Mike Griffin is opposed to the Senate bill. That right there makes me support it. Kind of like how I vote for issues that I don’t know much about by going the opposite from whatever the LA Times endorses.
Mike Griffin should just take his own advice, and shut up.
But this is an issue you do know a lot about. And Mike Griffin’s goal and ours are parallel to a degree: he wants to get rid of as much of the Shuttle workforce as possible while still preserving SDLV. There’s a good chance that won’t be possible once the workforce is gone. In that case, we would end up where you and I would want to be: in a world without Shuttle/SDLV.
I find it hard to decide what would be best right now. On the one hand I’m inclined to follow the opinion of those whose honesty and insight I trust. On the other hand I like to form my own opinion. I also despise the Shuttle industrial political complex and no agreement seems like the best way to get rid of it. In addition getting NASA out of the launch business seems more important than even commercial crew. Then again, we may still get rid of SDLV anyway. On the gripping hand, we may still get commercial crew through CRS and COTS-D.
Politics is also quite hard to predict. While getting NASA out of the launch business may be more important than commercial crew, getting money to commercial crew changes the lobbying balance of power and that might be more effective. Then again, Boeing and LM, which could be expected to play dominant roles, aren’t idealistic organisations and they might subvert the process. Money for commercial crew also increases the risk of zombification of New Space.
I find it really hard to decide what to hope for. All options are bad, but none of them mean the end for commercial spaceflight. The fight will go on regardless of what happens.
My hope lays in the language of the Senate bill. All those “if practicable(s)” that allow NASA to ignore the rough sketched design of the HLV. As Rand noted elsewhere, NASA may simply decide that building an unnecessary HLV is “not practicable” given the state of the economy and the potential for budget cuts several years down the road.
Anyone who follows the debate knows that we can put far more tonnage into orbit sooner with existing HLVs – as long as NASA isn’t spending the farm building a new SDHLV.
For the generation who watched Apollo 11 live, this may be the last opportunity to follow along with real progress in our attempt to master the skills of working and living in space. My fingers are crossed.
One other possibility: Sometime after the election, Congress will likely be looking to make deficit-reduction cuts, and when NASA is asked “where can we cut 10% of the agency budget with least harm”, the logical answer just might be “SDHLV”.
All those “if practicable(s)” that allow NASA to ignore the rough sketched design of the HLV.
Are you sure ? From what i understand of the process, tomorrow will be about the authorizations bill. Which will bear some, but not much semblance to the eventual appropriations bill. And appropriations bill would likely end up VERY prescriptive about where the pork goes this year .. no ?
The feeling seems to be that if Constellation can finally be killed off then NASA will somehow become an agency full of happy little elves all working for the common good and the yellow brick road to the world of commercial space will open before us like the promise of the Emerald City.
I wish it were true.
Unfortunately NASA management remain NASA management.
Look at the HEFT.
Step 1 defund ISS in 2010.
What?
It suddenly becomes clear how NASA management got themselves into such difficulties with Constellation.
You just make assumptions.
“If we just steal all the money from the ISS program…”
NASA needs to try something a little more radical.
How about this.
“If we could just inject a little reality into our planning…”
Reader – You make a good point; the Appropriators can if they want to change the rules. Current indications are they’ll be inclined to go along with this year’s Authorization, but we’ll see. (I’d be quite surprised if the Old Guard faction doesn’t at least try to use the Appropriation to turn the Senate Auth’s possibility of a Next Big NASA Rocket into a certainty.) The NASA Appropriation will most likely be taken up after the election, during the November-December “lame duck” session.