Who Advises Charlie Bolden on All Those Technology Things?

1. There are *lots* of cubesat propulsion, attitude control and de-orbit systems in the works. This is a daft comment from Mr Bolden.

   1. There aren’t any propulsion systems currently available for cubesats that can provide enough DV for interplanetary missions, not even for a basic Mars orbital mission. This is a major problem and a major research area.

2. More evidence that the General doesn’t tweet– it’s an intern in PAO.

   1. Probably, but I don’t see that as much of an excuse. If it goes out with your name on it, I think you are responsible for the content. If an intern wrote it for him, fine. But he if he let it go out in his name, he’s explicitly saying he agrees with the content.

3. The man has been a conspicuous embarrassment from the day he was appointed. The man who appointed him will be moving on in a few months. Let us hope the next occupant of the White House sees fit to pull the plug on Gen. Bolden as well.

   1. Charlie is an amazingly smart guy and has tremendous capabilities. He has been put into the unenviable position of managing an organization when it is in decline. This is a role that he is totally unsuited for.

      The best example of that was when he came to JSC to have an All Hands with the people who had been working on Constellation – he is unable to have empathy with people who have had their projects cancelled. He has gone from success to success and sees people who have their projects cancelled as whiners. He concerns himself with the big picture and not the needs of any of the small people.

      He probably had some aide select some enthusiastic young intern to really put out his tweets – and sees the aide and the intern as cogs that need to work silently and get out of the way.

      1. Don’t you think he has had something to do with the decline! Proclaiming grandiose goals with no plans behind them Backing huge , expensive projects that make no technical sense. At least he has gotten his public crying under control. I hope the next White House goes outside of the “astronaut mafia” for the next head of NASA.

4. We dedicated an entire Space Horizons conference a few years ago to “Desktop Delta-V” regarding CubeSat and other bench-level spacecraft propulsion. There are dozens of current CubeSat propulsion projects.

5. C’mon you guys. I don’t believe that any cubesat has successfully flown yet with a propulsion system. And launch providers are nervous that they could jeopardize the primary payload. Let’s cut Charlie a little slack on this one.

   1. Yes there have been multiple cubesats FLOWN with functioning propulsion systems

      1. I’m really glad to hear that. Can you give me a couple of examples?

         1. CanX-2 and CanX-4/5, DELFI-N3XT, STRaND-1, POPSAT-HIP1 .. there are a few more with various claims to success.

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