Developing Senate Legislation on NASA

I do not Think the President will disagree:
In particular, we must answer the question of how we support, maintain, and fully utilize the ISS, not just in 5 or more years, when any new commercially-developed vehicle might be available, but right now, as we are about to cut the ribbon on it as a finally completed research facility."

This is not something you can just cancel because the best rocket designer in the world(self generated title) thinks this is a good idea!

More serpent tongue politics.

> under Obama's strategy "America's decades-long dominance of space will finally come to an end."

Dominance of what, downmass? It is time to call her out for trying to play your heart strings.

> the United States will rely entirely on Russian spacecraft [flying to the ISS]

Scare tactic commonly used by SpaceX to gain support for their rockets. The gap is old news and insignificant in the long run. And the US and Russia already utterly rely on each other to operate the ISS. More heart strings.

> we must answer the question of how we support, maintain, and fully utilize the ISS

Already answered by the ISS workers who the politicians are insulting. International partners are picking up the slack. The ball was dropped by previous congresses, presidents, and NASA programs, and the commie bastards are coming to the rescue. And the answer certainly never included running the shuttle when it costs more than the entire ISS budget.

It is high time folks start calling out the serpents for what they are. Congress already gave Constellation bipartisan support to end Shuttle and destroy the ISS, thus wiping away most evidence that NASA even existed for the past 30-some years. And what's worse is that Constellation wasn't even going anywhere for decades more. These people just don't care about what you care about.

Consider the old way of doing things http://tinyurl.com/historicnasafunding

The human exploration guys need to choose their team carefully. They need to consider what NASA has actually explored for $200,000,000,000+ in 30 years.

Someone please clarify a few things as I honestly still don't understand (from a strategic standpoint) why everyone seems to be *so* down on this Obama plan. Was it OK with the taxpayers/Congress to have a 7 year post-Shuttle gap when NASA was developing a launch system that would not be operational to ISS until a year after the ISS would be deorbited (which is totally illogical)? I assume it was OK because as far as I know a Shuttle extension bill wasn't floated before now. But now its not OK to the taxpayers/Congress to have a possible 4-5 year gap AND keeping the ISS through 2020 now that NASA is buying from commerical guys instead ? And it was OK to go to the moon and then try to go to Mars using, by then, 50-60 year old Shuttle technology ? From what i understand, in this new budget NASA is still in charge of beyond LEO/ISS exploration R&D and operations, but they've just handed over the expensive but RELATIVELY simple task of moving people and cargo to ISS to commercial companies right ? I realize jobs will be lost and it will be painful (but wasn't that going to happen anyway ?), but at this point NASA should be lucky to get a plus up in their budget considering when major programs like Constellation are canceled i would imagine much of the money usually disappears with it---NASA keeping those funds and now not having to buy SRB's and other Ares 1/5 hardware is a reflection (to me atleast) of more flexibility for NASA to hire more contractors to help with this exploration R&D.....how else are they going to spend the money (keep in mind the ISS commericial missions were already funded outside of Constellation) ? I view this budget as a chance for NASA think out what it takes to realistically explore well beyond LEO---and this task will obviously involve more than just the NASA Govt workforce. And I view the "vagueness" of the plan as recognition that the technology to do this realistic/sustainable exploration doesn't yet exist, so any timeline dictated by Obama would be totally arbitrary..... thus for now, at this very early stage, they're leaving it up to NASA to study and generate a timeline as they go and better understand technology leaps involved. Am I totally off course in my interpretations here ? I do not see a "death of manned space flight/the space program" only a retooling.
A side note, most of the Shuttle jobs were going away and a significant gap was going to exist even if Obama's budget followed Bush's "vision".....all of that has been known for 6 years now, so I'm not sure why all this uproar is taking place now. I don't see how flying an extra few Shuttle missions will provide any sizable increase in the payback of the blood, sweat, and tears poured into the Shuttle Program; not to mention the $4+ billion that it will take to even make it possible.

Again, these are honest questions, I'm not a Constellation or Shuttle "hater" or "Obama fan" so please save those comments for another poster. Thanks.

I read S3068. And I get the feeling that Senator Hutchinson and Senator Kyl don't really have the knowledge to write bills such as this. Scary.

And the following statement from the bill really sent shivers up my spine.

"In the course of that ongoing review (Augustin review), as well as our Committee hearing last September, I began forming my own conclusions about the correct path for the future of U.S. human space flight programs, as is my responsibility as the Ranking Republican on the policy and oversight committee for NASA."

What the ...? Senator Hutchinson has only been forming her conclusions about the correct path since then? OMG. FUBAR.

"Was it OK with the taxpayers/Congress to have a 7 year post-Shuttle gap"

Where did you get 7 years from? The only place I heard that was from the Augustine report and that only came out late last year.

My understanding is that the shuttle was to stop in 2010 and Orion go around 2014, about a 3 to 4 year gap. There was talk of moving it in to 2013, but that required money. When funding was not provided to support the program, the date slipped to 2015 I think.

There had been talk by Obama of closing the gap, but that appears to have been election talk.

These are my thoughts and don't necessarily represent "true" answers. First, I think a few Senators, politicians, and managers have been asleep at the wheel and are now being woken up. At least I hope they are waking up. Well, "hope" may be the wrong word since I don't have a clue of what to expect when they do wake up, i.e. can they drive the car? I'm not sure what kept them asleep so long or why they were sleeping so deep. Maybe they are clueless or intimidated by the technology and therefore tune out until jobs are on the line. Second, research on its own, at least at this scale, usually has a hard time standing up in regards to budgets down the road. The system seems to work "better" when focused on projects. Thus research gets cut in favor of projects. Therefore, it is best if research falls under a project.

I don't think anyone was paying attention about the gap. If people really cared then we never would have cancelled OSP or X-38 because it takes such a long time to develop major aerospace programs. So now that it is finally starting to happen Congress is reacting. Like much of government their is little strategic planning and mostly just reaction to the perceived crisis du jour. Yes the Bipartisan Support of VSE and Constellation in Congress on multiple votes means they bought off on using technology developed from exisitng rocket and crew vehicle programs. It is not clear that NASA is in charge of BEO operations in this plan and in fact many folks expect that NASA will do the R&D and then turn the technology over to commercial to actually build and operate BEO vehicle. Regarding job loss, yes NASA expected to draw down by 50% the number of people required to operate Orion as opposed to Shuttle. This was goign to be managed through normal attrition, internal transfers to Constellation and other parts of NASA so that layoffs could be minimized. With Constellation cancellation and commercial crew not even the 50% will be retained and you double the job losses (note that ISS is going through 30% reduction as well to reduce operational costs). Budget plus up doesn't really help NASA since the bulk of that is going to the commercial crew companies. The really clunker though is the abandonment of the BEO mission and any real concrete plan for the proposed R&D. For many of us who have seen this type of game plan before (cancel existing program because "it can't be done" replace with vague but game changing R&D to develop enabling technology with no due date) we don't buy the spin. The end game of this plan is that the R&D gets funded for about 2-3 years and then they are declared unsuccessful and are canceled and you are left with nothing which is the plan all along. If you serious about R&D you actually build and fly hardware on a dedicated schedule. That's why some see this as the Death of US manned space. Yes we will keep humans in space at ISS for many years but we will go no where else while others push on beyond earth orbit.

@Anonymous85
I view this budget as a chance for NASA think out what it takes to realistically explore well beyond LEO---and this task will obviously involve more than just the NASA Govt workforce. And I view the "vagueness" of the plan as recognition that the technology to do this realistic/sustainable exploration doesn't yet exist, so any timeline dictated by Obama would be totally arbitrary..... thus for now, at this very early stage, they're leaving it up to NASA to study and generate a timeline as they go and better understand technology leaps involved. Am I totally off course in my interpretations here ? I do not see a "death of manned space flight/the space program" only a retooling

The reason the R&D argument is flawed is because the development costs of new technologies are inherently more expensive. If Constellation cannot be supported financially, there is absolutely no chance the new technologies are going to go beyond paper studies, so in essence IT IS the death of manned space flight (non-LEO). The charter of R&D is to make things better, not cheaper. Cheaper has much less to do with technology than with processes and operations.

Re: Lafleur chart. Interesting isn't it that Shuttle funding spiked twice - after each "accident"! Discovery or Atlantis next I wonder!?!

You obviously stopped reviewing the "progress" of particularly "The Stick" very early. Just prior to Augustine, the first ISS flight was expected 18 months after original planned de-orbit of ISS. Talk about nowhere to go!

Here is one part I find interesting.

"(d) SPACE SHUTTLE CAPABILITY RETENTION.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, to the extent practicable NASA shall operate the Space Shuttle program at a flight rate of no more than 2 missions in any consecutive 12-month period beginning during the fiscal years for which appropriations are authorized under section 9 of this Act."

LOL, "to the extent practicable" What does that mean? Oh, and how much is this going to cost? OK, Sen. Hutchison wants no more than 2 missions. Does zero count? OK, the bill doesn't allow Shuttle missions to be terminated unless certain conditions are met, but if you don't meet those conditions by flying zero missions in a year, then what? I think I broke a rib laughing.

Then in section 9 the bill appropriates $1.2 billion for 2011. The budget for the space shuttle in 2009 was $3 billion for 5 launches between Oct 2008 and Oct 2009. So did Senator Hutchinson take the $3 billion and multiply it by 2/5 to get $1.2 billion? I don't think it works like that. The incremental cost for the shuttle is only $60 million. So, zero flights costs $2.7 billion, assuming one keeps all the hardware and facilities. Geez, I hope someone is cranking the numbers correctly. And of course somewhere recertification costs need to be covered along with production startup costs. I'm uncertain if the current stock of ETs, SMEs, and SRBs cover what Senator Hutchinson is asking for. And I don't think she knows either.

Oops, my bad. That's $1.2 billion in addition to the $0.98 billion. So, given 2 flights a year that comes out to $1.1 billion per flight!! Ouch.

"You obviously stopped reviewing the "progress" of particularly "The Stick" very early"

If you read my post, I was referring to the comment about the 7 year gap. I made no mention of ISS.

Since you brought it up, the termination of ISS in 2015 appears to have been a result of trying to provide funding that Congress would not provide. My impression is that they were hoping that Congress would not stand for the destruction of ISS in 2015 and provide the extra funding.

As it is, even with ISS extended to 2020, with Obama's scrapping of the current US human space flight plans ISS may still not be there when the commercial flights begin. Starting over with new commercial companies could make it 10 years before the US is launching people again.

Extending the Shuttle can only be justified to save jobs. Constellation was not going to save these jobs either, maybe 1,700 out of 7,000 at KSC. The fact remains that NASA employs tens of thousands of operations people, mostly contractors, who are no longer needed because they do not have the skill set to do design for CxP or R&D under the new budget. So no matter what happens, many people will lose their jobs. This is just the way it is, my wife will be one of them. NASA needs to redefine itself and get out of the operations business and get back into R&D. The problem remains that the vast majority of workers (and more importantly, the leadership) at KSC, MSFC, and JSC are all operations folks with zero design experience. This is why CxP was failing miserably. There is no way that Ares I and Orion were going to go from PDR last year to first operational flight by 2014. Even the 2017 date Augustine suggested was optimistic given the track record. Sure, if the budget was increased $3 billion per year they might have been able to meet the 2017 date. But given the lack of design experience in the HSF community, it would have been a miracle. I do agree with most that the time to react to the gap was 4 or 5 years ago. It is too late now. Shuttle can't practically be extended due to second-tier suppliers being shut down over the last two years. These folks need to get over it, get with the new program, and see what we can do to bring NASA into the 21st century. We're still stuck in the '70's when it comes to rockets. No new technology for 30 to 40 years, we are stagnant. That is the status quo that is being defended, stagnant for decades.

"The end game of this plan is that the R&D gets funded for about 2-3 years and then they are declared unsuccessful and are canceled and you are left with nothing which is the plan all along. If you serious about R&D you actually build and fly hardware on a dedicated schedule."

Agreed.

Some might find these words illuminating: http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3371

Can’t bother with that 18 minute explanation? Then perhaps this bumper sticker seen in Clear Lake, TX captures it:

JFK '62 "We shall go to the Moon."
BHO '10 "We shall go NOWHERE!"

"Extending the Shuttle can only be justified to save jobs."

And is that such a bad thing? Remember the post-Apollo skills gap. I don't think that ULA, SpaceX, OSC, et al can pick up all the skilled SSP jobs that will be lost. With that will goa number of important skills that may cause further delays in future programs.

Aside from that, there is a good argument that the shuttle is needed to maintain the ISS until well after CRS is operational, given the amount of time it is going to take to get the commercial and international partner flights up to the necessary rate and reliability to support the station without the shuttle.

Let's be clear here. What this new bill is proposing is a "Continuity Program", ensuring that US indigenous crew launch capabilities are not lost whilst whatever commercial options that eventually emerge reach operational status. It will also ensure a direct transition from shuttle to the early phase BEO program that is completely decoupled from the commercial sector's own progress on this matter.

It is a good compromise. As always, there are interests on both sides who (at least on a certain subconscious level) would prefer to lose anything to any compromise emerging.

"Extending the Shuttle can only be justified to save jobs"

No, it can be justified in continue to provide the US with domestic access to space instead of relying on the Russians. There are probably other reasons such as retaining trained and skilled workers so they're available for the next generation rockets.

Some operations people have no design experience.... but I would guess about half are people with aerospace engineering, computer science, physics , math, ... technical science degrees and can do design and research work.
It would be a scandal to loose those people.

Senator Hutchison (R-Texas) is not "fully convinced that the shuttle's capability is no longer needed." She says [b]"we must answer the question of how we support, maintain, and fully utilize the ISS."[/b] [1]

Let's see what NASA has to say about this?

John Shannon (Shuttle Program Manager) says the next Shuttle mission NASA will "continue the final closeout of the space shuttle program, and get the ISS into a really good configuration to last at least another 10 years." [2]

In response, Kirk Shireman (ISS Program Deputy Manager) says "we're looking to fully utilizing the ISS." [2]

Does the reader think NASA leadership needs Congress meddling with ISS and Shuttle? A 30 day study is needed to answer Senator Hutchison's questions?

Or are you just angry that Congress is meddling with one of the things NASA is actually doing really well, and might actually finish before it gets ruined by some whirlwind?

Sources:
1) http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?dbname=2010_record&page=S1024&position=all
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L61bY7ZZas

Sorry but none of the design people within NASA have any more experience at managing a large development program then the operations people. Until NASA has multiple major development programs they will never be able to develop the in house project managment experience to manage big projects. Project Managment is not design nor is it operations, it is about managing your team and having the experience in managing programs to know when promises made by your team or the contractor are realistic or not. Although if NASA goes the R&D route and abandon's operations then NASA won't need this expertise any more.

Actually all operations people have technical degrees.

Exactly right throughout, Anon85. There has been a flood of misplaced opposition. There are plenty of reasons to oppose this, and plenty to support it, but the rhetoric has been largely missing the point.

I agree that jobs will shift from NASA toward industry, and while I expect a net growth (the budget plus-up will be spent, as usual, mostly on mortgages for engineers), some jobs will just disappear. That sucks for the people affected, and I fully sympathize. But that's not a reason for the country to persist on a path that's not working out.

I find it despicable that many Republicans and other opponents of the plan are exploiting this opportunity to blame Obama for the cancellation of Shuttle. Any legislator who was elected before 2008 must have voted at least once on whether to end the STS program in 2010 and support of ISS in 2015.

In regards to extending the shuttle, wow $1.1 billion per flight. That would be OK if our deficit were lower or our economy was stronger, but they are not. We've gone from 5 Shuttle flights to 2. Can someone tell me what some of the Shuttle people will be doing between flights? Are they idle or do they have tasks? Or are 3/5ths of the people being laid off?

What a mess. Can you imagine what the campaign slogans will be like in 2012? Let's not forget there are quite a few states and districts which are in need of money. And there are a lot of unemployed people elsewhere. Both state and sales taxes have been increasing. In fact, sales taxes are at the highest they have ever been. I think the bill being put forward authorizes about $20.3 billion. That's an %8.5 increase in the NASA budget over 2010. Does anyone know how much support this bill has in congress? Or is it a means for some senators to say they tried to do something?

"The reason the R&D argument is flawed is because the development costs of new technologies are inherently more expensive."

More importantly, they cannot be reliably quantified up front.

"Cheaper has much less to do with technology than with processes and operations."

Not necessarily. To use an example from another field, today's computers aren't cheaper than those of the 50s because of improvements in processes and operations, but because of fundamentally new technology.

Of course, then one gets to the question of 'so why do they have new technology, and not space flight'. No simple answer - and part of it is luck, to be honest.

I was referring to the comment about the 7 year gap. I made no mention of ISS.
Before Augustine, the gap was believed to be at least 5 years. The Augustine report predicted it would be 7 instead. Not worth quibbling over. Do you want HSF 1.5 year too late or 3.5 years too late sir?

...the termination of ISS in 2015 appears to have been a result of trying to provide funding that Congress would not provide. My impression is that they were hoping that Congress would not stand for the destruction of ISS in 2015 and provide the extra funding.
This is the only way I could make sense of it too. But brinksmanship is a terrible management strategy -- essentially threatening a hostage with a gun. Obama's proposal calls that bluff now -- frees the hostage. Don't you think that's a lot more sensible and fair?

"But given the lack of design experience in the HSF community"

But if we lack design experience in the HSF community, how is private enterprise going to overcome that? Or did you mean "NASA HSF community"?

"We're still stuck in the '70's when it comes to rockets. No new technology for 30 to 40 years, we are stagnant. That is the status quo that is being defended"

But most of the NewSpace companies are using even [i]older[/i] technology (kerolox). (Again, not that I think that's a bad engineering decision on their part. And as for the money guys, hey, they are rolling enough dice already, without rolling new technology dice too...)

How is switching to commercial going to get us "new technology", given that backdrop?

The end game of this plan is that the R&D gets funded for about 2-3 years and then they are declared unsuccessful and are canceled and you are left with nothing which is the plan all along.
I disagree. I think you're ignoring the portion that will be spent on commercial to LEO. When/if that makes progress (beginning this summer?), I predict jobs in districts will sustain the congressional support. The R&D portion is for BEO, which indeed will struggle to find steadfast support during the transition to commercial HSF. Once LEO is within our grasp, our embrace --- which I hope will be quick -- then we'll be able to plan specific programs for BEO. That's the scary gap, and all I can be is hopeful and optimistic about it.

You deftly hid a razor blade in there at the end: "which is the plan all along." You may believe that, but it ain't a fact. Nobody here knows what Obama's "real plan" is, but I believe in face value here: that he genuinely wants to stand up a vibrant commercial HSF and cargo capability to LEO, and foster research to simplify travel BEO. His statement of faith is that these steps can be accomplished within these resources, and they'll be a legacy sufficient to embark on a spacefaring future BEO. How does that statement of faith merit less credibility than Bush's VSE?

Sorry Jack,

Those people have been run off mostly. Hard core Ops people are a different tribe. Real technical skills are a liability in the political environment that NASA has degenerated into. How well you do depends on who you know, not making waves, and covering for each other.

Any "design" work done by these guys will be as stale as the operational systems are now, just shiny new parts from a catalog and assurances from the sales guys that everything will work just fine. They are way too risk-adverse and proud to ask any of the new guys or the techies who have stayed current for ideas.

They typically haven't learned or worked with anything new since they came in the gate. Innovation is not in the job description and will get you in a bunch of trouble.

I know this is a rant. Knowing what I know and have seen, I'm afraid I don't have any answers. Some people think it's simple to fix or change, it's really not.

The reason I post here is I think it is important for outsiders to understand how corrupt and obsolete the existing system and process is and will continue to be. Even more now that the "professional" politicians are involved.

Well, since the two were inextricably linked in the original VSE & Constellation programs, why not? It didn't take long to make it obvious that ARES 1 could not loft "Orion Heavy" for trans-lunar missions, so what else was there, other than ISS?

Nevertheless we're agreed completely as to the 2015 motivation, even though it was a Bushbaby" decision to begin with, relating to VSE.

"As it is, even with ISS extended to 2020, with Obama's scrapping of the current US human space flight plans ISS may still not be there when the commercial flights begin. Starting over with new commercial companies could make it 10 years before the US is launching people again."

Exactly how are they starting over? ULA, USA, Boeing etc are all all established Aerospace companies that have schemes as well as Launch and Spacecraft hardware which simply require modification such that unless they're completely incompetent, "starting over" is "not an option". If Boeing takes back Michoud, does a deal with ATK,
restores LC39B they should be able to produce aDIRECT/Evolved" type HLV for test launch in a couple of years. Unless they've all had their Novocaine injections, man-rating the EELV's shouldn't take much longer. OSC has had their contract for barely 18 months and is already hardware testing on Taurus II. Space X: I remain skeptical; they IMO, are the one company to whom your criticism has some validity frankly!

@aajocksoniv
It is a fallacy that ops people can do design. Just because you have an engineering degree and operations experience does NOT mean you can do design. Just because a brain surgeon has a medical degree and operating room experience doesn't mean you could throw him into an open heart surgery, the patient will die. He just doesn't have the requisite experience. That is the issue, experience. And 98% of NASA does not have the experience to do what needs to be done (I'm talking HSF of course, the science side has this experience). I see it every day, ground systems currently in design for CxP by ops people with a Shuttle background. And the drawings are elementary level and there is no engineering behind them. They have no engineering skills. They think you can just throw some stuff together and wing it.

@Noel
I meant NASA HSF does not have design experience. Commercial does so that is why they can succeed and we cannot. One reason CxP was so FUBAR was that NASA leads all aspects of the design and continuously changes requirements and jerks things around at a microlevel. We need to contract for the products we need and let the contractor build it with oversight from NASA. NewSpace is using old engine technology because NASA hasn't done its job in developing that technology to advance the state of the art. We've been too busy spending all our money on operations, something the government should not be doing. If we get out of the development and operations business and contract for products and services, we can spend the money in the proposed budget on R&D.

People say commercial spaceflight has only one customer, NASA. How do we know? NASA has a monopoly in the US market. Five customers have flown to ISS on Soyuz, there would be a lot more if there were more seats available. After Shuttle is retired, there won't be any more seats available on Soyuz. I believe there would be a market for several hundred million per year in private passengers.

"Exactly how are they starting over?"

Obama is proposing to cancel the Constellation program, that's how.

While LM might be able to use some of the Orion design and speed up program progress, with the cancellation unless the new program is very similar to Orion it would essentially be starting over.

All of the estimates of quick turnarounds for human spacecraft don't have any evidence to support them. I think LM and Boeing could do it the fastest, but I don't see how they could do it in less than 5 years unless the design was identical to Orion.

As many have been saying here and many don't want to believe, making safe crewed spacecraft is not a quick task. Wanting it to happen won't make it happen and many will soon be complaining about the slow progress with these new programs as many were about Constellation.

Why does it have to be ten years? The first Atlas-D flight was on 4/14/59 and the first manned flight (John Glenn in Friendship 7) using a this rocket was on 2/20/62, less than three years later. And all this was done using slide rules and hand-drafted drawings. With today's fancy computers and CAD systems it should be a lot faster now!

@isaac

Because our society is 10 million times more risk averse today than it was in the 50s, 60s or 70s. Kids have to practically wear helmets and knee pads in cars now until they are 12 years old. Every single thing you buy has a warning label on it. NASA requirements on safety started to become very strict after Apollo 1, then went through the ceiling after Challenger and again after Columbia. However, if Apollo 1 happened in 2010, we would have shut the program down for at least 3 years while we investigated it. That clearly did not happen then. They had a man walking on the moon 18 months later.

The other factor is a little thing called MONEY. They had tons and tons and tons of it. Constellations budget is a pittance compared to the Gemini/Apollo budgets. With money, they could blow things up left and right and then build a new one and try again. Also, every little failure didnt become the topics of endless media scrutiny, so they could actually concentrate on learning from their failures. When your budgets are scraped paper thin and you can't afford to keep building test hardware and you have to stretch your program over many years because of funding.

That is why the commercial (and I use that term very loosely) companies cannot do it in 3 years and that is why Cx cannot do it in 3 years. It's all about money.

"Nobody here knows what Obama's "real plan" is, but I believe in face value here: that he genuinely wants to stand up a vibrant commercial HSF and cargo capability to LEO, and foster research to simplify travel BEO."

Obama has no real plan and couldn't care less about space. This is an OMB plan, and the plan is to end human space flight and it's associated costs. This has been OMB's goal for years and they finally found an administration that will let them do it.

"It didn't take long to make it obvious that ARES 1 could not loft "Orion Heavy" for trans-lunar missions, so what else was there, other than ISS?"

That is an absolute load of crap. It is obvious you know nothing about the performance and constraints of the Cx architecture. Why do you post absolute ignorance?

Editor's note: tsk tsk "Dr Prunesquallor" you are the one who is ignorant of what CxP can and cannot do.