Where Do We Download Charlie Bolden's Solid Plan?
In Search of Charlie Bolden’s Solid Plan for NASA
“According to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden in yesterday’s budget press conference, “The time for debate about our future is over. We have a solid plan, a sustainable plan, and we are moving out to implement it, opening the next great chapter of American exploration.” “Solid plan”? Quite the contrary.”
Why are we surprised?????
Did he describe just what that plan is all about? Maybe he thinks Orion and SLS is a plan? They seem to be hardware in search of a plan.
The Obama administration didn’t want a plan. In fact, they didn’t even want the SLS or the Orion.
They simply wanted NASA to spend billions of tax payer dollar as a make work program with absolutely nothing to show for it.
Marcel F. Williams
Sustainable plan? Did we need to transfer money from Mars exploration over to technology? Budget tightening didn’t play a role in this decision, unfair targeting did. Thanks Bolden for being the puppet that you are instead of a real leader.
Adastramike
We don’t disagree like you may think. It seems that our great leaders can only do all the wrong things 🙁 To take our successful robot programs away only to stuff that money in a giant throw away SLS booster and burn it is totally stupid. I was dreaming that maybe NASA could work with new space and commercial and create plan that reduces cost to Leo creating missions that build infrastructure to the planets and moons near by helping to start a space economy which could fulfill the dream I had as a kid on my lunch box which is to do what it takes to make us a multiple planet species like Elon is trying to do.
How silly of me to think that NASA would ever work on that. NASA has a plan. The plan is to use Congresses SLS to suck up all the money and pretend to make plans to fly way the hell out there burning up every penny claiming that NASA our great space program is the tip of the spear.
Steve I was happier when I was totally ignorant of all this foolishness. I truly don’t know how you have been able to watch this for 30 years
Anyway Adastramike I had some thoughts on your comments and may try to express them sometime.
Leadership and vision are needed for a plan. Post a note when these arrive at NASA HQ.
hamptonguy,
“Leadership and vision are needed” and must be accompanied by both the autonomy and the authority to do your job. You can’t be held responsible for events when you have no authority over those events, and vice versa. This has been a fact since Ug the caveman started the first business in history; but to this day, so many people seem to be ignorant of this factor or blindly choose to ignore it. It’s the same reason why children don’t supervise their parents, and pupils don’t instruct their teachers. Don’t judge a person’s abilities, ideas or attitude by the straight jacket he’s forced to wear.
Steve
if I was in his position I would be screaming like a stuffed porky pig and I would get fired!!!
gpurcell,
You’re not the first person to suggest that, which I find disappointing, because it would accomplish nothing. It would not be seen as a protest, but rather as a cop-out, an unwillingness to do his best for an agency he believes in and has long been a part of. I suspect that those who have suggested resignation would see it quite differently if they themselves were in Bolden’s position. His long and distinguished career would be negatively tagged for all time by that single action if he resigned. Another word for resign is quit, and Bolden is not a quitter.
I’m sure that Bolden knows, and you should too, that if he should resign, one of two things would happen; either he would be replaced by a carefully chosen Yes man, or he wouldn’t be replaced at all for a long time (much like the situation before he took the job). In either event, NASA would be without anyone at the helm acting on their behalf to try to mitigate and minimize the extensive damage that Congress has done and continues to do to NASA. Congress has managed to render the President powerless when it comes to NASA, so it hardly matters what Obama’s position on NASA is. Congress is in the driver’s seat with respect to enabling or hampering NASA’s allocations, actions and future, and Bolden is the only one who has in any way stood up to them, face to face, to raise objections and explain fallacies. There’s not a lot that he, or anyone in his position, can do to offset or redirect the detrimental actions of Congress (only an idiot would regularly go head to head with his de facto boss), but he seems, to me, to be doing what little he can to save NASA from the conglomerate of elected fools who put the interests of their constituents against the welfare of the nation, and put their own interests ahead of those of their constituents.
Congress is a run-away train and Bolden would accomplish nothing good for NASA by resigning. In fact, resigning is the worst thing he could do because it would be an acceptance of defeat, and it would leave NASA without official, legal representation to the government, which could then grind NASA under its heal even harder. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that Garver or any of his other underlings will step up to the plate and save the day; that’s not the way it works. The President may or may not go looking for a replacement (which would be even harder to do than last time), but Congress would continually reject candidates until someone they can control is nominated.
Time and again, Charles Bolden has taken the personal hard road in order to do his best for NASA against an overwhelming, powerful political adversary, and instead of people acknowledging his commitment and sacrifice (even space advocates and NASA employees), he is rewarded again and again by criticism and inappropriate suggestions because he can’t accomplish the impossible. I challenge any of Charles Bolden’s critics to propose a beneficial, doable, realistic course of action that Bolden can undertake to improve on the brainless situation that NASA has been mandated into by Congress. If we can clear away the mile-high road block that is Congress, then we can get NASA working on improving itself internally and they can begin again doing beneficial work. But step one is for people to start putting the responsibility and blame where they belong.
Steve
How can a group make noise to go after SLS? Seems to me the problem is that many like the mars society are still supporting the silly things congress does.
In hopes of more funding later.
And to be clear in the other post I would end up making so much noise I would be fired. I couldn’t do what he does.
— In response to gpurcell —“
How on Earth do you get Congress as the problem?
“Who controls how much money NASA gets?
Who controls which NASA programs get done and which ones don’t through the budget allocations?
Who causes NASA programs to be reduced in scope by cutting money already allocated?
Who mandated the foolish SLS program?
Who, after mandating SLS, then starting asking NASA “what are you going to do with it?”
Who repeatedly blocks and disallows Presidential proposals relating to executive agencies?
etc., etc., etc.
Answer: Congress, Congress, Congress, Congress, Congress, Congress, and Congress.
If you don’t like Obama, that’s fine. But don’t blame him for the damage that Congress has been doing.
Steve
Gpurcell
I don’t know enough about what bolden has done or not done to debate your points. I do know the SLS is congresses baby and it should be stopped. The idea of exploring in a big throw away rocket is complete foolishness. I do know that after Mr. Obama stopped that moon rocket which was a good thing that we are back doing the same old expensive unsustainable garbage again. As a person that cares every much about a Space program that’s designed to get us off this rock in a sustainable way. I see that SLS and Orion should be Stopped!!! And that that money should be used in some smart way to solve our expensive launch problems and lay the foundation to get us into space so that we can start to get benefits from the resources a Space economy can one day offer.
NASAs Current plan of having commercial do Leo and WE WILL DO EXPLORATION! is all wrong! Nasa using Congresses SLS program to try to hang on to expensive wasteful Space is totally Wrong!!!
Better to get NASA out of space transportation than to let this go on. If this is the best they can do then I’m for pulling the plug and letting Elon and others pick up the pieces.
Doesn’t take a rocket scientist