Frank Borman apparently displayed a distinct lack of imagination the other night at the Smithsonian. Clark Lindsey comments, pointing out once again why we shouldn't take pronouncements of astronauts on space (or any subject, for that matter) as seriously as we too often do, just because they're astronauts:

As I found from books such as The Right Stuff and John Glenn's autobiography, most of the Space Age astronauts, except for a few exceptions like Buzz Aldrin, were not space buffs. They had instead been obsessed their whole lives with flying airplanes. After working their way up to the elite world of test pilots, they saw their selection as astronauts as the ultimate proof that they were the hottest flyboys around. They didn't go through all that just to open up the cosmos to any Tom, Dick, or Dennis Tito.

And as Clark also stingingly points out, Frank Borman should hardly be considered an expert on commercial anything.

"Frank Borman should hardly be considered an expert on commercial anything."

Borman headed Eastern Airlines for a number of years.

He did indeed, Keith. That's what Clark and I were referring to. It was controlled flight into terrain:

Eastern did not fare well in the 1980s. Under Borman's shaky command, the company was in deep trouble as a result of major disagreements between management and the labor unions, and also because of major debt from purchases in the late 1970s. As Borman ineffectively tried to get pay cuts to compensate for debts, Eastern began to rack up year after year of losses until late 1985, when it had a debt of $3.5 billion.

$100k per seat on SpaceShipOne is pretty good compared to $3 million per seat on X-15. $25 million in development cost is pretty good compared to $900 million in development cost (all in current dollars).

http://www.thespacereview.com/article/204/1

Can you imagine someone dissing Greason's Pentium chip by saying "We invented the transistor out of germanium back in 1947?"

"...why we shouldn't take pronouncements of astronauts on space (or any subject, for that matter) as seriously as we too often do, just because they're astronauts..."

A phenomenon I observed way too often when I worked at JSC...

Hmmm...I'd wonder whom Frank thinks it *was* done for (much of it being done on the taxpayer's dime, and all). Maybe Chuck Yeager didn't break the sound barrier so grandma could go chasing across the Atlantic at Mach 2, but when the Concorde was in operation, I'm sure that a number of grandmothers did exactly that.

Which is just the sort of outcome we want.

After all, the whole point of being a test pilot is to be the first to try new aviation (and space) technologies that, if successful, work their way into everyday government and/or civil use....

My dad was a long time EAL employee and absolutely hates Borman. Plenty of the old long timers felt they spent a lifetime building something Borman ruined in a few years.

Now, the big EAL wasn't exactly setting the world ablaze when Frank got there, but almost anyone with air carrier experience could have done better.

Dad has some pet names for Borman that can't be used here, but suffice it to say that Mr Borman's parents were never married and his mom ate Alpo.

While I suppose this should be obvious, I need to point out that I was only one small part of a huge team on the Pentium; the team I was on did work on the enabling chip technology. It's a little like saying "John Houbolt's Apollo program".

Frank Borman is very creative, as evidenced by his current primary business: a string of car dealerships in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Yes, creative, very creative.

I happen to think Borman was right; Spacecraft One was a stunt. It hasn't advanced the engineering of commercial orbital space travel by one iota.

I happen to think Borman was right; Spacecraft One was a stunt. It hasn't advanced the engineering of commercial orbital space travel by one iota.

That's a strawman. Few people claim that it advanced the engineering of orbital space travel, commercial or otherwise. That doesn't make it a stunt. It did what it did, and it greatly advanced the prospects for raising money to build orbital vehicles.

"I happen to think Borman was right; Spacecraft One was a stunt. It hasn't advanced the engineering of commercial orbital space travel by one iota."

Lindbergh's flight was a stunt too. And look what it led to .....

Borman is now a grumpy old man- and since I'm a grumpy old man, I sympathize a bit. I do feel he is responsible for the failure of Eastern- he got in over his head and did not have the sense to get out or seek appropriate guidance.
Still, I think it's worth noting that many early astronauts who came from a test pilot background did become 'space buffs,' and did indeed see their role as something larger than being 'hot flyboys.' I say this because I knew some of them, and because last week I just happened to come across a quote worth jotting in my ledger:

"Exploration really is the essense of the human spirit, and to pause, to falter, to turn our back on the quest for knowledge, is to perish."
-Frank Borman

"Lindbergh's flight was a stunt too. And look what it led to ....."

It was, but it wasn't comparable. He did what lots of people still pay to do; fly from the continental United States to France.

I can see the lines now for people wanting to fly 62 miles up for five minutes.

Had SpaceShip One been in the position to make orbit with just a bit more thrust, that would be comparable.