NASA's Bold New Era = One Giant Leap Backwards

I have to ask myself why Bolden gets so choked up when talking about the passion, the safety of the crew, or the death in the family. If he is so excited about this bold new era Obama has blessed us with, why the tears? Does he not really believe in it? I hope so… having worked with him my jaw continually drops to the floor these last two days at response to some of things he has said.

So excited to find ways to get us out of low Earth orbit

Excuse me, isn’t that what Constellation was? Oh no, it wasn’t an idea… it was a plan! My bad…

Same ol’ Same ol’…

I find this particularly amusing that Obama would like us to spend the next ten years figuring out a way to get out of LEO. So many of the entries for the SSP Commemorative patch contest lamented on the fact that the shuttle KEPT us tied down in LEO.

Everywhere vs. Nowhere

“When you are going everywhere, you are going nowhere”. Okay… but we are NOT going everywhere - we are indeed going nowhere!

What Dreams Are Made Of

Bolden said this was so much better because we are not building programs from our dreams… huh? Is that NOT how we excite our supporters, how we interest students in math and science? The exact quote: “It’s different because, for one thing, the president has set out a budget that supports where we think we want to go. And we are building programs based on the budget that we have and not building programs based on a dream “. Did he listen to what he just said…??? How is that not settling?

Completely Drunk on the Kool-aid

The next thing I heard Bolden say was that with STS we were given a plan but no money. And now we have a plan and here is the money that you are going to have to do it….. what, how is that any different than what you just said??? The entire statement was absurd! Obama has supplied Charlie with an IV, I guess. Well I guess if you scale back to status quo, it doesn’t really cost that much – so you will certainly have enough money.

Hmmmm, I want to drive to Colorado but need a new car. So instead of figuring out how to budget the new car and maybe not spend wasted money on health care for the squirrels in my yard… I am told that I think I don’t really need to go to Colorado yet. So, I can just get a cheap car that can get back and forth to Houston and ultimately go nowhere I haven’t been. Yea, I can afford that!

Managing to pull through, Managing to recover

“We are going to get through this, kind of stick with us if you can”… If this is such an exciting, bold, new challenge – why are we recovering, pulling through, or sticking with you? Oh yea, not exciting enough… true!

Press Club Video from CSPAN