Frank Sietzen

Recent Actions

  • Posted NASA: How Would You Help the Messenger Improve the Message? to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: In these pages we have seen one disconnect after another on how poorly NASA sometimes produces its own message. An overwhelming majority of people have no idea what NASA does, other than Shuttle missions and the Hubble....

  • Posted What Constitutes Space Leadership? to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: Of all of the recent NASA Administrators (Goldin, O'Keefe, Griffin) former Marine General Charles F. Bolden, Jr. has given the fewest public appearances of them all. Excluding college commencements and STEM talks to school children, Bolden has...

  • Posted Rocket Motors to Nowhere? to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: Heaven forbid that the 5-segment solid rocket motor test would have blown up - nobody in their right minds would want that. But I have to ask why on Earth is NASA proceeding to invest time and...

  • Posted Understanding MicroRNA to GeneRef

    High Hopes for a New Kind of Gene In a beautifully written article in the July 2009 issue of Smithsonian magazine writer Sylvia Pagan Westphal describes the research of Dr. Carlo Croce, head of Ohio State University's Human Cancer Genetics...

  • Posted A Hospital without Walls to GeneRef

    At Virginia Hospital Center, treating disease doesn't require a patient-or a room. When Cathy Turner looked at the blood sugar readings she had just taken, she was shocked. It read over 400, four times the average fasting level. She told...

  • Posted Should NIAC be Revived? to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: One of the casualties of the tight budget squeeze at NASA was the closing in 2007 of the agency’s Institute for Advanced Concepts, the closest thing for a think tank that the aging bureaucracy has had in...

  • Posted Would You Bring Back NGLT-or SLI? to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: There was a time-“back in the day” when NASA funded research programs designed to develop advanced space launch technologies, which in part were to reduce the cost of space transportation. The Next Generation Launch Technology (NGLT) program...

  • Posted How Best to Access the ISS-and LEO? to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: Readers, Keith has asked me to keep posting for awhile, so here’s my latest query: been reading some of the ideas for a commercially-derived lifting body crewed spacecraft that would make use of the existing expendable launch...

  • Posted Remembering Apollo 11 and the Legacy of Apollo to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: Readers, I’ve been working of late with Buzz Aldrin and his team to help prepare a series of presentations related to this summer’s 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission. There are so many commemorations...

  • Posted Why Some Say the Moon? to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: Readers, in this my last exercise in gauging your ideas before Keith slips back in the saddle, I thought I’d ask your views about the moon-specifically on whether or not to make it the initial focus of...

  • Posted This Memorial Day, Let Us Remember The Heroes of Space to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: I remember the sound the wheels made as they clanked on the asphalt pathways of Arlington National Cemetery. In my minds eye I see the sunlight’s glint on the brass buckles holding saddle to horse, for it...

  • Posted Is the International Space Station Truly International? to NASA Watch

    Lost in Space, Op-Ed Buzz Aldrin, New York Post Frank's note: In a recent op-ed published in the New York Post, Buzz Aldrin called the way the U.S. has managed the International Space Station as a form of Space Age...

  • Posted What Civil Space Agency Would You Create? to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: Another thought exercise for NASA Watch readers: What would the U.S. civil space agency look like if you built it from scratch? NASA, as we know, was established at the height of the Cold War, and was...

  • Posted Reader's Consensus: Develop a new launch vehicle to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: Readers have spoken-and the overwhelming majority of you want to see Ares 1/and V scrapped in favor of either some variant of Direct, or an EELV derivative. The most popular names suggested for the panel are: John...

  • Posted Dear Mr. Augustine to NASA Watch

    Frank's note: OK, NASAWATCH readers, let's hear your ideas on the future of NASA's human spaceflight program, as if you had the chance to testify before the newly created Augustine Commission. Please be direct (no pun intended) and brief...

  • Posted Is Senator Bill Nelson an Astronaut? to NASA Watch

    From aero-news.net: FL Senator Pushing To Delay Shuttle Retirement Sun, 19 Apr '09 Seeking To Protect Thousands Of Aerospace Industry Jobs Florida Senator Bill Nelson, a former Space Shuttle astronaut himself, is working toward extending the shuttle program to protect...

  • Posted Oiling the Wheels to NASA Watch

    Frank's Note: Check out this report on federal campaign contributions for last year's campaign cycle at Open Secrets Honeywell lead the defense/aerospace sector with a total contributions of $2.5 million. Lockheed was right behind at $1.6 million and Boeing in...