Ray

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• Commented on The Long Confusing Path Toward Space Station Utilization

  Not sure why anyone is surprised about this, NASA's latest failure to deliver on what they promise. When I first heard about the CASIS award, and did some research on them, it was clear they were a non-existent entity. So...

• Commented on Lenovo ThinkPads in Space: Fact Checking

  Guys, You just have to realize the industrial version of "to the victor goes the spoils", which is namely "to the buyer go all the bragging rights of the purchased." Lenovo bought the entirety of the Thinkpad line, including its...

• Commented on Video: Start Your Day With A Cosmic Bang

  NASA runs the risk of becoming irrelevant Too late! Already there. :) But I continue to applaud your efforts to hold them accountable and get them to clean up their act and be responsible with my money they get to...

• Commented on ISS U.S. National Laboratory: Where is the CASIS Website?

  Wow, well I am right with you on this one, Keith. Unfortunately, this is the kind of schedule failure that is all to common in the US aerospace industry these days. Lots of talk and blustering, but when we start...

• Commented on SLS Procurement: Still Waiting For The Details (Update)

  Spaceace: You recall when Elon told the Augustine commission that he could build the FalconXX for 5 BILLION dollars! Well you think that number was high or low? DUHHHHH! It was HIGH!!! They laughed at him REMEMBER! His number seemed...

• Commented on NASA Exploration Ideas - With Added China Bashing (Update)

  In addition to having become a Regulation Nation, we are also a nation both transfixed by, and drowning in, Powerpoint presentations. I would like to know the total count of PPT presentations (and total slide count) inside NASA walls. When...

• Commented on Space Commerce: NASA Changes Its Mind - Again

  We are a Regulation Nation. The more you regulate, the less risk you tolerate. The less risk you tolerate, the less innovation you incubate. The less innovation you incubate, the more your industry stagnates....

• Commented on More Climate Change Arm Waving

  Hmmm. Real-world data in a peer-reviewed study that falsifies assumptions of a non-real model is "arm waving"? No wonder science has been co-opted by politics....

• Commented on Craig Steidle Will Head Commercial Spaceflight Federation (Update)

  I am with Mr. Muncy. Well said, Jim. Sounds like his background is in big cost plus aerospace. And he correctly identified some problems and proposed some remedies. Big state sponsored aerospace can't be "fixed" I think you should do...

• Commented on Craig Steidle Will Head Commercial Spaceflight Federation (Update)

  Let the spiraling begin! A great choice. Strategy-to-task-to-technology works. Let's hope he gets along with Elon....

• Commented on JSC Loses Its Grip On Human Spaceflight

  This has nothing to do with Obama needing to win Florida. You keep telling yourself that. And then remind yourself of Obama's drive-by of KSC on his way to Gloria Estefan's political fundraiser. It is simply cost effective to consolidate...

• Commented on JSC Loses Its Grip On Human Spaceflight

  No surprise there. Obama needs to win Florida (and will have a tough time even with this bone being thrown), and already knows he has no chance to win Texas. Sorry, but NASA has been and likely will continue to...

• Commented on ISS National Lab CAN Provides Old, Incomplete Documents

  It is an unofficially recognized problem, at least among us rank and file folks. Docs are standalone, and are just so damned old school it makes me sick. When full-up systems engineering is done right (what IT folks call Enterprise...

• Commented on James Hansen Continues To Have Special Privileges

  A key tactic of the deniers is personalizing the issue How ironic, given that Hansen himself personalizes the issue when he says that the CEOs of "Big Oil" should go to jail. Hansen's vehment activism for what is clearly a...

• Commented on HEFT II Presentation to the NAC

  Whether bidding in response to an RFP or approaching the government for an initial buy-in to a program, the contractor(s) will deliberately understate the costs in order to make their bid more competitive or make the program more palatable to...

• Commented on Congress Rejects NASA's HLV Plans

  because we have one hell of a crisis in American Aerospace today. You are so very right, Dennis. And politics and bureaucracy are NOT the way this crisis is going to get fixed. Your comments about the young management team...

• Commented on HEFT II Presentation to the NAC

  Miles, You are right. It is not a technical problem. And it is only a budgetary problem in the sense of "non-value-added, bureaucratic and process-for-process-sake overhead." While NASA could be the worst offender, it is not just NASA but it...

• Commented on NASA Releases LEO Commercial Crew Certification Requirements

  Neil, After reading the requirements I was pleasantly surprised. They don't micromanage the vendor Right, but only because they cannot cover all aspects in this document. Rather, they leave the micro-managing for the "Program Manager" who will unilaterally determine the...

• Commented on NASA Releases LEO Commercial Crew Certification Requirements

  Steve, I'm glad to see that some of us got the main point — this spec applies to commercial companies doing NASA contracts only, and has no bearing on the commercial industry as a whole. Why is it that every...

• Commented on NASA Releases LEO Commercial Crew Certification Requirements

  This is exactly what Wayne Hale warned about. It is business as usual at NASA. Nothing has changed. These requirements are going to ensure commercial human spaceflight will never be permitted to be profitable. Not only is the list of...

• Commented on What Would Elon Do?

  starting to lose its luster? I beg to differ. It lost its luster many years ago when it was faced with the serious wake up call known as Challenger and yet it did not blink, nor enact the substantial change...

• Commented on Webb Problems at NASA: Rewarding Bad Management

  I could not have said it any better myself, Steve. You nailed it on all counts. And as you point out, this is NOT just a NASA "inside the walls" problem. It is also a DoD and contractor community problem....

• Commented on New Crew Transportation Requirements NASA Won't Let You See (Update)

  Oh I just cannot wait for these requirements to finally see the light of day. I am going to have a field day with them (because, of course, any requirements the GOV levies on commercial enterprises are subject to public...

• Commented on Webb Fixes Need To Start On The 9th Floor

  And so the Obama/Bolden/Garver version of NASA has changed very little from their predecessors in most regards. No surprises here. Political and bureaucratic inertia is more difficult to overcome than mass inertia. You would need not just a HLV to...

• Commented on Bigelow Begins Human Rating Life Support System

  majormajor42: But is there a problem with the FAA model? Are there criticisms of the way that the FAA conducts their side of the certification business? Oh, without a doubt! There is certainly no shortages of improvements that could be...

• Commented on Bigelow Begins Human Rating Life Support System

  Nice marketing blurb to generate hype. But once you use the words "human rating", you then invoke the obvious question "to what standards?" NPR 8705.2B? If so, then is NASA going to certify that it meets said standards? To be...

• Commented on Justice Department Ignorance of NASA Security

  And yet... cocaine was found in the VAB. Go figure. Like it or not, most of what NASA does, indeed does have national security implications. Just look at the whole ITAR issue, regardless of whether you think some of it...

• Commented on Bolden's China Trip: Its His Idea, Not Obama's (Update)

  I guess this is just another data point with respect to the current WH occupant's management skills. I guess controlling the vast bureacracy of the Executive branch really is not anything like organizing a community, is it? At this point,...

• Commented on Pointless Lawsuit Over Public Domain NASA Photo

  Folks, While I am in complete agreement that this lawsuit is bogus, I would encourage you to step back for a moment, and view this as the symptom it is of the larger disease of what our society has become....

• Commented on Update on Bolden's Return To The Middle East (With Full Itinerary)

  There are a total of 11 quests going on this trip. Given how they are all bouncing from Europe to Saudia Arabia to Nepal and then back to the U.S., each traveller's airline ticket is going to be $2,000 -...