What is the SLS? From Sept. 11, 2011

At the request of a space-pal of mine who asked me to do something on the SLS... I already did! Here's a piece from September 11, 2011.

On October 11, 2010 President Obama signed The NASA Authorization Act of 2010. This placed into effect PL111-267 which is the law that mandated that NASA must do specific things by specific dates in order to bring to reality the government-owned launch system that is to be the next step beyond the shuttle. Of course you cannot have any NASA launch system without an acronym that becomes its moniker. In this case the Space Launch System has been dubbed the “SLS.” Although, by law, NASA was supposed to produce a complete plan for the SLS within 90 days of the law’s signing, that release did not come until September 14, 2011- some 339 days after the law was signed.

Birth of the SLS came in the wake of the Obama Administration’s FY2011 Budget Proposal. Within that proposal was placed the proposal for NASA’s budget and with that President Obama canceled the Constellation Program which was the replacement for the Space Shuttle that NASA had already spent a half dozen years and nearly $10 billion working to develop. Additionally, the Obama plan had no defined objective for NASA and no timetable to do anything other than wait for some undefined “Path breaking” and “Game Changing” technologies that were to come from someplace that was equally undefined. It also took all of United States manned spaceflight efforts and simply turned them over to a select few private, start-up companies that were selected for reasons unexplained. That portion of the overall FY2011 Budget Proposal sent shock waves through the aerospace community, through NASA, through NASA contractors and through the Congress where, by the way, Constellation had wide support on both sides of the aisle. This, however, meant nothing to the Obama Administration which had other ideas about NASA. Simply put, they sought to completely gut the Federal human spaceflight program and rebuild NASA as an academic think-tank in one swift stroke. Although that may have worked for Hugo down in Venezuela, it did not go over at all for Barack in the United States.


Within months of the Obama FY2011 budget proposal, the Congress had negated the administration’s “new” direction for NASA and composed a new space act which President Obama, grudgingly, signed into law. In that law the Congress directed NASA to come up with a launch vehicle that could loft 70 tons and later evolve into a vehicle that could loft 130 tons. In an effort to preserve the maximum amount of talent and skill in the spaceflight work force, the law-makers specified that work on the new launch vehicle must begin with a detailed design plan from NASA due 90 days after the law was signed and then press to begin physical construction immediately thereafter. The new vehicle was also to make the maximum use of Shuttle and Constellation hardware and facilities to the greatest extent possible in order to preserve the workforce. Under the influence of the White House, NASA finally delivered the SLS plan 249 days behind that imposed schedule.

Now that NASA’s politically appointed administrators have finally released to the public the details of the new vehicle, we can take a good look at the new launcher. Of course, the spaceflight community has known since 2010 what the SLS configuration will likely be. In fact the basic arrangement has been discussed by NASA engineers for several years. The basic arrangement uses a Space Shuttle external tank as the “core” of the vehicle with two Shuttle derived SRBs attached in a manner similar to that of the Shuttle itself. The difference being that the SRBs each have five segments instead of the four segments used on the Shuttle. Additionally, the core tank has a thrust structure built onto its base and attached there will be either three or five Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME). Atop the tank will be placed a second stage that will be powered by a J-2X engine derived from the Saturn rockets that were used in the Apollo program. That stage will be used for boosting cargo or for boosting the Orion Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) into missions beyond Earth Orbit (BEO). In early test flights that second stage may be substituted with a Delta IV “kicker” upper stage that can be used to boost the Orion. This overall configuration allows for the launching of crews and the safety of a Launch Abort System (LAS), or escape tower, to cover all phases of boost.

In operation the SLS will lift off by first igniting the SSMEs, followed several seconds later by the SRBs in a manner similar to the Shuttle. The primary difference will be that the five SSMEs will develop a combined thrust of ~2 million pounds while the five segment SRBs will each develop ~3.6 million pounds of thrust giving the vehicle a total thrust at liftoff of ~9.2 million pounds. That is 1.5 million pounds more thrust than the Saturn V moon rocket’s maximum liftoff thrust of 7.7 million pounds and just a bit short of the Soviet N1 rocket which reportedly produced ~10 million pounds of thrust. That will, however, make the SLS the most powerful rocket ever launched by the United States.

At staging the two SRBs will drop away as they have done with the Space Shuttle, however, these new five segment SRBs will have burned significantly longer than the Shuttle SRBs and will stage at a far higher altitude. The decision as to if or not the new SRBs will be recovered for reuse has still not been announced by NASA. (Update, 2013: the SRBs will not be recovered)

After SRB jettison, the core stage will continue to fire to near orbital velocity. At the end of its burn it and its formerly reusable SSMEs will burn up on reentry. In case you are wondering why they are throwing away the “reusable” SSME’s, there is a good reason. It was found that the “cost savings of reusability” attached to the SSMEs turned out to be a myth. Each and every time that an SSME was returned from a Shuttle flight, it was removed from the orbiter, disassembled, inspected, reassembled and reinstalled into the orbiter. The overhead cost it doing that turned out to be more than the cost of building a new, disposable version of the same engine. Although this inspection standard was required to maintain the high degree of safety involved in the Space Shuttle program, it more than negated any cost savings in the concept of “reusability.” Thus, the early SLS vehicles will use up the stock of reusable SSMEs (also known as RS-25D engines) and then transition into a semi-new and disposable version of the SSME, (the RS-25E) all of which will discarded in the launch process. In doing so the SLS program can actually operate with less overhead than the Shuttle.
Ground Support Equipment (GSE) for the SLS will make use of hardware left over from the Constellation program that was canceled by the Obama Administration, as well as facilities from the Shuttle program that was ended by the Bush Administration, plus facilities and equipment left over from the Apollo program that was canceled by the Nixon administration with the help of the Johnson administration. Thus, the facilities of Launch Complex 39 plus the VAB and Launch Control Center will all be pressed into service.

One of the Constellation contracts that was able to be completed before the Obama administration decided we did not need to go to the moon again because, as the President so snidely put it “Buzz (Aldrin) has already been there” was a mobile launcher. This launch platform and umbilical tower also known as an LUT is similar to those that rolled to the pad with the Saturn V. The difference, however, is that this LUT is made to be ultra light weight. The Apollo LUTs were constructed of steel “I” beams and built without weight considerations being a major limiting factor. This could be done because the Saturn V itself, when rolled to the pad, un-fueled, on its LUT weighed just over 502,000 pounds. The LUT itself weighed in at 10.6 million pounds. The result was that the crawler was designed to carry over 17 million pounds of load, including its own weight. A fully stacked Constellation heavy launch vehicle would weigh nearly five times more than the un-fueled Saturn V because the twin SRBs are always “loaded” and each weighs more than 1.4 million pounds. Thus, a new lightweight LUT had to be designed and constructed. Intended for the Ares I, that LUT was fully erected when President Obama canceled Constellation. Some in the media referred to it as “That B.W.M.: big waste of money” but the fact is that the LUT is simply a skeleton and has no vehicle specific workings installed- thus it can be adapted to another vehicle. Enter the SLS and what will be a new use for the Constellation LUT.

So, at this moment in time the SLS is ready and able to move ahead. And after having signed into law a launch system that he does not want, President Obama has used every tactic his administration can imagine to delay and block the actual production of the SLS vehicle and the implementation of the law that created it. The President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has refused to request funds for the vehicle, NASA’s politically appointed administrators have foot-dragged reports and plans required by the Congress while OMB required a protracted “independent” survey of the costs involved. When that survey did not show the inflated costs that the administration wanted to see, the report was tossed into a tar pit of the NASA Administrator’s office. Finally, information was “leaked” to the Wall Street Journal and the Orlando Sentinel stating that the SLS was found to cost about twice as much as planned and the White House had “sticker shock.” For Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and Bill Nelson, that was the last straw. They finally marched into the offices where the delay tactics were originating and applied the needed pressure to get the program made public and get the SLS moving. Exactly what the pressure was and where it was applied is unknown, but the fact is that on September 14, 2011 the United States Congress may have, at least for the moment, rescued NASA’s human spaceflight program from strangulation by the Obama administration.

I saw it comin'; August 15, 2009

I wrote this on August 15th, 2009- back when we still had a human spaceflight program, when we still had an operational Space Shuttle, when we still had a clear goal in space- the return to the moon and before tens of thousands of spaceflight workers had been put out of work by Obama when he canceled Constellation- this nation's return to the moon and put in place a plan to go to nowhere. Read this and see that I saw this guy comin' and I knew what he was going to do...

August 15, 2009

A big ol' plate of NASA to cancel

There are so many aspects and dynamics going on right now in the world of the DC vote grubs that no one knows what will be next, or in the future for anything. Frankly I think we'll be lucky if they don't change the flag to green with a red hammer and sickle and then have Obama come on the TV and declare himself president for life- because most of the media would simply go along with that. In reality, the party in power is rapidly ripping itself to shreds while the other party is trying to figure out where all of that ripping noise is coming from. Into all of that, the Augustine commission is about to slide, in front of the most liberal left wing President in American history, a great big platter of NASA all garnished with "Nothing fits any budget" sprinkled all over it... YUM! Sitting there with his knife in one fist, his fork in another and his red hammer and sickle bib covering his nice suit what will the President do with such morsel?

Take a wild freakin' guess. Go ahead- all of you space coast workers who voted for him after his shoot and scoot campaign stop at KSC and all of you aerospace workers who voted for him because the union said you should, and all of you NASA workers who had senator's Bill and Babs present him to ya'... come on... guess!

Anyone think that after quadrupling the national debt in just six months and taking heat for running the fiscal boat of the United States full speed onto the rocks, the President may just take this opportunity to fulfill one of his most chanted campaign slogans and make a "change?"

The media is already on board- as it was said today in the Orlando Slant-enal it is now up to the President "...to decide whether human space exploration is a worthy priority or an unaffordable luxury." OH BOY!... it is a left-wing liberal's dream come true! How better to take the last thing that the USA actually leads in- spaceflight- and gut it, thus bringing us closer to the liberal's goal of finally making us a third world nation!

And even if President Obama does not decide to gut and castrate NASA- there is the congress. The Health Care socialization movement is so damaging to the Democrats that they could lose more than 80 seats across both houses next year. That means that some bedrock NASA supporters may be out, and those who replace them will not be in the mode of increasing budgets of any agency. It is going to be cut, reduce and repeal in an attempt to pull back from the insane spending of our current one-party government.

So- the entire balance of United States human spaceflight now will be cast into the bee hive of indecision and CYA politics that is Washington DC. What will the President do? Lead? or vote "Present?" Perhaps he'll send us on a grand adventure to discover... EARTH! Ya' know- chase the left's global warming myth at the rate of a few billion bucks a year until he's thrown out of office. What will the headless chickens in the congress do? And even more important- what will the next batch of vote grubs who replace the current herd of wafflers do? Will they vote to allow our great garden of technology wilt on the vine- like they did four dechades ago? We can only watch.

Oddly, some at NASA are actually delighted at the prospect that project Constellation may be cancelled- because they feel it has been raiding money from the agency which will somehow find its way back to whatever they are personally working on. I fear they have a shock coming. In that embarrassingly inaccurate movie "The Right Stuff" there was a line that went "No bucks- no Buck Rogers." Of course the writers of that script, along with getting almost every other fact wrong, also got that quip wrong- the way it really works is No Buck Rogers- No Bucks. Without human spaceflight, NASA will fade into the federal background. Be careful what you wish for people- those who wished for the death of the Ares I, those who wished for the cancellation of Constellation, those who wished for an end to the shuttle program, those who wish for the end of the ISS, those who chanted for "Change" and those who wish for the end of NASA itself- you may all get what you want, and all at the same time. 

The kind of kid KSC tour bus drivers hate.

Forty years ago today, February 7th, 1973 was THE most exciting day of my 15 years of life to that point. It was the day that I made my first journey to the Mecca of space-buffs; known to me then simply as "The Cape." It was a name that, to me, encompasses all of Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Sure, there is a difference between the two places, but to a wide-eyed, space-crazed 15-year-old that place was just “The Cape.”

For nearly a year my folks had been planning and saving as they looked ahead toward a mid-winter vacation in Florida. Thanks to selling a lot of programs at events at the Saginaw Civic Center as well as working there as a Zamboni driver for his second job, plus mom’s employment in the concession stands and a windfall of life insurance from the passing of my paternal grandfather, we were able to buy a brand new 1973 Ford LTD station wagon and take our first family vacation since 1968. Florida was the destination, but to me the only target on the map was The Cape.

To people raised and residing in the north central and Great Lakes states, the word “Florida” invokes a sort of magic and images of basking in the warmth of the bright sunshine- escaping the cold and gray gloom… and that’s in September, it is even more so in the winter. Thus it was that on the fourth day of February, 1973, with our station wagon heavily packed we departed our driveway in Sheridan Park at 10:22 am headed for The Cape… which just happened to also be in Florida.

Following two days on the road and one day in Daytona Beach my parents probably grew tired of me scratching at the window and panting toward the south. At mid-day on February 7^th we set out from Daytona for The Cape. I staked out a seat in the tailgate of the car so that I would have windows on three sides… just in case. That was probably a good position for me, because upon seeing the VAB in the distance across the Indian River from the 528 causeway , I was bouncing around like a superball in a paint-shaker. I could not wait to get to The Cape. Of course the rest of the family wanted to do nonsense such as eating and finding a hotel.

By the time that we were finally headed down the 405 toward the KSC visitor’s center I was wound up so tight that the seat cushion was close to becoming a permanent part of my butt. Before crossing the river we approached the building for press credentials and standing there was a full-scale mock up of a Mercury Redstone. My dad decided to pull over and stop. Looking back to tell me to get out and take a look, dad found that it was too late, I had bailed out before the car came to a complete stop. After some photos we were on our way once again and in short order we had parked at the visitor’s center. Again, I bailed out.

The visitor’s center at KSC was a far cry from what it is today. In 1973 the parking lot was fairly small and there were only a couple of small pole-barn sized buildings. There was also no charge for admission. Of course I blew directly into the first building… whoa! There on display sat the Apollo 7 command module and the Gemini 9 spacecraft! I was standing there in a daze when my mom rushed past and nabbed me by the sleeve.

“Come on,” she urged, “the last bus tour’s about to leave!”

We were the last persons on the last bus that Sunday and before I knew it we were wheeling through the security gate and into my version of wonderland. The bus tours in 1973 were not divided up into different tours of different areas of The Cape. Instead, it was a Grand Slam sort of tour that simply went everyplace. We cruised past the O&C building and office buildings. Me, the know-it-all kid informed my mom that “This is where the astronauts stay and then walk out.” A moment later, the bus driver said the same thing over the P.A. Then it was onto the NASA Parkway- and there, across the river, out of my window I could see the ITL! “Ma! There’s the Titan IIIC facility!” I half shouted, rapidly turning into the kind of kid that the tour bus drivers all hate. A second later, the bus driver announced that if everyone looked to their left they would see the Titan IIIC facility… the people seated near me were already looking as I explained how the vehicles were assembled, what they boosted on and that the core was similar to a Titan II, only it was called a Titan IIIA. The bus driver didn’t go into that much detail.

By the time we go onto the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, I was a bit ahead of the tour and those folks in the back of the bus near me knew that famed Project Mercury Hangar “S” was coming up. Then came the old Mercury Mission Control building and soon our first stop- which would be the place where the Mercury Redstones were fired, or as I put it more simply to my mom; the place where Alan Shepard was launched. Although the bus driver called it Launch Complex 5 and 6, the blockhouse and museum that we toured was actually Complex 26, A and B. In the “rocket garden” associated with the museum were all of the rockets that I knew so well. Mace, Bomarc, Polaris, Corporal, Snark- they were all there and they were real- not just tiny white plastic models. My mind boggled, yet too soon it was time to get back on the tour. Now we proceeded down the famed “ICBM Row.” The launch complexes for all of my favorite missions, Atlas Complex 14, Gemini Titan Complex 19 and finally Launch Complex 34 where all there. Complex 19 had its erector lowered, but its service tower was still standing; I snapped an out of focus photo. (For anyone wondering, the service towers at LC19 were demolished on My 30, 1977, the erector's skeletal remains are still there. The "White Room" was removed to the CCAFS Museum and today has been restored as a display.) Finally we stopped at Complex 34 where we again were allowed off the bus.

I don’t think my mouth had stopped for one second. My mom noticed that the people seated near me in the back of the were no longer listening to the bus driver, they were listening to me, the 15-year-old space geek. Not because I was loud, but because I actually knew what I was talking about. As we walked from the bus into the LC-34 blockhouse, I went from broadcast mode to record mode; because the driver was talking all about the blockhouse, and I did not know much about them. I soaked up every word. Once outside again, the driver talked about the Apollo 1 fire and told everyone that it had happened here. Then as we filed back toward the bus I told everyone about SA-1, 2, 3 and 4 as well as AS-201 and 202, which had also taken place at LC-43 and in my mind were pretty important as well.

Pressing on we headed for Launch Complex 39A. I pointed out the press site and the Mobile Service Structure, which was in its parking place next to the crawler way. Suddenly, I saw something along the roadside that I recognized, but no one else had apparently noticed; lunar rover tracks in the sand! Excitedly I pointed them out to my mom and, of course everyone seated nearby, “Look! Those are rover tracks! That’s where the Apollo 17 astronauts practiced driving the rover!” Mom was suddenly doubtful, “No…” the groaned, “I don’t think so.” I shot back, “I’d know ‘em anywhere, those are rover tracks!” Once again, the bus driver came over the P.A. and confirmed my sighting. Mom never doubted me again when it came to spaceflight.

Our final stop was the legendary VAB, the Vehicle Assembly Building. For any space-buff, the VAB is pretty much the monolith that marks the center of the American spaceflight universe.  Now, I was finally going to not only see it, but actually go inside. Getting off the bus we all did what every first-time visitor does; we craned our necks until we nearly fell over backward and looked straight up the side. As we entered the transfer isle through the standard doorway on the north side I found that the VAB is so huge that it plays a trick on your brain. Your mind shrinks it down into proportions that you can handle. As a result, the massive openings into the high bays through which the launch vehicle stages are passed seem big, but not as large as they actually are. When the tour guide told us that those openings were as tall as a football field is wide- it simply boggled my mind. Another unexpected aspect of the inner VAB was the lattice of crossing I-beams and girders. I had always imagined it as being far more open and hangar-like but the only real open space was the transfer isle. The high bays are so filled with platforms and access workings that they completely hide the big launch vehicles until it is time to roll them out. In fact, as we stood in the transfer isle, directly to our right, at the other end of the VAB the fully stacked Skylab 2 Saturn IB was being prepared on its “milk stool” launch pedestal in high bay 1. Across the isle from it, in high bay 2 was the fully stacked Skylab 1 Saturn V on its mobile launcher. Additionally, there were two Saturn V S-II second stages in storage in the other high bays and as many as four S-IVB stages in storage in the low bays. We could not see a hint of any of them.

Leaving the VAB we headed back to the visitor’s center. As we passed the VAB on our way out I saw that they had the lower doors open on high bay 2 and you could see the base of the mobile launcher for Skylab 1! Grabbing my Instamatic camera I snapped a picture. It was one of the only photos that I took that day that actually came out in focus. It was not until decades later that I discovered that my visit to the VAB had come at the worst time. You see, just five days earlier the Skylab 2 vehicle had been rolled back to the VAB after having resided at Pad 39B since the 8^th of September. And the vehicle was rolled back to the pad again just 19 days after I left! Additionally, the Skylab 1 Saturn V was rolled out to LC-39A on April 16^th. So, over an eight month period, between September of 1972 and May of 1973 there had been a Saturn launch vehicle on one of the pads at LC-39, but I happened to visit there on one of the 24 days where there was nothing on the pads; just my luck.

We got back to the visitor’s center with just five minutes remaining before the gift shop closed. My dad gave me a pat on the shoulder and pointed to all of the space stuff for sale and simply said, “Just go!” This was my part of that two week vacation and now I had a mountain of space goodies and only 300 seconds to figure out what I wanted. My hands were not big enough. I nabbed books, patches, stickers, post cards and a Cashulette Saturn V model with its LUT. That night, in the hotel, I lay on the floor looking over my “stuff” smiling gleefully with my head still spinning. I even took the time to put the decals on my new Saturn V, the rest of the construction would have to wait until I got home and found my glue. The following day, my dad said that I had been cheated a bit in that we got to KSC so late that I did not have the chance to see the rocket garden at the visitor’s center and I had not really had time to “shop” in the gift store. So, before heading out to Disney World, we returned to the KSC visitor’s center once again and I gave my dad the guided tour of the rockets and hit the gift shop once more. My dad warned on the way out, “That’s it- do not expect to buy a lot of souvenirs at Disney.” I frowned and replied, “Like what?” Indeed, I had all I wanted.

Forty years later- almost to the day, I was once again on the KSC tour bus on my way to the VAB. For more than 30 years the VAB had been off-limits to tours because Shuttle SRB segments were being stored there. Now, with the end of the Shuttle program, tours are once again allowed- but only until the SRB segments for the new SLS launch vehicle begin arriving. Thus, on this year’s annual family outing to Disney I requested that we should take our kids and do the VAB tour. Much has changed since 1973, of course. Now the cost of a single ticket on the tour is more than the cost of taking the entire family back then. The cost of just getting through the gate into the visitor’s center is more for one person than I spent in my entire shopping spree on my first visit. Of course gas cost just 32 cents a gallon back then too. The launch vehicle that was being readied to be the Skylab rescue vehicle back in 1973 now rests in the rocket garden, badly in need of a paint job. And the VAB, stands empty- devoid of flight vehicles of any sort and having no firm idea as to when another launch vehicle will be stacked within it. It was somewhat sad to see it that way. As we left I snapped a single photo of the VAB to match the one I had taken four decades earlier.

Oddly, all along the tour, our guide talked about the Space Shuttle in present tense- as if it was still in operation. I showed my little girls where daddy goes to cover launches for the Aero News Network and we talked about the fantastic things that used to happen at KSC. When we got to the visitor’s center gift shop that Sunday night, we had just 10 minutes left before they closed. I thought of my dad, pointed my daughters toward all the stuff and said “Just Go!” So they did, but not nearly with the zeal of their father four decades earlier. My youngest one took me by the hand over to a series of shelves with boxed space toys on it. “I want that daddy,” she said, pointing her tiny finger toward a Saturn V, nearly the same size as my Cashulette model. Looking around at all of the stuffed toys and sparkly doo-dads and gizmos designed and packaged to catch a kid’s attention, I asked skeptically, “You want that?” “Yes,” she replied firmly, “it’s a Saturn V.”

Well I’ll be…

It must be genetic.

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON SEPT. 18, 2002

Things were swell on the morning of September 18, 2002, right up until the web site that I had been writing the Klyde Morris cartoon for fired me. Indeed, I had been fired for using the word “dominatrix” in my most recent cartoon. The aviation web site that canned me was one called AvWeb, where I had previously enjoyed a few years of cartooning. What I did not know at the time was that the site had been sold to some big New York publishing house and one of their low level “editors,” who was probably some politically overcorrect nit who fetched coffee, found that word to be “offensive.” They demanded that I change the cartoon. I told them, as politely as I could, to pound sand; and they fired me.

It was quite similar to Dr. Johnny Fever getting fired from a radio station for saying the word “booger” on the air.

To my surprise the firing caused something of a small stir in the aviation community. It was enough to get the attention of another aviation news site called the Aero News Network, (ANN) who ran the story as news. While my former employer was busy scrubbing all references to my cartoon from their servers and posting only reader comments that condemned me personally, ANN’s Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell decided that his site could really use a cartoonist. Thus, on November 8^th, 2002 Klyde Morris appeared on Aero-News.net for the first time. Meanwhile, I was later informed, that someone attached to my previous employer had been going around behind me telling perspective publishers that I was “trouble” and “very difficult to work with.” In one case that person, unknown to me, had been actually following me around an event. When I’d talk to a prospect, the little worm would come right up behind me and poison the water. Unfortunately, I did not get wind of this cheap little creep until a few years later- it seems that the bunghole had actually done its little act for a friend of mine from college. I doubt that this person had done this nastiness under direction of my former employer’s new owners. They’re cheap, but I don’t think they are that cheap.

In my parting phone conversation with the new “editor” of AvWeb, he warned me to not use the terms, “aviation consumer,” “aviation safety,” “IFR refresher” or “light plane maintenance,” ever in anything I wrote or happened to draw (including this ) because his company had the copyright to those words which were the titles of their publications. Unfortunately, once again, he was too dense to know that aside from being a cartoonist, I am also a published author with, at that time, nine books in publication. I’m quite familiar with copyright law; you cannot copyright common words, terms or phrases and more often than not, you cannot copyright titles. Thus, in my very next cartoon I used every single one of his so-called copy-written terms. In essence it was a fun way to say “In your face asshole.” There was no response, of course, from the blow-hard or the publishing house for which he worked.

My firing from AvWeb increased my readership stats by just over 13,000 in less than a week. I was told by persons still inside the place that their readership had fallen, by a similar number. In his final e-mail to me, the person in charge of AvWeb at the time said, “I have no doubt you've earned a following, but we will weather any disappointment voiced by the subscribership until we can audition and secure a replacement” Although I’m sure they “weathered” the disappointment of those readers who left them with me, they have never managed to secure a replacement. Although I was told that they tried some second-rate cartoons, nothing had the legs that my cartoon has.

Today, I celebrate a DECADE of working with the Aero-News Network. That is some 1,040 cartoons so far since the first one appeared on ANN on November 8^th, 2002. If anyone reading this still believes that I am somehow “hard to work with” they would do well to contact Jim Campbell of ANN and ask him that question. You see, a funny thing happened to me on September 18^th, 2002, I got fired from AvWeb, and went to a much better news site.

To read the entire e-mail exchange between me and AvWeb- visit here: http://www.klydemorris.com/fired.cfm

Oddly, they never expected me to take their own e-mails, remove the personal information and use it all against them.

Oh yeah, “… and by the way fellow babies, I almost forgot… BOOGER!!!!” – Dr. Johnny Fever, WKRP.

I AM NO LONGER TEACHING MY KIDS TO TRY

Starting today, I am no longer teaching my two daughters to try. I'm no longer teaching my kids to do well in school. In fact I'm teaching them to get as dumb as possible. "Why?" you may ask... because that is the best way to get along in Obama's America. The dumber you are and the more lazy you are, the more free stuff you get..

You see, the key to survival from now on is that in order to live, you must get free stuff from the state, the government, from The Leader- Obama. The dumber you are, the more you will get. I'm teaching my kids where to stand in line to get the paperwork to get the free stuff. I'm teaching them to game the system- they are no longer Americans- they are Asian-Females, a double minority. They can get more free stuff.

I'm also teaching my kids to join the Democrat Party- right now. I want them to work their way up into "The Party" as high as they can. Because in The Leader's america, just like in other communist nations, only high-up party members will get the best free stuff, the best housing, the best cars, the best food and of course the best, free, health care. The key to The Leader's dream is to rise in The Party, thus, rise to the best free stuff. There will no longer be a party divide, there will be only one party- The Party, The Leader's party.

When The Leader changes the nation's flag, we will fly the new flag, when the leader orders that every loyal american has a photo of The Leader in their homes, we will have one and when The Leader sends his federal housing authority to our home and deems it as too large we will turn it into apartments for other people who were not savvy enough to get as much free stuff as they need.

My children must now learn that the military means nothing- unless they are escorting The Leader. The big dogs in The Leader's america will from now on be the EPA, the IRS and especially the un-elected board of persons who will decide who gets what medication, doctor's care, who lives and who dies. Those are the powers that be from now on.

We will stand by uncaring when the leader deems the Constitution to be invalid and holds a party convention to write a new document and thus making himself "President for Life." After all, who is to stop him? The news media? The voters? There will be no more votes for president that do not re-elect The Leader.

If my kids actually do grow up wanting to work, I'll teach them to work in the government. From then on they will always have a job if they are in the government. They will also have the title of "employee" rather than those poor fools working outside the government who are now and forever more referred to as "workers." My kids will be savvy to the fact that they cannot earn more than five figures of annual income- because they will then become "the rich" and they will have everything else that they earn taken from them by The Party.

In our household, my kids will tell you that the worst thing they can do is tell a lie. We had held truth as the highest standard. Now, however, I'll be teaching my kids to lie- and to lie as good as they can. When asked a question, just tell the person listening exactly what the want to hear. There is no truth, there are only the words that will get you ahead. If you get caught in a lie, lie some more- twist the words and if need be, throw someone else under the bus. Those who lie with the greatest of ease will be those who get ahead in The Leader's america.

The Leader's america is not the result of voter fraud, voter suppression or any other type of wrong-doing. THIS is what american voted for on November 6th, 2012. Now we all must conform to The Party way and to serve the needs of The Leader. The nation voted for this- and now we are going to get it. I just want my kids to NOT be the ones assigned to polishing the railroad rails in The Leader's america.

All hail The Leader, all hail Obama.

What to do during the debate.

Tonight during the debate I'd advise everyone that, while the media is focused on the political and the politically correct, you should do something just the opposite. In my case, I'll not be watching a moment of the debate... instead I'll be watching a movie that could NEVER be made today... Blazing Saddles!

Of course, any Mel Brooks movie will do... but this one is the most politically incorrect ever. Thus, I love it. Saw it in the theater in 1974 among a VERY mixed race crowd- and we all laughed our asses off. Remember those days, when we could all laugh at each other, and all laugh together? Those days before everyone seemed so spring-loaded to the "offended position."

Frankly, the only thing that offends me are people who are always offended by stuff.

What's wrong with this world? Here's a sample.

If you ask "What is wrong with this world?" ... well...

A while ago a storm blew through our neighborhood and a stray beach ball came bouncing down the street and over our fence and lodged in our yard. On the ball is written the following:

"WARNING: USE ONLY UNDER COMPETENT SUPERVISION"

 It is printed there in, as best I can count, 27 different languages!

A note to humanity, from me... IT'S JUST A F%#&ING BEACH BALL!

A message to the President... as if he'd care

During the first presidential debate on Wednesday night, October 3^rd, 2012 the current President of the United States once again took a shot at “corporate jets.” When talking about Exxon and big oil the president chose to hold up general aviation executive aircraft as if they were a red flag pointing to part of what is wrong with America. This, from someone who routinely and sometimes frivolously makes use of the world’s most exclusive and America’s most expensive executive jet.

My personal revulsion for this demagoguery of executive jets and their users is rooted in the fact that I have a long history with that part of general aviation- from the VERY bottom, up.

Folks who know me, know full well that I took a full 10 years to work my way through the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. By work-my-way-through I mean that I paid for 100% of the cost from my own pocket and with whatever student aid I could scrape up. Working jobs from running a cash register at Kmart to washing rental cars to walking the floors at hotels, I wore a lot of name-tags and ate a lot of Rice-a-roni. As a part of that process I spent some of those best working days employed at a Falcon Jet service center.

In 1978, my first summer away from school, I got fed up with National Car Rental and car-hiking at MBS International Airport and walked across the field to Hangar 6 and a company called Airflight and Serve-A-Plane, which was a Falcon Jet service center. They hired me as a clerk in the parts department. For the majority of that summer I shuffled, received and stocked tiny components for the dozens of Falcon Jets that came and went through Hangar 6. Those evil “Corporate Jet” owners and their sinful machines paid for nearly a full semester of my college.

The following year, 1979, was the first time that I went so broke that the university would not allow me to register. Thus, I returned to Hangar 6 and Airflight, looking for work. This time they hired me as the “hangar rat.” For those of you who may not know it, the hangar rat’s job is to “Empty what’s full, fill what’s empty and everything else, ya’ paint yellow.” Thus I took out trash, mopped the hangar floor and cleaned the aircraft when they were finished with whatever maintenance had been needed. I earned extra cash by washing the jets and copped overtime by working on-call to do after-hours turn arounds of Dow Corning’s fleet. Likewise, when a big project came in, I was tasked with “dropping panels” or taking a speed-handle and unscrewing access panels on the aircraft. In doing that lowest of the low level jobs, I earned enough money to pay off what I owed to the university and finance yet another semester of my education.

Finally in the summer of 1985 I was hired for the third time to work at Hangar 6, where the company was now called Aero Services. This time, I was hired to work as a mechanic under the shop’s certificate. The task was one that I’m very proud to be able to say that I was a part of- the first ever “D” inspection done on a Falcon 20. This check involved removing everything that could be removed from the airframe, and inspecting, replacing, and re-installing it. And I mean everything, was removed, the windows, every stitch of the interior, the landing gear, the engines- even the fuel tanks had their bottoms dropped and were cleaned by a special team sent up from Florida. We were acting on procedures sent fresh from the engineers at Dassault. It was new stuff that in many cases no other wrenches had done before. For example, we uncovered the wing bolts, by use of dental tools, and inspected them- then we took specially shaped styro-foam plugs and inserted them back into the holes amid a bath of Mastinox compound. It was an all-day process, with no breaks or lunch, that two of us did in throw-away cloths because Mastinox compound is messy stuff- I loved it! The “D” inspection took the entire summer and we turned the aircraft over to the owner just two days before I left to go back to school. I recall sitting in turbine engines class the following week, still having Mastinox compound under my fingernails and a summer’s worth of earned income to invest in school.

My point here is that those “corporate jets” that Obama so easily condemns are not just a luxury for billionaires and millionaires, (one of which he happens to be), but rather they are instruments in the economy. They provide gainful employment by which hundreds of thousands of honest hard-working folks earn their living. In all of my years around Falcon Jets, I rarely met those millionaires and billionaires until I became a Falcon Jet pilot. And even then, the VAST majority of people whose work, I repeat, WORK, involved those evil “corporate jets” were just regular middle-class folks. They’re the ones who shuffle the parts, pump the fuel, answer the phones, mop the floors, turn the wrenches and do a thousand other jobs that Mr. Obama has never stooped to do. I can say that because, unlike the president, I HAVE done those jobs in the world of executive jet general aviation. I have punched the time clock at two in the morning and gone out to meet the arriving flight with a trash bag in one hand and bottle of spray cleaner in the other. And on those occasions, I was not alone- there were fuel trucks with amber flashing lights, there were limo drivers waiting for passengers and there were countless other airport employees. Then there were the off-airport people, the hotel alone- which would accommodate passengers arriving on those late night flights employed dozens on that shift. Then there were the food service people who brought out the tray of goodies that that cost enough to feed a slob like me for a week. Up the line were the people who manufactured the parts that supported those flying machines, the people working in the warehouse that stocked the parts, the companies that shipped those parts and its people. Those thousands of hands that reached out to do the work rather than reaching out to take a government hand-out.

So, when President Obama waves “corporate jets” like a red flag to represent the evil rich, (again- of which he is one,) what he is really doing is blindly slapping the faces of all of the hard working folks who support the use of those machines. As having been one of them, I find that to be beyond repulsive.

Today, I’ll be wearing my Falcon Jet hat and shirt all day. This just to illustrate the point that I’ve been where the president has not, and I’ve met the people that he, in a single swipe of his words has slapped in the face. In fact I’ll be wearing the hat until the voters of the United States re-distribute Barack Obama to Chicago- where he’ll spend the rest of his life traveling, exclusively, by way of private Jets.

How the Civil Air Patrol rescued me.

Recently I was contacted by a Civil Air Patrol squadron. They wanted to buy a bunch of my Dr. Zooch Rockets Space Shuttle kits so that they could launch them in a multi-squadron event. Cadets of the Lone Eagle and Curtiss-Wright Squadrons in New Jersey got together on Sept. 29^th, 2012 and made 105 Shuttle flights. That’s exactly 105 more than NASA can presently do. Everyone had a good time and in exchanging messages with the group it brought to mind something that I had almost forgotten- it was 40 years ago, this month, that I joined the CAP… damn, am I old.

I have to state that the CAP saved me from some of the worst months of my life. At age 15 I was in my third miserable year at a stinking rat-hole called Webber Junior High School. This was a crummy public “school” on the wrong side of Saginaw, Michigan where the workin’ class kids were herded together with the non-workin’ class kids in a rude mixture. I learned fast that you never wanted to make the honor roll- you’d get beat up. You always carried your lunch money in your shoe. The term “Borrow me a nickel” actually meant give me the coin or I’ll punch you in the gut. You never wanted to be late for school- not by a single second, because when that bell stopped ringing, the doors were locked and buzzards hanging out around the building would rob you, beat you or worse. Every single day there was a fight, or some sort of trouble. Very often there were disturbances in the class room- so often, in fact that anyone not wanting to witness it, again, could simply ask for a library pass- which was always easily granted. Mr. Parr, the principal, was proud of the fact that in a fire drill he could empty the building inside of three minutes, that when there was one of the frequent bomb threats “at two o’clock the building is gonna blow up” that he would hit the fire drill at five minutes before the bomb, and wait for the school to blow up, which, unfortunately, it never did. The school never had a dance, you could never attend a full football game or a basketball game- because sometime during that event you would be robbed. Thus, there were no extracurricular activities for kids who didn’t want to rob, beat, do drugs or be arrested.

I had survived two full wasted years at that place, often by taking my all-consuming passion for the space program and aviation and pulling it over my head like a security blanket and spending lots of time in the 629 section of the Dewey Decimal System. I also always had a nickel in my pocket and never touched a basketball. Then, one day a pal of mine came into class and was telling me about going to a CAP meeting. Knowing that I was into aviation he encouraged me to go with him to the next meeting. I attended that single meeting and I was hooked. At long last there was a constructive after-school activity that I could do and it involved aviation. Soon we had four of us from Webber Junior hole in the CAP- Saginaw Valley Composit Squadron 7 dash 2. It was terrific- SAR (Search And Rescue) CAPs, CD (Civil Defense) training, orientation flights, camp-outs, canoe trips, First Aid classes and Red CAPs (actual search and rescue missions). I made friendships that last to this day. One of the other cadets and I even ended up flying together for the DNR when I was fresh out of college with my new commercial certificate.

Joining the CAP was one of the best things that I did in my youth. It saved me from a sizeable portion of the suffering that my third wasted year at that stinking school would have inflicted. Thus, when I was contacted by the CAP about the Shuttle kits I was more than happy and willing to help. The CAP is about search and rescue- and it sure as hell rescued me.

WHAT IS THE ORION EFT-1 ?

History is scheduled to repeat itself.

Sometime in early 2014 a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle will be erected at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 37B. Atop that booster will be positioned an Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV). As if to mark 50 years since the first Apollo command module was launched into space from that same launch complex, the Orion will be lofted into space for the first time from the same site on its orbital flight test.

On May 28, 1964 a Saturn I, Block II (the SA-6 launch vehicle) lifted off from Launch Complex 37B. On the top of SA-6 was the Apollo boilerplate 13 command module, its boost protective cover (BPC) and its launch escape tower. This payload was the first piece of Apollo-configured hardware to be sent into space. In that era the plan was to one day have astronauts fly aboard an Apollo spacecraft boosted by the Saturn I, Block II, so the entire Apollo configuration and the booster were being tested as a unit. Also being tested, however, were a number of other things- such as aerodynamic heating on the braces of the launch escape tower as well as on the external protuberances of the overall spacecraft, the integrity of the BPC and the ability of the jettison motor to pull the escape tower from the command module. The flight went into Earth orbit and performed four orbits prior to the planned depletion of battery power. Once the batteries were depleted the boilerplate command module was left on its own as no recovery had been planned. After an additional 50 orbits the inert command module reentered over the Pacific Ocean near Canton Island. All mission objectives were accomplished satisfactorily.

Four more flights similar to SA-6’s configuration were launched from Complex 37B and following SA-10 the launch complex was adapted and used to loft two Saturn IBs. Complex 37 was later abandoned in 1971. The following year all of the launch service structures were removed and the facility remained idle for the next 30 years. In 2002 Complex 37 was "repurposed" for use by the United Launch Alliance for their new Delta IV vehicle. Since then scores of these new launch vehicles have flown from Complex 37.

In keeping with the Congressional mandate that the United States must have a Federal manned access to space beyond low Earth orbit, NASA resurrected the Orion spacecraft from its cancellation by the Obama administration. Under development by the Lockheed Martin Corporation, the political winds have blown the Orion from being the exploration architecture of tomorrow, to a canceled piece of hardware, to a rescue pod for the international space station. Finally, in 2011, it was returned by Congressional mandate to its proper place as America's space exploration vehicle for the future. Oddly, in what can easily be considered as a political face-saving move for the Obama administration, NASA pointlessly renamed the Orion vehicle, (which the president had previously cancelled,) the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or “MPCV.” Of course much like the additional four digits that the post office pointlessly added to everyone's zip code, almost no one outside of NASA's politically appointed upper management actually calls the vehicle the MPCV- instead everyone just uses the name Orion.

In order for its development to mature, the Orion will have to be flight tested in space. The only operational United States booster capable of lofting the Orion is the Delta IV Heavy. Thus, circumstances have set the stage for history to repeat itself at Launch Complex 37. In the first week of November 2011, NASA officially decided that it would conduct an unmanned Orion flight that is being titled the Exploration Flight Test 1, or “EFT-1.” Now scheduled for some time in early 2014 and using the next Delta IV Heavy in the pipeline, the EFT-1 will fly a mission that is somewhat similar to the SA-6 flight that launched from Complex 37 some 50 years earlier.

Current plans, as of this writing, call for an un-crewed Orion capsule to be mounted atop the Delta IV Heavy and topped with an inert launch escape system. Although that escape rocket will be inert it will carry a live jettison motor. Just like the SA-6 flight, an integral part of this test will be the jettison of the escape system and its boost protective cover. Aerodynamic and thermal effects on the vehicle will also be recorded and studied similar to how they were a half-century ago. Thus, history is currently scheduled to repeat itself at Launch Complex 37.

Unlike the SA-6 flight, however, the EFT-1 mission will also test reentry characteristics of the Orion command module at speeds near to those experienced on a return to Earth from beyond low Earth orbit. The current plans are for the upper stage of the Delta IV Heavy to boost the spacecraft into elliptical orbits with the highest having a 3,671 mile apogee. During the mission the upper stage of the Delta IV Heavy will make the initial orbital insertion burn and then a second burn to alter the orbit to its maximum apogee as well as back into the Earth's atmosphere. NASA hopes to reach a velocity in the neighborhood of 21,000 miles per hour upon reentry. This will test the spacecraft’s heat shield in dynamics similar to those of reentry from beyond low earth orbit. Following reentry the Orion will also conduct a test of the parachute recovery system and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja, California.

So it is that this EFT-1 mission also mimics another historic spaceflight from nearly a half century ago; Apollo 4. Launched on November 9, 1967, it lofted an unmanned Apollo command module atop the first operational Saturn V booster to an altitude of 9,767 nautical miles. It was then thrusted down into the atmosphere by its service module engine in order to simulate the conditions of reentry from the moon.

In its entirety the EFT-1 flight will last just a little over six hours. It will be a spectacular step toward the return of United States leadership in spaceflight. This will also be a terrific demonstration of the Delta IV Heavy’s capability. Although some in the spaceflight community will quibble that the SpaceX Falcon 9 Heavy could to do the same job, it's important to point out that the Delta IV Heavy is an operational vehicle at this moment, but the Falcon 9 Heavy is still on the drawing board. It is highly unlikely that the Falcon 9 Heavy can be made ready for the EFT-1 mission within the next 18 months. It is also important to separate what we can do, from what some space fans wish could be done.

 

In the end of June, 2012 the pressure hull of the EFT-1’s Orion spacecraft arrived at KSC from Huntsville. On the second day of July a large group of the remaining KSC employees as well as political and contractor VIPs gathered in front of the zinc chromate colored vehicle at the Operations and Checkout building and celebrated its arrival. Chief among those speaking was NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver, who spoke in glowing terms about the Orion and NASA’s future saying that it “…marks a major accomplishment in the ambitious new American space program that President Obama and Congress have approved.” She neglected, however, to mention the fact that the president had earlier canceled the Orion, then turned it into a rescue pod before the Congress wrote it back into existence as an exploration spacecraft by way of a law which the president grudgingly signed. She then went on to boast that it was just two years prior, in that very same building that, “…President Obama set a goal to send humans farther into space than we have ever been…” Of course she left out the fact that on that same day he had also decreed that the Orion would become nothing more than an escape pod for the International Space Station. Additionally she boasted that the president’s plan would send us to an asteroid 13 years from now and then on to Mars “…sometime in the 2030s…” Gee, how inspirational that schedule is. Later she gleefully announced that the Orion would bring back to KSC about 350 jobs, yet failed to mention that such a job count is about 5% of those lost with the end of the Shuttle program.

In spite of the political slight-of-hand with NASA’s human spaceflight program, at least Orion has survived. With any luck it will be completed and then stacked atop the its Delta IV Heavy. The EFT-1 will become the first launch of a NASA pathfinder spacecraft intended for humans in more than 30 years. It is predictable that the excitement surrounding the mission will be similar to that surrounding the first free-flight drop test of the Shuttle orbiter Enterprise, which took place two years after the final flight of an Apollo spacecraft. That is, of course, if the politicians can keep their hands off of it. Thus, the answer to the question; “What is the EFT-1?” goes a bit beyond the technical explanation of the mission itself. The EFT-1 will be a shot of adrenalin to a NASA that is currently on life-support and in guarded condition.