Comments on: Bolden and House appropriators spar on various issues

By: vulture4

vulture4 — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 21:51:14 +0000

Bolden should know his rockets better, but I’m just happy he stood up to the committee.

To quote Mark Twain: “Suppose I were a member of Congress. And suppose I were an idiot. But, I repeat myself.”

By: Andrew Swallow

Andrew Swallow — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 19:12:02 +0000

We do know which launcher each company bid in CCiCap and CPC. Changing the launch vehicle will obviously add time and cost. One of the aims of the down select is to save time and money – doing the opposite is close to volunteering to be the one cut.

By: Malmesbury

Malmesbury — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 17:55:26 +0000

Marine Corp General. Yes, that is a position typically held by useless celebrities.

Sigh. There is a difference between speech making and leadership. The belief that the former indicates anything about the later always strikes me as weird.

By: Malmesbury

Malmesbury — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 12:29:38 +0000

I’m not sure I understand why SNC and Boeing are “mercenaries”. That could even be considered a bit libellous.

Incidently Boeing seem to be going for the model of NASA astronauts flying CST-100, rather than the taxi model.

Are FedEx “mercenaries” when their aircraft are used to deliver supplies for the US military?

Orion at this point may never work. It needs to loose 25% of it’s all up weight. Interestingly, Dreamchaser, CST-100 and DragonRider are all well inside their weight reserves. The version of Orion flying this year *can’t* carry people. Arguably it is less capable than Dragon.

I know it is upsetting – Bolden refusing to down select to SpaceX, so the haters in Congress can terminate commercial crew and open the gap to 2021… So annoying, eh?

By: James

James — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:56:35 +0000

Bolden was an astronaut, living the life of celebrity and sycophantic admiration, and prior was military. People followed him because the org chart said they had to. Same now.
Not much of a leader.

By: James

James — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:53:59 +0000

Bolden said later that, if science from SOFIA was sufficiently compelling, â€œmy guess is that there will be people standing in line to add their funds to maintaining SOFIA.â€

Well, there is no doubt JWST is ‘compelling science’ and when JWST had funding issues, where were all the people standing in line to add funds to save it? No where to be found.
In the end, the US funded it.

By: Coastal Ron

Coastal Ron — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 06:38:59 +0000

Andrew Swallow said:

“Russian engines are used by the Atlas V and the Antares launch vehicles. If Bolden had named them then Congress could have disqualified the CST-100, Dreamchaser and Cygnus.”

Not sure how that would have disqualified them.

Let’s all remember though that Boeing has said in the past that they could fly CST-100 on a Falcon 9, and Sierra Nevada has no doubt considered a Falcon 9 too (and maybe Ariane 5). We won’t know what launcher they bid until August or so.

By: Andrew Swallow

Andrew Swallow — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 04:06:59 +0000

Russian engines are used by the Atlas V and the Antares launch vehicles. If Bolden had named them then Congress could have disqualified the CST-100, Dreamchaser and Cygnus. Leaving the SpaceX Dragon as monopoly transport to the ISS (although Blue Origin may return).

By ‘forgetting’ Bolden kept the companies in the running for Commercial Crew and Commercial Resupply Services 2.

By: Jeff Foust

Jeff Foust — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 02:14:12 +0000

The Administrator doesnâ€™t know what a prime competitor (one he inappropriately says he â€œhopes winsâ€) launches on?

To clarify, Bolden did not say that he hopes SNC wins the ongoing commercial crew competition, but rather that he hopes that they submitted a proposal.

By: Andrew French

Andrew French — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 01:37:22 +0000

It is becoming more and more clear why the agency is in the shape it’s in. The Administrator doesn’t know what a prime competitor (one he inappropriately says he “hopes wins”) launches on? He doesn’t understand the difference between a budget “authorization” and a budget “request”? And then he characterizes the cancellation of SOFIA as “just a proposal”. He has never been able to explain a single budget request. Either he doesn’t support them or he doesn’t understand them. Not sure which is worse. But both have allowed the disfunctioning Congrss to prevail.