credit NASA / caption: what's with all the red?
click on the table to see a larger version in the same window browser
You can find the presentation the above slide is taken from on this webpage. I think I was on my back from the Paris air show on the Eurostar train when NASA exploration systems mission directorate associate administrator Doug Cooke showed this slide (the top half is Space Exploration Technologies timetable) as part of his Commercial Orbital Transportation Services presentation to the 17 June 2009 meeting of the Norm Augustine led review of US human spaceflight plans committee
Maybe some of you bloggers out there who had a chance to watch or even attend the event can explain this but that there seems to be a lot of red on that table and that can't be good
on June 19, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply
From a cursory glance, it looks like the red is denoting changes made in the milestones in the various revisions. It also looks like most of the revisions are being made to either replace or combine milestones. Only a few appear to have been made to accommodate schedule slips.
There were no questions from the panel regarding this "incomprehensible chart" (each presenter had at least one), so I assume that these were not necessarily red flags. Perhaps red was not such a good color to use. Maybe blue, green, or even orange would have kept it from looking so threatening.