Miles Gray

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• Commented on Orion Starts Test Phase

  Very well said. Exactly the kind of strategic discussion that should have been going on over the last 6 years. While such discussions did go on in 2003 and 2004, I wonder where they have been in the last 5...

• Commented on Orion Starts Test Phase

  Actually I've designed, built and launched several spacecraft and have studied how to best implement planetary missions. Using conventional existing technology, lunar and planetary missions are at least two to three decades away (according to Augustine) so I am not...

• Commented on Orion Starts Test Phase

  So what you are saying is that advanced propulsion systems are not possible and that every mission has to be an Apollo mission in which we throw away the entire vehicle as we use it. In that case, don't plan...

• Commented on Orion Starts Test Phase

  Sure an architecture could be contrived that does what you are saying but there is little logic to what you suggest. Its a lot of unnecessary mass with no purpose to carry along on a multi-billion mile, multi-month expedition. And...

• Commented on NASA IT Summit Day 1

  You must be one of those community organizers. NASA does not seem to like community support or any kind of organization....

• Commented on Senate Passes NASA Authorization Act

  Boeing has every bit as much experience (actually maybe more) as Lockheed on manned spacecraft, and I suspect there will be little difference in when a Boeing CST vehicle could be ready. Boeing, no doubt will design their's for flexibility...

• Commented on Senate Passes NASA Authorization Act

  Regardless of whether Orion is months or even a year or two ahead of Dragon or the Boeing capsule, if Space-X and Boeing are serious about developing capsules that duplicate the Orion capabilities, then Orion needs to be halted so...

• Commented on Senate Passes NASA Authorization Act

  Extending Shuttle, moving the HLV forward and developing it now with much of the existing Shuttle hardware and remaining workforce, and keeping ISS going until we can figure out a use for it, are all the right things to do....

• Commented on Wayne Hale's New Job

  Very unfortunate that NASA takes the best and most experienced people and forces them out. Then they put these thirty-somethings and inexperience into leadership positions and wonder why they don't succeed. The entire NASA management ranks in human space flight...

• Commented on Getting Out of the Gravity Well on One Thin Dime

  Seems to me most or all of these technologies could be integrated into a sortie spacecraft that goes from ISS to higher orbits and eventually even circumlunar, asteroid or planetary missions. Something along the lines of the Buzz Aldrin proposal....

• Commented on The Senate NASA Compromise: A Hinge of History?

  http://www.spacecenterlectureseries.com/past.html http://www.spacecenterlectureseries.com/Franklin_ChangDiaz.html...

• Commented on The Senate NASA Compromise: A Hinge of History?

  Remember, Orion was selected because by using the Apollo shape it was simpler to design and could be readied in time to avoid a gap. Remember also that the current 16.5 ft dia Orion is smaller than what we started...

• Commented on White House/ Senate Compromise Reaction

  I don't think the SRB and ET are the expensive part of Shuttle or at least they do not need to be. But if the entire burden of maintaining the US solid rocket fuel industry is placed on maintaining NASA...

• Commented on White House/ Senate Compromise Reaction

  No doubt about it, it is a political compromise, and some of its tenets like the Shuttle extension comes too late to do much good. But I think we need to work with this compromise. I fully believe that developing...

• Commented on Rep. Pete Olson Needs A New News Watcher

  I agree with many of the points in both yours and Frank's comments. I believe there is still a large contingent,maybe a predominant portion of the NASA and contractor management, who are hanging onto the Constellation/Ares program and planning in...

• Commented on NASA's New AA for Public Affairs is David Weaver

  I wish him well and hopefully he can help NASA. NASA needs serious help in this area. I was just reviewing yesterday the initial inputs of Sterner and Hopkins, a couple of his predecessors. It does not take each of...

• Commented on This Week in Space - Griffin's Spin On Things

  I think you've raised a valid point. If you are not supportive or confident, then don't invest any money with Space-X. I expect the FAA will certify their man-carrying vehicle once they are happy that the company has met their...

• Commented on This Week in Space - Griffin's Spin On Things

  I don't think anyone needs to be reporting the status of any private employees, especially to you or on a public blog. Space-X, after all, is a private company funded with private and not public funds. Its probably a good...

• Commented on This Week in Space - Griffin's Spin On Things

  "zero manned space flight operational experience ...except for Mr. Bowersox who is an astronaut. Not one former flight controller or flight director." I know some of the people at Space X and they do have some former NASA flight controllers...

• Commented on This Week in Space - Griffin's Spin On Things

  Contrary to what Mike Griffin indicated, I think that NASA has put money into earlier commercial efforts. Spacehab was commercially owned and operated and NASA was their anchor tenant. Spacehab showed how to integrate and operate missions far less expensively...

• Commented on Huntsville Constellation Layoff Update

  I think you, Paul and Frank are both wrong. I think the American people could be counted on to support, in very limited fashion, exploration, or to support the initiation of development of the beginnings of a new infrastructure for...

• Commented on Falcon 9 Nails Orbit - First Stage Slams Hard into Atlantic

  No doubt about it. We are seeing and emerging new space race. The race is not between NASA's Constellation lunar program and China's or India's programs. NASA is not even involved. The race is between US industry and foreign industry....

• Commented on First-Ever NASA Ice Team HD Footage Release

  Statistically it is about even in terms of numbrs of deaths per number of people carried. There are a higher percentage of catastrophic failures of the Soyuz. As demonstrated in the recent Soyuz failures, when the modules fail to separate,...

• Commented on Let The Layoffs Begin

  The Orion team need not have assumed an over-constrained problem to start. The Vision did not say 'the first step is to land on the moon'. Lunar missions might have been in the plan in a decade or two, but...

• Commented on First-Ever NASA Ice Team HD Footage Release

  "I'm saying that compared to a capsule, in our own experience and that of the Russians with capsules, the Shuttle is less safe." How did you arrive at this conclusion? Shuttle has carried about 800 people to orbit in 135...

• Commented on Let The Layoffs Begin

  "The Orion team has done a great job of dealing with this landed mass issue and continues to refine the design/capability to maximize the spacecraft's ability to allow crew to walk away from nominal water, off-nominal water, and off-nominal land...

• Commented on Jeff Hanley Removed From CxP Management

  ISF??? Whats that? "Constellation never met its expected major goals because it was always underfunded." While the funding might have been one issue for the overall program, the program received adequate funding to get Orion and its launch vehicle (not...

• Commented on OSTP's New STEM Guy Is Out Of Synch With Upper Management

  If every individual employed with NASA dollars; not just NASA civil servants, but contractors and other support people too, goes out and speaks to an average sized school class, then perhaps 4.5 to 5 million students could be reached. Not...

• Commented on OSTP's New STEM Guy Is Out Of Synch With Upper Management

  "NASA ...'s main job is to explore space" Everything in the NASA Act is NASA's job. There are a lot of jobs besides exploring space. The first A, for instance,stands for Aeronautics. You are correct, its a matter of prioritization,...

• Commented on Bolden Vs Armstrong and Cernan: Clash of the Titans Round 2

  Fact is that in very general terms the Obama plan is really not a bad idea. But its missing the roadmap, the real plan. And there are a few specifics that make little to no sense: What is the real...