Japan's H-IIB is notably absent from the operational rocket list.
Quote from: sfxtd on 03/10/2017 06:46 pmJapan's H-IIB is notably absent from the operational rocket list. There is no reason to list a retiring launcher as its manufacturer MHI is about to end production of H-IIB, as its last flight is in early JFY 2019, so that MHI can start retooling its facilities for the new H-III launcher family. H-IIA will retire in JFY 2023.
Quote from: Blackstar on 03/09/2017 09:57 pm-no clear sense of vision or where the agency was heading (and I don't include the humans to Mars talk, because it was all talk and little action)I always wondered how much of that was due to no support for a clear vision from the White House.
-no clear sense of vision or where the agency was heading (and I don't include the humans to Mars talk, because it was all talk and little action)
The only time I met Gen. Bolden was shortly after the "Muslim outreach" comments. Up close he comes across as very personable and likeable. I always wondered how he was prepped for his trip to the middle east. I suspect the State Department gave him some talking points that they thought would go over well where he was. Comments by people in his position don't say isolated to the intended audience. Better thought needs to go into what gets said practically anywhere because of who will eventually hear them.
Quote from: Jim on 03/09/2017 03:17 pmQuote from: AncientU on 03/09/2017 03:05 pmIt is called a 'tactical retreat' Nothing of the sort. Yeah, I think this is all being over-interpreted. Part of the problem is that the reporter is comparing what Gerst is saying now to something that Bolden said a little while ago. The problem with that is that Bolden often said things that were not exactly the policy, or even what he meant to say. So people took him literally when they really should have run his statements through an interpreter. Thus, I think there is less of an actual change now than the reporter thinks.NASA already uses "private" rockets--if you accept that "private" means something developed by a company, possibly with a lot of NASA money. So it's hard to see a fundamental shift here or even much of a change in policy. If somebody builds their big rocket and proves that it works, NASA may take a look at it. There are a whole bunch of conditional "ifs" involved.
Quote from: AncientU on 03/09/2017 03:05 pmIt is called a 'tactical retreat' Nothing of the sort.
It is called a 'tactical retreat'
I think Bolden found himself at the whims of an indifferent White House and an OMB that really didn't want to give NASA any more money....
As for the lack of vision from the White House? Hopefully some enterprising graduate student will try and tackle this subject, because it's really baffling. The White House sought to do a complete overhaul of NASA in early 2010 by canceling Constellation, Ares I, Ares V, Orion and Antares and the lunar goal. They also sought to create a big R&D budget inside NASA. They did all this in the most inept way they possibly could, ticking off many people in Congress, even those who should have been on their own side.
...So maybe Gerstenmaier is reading the writing on the wall, or maybe these are his personal beliefs, but anything out of NASA that encourages lowering the cost to access space overall is a good thing. It may not go anywhere, and the next NASA Administrator may reverse course and support only the SLS, but for now this should be garnering positive reviews. I hope that helps our politicians understand what they can do to help - in the right way.
Better a tactical retreat to something that can possibly be defended -- a public plus private exploration effort -- than a total rout.
Quote from: Eric Hedman on 03/10/2017 05:42 pmQuote from: Blackstar on 03/09/2017 09:57 pm-no clear sense of vision or where the agency was heading (and I don't include the humans to Mars talk, because it was all talk and little action)I always wondered how much of that was due to no support for a clear vision from the White House.Ever since Kennedy we've expected our Presidents to be able to articulate long-lasting and inspirational space-related "visions". Except all that Kennedy did was take advantage of two converging international issues, the Space Race and the Cold War.Today not even the space community can agree on what the next goal should be in space, so how are less informed politicians supposed to understand what the next goal should be?
I agree that the Obama administration's moves on space early on were very clumsy, even for a new administration. But when I put myself in Obama's shoes, the FY 2011 proposal doesn't seem crazy to me.
You're only paying attention to the cancellation part, not the "what we're going to do next" part, which was pretty awful because there was no policy justification for it.Just off the top of my head the blunders in early 2010 were:-cancelling major programs without providing a sound justification for it<snip>
No. "Vision" does not require bold pronouncements and big inspiration and all that. It just requires setting goals and plotting a strategy to achieve them. The Obama administration didn't really try for that.
The asteroid mission is a good case in point. I'm not convinced that it was ever a serious proposal. I think that it was actually a public relations facade to create the illusion that they had a plan.
The robotic part of that asteroid redirect mission made far more pragmatic sense than Constellation's return to the Moon.Fair point that Obama didn't sell it very well, but Congress as a whole was out for his head, so hard to blame him much.