Bob Werb

Civil Space Opinion Survey

by Bob Werb July 21, 2011 Uncategorized

Over the last two days of the Atlantis flight we had up a survey about the shuttle and the future of human spaceflight.  Summary results are up here. We will get up the detailed results with analysis in a few days.

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2010: A Year of Accomplishments

by Bob Werb November 18, 2010 Advocacy

Things sure have changed during the last 12 months and we plan to make sure they change even more… if only we can find the money and volunteers to make it happen.

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Defeating the Homers, Haters and Boomers

by Bob Werb August 23, 2010 Advocacy

A friend of ours in DC describes opposition to the proposed NASA budget as the “homers, haters and boomers.” The homers want as much federal spending as possible in their home state. The haters reflexively oppose anything from an Administration they despise. The boomers are nostalgic for the 60s.

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Real Socialism in America

by Bob Werb July 6, 2010 SpaceFront

There is a change being proposed by the Obama administration that deals with a government program where full control of the means of production is already in government hands. That’s right. In at least one instance, Barack Obama wants to put America on the road to capitalism. The program in question is called Constellation.

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A Remarkable Experience in DC

by Bob Werb March 31, 2010 SpaceFront

I had a remarkable experience in DC last week. I went down to join Ed Wright, six of the seven Pathfinder teachers and a couple of other Advocates to brief some key Congressional and Senate offices.  Aside from expressing our enthusiasm for the proposed NASA budget and the need to fix the ITAR mess, our [...]

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Trying the Tried and True

by Bob Werb February 17, 2010 SpaceFront

I’ve been thinking about Rick’s post here on how “the agency which is supposed to be challenging the edge is taking so much heat for trying something new” and I’m wondering if we aren’t helping our opponents by accepting that there is anything “new” involved in the proposed NASA budget. Think about it.  The “untried” [...]

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Dreams and Nightmares

by Bob Werb February 10, 2010 SpaceFront

The proposed budget from the Obama administration is the most exciting and promising thing to happen to NASA in several generations.  If adopted by Congress it will represent the reversal of a policy that has kept humans locked in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) since December 19th, 1972.  The plan to enable, rather than compete against, [...]

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They Are Not All Shills

by Bob Werb February 8, 2010 SpaceFront

Over the last week or so a number of people, including me, have pointed out that much of the dissembling about the proposed NASA budget is being done by people with a financial and/or political interest in maintaining the status quo.  It has been particularity disturbing how often those representing vested interests fail to disclose [...]

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The News Today

by Bob Werb February 1, 2010 SpaceFront

Much of the mainstream response to Constellation’s cancellation and replacement by more effective spending reads like everything was going honky dory with Constellation in the first place. The reality is that this porker is already many years behind schedule and well along the path to failure. Rescuing Constellation would require dramatically increasing NASA’s budget and [...]

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Ares I: A Pass-Fail Test for Barack Obama

by Bob Werb January 23, 2010 Advocacy

The case against Ares I is overwhelming. It is overpriced, unnecessary, competes directly with private spaceflight providers and will take so long to develop that it has already created a several years long “gap” in US crewed access to space. The commercial alternatives are based on well-tested, mature systems currently used to launch U.S. military, scientific, and commercial satellites. Adapting these rockets to carry people is cheaper, faster and better.

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