Tag: NASA

Charles Bolden has come out of hiding

4:29 pm

Today NASA administrator Charles Bolden spoke at the AIAA meeting in Orlando. According to Florida Today, he said two things of interest:

  • He is proud of the achievements of the shuttle program and is sad the program is ending.
  • He believes flying three more shuttle missions would be safe.

Considering that his administration has done nothing to save the program, and in fact has almost seemed eager to shut it down at times, his sadness seems incredibly insincere and self-serving.

As for his second comment about the shuttle’s safety, I wonder how he knows this, especially since his own engineers are currently struggling to pin down the root cause of the external tank cracks that have delayed the last flight of Discovery, and appear to be a chronic problem that needs to be fixed before any shuttle can once again fly.

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Continuing resolution in the Senate freezes NASA at 2010 numbers

7:41 pm

The space war over NASA continues: The continuing resolution being offered by the Senate would freeze NASA’s budget at 2010 numbers through March. Also,

NASA would be prohibited from initiating new programs, and could be required to continue spending about $200 million per month on the Moon-bound Constellation program.

As I’ve said repeatedly, the whole thing is a mess.

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‘Human-rating’ document hits the Web with new name

10:17 pm

O joy! NASA, in releasing its preliminary regulations for “human-rating” a manned spacecraft., has also given the regulations a new name. They should not be called “human-rated.” This should solve everything! Also:

The five 1100-series documents outline mandatory crew transportation certification requirements, technical, safety and crew health specifications, the roles of NASA and industry and how to achieve government certification, design reference missions and goals for a space station human transportation system, and ground and flight operations processes. While the broad certification document released Dec. 10 only runs 39 pages, the 1100-series specifications reportedly run hundreds of pages each.

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Fraud, Abuse Found in NASA Research Funding to Small Companies

11:57 pm

NASA’s inspecter general has found fraud, waste, and abuse in NASA’s small business research program. Nor is this new news:

Problems with NASA’s SBIR program have been repeatedly criticized in recent years by the agency’s inspector general. Of some 46 investigations related to the SBIR program over the past decade, 17 percent resulted in criminal convictions, civil judgments, or administrative action, the inspector general told a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last year.

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