NASA Announces Innovation Initiatives With Fiscal Year 2011 Budget

[Admin]

NASA is dead. ..

NASA is not dead and IMHO it will never die. It is American Space Exploration and its benefits which can suffer in the long run.

But there is a smell of "death" in the air at NASA: according to Charles Bolden, "To people who are working on these programs [the ones which Obama wants to cancel], this is like a death in the family".

I think that this is very evocative of the general atmosphere at NASA, despite the pathetic attempt to portray this 90 degrees direction change as a NASA decision.

/Admin

[Moonwalker]

But there is a smell of "death" in the air at NASA: according to Charles Bolden, "To people who are working on these programs [the ones which Obama wants to cancel], this is like a death in the family".

Certainly. They have worked hard for years. On the other hand, many already knew that the program is going to become a dead horse. Across the web you could read some disappointing opinions of those who are part of constellation as technicians/engineers. I remember one post who said how much the constellation managers tried to "pretend" optimism via emails to the worker although many already knew it was just a question of time until the program would be canceled. I don't remember exactly if this was on nasaspaceflight.com or somewhere else. You can say it was an open secret for some time already. But of course Bolden still has to say something.

I think that this is very evocative of the general atmosphere at NASA, despite the pathetic attempt to portray this 90 degrees direction change as a NASA decision.

But Bolden actually said a few honest things. I don't think that he did quibble much. "President Obama today has given us a bold challenge" he said, which is just true. "We both agreed that as NASA moves forward into this still-young century, we need a renewed commitment to invention and development..."

I also think it was a good decision to replace Griffin by Bolden. Bolden is a rather smart person and a former Shuttle astronaut, which does not mean Griffin was not smart (he is a well qualified engineer). But Bolden is a realistic thinking guy. He knew about the wrong direction NASA was facing with the Ares launchers I guess. He had not been chosen just because, and Griffin had not been replaced just because. Griffin did not seem to realize which situation NASA was facing by Constellation. He propagated it. Above all, the mistake was the decision of Bush, to announce Moon, Mars and beyond, starting with manned moon mission in ~2018. That was done too fast and without smart reviews. It was nice to solace those who had lost their family members by STS-107. But it was unrealistical to achive in the proposed timeline and it did not offer future innovations really.

[Moonwalker]

By the way, here is an interesting interview with two pioneers of future commercial space exploration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3RlCVtQ6mA

[Admin]

<SNIP>...

But Bolden actually said a few honest things. I don't think that he did quibble much. "President Obama today has given us a bold challenge" he said, which is just true. "We both agreed that as NASA moves forward into this still-young century, we need a renewed commitment to invention and development..."

I also think it was a good decision to replace Griffin by Bolden. Bolden is a rather smart person and a former Shuttle astronaut, which does not mean Griffin was not smart (he is a well qualified engineer). But Bolden is a realistic thinking guy. He knew about the wrong direction NASA was facing with the Ares launchers I guess. He had not been chosen just because, and Griffin had not been replaced just because. Griffin did not seem to realize which situation NASA was facing by Constellation. He propagated it. Above all, the mistake was the decision of Bush, to announce Moon, Mars and beyond, starting with manned moon mission in ~2018. That was done too fast and without smart reviews. It was nice to solace those who had lost their family members by STS-107. But it was unrealistical to achive in the proposed timeline and it did not offer future innovations really.

Of course Bolden did say a few "honest" things - he can't have an entire statement made up of demagogy, can he? This smoke-screen doesn't change one bit the main message: NASA ("encouraged" by the WH) has given up aiming higher than the highest mountain - it only found a few hills to climb.

As to whether Bolden is better or worse than Griffin - this is irrelevant. This plan is NOT Bolden't or Griffin's plan - it comes strainght from the Oval Office. Bolden's quality will be proven by how well he follows the plan, which ultimately will be drawn for him, or how well he meets the given goals - that's all. After all - he is a NEW "administrator", with no proven administrative track record and as such, it is too early to tell if he is better or worse than his predecessor.

And BTW, this is true about Obama too.

/Admin

[Moonwalker]

This plan is NOT Bolden't or Griffin's plan - it comes strainght from the Oval Office.

Just as Bolden said: "President Obama today has given us a bold challenge" Everybody knows that those challenges are made in the White House. I don't think Bolden is trying to hide something. But also, his opinion is not without significance to the White House and Congress.

But now we've got a good reason once again why space flight should not be a matter of big governments only. SpaceX has actually blamed NASA and the government by proving that going into orbit is not that much of a big deal that can only be achieved by big governmental bodies. Things have changed and Obama is not blind, luckily.

[schmidtrock]

Dude, seriously. Obama is nothing more than a puppet. No strengths, no experience and no control.

[Moonwalker]

Dude, seriously. Obama is nothing more than a puppet. No strengths, no experience and no control.

Well, I would like to hand over the respond to somebody who was walking on the Moon and can argue way better than me or anybody else here I think; Buzz Aldrin who says: "Thank you, Mr. President."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldrin/president-obamas-jfk-mome_b_448667.html

[spaceboy7441]

I saw an interview on Fox News yesterday with Gene Cernan who walked on the moon himself on Apollo 17
He had the same view points as me.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/3998554/turning-americas-back-to-the-moon?category_id=86861

[Moonwalker]

Yeah, I know Cernans attitude even before Constellation Cernan always was disappointed about cutting the Apollo footprint show and not just going back. He always propagated that each tax payer could "easily" spend a little bit of money just for the sake of returning to the Moon and do another footstep show.

Good that they quoted Aldrin, because he got it right.

But both, the reporter and Cernan do not seem to know that China is not going to fly to the Moon in any forseeable time frame. That's the usual nonsense argumentation by people who mostly have no clue to be honest. The reporter might be excused since he is working for FOX... But I'm afraid that Cernan jumps on that political nonsense horse. He should know that the Chinese are going to do anything, but not flying to the Moon manned anytime soon.

What Cernan does call for is a big bloated governmental space race program once again without backing it up by intelligent reasoning. Because going back to the Moon does not bring us any closer to Mars just because we go back. Less than ever if we would do it the Ares-way. That would be just another dead horse. And luckily this time it even became one before any rocket has even made it up into LEO. Obama has prevented a third huge gap that was going to be implemented within Constellation in the 2020s.

Cernan thinks the same way like Wernher von Braun already did: whatever the cost. That's the wrong attitude, especially within the 21th century. You can mark my words: without commercialization and new technologies, nobody will ever go the Moon, less than ever to Mars. Not even China.

[christra]

[..] That's the usual nonsense argumentation by people who mostly have no clue to be honest. The reporter might be excused since he is working for FOX... But I'm afraid that Cernan jumps on that political nonsense horse. He should know that the Chinese are going to do anything, but not flying to the Moon manned anytime soon.
[..]

I followed this discussion here quietly so far. 
I think the Bolden announcement says it all. The future of space exploration will be revolutionized in the US. And that is not necessarily bad. Manned spaceflight will go on, but in a different way. And manned spaceflight is by far not the only thing NASA is doing. We have to wait how it will proceed. Things like VASIMIR http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket will probably get more money and that will indeed revolutionize spaceflight.

Regarding the quote above: I think FOX is well known to be very close to the Republican Party. You simply cannot expect any positive statement about a democratic president from them. That seems to be beyond their horizon...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel#Criticism_and_controversies

[Moonwalker]

I think the Bolden announcement says it all. The future of space exploration will be revolutionized in the US. And that is not necessarily bad.

And just listen what Dr. Peter H. Diamandis from the X Prize Foundation says:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY9-RobwJHo&feature=related

That is what many former NASA people and others say for decades already, and why former astronauts like Ken Bowersox, just as one example, change to commercial industries. Imagine the production of civil passenger airplanes of Boeing and Airbus would be entirely governmental driven. That would have been just awful to civial aviation. Governments are never good entrepreneur. Bloated governmental space flight always was and always will be just too expensive and too much slaved by political agendas.

I think FOX is well known to be very close to the Republican Party. You simply cannot expect any positive statement about a democratic president from them. That seems to be beyond their horizon...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel#Criticism_and_controversies

Didn't know that so far. All I knew is that after watching FOX for a few hours people really need a good psychiatrist

[christra]

Well, I would like to hand over the respond to somebody who was walking on the Moon and can argue way better than me or anybody else here I think; Buzz Aldrin who says: "Thank you, Mr. President."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldrin/president-obamas-jfk-mome_b_448667.html

That's a real good article...

[Admin]

Dude, seriously. Obama is nothing more than a puppet. No strengths, no experience and no control.

Well, I would like to hand over the respond to somebody who was walking on the Moon and can argue way better than me or anybody else here I think; Buzz Aldrin who says: "Thank you, Mr. President."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldrin/president-obamas-jfk-mome_b_448667.html

Opinion, opinions...

For now, we are only left with speculations and opinions, and all are valid - regardless whether they come from Obama, Buzz or a 12 year-old kid.

Unfortunately only history can tell who was right and who was wrong.

/Admin

[schmidtrock]

I just think the argument that these changes in NASA direction are Obama's vision, ... are ludicrous. That's all 

[Moonwalker]

For now, we are only left with speculations and opinions, and all are valid - regardless whether they come from Obama, Buzz or a 12 year-old kid.

It depends. An opinion that for example states to continue with Constellation, i.e. developing the Ares launchers and Orion, is no longer vaild No bugs, no bug rogers. There was too much bugs lost already and unreasonable delays and technological problems. And most importantly: the program was called to be a dead horse from the beginning, based on both, laymen and expert opinions. I remember criticism all along from the very beginning, inside and outside NASA. Think where the members of the DIRECT project do come from...

As for the future: a lot of decisions are based on several opinions that need to get a majority to pass the congress. Yet the future still has to prove Obamas and others opinions on NASAs new course. So, yes, of course we are left with opinions.