There’s an old saying attributed to Voltaire that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” There are multiple interpretations of this aphorism, but one of them is that one must often accept the achievable, even if flawed, in preference to the perfect but unachievable solution.

Many defenders of Constellation use this argument, saying that if it’s not the best architecture, it’s good enough, and the only one politically feasible at this time, and that any other solution will only cause further delay. Implicit in this argument, of course, are the assumptions that further delay is unacceptable and that it is indeed good enough. Clark Lindsey points out an amusing analogy that Roger Pielke came up with in response to a similar argument by Paul Krugman that current plans for cap and trade are good enough — “Get on the bus.”

I don’t think that Ares is quite as bad as the idea of jumping the Grand Canyon with a Greyhound, but I do think it a vast waste of money, if our goal is space accomplishment rather than keeping parking lots full in Huntsville. From this space enthusiast’s perspective, it is not only imperfect, but it’s not even good enough. Even in the unlikely event that it is successful by NASA’s own cost and schedule criteria, it will be a disaster from the standpoint of making us space faring, flying far too little for far too much money per flight. The goals of the Aldridge Commission were good ones, and as currently planned, it contributes little to nothing to achieving them. As I wrote Sunday, if we need some additional delay to get it right, then we should do that, if it’s at all possible. And if it’s not possible, then we should just give up on having a useful and affordable space program, because this plan is so far from one that I certainly don’t want any more of my tax dollars spent on it.

[Update a few minutes later]

The goals of the Augustine review have been posted on the federal register:

The Committee should aim to identify and characterize a range of options that spans the reasonable possibilities for continuation of U.S. human space flight activities beyond retirement of the Space Shuttle. The identification and characterization of these options should address the following objectives: (a) Expediting a new U.S. capability to support utilization of the International Space Station (ISS); (b) supporting missions to the Moon and other destinations beyond low Earth orbit (LEO); (c) stimulating commercial space flight capability; and (d) fitting within the current budget profile for NASA exploration activities.

I can think of many architectures that would do a good job of those four goals, but Constellation isn’t one of them. It really only supports goal (b), and even that not very well. As Clark says, it will be both sad and amusing to watch NASA’s attempts to explain how it does.