not heard of something does not mean it does not exist. NASA has written standards covering man-rating.”

Written documents, sure, but some sort of relevant standard, no, not really. I mean they said the Shuttle was “human-rated”, even though there was no reliable way to save the crew if something went wrong. The SpaceX Dragon is likely safer in it’s current configuration (i.e. not specifically “human-rated”) than the Shuttle ever was.

“The Atlas V modifications include the addition of an Emergency Detection System that monitors the launch vehicle that can trigger the Launch Abort System.”

The study that determined what was needed was done under $6.8M CCDev-1 contract.

“In flight testing of that could easily cost easily cost several hundred million dollars just to buy the rockets.”

Now we get to the heart of what we both have been talking about, which I think has been two different things.

Yes, Boeing at some point will have to demonstrate pad-abort and inflight-abort for the CST-100, but that is not part of the CCiCap milestone schedule for Boeing – they only get through CDR, not actual flights. SpaceX will be doing both a pad-abort and inflight-abort as part of their Dragon’s CCiCap milestone schedule.

What was on my mind when I first responded to your post is the infrastructure changes required to launch crew on Atlas V. There are pad changes that need to happen, a crew ingress/egress tower, and a crew escape system that needs to be added. Other stuff too probably. THAT is what my response addressed as not being part of Boeings CCiCap award, since that is ULA specific. But I wasn’t clear, so apologies for the confusion.

However, if Boeing is taken off the CCiCap program, then Sierra Nevada could inherit part/all of their part of the funding to accelerate Dream Chaser. Again, the great thing about competition is that there are always other choices, which is why many of us have hoped NASA would pursue a course of multiple suppliers for both cargo and crew.

The Atlas V modifications include the addition of an Emergency Detection System that monitors the launch vehicle that can trigger the Launch Abort System.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Detection_System

In flight testing of that could easily cost easily cost several hundred million dollars just to buy the rockets.