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

  You are right: reboost and even "deboost" energy-wise is not the issue! The issue is sufficient attitude control at low altitude (below about 120 n. mi.) because of the exponentially increasing aerodynamic pressure torques! Those of us who have looked...

• Commented on Rejoice Comrades! Glorious Era of Soyuz Begins (Update)

  Best get your history "right", guy (or gal): Yes, the Russians launched the first Soyuz in 1967 (in an obvious and frankly very insensitive "one-up" show of "Soviet superiority" over Apollo, which had suffered the tragic fire a few months...

• Commented on China's Space Station

  How old are you and how much do you actually know about the space shuttle? I'm sorry but your naivete (ignorance) is appalling!How is crew transport "the hardest of the things" it did? Ridiculous! Most would argue that was the...

• Commented on Discovery Returns From Space For The Last Time

  I repeat: Putting it out to pasture will be the DUMBEST thing NASA has ever done! (And that's saying a lot!) Working better than it ever has--as safe as the next generation crew vehicle will ever be--costs the same or...

• Commented on NIAC Is Back

  Libby, you've hit the nail on the head! 80% (at least) of NASA's troubles are due to the bureaucracy!(I know whereof I speak, having been mired inside it for my last 10 years of a 27 year CS career!)It's what...

• Commented on Gazing Out The Window

  Re Bigelow and Big Windows: It is extremely difficult to put big windows on Inflatables in space. But it's academic anyway, he won't have a taxi to get those millionaires up there for 10 years---minimum! And, he'll have an even...

• Commented on Adios, Outpost

  Did everyine miss the irony in that the Fire Station is about 100 yards down the road? What do you bet the new "owner" who shut this monument down had a ton of insurance on the place that he was...

• Commented on Back to the Past

  AMEN, GREevererett! You NAILED the NYT and its "all the news that fits....its socialist agenda"! Hopefully your nails are just some of many nails in its pending coffin! There are many in the NASA community far from NYC that share...

• Commented on Back to the Past

  Baloney--this is typical know-nothing liberal "dreamer" blather from the NYT. "New technologies" are developed to accomplish specific mission (or groups of missions) requirements/objectives not "pie-in-the-sky" hopes for "progress" on a vague goal, like "BEO exploration" or "commercial space business"! The...

• Commented on Human Exploration Framework Team Presentation Online

  I pretty much agree with moonman (I'm another old "moonguy" myself). None of us who worked Shuttle (BEFORE we landed on the Moon!)ever believed the 50 flts/year BS that was foisted on Congress to justify and amortize Shuttle costs but...

• Commented on Progress 38P Docks With ISS

  Dream on! Even if SpaceX does that 5-10 years from now--the Russians will have raised the price (which btw is closer to $56M!) to $150M per seat in 2013! And, another little fact most don't know, the US pays that...

• Commented on Draft NASA HLV BAA Released

  RC, how do "we know" shuttle extension isn't happening? And, actually, although I personally think SD HLV lift could be made to "be adequate" for BEO missions, there are many who say even it does not provide for the real...

• Commented on An Editorial That Is NOT Written By A Moon Walker

  I'm also an engineer in Houston and have probably been one here since before "James" was born! I am just happy I don't know him and he doesn't work with or for me, since his naivete (not to mention ignorance)...

• Commented on Moving Ahead With the ISS National Lab

  Good point Earthshine--but the REAL showstopper (and why ISS extension to 2020 is a farce) is that after Shuttle is retired, the vaunted "access to ISS" is only for small experiments and payloads--AND, there is virtually NO down payload capability--yeah,...

• Commented on Presidential Space Visit Update

  Not only can someone fly on the Orion-lite CRV but (here's the clever part of the New Plan) it may go up (unmanned) on an EELV and/or a Falcon-9 or whatever (with a little re-design might even go in a...

• Commented on Presidential Space Visit Update

  Speaking of You Tube---here's an apropos video song to the Constellation situation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILj28Lvm47Q The lyrics are below the screen. Yeah, I know, it shows pix of ISS not CxP but mox nix!...

• Commented on Bigelow Is Looking For a Few Good Astronauts

  "I have always heard positive comments about Bigelow.' Well, sorry, Chuck, then you haven't talked to MANY who worked (for a while) for him! Not only does he not have a clue---but his management style is, let's just say, "Goldin-like"!!!!...

• Commented on NASA's Most Important Asset, Gerry Griffin, 31 December 1996

  WOW! Those 5 comments (as I write this) by "moonman, Ray, possum, rkoenn, and Carl", along with Jerry G.'s excellent thinly veiled (well-deserved)shot at the Goldin Screw and his sycophants who almost destroyed NASA in the '90's,are the most cogent,...

• Commented on Bolden Responds To Congress over Constellation Actions

  Best check YOUR "facts" before calling the "kettle black", for example: 1)I believe the VASIMR works (Chang-Diaz's) are in Costa Rica not Puerto Rico! (Hopefully it will get a demo on ISS) 2)The Altair was "put on hold" not officially...

• Commented on Bolden Responds To Congress over Constellation Actions

  Here's a little song I've written that I think captures the current mood, around the HSF parts of NASA anyway: Hotel Constellation On a doomed NASA Project, rumors flying anywhere The threat of cancellation rising up in the air Up...

• Commented on Space Shuttle Endeavour Lands

  Another tremendously successful mission accomplished by the LAME-DUCK Shuttle---and now only a few more flights before they put this amazing machine "out to pasture" (not even to stud service!) ! Yes, it's "expensive" but tell me again WHY it's being...

• Commented on Detailed NASA Budget Materials Now Online

  "The T&R budget includes funds needed for assets such as the Mission Control Center, the launch pads, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the Launch Control Center to prepare these assets for modification, and use for future needs, or transferred to...

• Commented on Public-private Partnership Honeymoon Coming?

  I'm sorry but your naivete' is only exceeded by your apparent ignorance of the huge challenges of HSF by "commercial" space entrepreneurs! I'm not a defender of Constellation, either, but I have been in the HSF business probbaly longer than...

• Commented on Mike Griffin's ESAS Architecture is Dead

  Wow! I thought I was the most cynical old critic of NASA but Pawn (slightly) out does me! He's right on about the current NASA--its inevitable decline into the bureaucratic federal government mire is obvious and just about complete! A...

• Commented on Mike Griffin's ESAS Architecture is Dead

  It would be beyond naive to think this would "solve all of HSF's problems"--but I guarantee it would put us on a better path than the POR, even if realistically it probably means another year or two slip beyond HSF-renewal...

• Commented on Obama Backs New Launcher and Bigger NASA Budget

  Hard to believe--but might have kernels of truth--I hope so! Look for Shelby and Co. to fight it UNLESS the HLV is the Sidemount or Direct and MSFC is assured the lead--which they should be. Also, MAYBE, it means keeping...

• Commented on New Ways to Use Constellation Stuff

  Well, in light of the Augustine Report and Bolden's hesitancy in defining a new path for HSF this has got to be viewed as "encouraging". Assume that use of "current and future human spaceflight architecture" implies that notional missions needing...

• Commented on Backslapping at the Broadmoor

  I agree it's basically an internal, waste-of-money boondoggle but do you really think anybody that's not already a Trekkie or a space nut cares what an over-the-hill actor has to say about actual space and its realities? How many "recruits"...

• Commented on Today's Video: STS-129 Ascent Highlights

  Agree! After watching this flawless video of the most capable vehicle ever built and flown, tell us again how it makes any sense (or cents) to retire it in a year, lay off 2-3K US space workers, take half the...

• Commented on Anti-Space Tourism Defeatism From ESA Alumni

  Hey, you can call them "defeatists" but I prefer the term "realists"! What they say about CHEMICAL propulsion systems is THE REALITY! Until there is a breakthrough (and I wouldn't discount it within, say, 20-30 years) with something like anti-matter,...