Paul451

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• Commented on Russian Soyuz-2.1b Launch Failure

  So Musk supports the only functioning US manned space activity (ISS). And you want it shut down. So I can say that unlike Musk, you are opposed to, and want to end, US manned spaceflight. Or would that be a...

• Commented on Russian Soyuz-2.1b Launch Failure

  Trailrider, "One thing that has been apparent since Obama took office, and to some extent before that: That is there has been NO leadership from the White House, and nebulous (NO pun intended) goals and objectives. Whereas John Kennedy set...

• Commented on NASA's Sprawling Web Presence

  Hmmm, if you establish a wikipedia style database for public contributors to link, and summarise and categorise, existing NASA material, you could unify the sites while saving a lot of the cost (compared to paying the usual web development costs...

• Commented on Back To The Moon - Minus The Great Big Rocket

  Dennis, "You want us to get back to the Moon? Gingrich has it right, $10 billion dollars to the first U.S. organization to get three people to the lunar surface and keep them alive there for one year." Start smaller....

• Commented on Last Minute Commercial Crew Status Meeting

  "NASA micromanages engineering and doesn't even seriously debate strategy and goals." In the current poisonous environment, can they even have goals? (And any strategy openly debated will be defeated before it leaves the room by those whose interests are challenged.)...

• Commented on NASA Uses Flexible Approach Toward Commercial Crew

  (Bit of a late reply...) "I prefer up front leadership as opposed to sneaky bastards, even if it supposedly achieves less, cause in the long run it will achieve more!" IMO, most legendary Great Leaders either were Sneaky Bastards behind...

• Commented on Stratolaunch Systems Unveiled

  "If you do want to think of air launch as staging okay but then that means that there are two staging events on the way to orbit" There are two staging events. It's a three stage launch system. The first...

• Commented on Stratolaunch Systems Unveiled

  "You also lose the hold down and engine test." And how is that any different to every other stage separation in the history of space-flight? I'm not sure why everyone's getting their knickers in a twist over it....

• Commented on NOAA Employees Have More Freedom to Speak Than NASA Employees

  Miles Gray, "they will ostracize you and take away your job functions and responsibilities. [...] I've heard senior management say that 20% of NASA employees are being handled in this manner." When I see things like that, especially if 1...

• Commented on NASA Uses Flexible Approach Toward Commercial Crew

  Someone at NASA is trying really hard keep CCDev viable. Given how hard others are trying to keep CCDev from being viable, this is a welcome relief. (I know everyone's obsessed with "Leadership", but sometimes being a sneaky bastard can...

• Commented on Why is NASA Langley Wasting Time on Cold Fusion Research?

  Sorry Steve, wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. I've been following Rossi&co for awhile, and there's been a lot of hysterical claims about oil companies and governments suppressing the technology, or assassinating Rossi, etc. It's gotten on my...

• Commented on Newt Skywalker

  "there's not going to be a spacecraft with Pan Am written on the side of it." Actually, someone still owns the rights to the Pan Am brand and globe logo. A rail-freight company, if it hasn't changed hands again. Of...

• Commented on Why is NASA Langley Wasting Time on Cold Fusion Research?

  "I suspect that in the long run, our biggest problem with a genuine energy "solution" will be keeping it out of the hands of the oil companies." Has that ever actually happened? We know there have been been political cover-ups...

• Commented on Why is NASA Langley Wasting Time on Cold Fusion Research?

  I've been watching the Rossi thing since January. The interesting thing is that even if it turns out to be real, Rossi is the worst salesman ever. The cold-fusion/free-energy crowd have been perfect fanboi cheer squad, he has supposedly been...

• Commented on COTS Faces Reality

  dbooker, "Stan, start using your namesake brain." Or you could spend two minutes using Google? "What happened to all of the ORBCOMM flights that were supposed to be flown in 2011? Why? is it due to ORBCOMM? Are the satellites...

• Commented on Neil Tyson: Misquoted or Missing The Point?

  I wasn't really bemoaning the day-to-day waste, but the lack of apparent continuity over the past 40+ years. Nearly every other vehicle type, even rare stuff like ice-breaker ships, have had a continuous development path. With NASA, everything is so...

• Commented on New SLS NRA Ready for Release

  martijn, "I'd rather have the solid booster version fail and SLS canceled than to see them successfully replaced with liquid boosters. Even if it takes another couple of years of pretend development." However, if SLS fails because it goes massively...

• Commented on Neil Tyson: Misquoted or Missing The Point?

  Zack, "NASA is not having a hard time replicating Apollo because of technology ... they are having a hard time replicating Apollo because they are getting less than 1/10th of the Apollo funding adjusted for inflation and their scope is...

• Commented on NASA Mars Science Laboratory Launch Delayed

  "3. Spacecraft are not designed to survive abort rockets, parachute opening shocks or landing loads" MSL? Seriously? Then it's going to be in for a nasty surprise when it gets to Mars....

• Commented on Large NASA Programs: Located In Florida = "Jobs", Out of State = "Boondoggle, Pork"

  jupiter watcher, "OK! I will stop asking the question." Again you seem to be almost deliberately missing the point. No one has told you to stop asking questions, we are trying to get you to answer a question: What do...

• Commented on NASA Mars Science Laboratory Launch Delayed

  I'm wasn't just concerned about a plutonium spill, I was thinking more about saving the rest of the giant multi-billion dollar rover. Shouldn't it be as protected during launch as a manned mission? Likewise JWST, if and when it launches?...

• Commented on Large NASA Programs: Located In Florida = "Jobs", Out of State = "Boondoggle, Pork"

  jupiter watcher " "...how that was meant to help..." -- Well it would help me to know where they stand. " You keep ignoring the actual question. If you were Obama or Bolden, dealing with the situation they're dealing with,...

• Commented on Large NASA Programs: Located In Florida = "Jobs", Out of State = "Boondoggle, Pork"

  And others who replied to my first comment: I thought the "Poe's law" disclaimer at the end would have been enough, but apparently not. It was sarcasm. I wasn't actually yelling at CadetOne. He's one of the more insightful and...

• Commented on Large NASA Programs: Located In Florida = "Jobs", Out of State = "Boondoggle, Pork"

  jupiter watcher, "I have expressed serious doubts as to whether a SpaceX could remain viable to foster a Mars (or moon) "colony" because of the great expenditires required." However, SpaceX's MO is to profit from each stage of development in...

• Commented on Large NASA Programs: Located In Florida = "Jobs", Out of State = "Boondoggle, Pork"

  CadetOne, "Quite simply put, this is Congress trying to scuttle a private space industry." You're clearly too stupid to understand. Those hobby rocketeers like SpaceX are unreliable. For eg, SpaceX was scheduled to fly COTS 2/3 to the ISS before...

• Commented on NASA Mars Science Laboratory Launch Delayed

  Re: Kablooie-ing the reactor. This is where you see a lack of program modularity. The MPCV/Orion team should have offered a "free" LAS tower to hoist the payload away from a range-detonated launcher. They're already being built for testing, just...

• Commented on Looking Beyond Low Earth Orbit

  CadetOne, " (1) HSF is actually scaled back in the near term, and this funding is used for robotic exploration of the Moon and NEOs. The key is that once a reason is identified for human presence, then the dollars...

• Commented on Clay Anderson: Too Honest for NASA?

  Marcel, If Obama announced tomorrow a 25 year NASA program, to do exactly what you want, (ie, lunar polar base, then a rotating L5 station, then a manned base on Phobos, all leading to a permanently manned Martian base), all...

• Commented on NASA Can't Explain What MSL Is Looking For - And What It Can Find

  "your first step is to use these sorts of detection methods (looking for metabolic products or substrate consumption [...]" So why haven't they? From the outside, it feels like there's some kind of push-back against any suggestion of an instrument...

• Commented on NASA Can't Explain What MSL Is Looking For - And What It Can Find

  spacermase, "my understanding is that MSL does not have instrumentation to directly detect lifeforms" In your experience is there a fear of ridicule (or something) keeping NASA/JPL from putting instruments on recent (and next) landers and rovers, capable of directly...