Henry Spencer says that it’s time to give up on Ares I:

NASA, predictably, is not happy about being forced to change. NASA’s ex-administrator, Mike Griffin, has been a particularly vocal opponent of the idea, claiming that outsiders shouldn’t try to second-guess NASA on technical decisions, and that it’s cheaper to stay on course after four years of effort than to start over from scratch. Sorry, but that’s not the way it looks to me.

I’d agree that it would be cheaper, if I thought NASA had made four years of progress. But Ares I is the International Space Station of rockets: redesigned again and again, justified using assumptions that no longer apply, and already escalating mightily in cost (and already well behind schedule). There comes a time when it really is cheaper to start over in some more sensible way, because banging your head against the wall harder and harder isn’t getting you through it.

Mike Griffin is employing the sunk-cost fallacy — that the fact that we’ve already invested a lot in something justifies further expenditure. In this case, though, the investment isn’t just taxpayer dollars, but his personal pride and reputation.

Let’s hope that Norm Augustine comes to a sensible conclusion.