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• Commented on Stratolaunch Systems Unveiled

  No doubt. Burt should be careful who he rubs elbows with. Steve Cook, Dave King, and Mike Griffin. Two losers and an arrogant jerk. I'm glad someone is doing something different and advancing a new concept, NASA sure as hell...

• Commented on Space Policy: Where Next?

  Your statement, "the manpower/expertise base needs to be applied to the new systems development," ignores the elephant in the room that no one seems to see. NASA HSF has no expertise in new systems development, it's gone. There are small...

• Commented on Atlas V Moves Closer To Human Rating

  We could be flying OSP on the Atlas V today had the Hallucination for Space Exploration not been foisted on us. Hey, let's go back to the Moon on our existing budget!...

• Commented on Senate Hearing on Human Spaceflight

  This just shows that the Senate committee has no clue how NASA works. Why would they want to talk the Center Directors about NASA's plans for exploration? Center Directors are only responsible for "roads and commodes" and have no real...

• Commented on NASA Offers Buyouts To Employees

  For many who've been around over 30 years, this $25K is only about 3 months pay. Why retire and take a cut in pay for a paltry $25K, when you can "hang around" and remain retired in place at full...

• Commented on Virginia Vs Florida in Space

  Florida could lose this battle in the long run. If you come to launch from here, you have to deal with NASA bureaucracy and incompetence, not to mention the Air Force range. That last one alone is enough to drive...

• Commented on NASA's New Strategy: Close Its Reference Libraries

  KSC's library has been in the process of shutting down for more than a year. We've also had shuttle bus service terminated, cafeterias closed, grounds unkept, and even gates closed during non-working hours requiring off-shift people to drive many miles...

• Commented on NASA IG Sends Cops in Flack Vests After 74 Year Old, 4'11" Grandmother

  Many federal agencies now have SWAT teams thanks to the war on terror. NASA has it's own SWAT teams. We certainly have one at KSC, although it sounds like this was a local law enforcement SWAT team. If ever this...

• Commented on NASA's Perception of Size and Commerce

  By the way, we have the same problem with 21CGSP at KSC. The program office has more staff in civil servants and contractors than the engineering organizations doing the actual work. The follow-on programs to CxP will collapse under their...

• Commented on NASA's Perception of Size and Commerce

  NASA is a jobs program, not a space agency. Commercial crew shouldn't have anybody working for it. We should just let LSP buy rides just like they do for NASA satellites. Give LSP 10 more people to do the technical...

• Commented on Florida is Getting Greedy About Human Space Flight

  Well, NASA HSF has become nothing but a jobs program. This is the legacy of the Shuttle program. Now these folks are running NASA HSF, right into the ground I might add. They blew it with Constellation, and now with...

• Commented on More Sour Grapes From Mike Griffin

  This man knows nothing about rocket/propulsion science and has no authority to speak on the subject whatsoever. Ares I was his personal rocket concept and it was technically flawed to the point of killing any chance we had of replacing...

• Commented on Russia Has Decided To Throw the ISS Away in 2020 (Update)

  If Russia bails, the ISS will have to be deorbited. There would be no capability to reboost it's orbit. We deleted the prop modules (S2 and P2 truss segments) when the Russians were brought into ISS because the Zvezda module...

• Commented on Mike Griffin was against the Space Shuttle before he was for it

  The last gap was just under 6 years (July '75 to April '81). I wouldn't call that 'almost a decade'. You could say there were two gaps in Shuttle that lasted about 30 months each for a total of 5...

• Commented on Mike Griffin is Still Unhappy

  The only thing obvious is your complete lack of honesty. US capability to fly humans into space was dismantled well beyond the point of no return during the prior administration. The Shuttle may quit flying this year, but the ability...

• Commented on House Budget Report Language Authorizes RIFs

  At KSC, an FTE for a GS-14 is about $140K per year. That includes base pay ($110K), annual and sick leave ($12K), medical benefits ($10K), and 401K ($8K). The FTE no longer includes power, phone, computers, office space, etc. because...

• Commented on Looking Back at the Shuttle Program

  The Shuttle program could have operated much cheaper. A big part of the costs were the empires built by those in charge of the program. Everyone is lamenting about 7,000 layoffs at KSC, and I think to myself "why in...

• Commented on Congressional Move to Cancel Webb

  This is the House Appropriations subcommittee plan. Mikulski is in the Senate, I doubt she has anything to do with this plan. X-33 was cancelled because it was a threat to Shuttle. The Shuttle empire trashed a lot of good...

• Commented on House Appropriations Committee Targets NASA for Deep Budget Cut

  Elections have consequences....it's what the people wanted....

• Commented on OIG Report on Commercial Crew Transportation Services

  NASA does not need a Commercial Crew Program Office, it's just another empire being built. They should just use LSP to buy launch services. It works for multi-billion dollar payloads, it will work for Commercial Crew. LSP is a mature...

• Commented on Where You Stand Depends On Where You Sit

  What has failed us more than Washington, D.C. is NASA's own mismanagement and incompetence over the last 20 years. HSF sacrificed its own design and development capability at the Operations alter and now we are incapable of succeeding in any...

• Commented on SLS Decision Soon?

  This thing is DOA, just like Constellation was when it was started. Not enough money and not enough competence in NASA. I see the folly every day. Idiots in charge....

• Commented on Constellation Program Officially Comes to an End

  I predicted this on January 14, 2004, the day Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration (and I have the email to prove it). I knew when Bush announced we were going back to the Moon on our existing budget...

• Commented on Raffaello Cargo Module Gets Prepped for Final Shuttle Flight

  The MPLMs were required to meet the same leak rate requirements as the permanent modules. I remember the Italians bitching about this during PDR and CDR because they had to contend with the huge seal on the Aft Access Closure....

• Commented on Shelby on SLS - Open it to Competition and No Shuttle Boosters

  What I've heard for SLS is ET-diameter core and US, RS-25 (SSME) core engines, J-2X US engine, and initial SRB boosters (until inventory is depleted) with future boosters open to competition (solids or liquids). What I didn't hear was if...

• Commented on Building Upon Kennedy's Space Legacy - Half A Century Later

  And by the way, it was Nixon that grounded JFK's space legacy when he canceled the Apollo program. Obama was 40 years too late to be blamed for that one....

• Commented on Building Upon Kennedy's Space Legacy - Half A Century Later

  Noel, You are wrong. Griffin was the worst administrator NASA ever had. He single-handedly destroyed HSF at NASA by taking the one chance we had with the VSE and foisting his pet rocket concept on the Agency. He is living...

• Commented on DARPA's 100 Year Starship Study

  Oh, and the military is not competent in it's development programs either, though moreso than NASA. They just have the deep pockets to finish their poorly managed projects. Look at F-22 and F-35 as examples. F-22 was planned as a...

• Commented on DARPA's 100 Year Starship Study

  You obviously don't know anything about Constellation other than what you read in the blogs. Constellation did not fail because of a lack of funding or dissenting opinions by a few employees with the smarts to know the design was...

• Commented on NASA Commercial Crew Program Requirements Workshop

  By your definition, there is no such thing as a "commercial" industry in this country. The US government subsidized practically every single industry in our "free market" system. The bigger the industry, the more the subsidy. We currently subsidize the...