One KSC Worker's Perspective on The President's Visit

Folks:

Not a very well informed "worker" here. Let's hope this isn't the average level of intelligence from the "troops on the ground".

Spacex is batting 3 fouls to 2 home runs, not 3 to 1. It may be a test launch of the Falcon 9 but it is a whole launch vehicle capable of reaching orbit not a claptrap Frankenstein rocket like the Ares IX.

Also Senators Nelson and Kosmas had to be seriously persuaded to support Obamas program. I was very surprised to hear Senator Nelsons glowing introduction for Charlie Boldan (but hey, once your commander always your commander).

tinker

great article though I expect some of the Kool-aid drinking outsiders will try to rip it to shreds.

Bravo!

While I respect your opinion and understand how you may have reached it, calling Obama a liar surely isn't the way to start a meaningful conversation about the future of space flight. When every other discretionary federal agency is under a spending freeze, Obama is increasing NASA's budget $6 billion over the next five years, setting new goals and timetables for human spaceflight, extending the life of the ISS NOW. He is, after all, The president of the United States. I for one think he is entitled to have the chance to sell and pass his program. A commitment to deep space manned flight and the funding to pay for the technology such missions will need isn't something we should ignore or denigrate. There is tremendous potential for optimism here; I hope NASAWATCH posters will wait for the clarifying details over the next few weeks before making up their minds.

And General Bolden may be a lot of things, but a coward and a traitor to NASA aren't among them. He accepted what he knew would be a thankless and difficult assignment of bringing NASA through the most traumatic change in its storied history. He deserves a thank you, not scorn. You can differ with the man without calling him names.

I agree with Tinker. Anonymous KSC worker is distorting the facts to make the case that his job should be protected. The blog post makes many interesting claims, but since he destroys his credibility with obvious misstatements, I don't see the point in debating them.

so because he got one fact on SpaceX wrong his argument is null and void? Must be nice to be on the outside and not see the layoffs coming (Boeing and USA letters go out in July given no clear path forward for new work)

the new milestones are still punting to the next president and beyond. Heck even committing to build HLV is for the next president since we are going to spend 4 yrs thinking about what we want to build before deciding anything. Going to be hard since you have no driving DRM to give you a clue on throw mass or fairing size for the HLV so I guess endless powerpoint trade studies will be all the rage at MSFC.

As for Orion, he is dead on it is a vehicle with no real purpose and more smoke and mirrors. until it is ready we will pay the Russians the low low price of $55M (assuming STS-133 wheelstop there isn't a price increase) for crew rotation and emergency evac. once Elon is ready he says his vehicle is good for 6 month stay also so what is the point of Orion Lite. Oh right to be the foundation for Ex-LEO which happens 15 years from now assuming all the stars align, HLV is funded and built, game changing technology is developed and a president really wants to go BEO.

the new milestones for deep space HSF is no more tangible or realistic than anything Cx ever came up with. Do I want Cx to be saved, not all of it, heck I am happy we are finally not riding on the stick anymore. Realistically the only reason to keep Orion "lite" going is to have a fall back for when your stars in their eyes commercial guys start missing their marks and the US has had enough of being bent over the barrel for Soyuz seat prices.

Great article. I work at KSC and yep, it's spot on regarding the feelings towards Obama and Bolden/Garver. SPOT ON. I seriously don't know 1 person that likes the new path, but hey I guess we all must be wrong huh?
However, I found it funny that Elon Musk was quoted saying that Obama did the right thing to cancel Constellation and it was about time.
Really ? Was Elon Musk on the Augustine commission?
He wouldn't have any bias now would he...

But is SpaceX behind schedule? From wiki...
"In February 2008, the plan was for the first Falcon 9/Dragon COTS Demo flight to be delayed by six months to late in the first quarter of 2009"

While I disagree with his advocacy for the Constellation architecture, the man pretty much told the truth.

Its pretty obvious that Obama wants to get NASA out of the manned spaceflight business. Under the Obama plan, the manned spaceflight related budget will shrink from $8.4 billion (2009) all the way down to just $4.1 billion by 2015. And Bolden said in Israel that there might not even be a need for NASA astronauts in the future!

And Elon Musk is at it again, complaining about NASA inefficiency while begging for tax payer dollars and government contracts for a vehicle that has never launched a human safely into orbit or returned one safely to the Earth. These private companies should be extremely thankful for the tax payer money that they're receiving through NASA but instead their anti-NASA propaganda could end up killing the goose that laid the golden egg!

Marcel F. Williams

Hard not to recall the fake marble pillars at the Obama acceptance speech as not being warning of how well he presents things, but how hollow it can be.

I agree that if we follow OBama on his NASA plans, we will indeed have a hollow NASA.

It will spend money, it will do science, it will even have jobs, and all will look well on the outside. But the core of it's existance will be gone...

Humanity expanding into space will not happen.

He used some strong language, too strong perhaps.
But he was dead right..

It's a power point space program.

No thanks Mr Obama, and I think congress is not going to sign on nearly as much as some here may think.

There are going to be some surprises before this is over.

That's a completely unprofessional blog post that says more about the writer than anything. It comes across as a pandering partisan political attack rather than a reasoned disagreement from a space professional. The author is welcome to his opinion but I heartily disagree with it being put out there as any sort of representative unified view from aerospace people. I can relate to the frustration with what's going on very well, but that's not the message you want to send to the public, it does not help our case at all.

Exactly. His snide comment about Obama's management experience leads me to believe he's an Obama hater unlikely to agree with any decision Obama would make, even if it made sense.

Frank Sietzen: "He is, after all, The president of the United States. I for one think he is entitled to have the chance to sell and pass his program."

Obama is entitled to have the chance to sell and pass the program he promised voters he would support. According to his "Advancing the Frontiers of Space Exploration" letter, he said he would "endorse the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars." That is what he promised, and that is what he is entitled to 'sell'. I don't believe he ever changed his mind. He didn't need the Aldridge Commission to discover that we have been to the moon before. He said early on in his campaign that he would delay the moon mission at least 5 years and now he has cut it. His statement of "support" was only to get elected. I wouldn't call that truthful.

I am so disgusted by the unpatriotic rhetoric of sour old men (and a few sour young ones) who work at NASA. Get over it, guys!

A lot of us who work here too put up with the nonsense of the previous 8 years and did "respect the Presidency" if not the person serving at that time (Good ole GW). I am ashamed when I hear venal disrespect directed toward today's president. When did NASA become a GOP or Tea Party front?

Can't we be more civil and work together to move forward in the professional manner with dignity which so characterized NASA's greatest triumphs?

Get over it!

Hi, Frank and wronkiew

Although I respect your opinions, let's keep in mind that this writer from KSC is someone who is scared, hurting, and feeling pretty abandoned. This in an environment where finding technical jobs has become much harder and where finding one means giving up your home and moving to another possibly unfamilar area with family in tow. There is another fact everyone is ignoring and that is angering the NASA contractor workforce: the politicizing of this whole change. The workforce has been ignore, by Obama, by Bolden, and by Garver. We are being treated pretty much like waste and ignoring us is the best way to get rid of us. So, we are angry.
I might mention that leadership means bringing inspiration and sighted goals to a 'team' effort. This is something that none in the present administration have done. Right now, I think Mr. Obama sees himself as the one to bring the Star Trek Federation and its ideals online. Although those ideals are truly well worth the work, they aren't realistic, not for the time we live in currently.
Also, $6B over 5 years is a drop in the bucket as our US budget goes. We spend nearly $6-7B a day in our war on terror which in reality hasn't gotten us anything and hasn't brought that door anywhere closer to being shut. If that money were actually utilized to feed the hungry and inspire technical and scientific study to lessen the strife we see on Earth, maybe we could start to see a true Federation begun. But we won't because, again, Obama and his administration are assuring us that their political lives are much more important than doing what is right in this country: saving jobs, seeing to treating citizens with respect and courtesy, and bringing manufacturing back to this country.

Lets recap on Obamas day - He spent 45 minutes at the O&C building and several hours at a fund raiser.

To me, that says that the rank and file worker is below his level of interest and he absolutely hates to be confronted with the rank and file.

I guess he'll pay for that mistake in just over two years.

And just why should KSC worker not be interested in protecting his job? Obama and the Democrats are using his tax dollars to save everyone else's. I fully support KSC worker doing and whatever he needs to do and say to help keep his job.

Hmm, Frank...good point, except that Obama lied. Had Obama not lied about so many things so far, maybe...just maybe... I could give him a little bit of a break. Remember transparency? Lie. Remember no tax increases? Lie. Remember closing the gap? Lie. If Obama is going to blatantly lie to us, I see no problem in calling him a liar.

And I really don't think that Obama had any intention of having a meaningful conversation about the topic, considering that he packed the audience with his croanies and would not even face the KSC employees.

Nobody supports NASA more than Obama? Lie.

If you knew the first thing about Falcon 9 and how it is put together and tested, you'd be calling it a frankenstein rocket. Elon is not making friends with his media rhetoric nor his practice of buying talent or pilfering intellitual property under the guise of offering hurting aerospace contractors "new work". They say don't meet your heros, in a round about way I have and I didn't like what I found.

Everything I've read has SpaceX batting worse than 3 fouls, unless you consider total failure a foul. I think they've had one partial success, hardly a home run.
However, I won't bash SpaceX. I think what they are doing is awesome. They are just stuck in the growing pains of what it takes to launch vehicles into space. I have no doubt that they'll get there eventually, just not soon enough and certainly not for the lowball numbers they are throwing around. This industry is just plain difficult. Unless you sacrifice quality, you can't get there on the cheap. For the money SpaceX claims they can do the job with, there was no reason to cancel anything. SpaceX reps said 10 rocket company startups could be funded on the $6B that Obama increased NASAs budget. Why kill anything? Seems like Obama just needed to throw some monopoly money their way and we still have the valued experience of 50 years moving forward in parallel.

I won't bash the Ares series of rockets either. I don't really know why we needed more rockets but it somehow made it into the plan.

I do take issue with Obama telling people that have worked in this industry all their lives that he knows what is best. He doesn't have a clue.
You can debate the comment all day but the truth is Obama staged his own greeting ceremony and locked the workers of Kennedy out. Why go to Florida at all? He could have staged that fiasco anywhere. I definately think it was a cowardly move.
I lean towards the experts when they say this move will be devastating. Unfortunately, it'll be too late when it is realized.

When did NASA become a GOP or Tea Party front?

Probably about the time the right-wing southern Democrats defected to the GOP.

I have little sympathy for government workers who think their employment is an entitlement, and even less when they act as if any threat to change their jobs justifies bald lies, fabricated smears, and general rudeness. Perhaps they should lose their jobs so they can be replaced by younger people who actually care about getting something done and are grateful for an opportunity to contribute.

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principle difference between a dog and a man."
Mark Twain

First off, I want to repeat it for those folks that don't know or understand. NASA is seeing no cuts and no job losses.

The folks that are HURTING are the contractors. They are not responsible for any aspect of the present day situation. If you want to argue with me on that, start another blame thread, I'm ready.

The buddy, buddy between NASA and the contractors died awhile ago and to be perfectly honest there are quite a few KSC NASA folks who are reveling in the loss of those darned vehicles and her meddling attendants. They are washing their hands (just like in the book) and emotionally distancing themselves from people that they have worked with for years.

They think they are the winners in this tragedy but they are just survivors, for now.

It's over for most of us though and we know pretty much who we are at this point.

It is especially hard this time as opposed to Apollo, for some, because the birds are a familiar part of the family. Doomed to be sent off as museum pieces to be never seen again by most for whom toiled to heal them and bring them back to life. An irony is the last work many of the contractors will see is preparing the corpses for the public viewing.

Can you imaging what it will feel like to watch that last orbiter being hauled off from the SLF?

We are singularly alone in our grief.

The armchair/lego rocket scientists that post here along with the current President and all his men cannot know our pain. That is not because of who they are, it is because of who we are.

I don't think there are any saints posting on this board and if you HONESTLY put yourself in our shoes there is no doubt in my mind that you would be bitter too.

We are human. Humans are emotional creatures. We are grieving. The hardest part for us hasn't even started yet, we still have work to do.

Outside of warfare, we are probably the greatest team of people ever put together on this Earth since Apollo. Soon, we will be blown to the wind.

The Glory Days are gone for us. We are all Neil Armstrong now.

We'll have some boring/scary stories for our grand kids who will roll their eyes and wonder why we just didn't simulate it with a really cool CGI like they do now.

That sound will soon be never be heard again. That last rollout is coming.

Peace my brothers, and savor the time we have left.

I only got as far as, "But Obama the coward took a back route in from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to get to his teleprompter at the Operations and Checkout Building many miles away from the workers."

What useful information could I get from someone who lives in a cartoon world where the President of the United States of America is hunched over behind the wheel of his SUV swerving around KSC, trying to hide from the workers. Someone who doesn't acknowledge that anyone who gives different speeches every day as part of their job (and can afford one) uses a TelePrompTer.

I live in the real world, where the heroes of the Secret Service plan every inch of every route the President takes from one point to another. In my real world, all Presidents seem to give NASA a fractional amount of their attention, roughly commensurate with NASA's fraction of the Federal Budget.

Every President I have observed, when they really care about how something turns out, assembles a group of experts that try to come to a consensus and make recommendations. The POTUS and his team then review the recommendations and analyze them for how they might impact a wide range of things, including the budget, the economy, the day's news, and the next few elections. If things look good, they set up a White House team to start working with the affected agency and implement the recommendations as the President's new policy. This is how the Executive Branch of the United States Government works, when it is working well.

The fact is, that in the proposed budget, NASA's line is increasing. That is a rare thing in these times. Agencies that Presidents don't care about or despise do not get budget increases. Not in the real world.

Sorry for the rant, but I hate to see such blatantly clueless opinions promoted in a popular public forum. The signal-to-noise ratio around here is bad enough already...

First of all, I want to thank everyone, even the ones who disagree with me, who visited my little site. We had nearly 2,000 visitors come yesterday which caused me to go over my bandwidth. That has been corrected thanks to FranklinSpirko.com, my server.

The post, http://www.rv-103.com/?p=457, went “viral” once it was featured on http://nasawatch.com/archives/2010/04/one-ksc-workers.html#comments. The comments on that site were far more frequent and vigorous. That is good. I think finally there is a true discussion going on about our future in space instead of photo sessions and PowerPoints that were held by Obama.

I do want to clear some things up. First of all, I do not currently work for any aerospace company nor speak in their name. I only speak for myself.

Second, some comments at NASAWatch suggest that I “hate” SpaceX. I don’t. I actually would like to see them succeed, but I must point out that they are at the point in their launches that NASA was at over 50 years ago. They still have a long way to go. That’s not “hating” them, but being realistic about where they are right now with their launch experiences.

Third, I don’t “hate” Charlie Bolden, but I do pity him. As I said in the blog post, I cannot imagine being hated by so many of my peers as this man is. That is a heavy burden to carry and I do pity him.

Fourth and last, I do appreciate any and all comments on my site, even if they disagree with me. All I ask is that you read the entire post before commenting and passing judgement.

Speaking of comments, my site is still a family site and I will not tolerate cursing, or other such behavior. Those comments will be deleted and if need be, the commenter will be banned from this site. On other forums I behave in a proper manner while forcefully arguing my position, and I expect the same from others on my forum.

Be safe and well.

Not to mention that the billionaire initially stated he wanted no gov't money; and is now accepting handouts -- which tells me he doesnt know what a business plan is; hope we subsidize his hobby well!

I don't think one single critic of my blog post has bothered to defend Obama's new "Human Space Flight Program", but have found time to criticize minor issues in my critique of Obama's policy and speech. If you have issue with my critique of Obama's speech, then defend it and tell us all why it's such a good thing for our country and quit dancing around the issue.