Unexpected Results

As the process goes on in Congress to save the United States from Obama's FY2011 blue-bag NASA budget, and Obama continues to find nearly zero support in either house, some unexpected and good byproducts are coming out.

Back in August I predicted, quite correctly, that our new leftest-in-chief would attempt to kill NASA. After all, that's every left-winger's dream and it has been so since 1966. I was incorrect, however, in thinking that the issue would be evenly split in the Congress- I was incorrect. I also predicted that with the Obama Administration and the Congressional spending sprees going out of control, the next Congress (which will likely be Republican dominated) will have no choice other than to repeal, defund and cut in order to save the nation- and that would include NASA. Both of my predictions were no-win situations for NASA.

On the first day of February, 2010 the Obama Administration dropped their bombshell on NASA and the nation in their FY2011 budget proposal. Congress, almost as a whole, was not impressed- in fact, they were highly insulted. The hand full of poly-sci. brains who came up with the plan were, like all liberals, sure that everyone would love their new plan and as usual- they were dead wrong.

From the on-going rhubarb over the Obama FY2011 NASA budget, some unexpected and positive results now appear to be emerging... that is... if you are not in the Obama camp.

First off- this attack on NASA Human Spaceflight has not only triggered wide spread feeling of disgust, but it has also drawn much needed attention to the lack of proper funding for the Human Spaceflight effort. The Congressional purse holders have universally stated that NASA needs more funding- and they mean beyond the crumb that Obama offered- which does not even keep pace with inflation. The most eye-opening statement came from Senator Mikulski when she made the point that we cannot keep having a new space program every four years with every new president.

Next there was my prediction that the next Congress will have no choice other than to cut, defund and repeal- and that must include NASA. A careful look at what the current members of Congress are thinking as well as what those who are looking to unseat the current members are saying shows that I am wrong- at least where NASA is concerned. The attitude now seems to be cut everything Except NASA. It is something I never thought I'd see in my lifetime. Additionally, Republican candidates running for Congress this year find this fully Obama-owned budget to be a nice handy political issue to be used in the upcoming elections. If they say that they want to cut NASA in any way- they can be linked as agreeing with Obama... a poison pill for any Republican and perhaps for any Democrat as well. Thus it is much more productive to simply disagree with the FY2011 NASA budget and let Obama take the heat.

The bottom line is that some unexpected good things are coming out of the attempt of the Obama Administration to castrate NASA. It is just a real shame that we have to go through so much doubt and agony to get to them.

What will Obama say at KSC?

What will Obama say when he visits KSC on April 15th? That is the question that almost all of the spaceflight community is currently asking itself. Will he stand arrogantly by his budget to kill NASA's human spaceflight program, ignoring the outcry of the American people who oppose it- just as he did his health care takeover? Will he channel JFK and send our nation off on a bold new adventure to a specific place by a specific time? Will he do a verbal tap dance all around the subject while avoiding any commitments and then hop back on his 747 and blow back to the safe and friendly confines of the Washington beltway? Will he talk in billowing terms about vague but exciting sounding projects while actually offering only a few additional crumbs to NASA? Will he promise everything and then turn around and do nothing? What is going to happen? What will Obama do? Indeed, these are the questions.



Put all of the talk of which vehicle, what system, when and where, that is being debated in the spaceflight world aside, you will find my point of view about the whole matter. That is- why the hell should American citizens even have to wonder what is next for NASA or will NASA even exist after this president gets done with it? It is an absolute disgrace that we should be left in doubt at all. NASA is the cornerstone of our leadership in technology and innovation and the fact that it very existence under any sort of threat at all by any president is a national outrage.



So... what do I think Obama will say and do when he "visits" KSC for his space "summit" on April 15th? First off, he will surround himself with bootlickers who will fill the seats, then he will talk in billowing circles for 98% of the summit's allotted time allowing everyone else just enough time to sound-bite agree with whatever he says, he will then stand stubbornly by his toxic NASA budget and toss a crumb or two (such as a single shuttle flight extension) toward NASA and Senator Nelson before he tours the Space-X facilities and then he will smugly hop on Air Force One and fly away still in the firmly held belief that he can never be wrong and nothing that the United States does can ever be right.



This time, he will not win the Congress, however. There is widespread condemnation over his budget in both houses of Congress and among both Republicans and Democrats. Obama will have his NASA budget altered by the Congress in order to save NASA and keep NASA astronauts flying, and he won't even care. You see, NASA and America's manned space program means nothing to him, it is an annoyance to be handled by others- he's only coming to KSC because he was urged by Senator Bill Nelson to do something... anything, in the wake of his disastrous budget's release.



I only hope that I am totally wrong in this and that when it comes to NASA's manned spaceflight efforts, Obama really is "engaged" "enthusiastic" and "only has been ill-advised" as Bill Nelson has stated. And if I am wrong, I'll come here and say so- all four of you reading this will know. But... this is Obama, a president who never fails to let our nation down. On April 15th, I expect him to let us down once again.

The Emperor's New Budget

So it was that the Obama team that desires to kill NASA's manned spaceflight program brought their blue-bag budget to the United States Congress... there they had high hopes of finding some friends who would see things Lori Garver and John Holdren's way. Ya' know... taking the guts out of the United States space program and then watch with glee as it withers and the propped-up "commercial" operators fail thus taking this nation out of Human Spaceflight operations forever. They packed up their lackey, the supposed NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden to go in, read the script, talk the circle talk and take the point, as well as the flack. My bet is they figured, as I did, that the committees in both houses would be about 50/50 for and against... we were both wrong.

What they got instead was a royal tail flaming by all but one of the Congressional committee members. Holdren went first and not only did the members of the Congress want to drive a stake through his heart, if they could actually find it, but they worked hard at wrecking his fantasy of anthropogenic Global Warming. He held firm to the Global Warming myth but found little cover when it came to NASA and the emperor's new budget. Holdren had brought a squirt gun to a firefight. In short- he got the stew he helped concoct tossed right back into his face. Other than seeing this political goon in a dentist's chair getting a triple root canal, this show was about as entertaining as it could have gotten for me.

Charlie Bolden was next and his afternoon in the Senate was focused strictly on the department that he is standing command over and driving at flank speed toward the Obama iceberg. Charlie read his opening statement containing the reasoning that he and his little group of zealots are trying to sell to us in order to explain their gutting of the United States space program. His reasons were about as thin as the paper they were written on. There were no direction, no objectives and not a thread of inspiration nor a hint of pride in Charlie's opening- there was only circle-talk and a hefty garnish of "possibilities" "somedays" and general vapor.

To say that Charlie was ill-prepared for the coming onslaught of Congressional anger would be something of an understatement. Charlie, in pilot terms, got his six waxed. If his chair had been equipped with an ejection capability, Charlie would have done well to, as John Young said, "Just pull the little handle." At one point I swear I saw him reach down looking for the "D" ring... it was not there. Even I was surprised as one after another the committee members stated the small shreds of the Obama budget that they favored and then turned on Charlie and beat him up with the rest of it that they hate. The process continued in the House hearings the following afternoon. In all some 24 of 25 congresspeople skewered Charlie and he had no good answers to any of their questions.

It is quite clear that the architects of this radical direction that the Obama administration intends to send NASA on are actually making it up as they go along. That is one hell of a way to run the United States space agency. Their appearances in front of the Congress in an attempt to justify this gutting of NASA is a stab in the back to every person who has dedicated their lives to NASA and the efforts of that agency that has given great pride to this nation. The Obama budget and those who have had their hands in its authorship are a disgrace. Charlie got exactly what he deserved- he was ill-prepared, lacking in his ability to communicate, unable to recover from mistakes and easily confused. He failed this checkride.

Charlie's amazing stew

Oh what an amazing stew NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden is making for himself as he rushes to to sell, at all costs, the new Obama NASA budget. Charlie will, it seems, do anything to serve lord Obama. No matter how toxic the paint, he will paint himself into a nice tight corner and then fall upon the brush as if it were a sword just to please the grand Obama.

Get out there Charlie and serve the American people a giant crap sandwich by telling everyone it is peanut butter. Charlie knows that the FY2011 Obama budget is a poison pill for NASA and that will lead to the slow death of something that has held America's greatest pride for 50 years. He knows too that this will spell the end of United States astronauts flying in space, let alone flying beyond low earth orbit- but what the hell, Charlie has already had his rides, so screw the rest of the Americans who may want to fly in space- let 'em ride Soyuz... right?

As I write this, Charlie, Lori and a hand full of other Obama idolizers are busy composing circle talk that they can spout in front of Congress that will make the Obama vacuum in United States human space flight seem like a new and exciting adventure. Charlie's good at circle talking too- he uses the term "there" as if it were a grand new place to which all of us can someday sail thanks to the great Obama. Never mind that he offers no actual definition as to where or what "there" is, or that, under the Obama budget to nowhere we will not have any hardware to get us to "there" for 15 years or longer- nope, just make it sound like a grand adventure Charlie and then Obama will be pleased.

And what of that Congress? Well to listen to and watch Charlie and Lori and their little demolition crew, you'd never know that the Congress has the final say- in fact, you'd think that the Congress has no say what-so-ever in the matter. Obama decreed that NASA's human spaceflight program is finished and Charlie says "Thy will be done." With any luck, Charlie will be in for a rude awakening.

What if... what if... the Congress elects to order the Space Shuttle program extended to cover the gap, the Constellation program reinstated and the Ares I developed in full. What will Charlie do then? You see one of the corners that Charlie has painted himself into is the Shuttle- which Charlie has said, in public, to KSC workers, flying it is like "playing Russian roulette." If the Congress, who actually DOES have the final say instead of Obama, and orders the Shuttle to continue flying, Charlie, who has compared that operation to playing a suicide game will have to oversee putting crews on additional shuttle missions. The word "squirm" comes to mind.

Of course if Charlie does not like his situation he could do the honorable thing and resign his post- but that would leave the amazingly ill-suited Lori Garver, how cannot think her way out of a spaceflight paperbag, in charge of NASA. That would really make Charlie's idol and leader, The Obama, look bad... and we can't have that, can we Charlie.

All in all Charlie has been given quite an amazing toxic stew to serve to the American people. He gets to lead the effort to dismantle a 50 year program of historic success to which hundreds of thousands of Americans have dedicated their lives to and more than a score have actually given their lives for. Demolishing American pride is Obama's on-going quest and right now his chief mechanic is Charlie Bolden. But what does Charlie care... as I said, he had his rides, so to hell with everyone else, Obama is all that matters to Charlie.

Obama trying to kill US human spaceflight

Way back in mid August of last year I wrote a piece called "A Big Ol' Plate Of NASA To Cancel" where I outlined the nightmare scenario of our leftwing radical in chief doing what all liberals since Mondale have been drooling to do- kill NASA. Guess what... as predicted- he just tried to do it- in his latest budget. In fact, from reading the budget, you'd think that Obama's people took it from my blog.

This budget takes 45 years of United States domination in the science and technology of human spaceflight and simply erases it with the stroke of a pen. Now, as Obama wants to see it, we'll have fun robots to go all over and see things. Plus we'll chase the myth of man-made Global Warming for several billion dollars a year- but wait! there's more. Now we will give shovels full of money- billions worth- to "commercial" operators so that NASA can rent seats from them to go up to the International Space Station- yes, boatloads of teachers and scientists and researchers all going to the ISS, there in low earth orbit... ya' know, where we went way back in 1962. You see, our fearfilled leader, Obama, believes that that's just high enough for people to go.

Of course there are no real details in the budget on all of this other than the order to "cancel the Constellation Program" our project for return to the moon. Those so-called "commercial" operators will not even have a fully functional and tested launch escape system ready for the next six or seven years, but we're going to turn our backs on the billions in sunk-costs invested alread in Constellation and shovel as much mone as we can to these "commercial" operators. Yeah...right.

Such courage it took for our fearfilled leader to just take four and half decades of human spaceflight and chuck it. Then go back out to his private basketball court for a bit of hoop.

You see, this is not about technology, or risk, or jobs or even budgets. This IS about United States national pride. The United States manned space efforts as conduced by NASA have been a beacon of national pride since May 5th, 1961 when Alan Shepard launched in a 15 minute sub-orbital hop. Less than 5 years later, the liberals began to peck at that icon. They were never able, however, to knock it down or get it deleted from the Federal budget. They came close in the early 1970s when shuttle funding passed by a single vote. They had high hopes between 1977 and 1980 while Jimmy Carter served as the liberal in chief -screwhead, but he just was not quite sociopathic enough to cancel the shuttle. But 2010 is different... as there are Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress and Obama has managed, with a leg up from W. Bush to spend the nation into near oblivion. Now was the time to strike at the biggest pillar of United States pride, and Obama did just that.

As people who actually can see the importance of manned spaceflight as conducted by NASA, we still have one shred of hope- the Congress. You see, our fearfilled leader and his gang of bootlickers who now reside in DC have actually gone a bit too far in their accelerated race toward national socialism and the American people are rising up. In congress there are now as many as 150 Democrat seats that could be at risk this fall and Obama's latest outlash at or national pride may not sit well in the Congress. We can only hope that the tallest icon of United States pride, our human spaceflight program, will not be dissected and tossed away by Obama. Stay tuned.

Klyde morris 020110

Should we do somethin'?

Recently, an overseas airline began profiling lone males on flights as all being potential child molesters. Yep, now there's a profile that I'm sure the current DHS can live with... yet it brings to mind a "There I was" story.

Back in the pre 9/11 days a crew that I was flying as a part of came in direct contact with a situation that fits this. It was one of those end-of-the-day flights as we were headed to our out-station from the hub. In the cockpit things were nice and quiet and boring... just the way airline pilots like them. The passengers were loaded, the paperwork was done and soon the cabin door was closed. I had ground on the horn and we were rolling away into the evening, as cool as can be. We were also on the back side of "the push" so most of the traffic had already departed- it was smooth goin' all the way to our runway. As we rolled across the field toward our runway, ground came on the radio and told me to contact Ops. before departure.

When I called Ops., to my surprise, the Chief Pilot answered. He told us that our flight attendant was under orders that if there as a single peep of any sort of a disturbance in the back, we were to call for ATC Priority Handling and turn immediately back. We asked what was going on, but he simply told us to ask the flight attendant. By then we were set to blast off and there was no time to call to the back until we were otta 10.

Of course nothing drives a flight crew like curiosity and we blasted up through 10,000 feet as fast as we could. I buzzed the back and asked the FA what was goin' on. He said that he did not think it was a big deal, but while the passengers were standing in line waiting to board, an adult male had made a "remark" to a young female who was flying as an unaccompanied minor. Whatever the remark was it frightened the little girl to the point that she reported it to the gate agent. The gate agents had arranged seating so that the idiot guy was seated all the way aft and the UM was seated forward, close to the flight attendant. We decided just to keep the seat belt sign on and that there would be no cabin service... just so we would have less of a chance of having to turn back. The captain made a BS-PA saying that ATC had reported the likely hood of some rough air ahead to cover for our actions. The captain then leaned over to me and thumbed toward the rear... "Lock the door" he said.

Now... Hollywood often portrays airline pilots as brave and heroic... and just like everything else that comes out of Hollywood- that's all bullcrap. In fact, if there were an airline pilot's pocket checklist for what to do when the excrement hits the turbine blades back in the cabin, it would say "Put out the sight that says DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH THE WOMAN AND CHILDREN, BUT LEAVE US ALONE and lock the door." So, of course we followed that procedure.

When I made the in-range call, our destination Ops. came back with a "What the hell's goin' on up there?!" To which we responded, "Why? What the hell's goin' on down there?" They told us that the place was full of cops and they had a guy at the gate acting like a wild man... he was the little girl's father. Apparently he had been contacted by the airline and told that some guy aboard our flight was trying to molest his daughter. He did exactly what I would do in the same situation... race to the airport like batman, burst through the doors, storm through security and try and beat the facts out of the totally uninformed gate agent. Of course the police were not far behind and were currently trying to cool him down. I reported back that all was very quiet aboard and the idiot remark guy as actually sound asleep, according to the flight attendant. Additionally, the little girl was and well protected from the scum of the earth, because the cockpit door was closed.

We taxied up to the gate and through the windows you could see some big, bristled guy surrounded by a half dozen cops. They deplaned the little girl first and she was escorted in by airport police and a gate agent, the other passengers followed and as soon as the last guy went in- all hell broke loose. From the cockpit all that we could see were arms, elbows, feet and fists. It was a lot like being a hockey player watching a brawl break out in the stands.

I murmured to the captain, as we watched, "Should we do... somethin'?" He gave me that are you f$%king nuts smirk and said, "Yeah... make sure that door stays locked and as soon as they're all gone out of that window, we'll go out and walk across the ramp to the other side of the building, go through Ops. and get in our cars and go home.

That's exactly what we did.

Explosive Honey

Things are tense in the airport business as the terrorists (or suspected persons of ill intent- as the Obama administration may wish to call them) have once again tried to blow us up. The front line in this war (or overseas contingency operation- as the Obama administration would prefer to have us call it) is in the airports of the United States where the TSA stands ever vigilant... that is, unless they have a cell phone call to answer or it is their lunch break. Yes, they remain nose-to-nose with the enemy... us... the American flying public.

The process of scanning bags, ordering shoes removed, guarding exits and rummaging through checked luggage is one laced with risk. Indeed, no TSA agent knows what resides within the next removed shoe or what awaits in the next bag, this is especially so for the luggage rummage detail. The next bag could contain men's jockey shorts with a brown streak or a boobie-trapped load of C-4 explosive (under 50 pounds, of course, so you won't get charged extra for checking the bag). Every day is like playing Russian roulette with one bullet and 98,728,412 empty chambers... the pressure is enormous... at least until break time.

Fear hung heavily, like a tapestry of doom over the checked baggage area at Bakersfield CA's Meadows Field Airport on the morning of 5 January, 2010. In the shadow of the Christmas Day Crotch Bomber, everyone was on a razor's edge... and then it happened!

A single bag was opened and inside were found several unmarked bottles with a suspicious golden liquid inside. Although Bakersfield is known to many as one of the honey centers of the nation, the TSA was smarter than that... no, THIS was not the yellow product of one of the bazillion bee hives in the local area... THIS WAS A BOMB!

Quicker than you can scream 10-9 over the airport's P.A. system, the TSA sprung into action. Immediately the owner of the bag, a 31-year-old gardener from Milwaukee, who had flown to Bakersfield to spend Christmas with his sister, was arrested like a jihadest fresh from Yemen and tossed into some hostile, isolated room. The local police, FBI, CIA, NSA and perhaps even the NAR (National Association of Rocketry) were alerted. Sirens screamed as SWAT teams were mustered and every person in Bakersfield who carried a badge from police to elementary school safety patrol kids were rushed to the scene. Bomb-sniffing dogs were deployed and indicated that the golden liquid was explosive. The airport was locked down, passengers were all immediately considered to terrorist accomplices- no one was above or below suspicion. Two of the TSA agents who came near the bag were "overcome" and had to be rushed to the E.R. at a local hospital. Surely now the EPA needed to get involved- but, they were far too busy tracking down that dangerous carbon dioxide that we all exhale and were thus under-staffed... so they could not respond until man-made Global Warming is stopped.

Confidential sources report that TSA attempted to put the bag's owner under the ol' "hot lights" for questioning... unfortunately, California no longer allows incandescent lights to be used anywhere in the state for environmental reasons and all they had were LED lamps, which were not hot and are too dim to force the truth out of anyone. So they had to settle for threatening him by saying they would move him to Nevada where they still have hot lights. Yet even under that pressure, the bag's owner refused to confess to packing explosives... so they made him take off his shoes- and keep 'em off.

The national threat level was elevated to a bright orange, almost an apricot, but not quite a tangerine.

Hours passed before a non-dog analysis for the substance showed it to be... honey.

So... what caused the dogs to alert? And what caused the two (not one, but TWO) TSA agents to be "overcome" and have to be rushed away to a local ER?

So, what can we learn from this event? Maybe the bomb-sniffing dogs just like honey. Maybe the owner, a gardener, who works with nitrogen agents a lot contaminated the bottles. Maybe the TSA agents like honey a really, really lot and simply were overcome by yummyness. Maybe they saw something else in the bag (remember those Jockey shorts with the streak). Maybe they knew it was only honey and how much that can mess up a uniform if it leaks and the thought of the dry cleaning involved just knocked them out. Or, maybe they both decided that this stuff was about to blow the entire airport to snot and they would be best off to fake a faint and then get transported away to the hospital and that way when the explosion went off they'd be a safe distance away and could just sit up, remove the oxygen mask and say "Well... I seem to feel much better" (that's what I'd have done).

What matters most is that TSA did its job. With total disregard for any thread of common sense, they shut the system down and held hostage a whole bunch of innocent Americans in an outstanding display of stupidity. We are all now allowed to feel safer... and put our shoes back on.

01/07/10 klyde morrsi