Obama thinks you're smart too.
Posted on 06/23/2011 1:19:53 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
[snip]
NASA plans to announce the heavy-lift plan, formally known as the Space Launch System or SLS, around the time of the July 8 launch of the final space shuttle flight. The decision should keep America’s renowned spaceflight program running, saving the jobs of many of NASA’s hard-to-replace engineers.
Shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach spoke frankly about the space effort's future in remarks he made to his launch team at Kennedy Space Center this month, during preparations for the shuttle Atlantis' program-ending mission.
"The end of the shuttle program is a tough thing to swallow, and we’re all victims of poor policy out of Washington, D.C., both at the NASA level and the executive branch of the government, and it affects all of us — it affects most of you — severely," Leinbach told his team.
“I’m embarrassed that we don’t have better guidance out of Washington, D.C. Throughout the history of the manned space flight program, we’ve always had another program to transition into — from Mercury to Gemini, and to Apollo, to the Apollo-Soyuz test program, to Skylab and then to the shuttle. We’ve always had something to transition into.
“And we had that, and it got canceled and now we don’t have anything, and I’m embarrassed that we don’t. Frankly, as a senior NASA manager, I’d like to apologize to you all that we don’t have that. So there you are. I love you all. I wish you all the best.
“We will press on through this flow and this launch in the way we always do. We’re going to play this game to the final out, and we’ll be done. I just wish you all the best, and again Godspeed to you all. Thank you.”
[snip]
Middle management bloat and Upper management with personal agendas (for too long).
Those are both great reasons for eliminating the entire Agency. Thanks for the help.
It is possible to criticize our national space agency and still believe our country must have a national space program.
It really is.
And it is possible to criticize commercial space companies and still believe that they will play an important role in America's space program.
It' really is.
If you set aside the shuttle program, which was a bad decision doubled down upon again and again over the years, I agree with you.
Possible to believe it? Yes. People believe all sorts of crazy things every day.
Our Government has FUBAR'd every single thing it's touched in the last 40 years. Yet some people, even those who are otherwise perfectly rational people, somehow think that their favorite program can be run properly by a bunch of career bureaucrats sucking on the taxpayers teats.
Well here's the clue. They can't. Oh, they'll make some kind of progress initially and maybe even pull off something amazing but after a while the bureaucratic inertia kicks in and they become just another Government Agency with all the usual wailing and catterwauling for 'more funding', the standard turf wars, infighting, featherbedding, and all the other associated corruption and politicization we've come to know and love.
There's only one rational, moral, and ethical way to advance scientific knowledge on this planet and that's the Profit Motive.
There was a distinct difference in the approach to Commercial Space from Sean O’Keefe to Mike Griffin.
I have a somewhat actinic hatred for our Dear Leader. His moves toward NASA are more in line with extinguishing American excellence, and allowing his socialist buddies in Congress to loot the budget allocated for manned spaceflight. But, like the blind pig of yore and his acorn, his actions may have unwittingly awoken something grand: A more private-industry, business based Space Program that can work toward goals and objectives not set by constantly shifting political considerations or whims.
There was a distinct difference in the approach to Commercial Space from Sean O’Keefe to Mike Griffin.
I have a somewhat actinic hatred for our Dear Leader. His moves toward NASA are more in line with extinguishing American excellence, and allowing his socialist buddies in Congress to loot the budget allocated for manned spaceflight. But, like the blind pig of yore and his acorn, his actions may have unwittingly awoken something grand: A more private-industry, business based Space Program that can work toward goals and objectives not set by constantly shifting political considerations or whims.
I feel much better. Don't forget their added mission to find out why Toyotas have stuck accelerators.
Let's see:
#1 is promotion of Islam
#2 is to promote the myth of human-caused "climate change"
#3 study the accelerators on Toyotas
Now I get it.
Obama thinks you're smart too.
I see. It's the advancement of "science" you're talking about. No wonder you think I "believe in crazy things" when I talk about human space flight. That's helpful.
BTW....what knowledge are you working on? Expecting? Marketing? Who is your market?
Anything other than something real, challenging and national.
I guess you missed the “actinic” part...
Oh let's see, advances in communications devices, software, human interfaces so that people can take the 'net to the 'next level' in ways that will improve how we live, work, and play.
Then there's the deployment of advanced gigabit networking equipment and interfacing those with some fairly advanced SIP based voice and data communications networks (all private sector btw, no Government agencies needed, thanks), converging voice and data networks and moving those applications into secure data centers (the cloud), and other boring, mundane stuff like that.
What are you up to today?
Who is your market?
Businesses mostly. You know, those funny people who actually produce stuff that other people want to buy. You may have heard of them. We help them do their jobs more efficiently, save money, and reduce the time that new products are brought to market.
You know, all that silly stuff that NASA doesn't have a clue about.
But you go right ahead believing that some Government agency is the only way that human space flight is ever going to happen. Just because that's the only way it's happened so far doesn't mean it's the only way it will ever happen.
Free your mind and get your damned hands out of my wallet.
Have a nice day.
The planned Ares rockets, which would have used Shuttle booster parts were pretty impressive. I believe one version was to have greater lift than the Saturn V.
It would have been much better to have developed new spaceship designs to ride on the SatV instead of building the Shuttle.
Nixon and others cut funding for space exploration. The Shuttle survived because the military had great interest in it, in the beginning.
The SatV could have put us on Mars in the mid 80’s.
Technically yes. NASA had developed a successful nuclear upper stage engine that would have helped along with a more powerful F1 engine for the first stage. We could have gotten there, but I think logistical problems and long term exposure to cosmic rays would have killed the program at some point.
The bottom line is NASA doesn't buy enough votes per dollar to satisfy our politicians. Rather than have a prestigious space program, they would much rather populate the country with illegal aliens, whose votes are cheap and who tolerate political corruption.
Where do you get your funding?
Your contracts?
Why do you think I’m anti-business?
Where have I said I think government is the only way human space flight will happen?
NASA now is the only entity able to conduct manned flight, and since our satellites (economic and military — the vital instruments in space that let’s us function) are a national security issue, NASA damn well better get with the program, retain access to LEO and work toward moving beyond LEO to secure Cis-Lunar and ISRU.
I do not fault you your work. Good luck with it.
I didn’t miss anything.
He’s laughing at YOU!
Lyndon Johnson cut space funding to fund the Vietnam War.
Was at Wallops last month. Very impressive. And check out the new launch pad and Horizontal assembly building at WFF.
This is NASA done right. And hope to do this project soon myself.
Good luck to you!
Wallops is very impressive. I missed this morning’s launch, but don’t plan on missing Tuesday’s. I just haven’t decided where to watch it from. Most likely at friends who live directly across the water from the launch pad.
You see madame, there are these things out there called "customers" who, now try to follow along with me, actually engage my firm to deploy these advanced technologies in their businesses. For that they pay us a set fee which we negotiate in advance. I know it can all be very, very confusing but that's the truth.
So to answer your question my 'funding' comes from people who do business with us, willingly, with all of the associated costs for the services and products determined in advance. Both parties profit (EEEGADS, THERE'S THAT AWFUL WORD!) in some way from the transaction.
Your contracts?
See above.
Why do you think I’m anti-business?
I guess I got that impression from your staggering lack of imagination in thinking that some stupid bunch of hacks working at a Government agency are the only people who can get us off this rock and out into the solar system.
NASA now is the only entity able to conduct manned flight,
Yes, they have what constitutes a Government monopoly on it. End that now and watch what happens.
NASA damn well better get with the program,
You just don't get it, do you. They can't. They've been corrupted unredeemedly by the very process that sustains them. No amount of funding will bring that back, none.
It's time to thank them for their pioneering work and disband it so their skilled workers can exercise the American spirit of entrepenuership.
I'm sorry you can't see that. I really am.
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