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Commented on Buzz Aldrin's Take On What Needs to be Done - Update
Frank Sietzen said... "Buzz has no hidden agenda." He does, however, have a vested business interest in sidemount SDLVs...... -
Commented on Fake Emails - Not A Good Sign (update)
The scam was uncovered when someone realized that although the letters were typed right-handed the signatures were typed left-handed...... -
Commented on Buzz Aldrin's Take On What Needs to be Done - Update
And of course inline trumps sidemount in overall costs, speed of deployment, and capabilities... One day Buzz will catch up and find out why sidemount lost out to the NLS... not the least reason of which is that sidemount requires... -
Commented on OSTP Space <strike>Summit</Strike> Conference Update
It's almost as if Keith was trolling for Direct responses. Which would be rather sad, but not very surprising at this stage. Editor's note: I am sorry but that is simply not true - and Stephen Metschan knows it. He... -
Commented on Alabama Political Donations Go National
Well, as this goes back to a certain Senator calling for investigations into Augustine Commission members commercial space ties it's all pretty much at the running-in-circles-backbiting stage here. Which Obama no doubt finds convenient... As for guilt-by-monetary-association you'll find that... -
Commented on Jay Barbree Needs A Fact Checker
The truth hurts. The new plan is garbage. "Truth"? What has truth got to do with Barbree's misinformation spree? The new plan will not be funded any more than the old plan was, which is a design feature, but that... -
Commented on Show Us The Money
Actually, while there will be a deal of extra work to keep shuttle going it's not so bad as all that... Remember that a primary objective of Griffin was to kill shuttle dead dead dead and thus a lot of... -
Commented on Show Us The Money
"What? How will developing new rockets help America's crew gap" One rocket. J-130 and J-246 are the same LV in different configurations. Build a J-246 and a J-130 is literally sitting inside that same LV. And thus you skipped the... -
Commented on Show Us The Money
There's no denying that the institutionalized myopia regarding the actual FUBAR state of Constellation is leaving huge holes in any argument to save HSF at NASA. And ordinarily such a shakeup as was theoretically proposed could have been a good... -
Commented on Show Us The Money
In the question lies the answer: too much expensive space hardware being built and serviced and the wages thereof going to undeserving lower classes. The best programs enable those sitting at the top to funnel the billions into their accounts... -
Commented on Show Us The Money
Well, that all depends on how much of teh awesome budget requires that Obama keep his promises... right? What's that? Only a few hundred million is actually up front and the rest is just promises down the road? Errr... okay...... -
Commented on Acts of Desperation
ex_navy said... "I am new at trying to follow up on campaign contributions..." It's a pretty open secret... http://www.opensecrets.org/ ... you'll find that Obama is very deep in the collective pockets of the really big corporate players... and those... -
Commented on Bolden and Holdren Fight Back
webbja said: "Has anyone really looked in detail at the financial plan of FalconX." Do you mean detailed breakdown? Probably a few dozen people at SpaceX. If you mean their schedule of projected costs for launches then that'd be a... -
Commented on Bolden and Holdren Fight Back
Best hope not... the corporations, and the oligarchs who control them, don't like public options. (Political background that segues into the relevant space stuff) The public option in health care is actually a good bellwether as to what will happen... -
Commented on Unions Are Also Split on Obama's Space Plan
Interesting... what world do you hail from where Obama does anything for labor without extorting an arm and a leg beforehand (health benefits tax) and forgetting his promises afterward? (too many to list here, EFCA for starters) Is that the... -
Commented on And So It Begins
Y'all just noticed that the Obama administration tends to disregard laws that it finds inconvenient? Just like its predecessor but with considerably more panache... :)... -
Commented on The Private Sector According to Steve Cook
Well, if the Griffin administration at NASA hadn't been constantly stripping stuff from Orion in order to cover for Ares 1's shortcomings perhaps Orion would be further advanced toward s its original design.. a capable enough cislunar transport that would... -
Commented on Commercial Space Conference Underway Despite Blizzard
What we need to do is to tell Greenland to to return control of the Gulf Stream to the U.S. immediately or else! Then we can send this weather back to them where it belongs... :)... -
Commented on China's Lunar Ambitions
"A rouge state", eh? I wonder if the turtles applied a good foundation layer before going for the color accents? And it's got to be good news for the budget when your space marines come with armor already installed... And... -
Commented on China's Lunar Ambitions
The next Desert RATS out is sure to be punctuated by the sound of cannon fire and missile launchers as the competition heats up! So would an armed and armored robotic lunar rover with an RTG power source be counted... -
Commented on You Know You Messaging Plan Is Not Working When ...
bolt_catcher wondered aloud... "@zapkitty: I am surprised to hear that "there is massive and bulky" GSE "built into the launch pad" for the SSME." Yes, the original "green" emergency manual system was judged to have insufficient cold cranking amps... http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html... -
Commented on You Know You Messaging Plan Is Not Working When ...
"More on the SSME (which is prohibitively expensive)" ... when ordered in small lots with a mandate to refurbish that does not save money but does add many expensive worker hours to the SSME bill. The timeline where the SSMEs... -
Commented on You Know You Messaging Plan Is Not Working When ...
From what I've read it wasn't the air start, although that in and of itself was a tough cookie as most of the SSME startup gear is actually massive and bulky ground support equipment that's built into the launch pad.... -
Commented on You Know You Messaging Plan Is Not Working When ...
"... then launch into a big 4+ paragraph post defending Obama and his healthcare plan." Uh... defending? Okay. That's pretty much all for that subject...... -
Commented on You Know You Messaging Plan Is Not Working When ...
"Yes HSF is more important than the government nationalizing 1/7 of the nation's economy by seizing the health care industry." Ah, an echo of the endless shrieking hysterics about Obama's non-existent "socialist" agenda. And that distraction is why you will... -
Commented on Erasing History - Not An Easy Task
This is less to do with the (admittedly dismal) Dem politics than with Keith hoping NASA will enable him to return to the glory days of Worm Watch :) As for the Democrats, their only hope is for them to... -
Commented on DIRECT Delusions
Actually, some arguments can be made for an all hydrolox launcher... :) But more seriously: when will it sink into Direct critics that the purpose of Direct was to provide a technically and politically feasible alternative launcher for the VSE...... -
Commented on Shelby Was For The Private Sector Before He Was Against It
Is it just me or did that particular rant seem to be mostly cut and paste from previous releases? At least his amazing Ares I hagiography should provide considerable entertainment as the negotiations proceed :)... -
Commented on Budget Summary: Constellation Is Cancelled Outright
Oh... here's a starting point for the long-overlooked enabling technologies: radiation shielding. Solar particles are a problem, to be sure, and a solar event while a crewed spacecraft was out beyond the Van Allen belts could be immediately fatal... but... -
Commented on Budget Summary: Constellation Is Cancelled Outright
I'd imagine that the requisite pork negotiations are going on. The opening gambit, that Obama's willing to cut Constellation outright, should start to sink in to even the most dense politicians. Bolden's talk at 12:30 should actually be a basic...
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