…has issued a press release on the wilfully wasteful spending by NASA, at Congressional insistence:
On October 11, 2010 President Obama signed the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, which provided $10 billion to fund existing contracts for Ares and Orion over the next three years. Nonetheless, NASA delivered a report to Congress this week that concluded that it still can’t build a rocket that “fits the projected budget profiles nor schedule goals outlined in the Authorization Act.”
The Orion space capsule has already cost the government $4.8 billion, requires another $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2011, and will not be operational until 2014. As WESH in Orlando has noted, commercial providers have already demonstrated the same capabilities at one tenth of the cost of the still in development Orion capsule.
“Taxpayers now recognize that President Obama and his congressional allies will say anything to sound fiscally rational, but their actions tell a different story. The spendthrifts in Washington, D.C. cannot continue to sink tax dollars into this black hole; the Constellation program should be a prime target for the new Congress as it seeks ways to cut wasteful spending and reduce the deficit,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.
But it won’t be — too many phony-baloney jobs at stake.
A nit — Dragon hasn’t really (yet) demonstrated the same capabilities as Orion. Or rather, what Orion’s capabilities will be if it is ever completed. They really have different requirements. But they’re not different enough to justify the difference in cost, and it’s actually much greater than stated — Dragon is much less than a tenth of the cost of Orion.
[Update early evening]
Just to clarify, Congress is insisting that NASA waste money, not that CAGW issue a press release. Though maybe that’s their subliminal desire. They can be kinky that way. I probably should have left out the comma, to decrease the ambiguity. A practical grammar lesson.
Another nit is that Obama (in this rare instance) is actually on the right side of wanting to cancel this mess. It’s the Congress that isn’t doing its job…
~Jon
I have to agree – Republicans like Sessions and Hatch are to blame for a lot of this mess. Obama shares some blame by not killing Orion outright, supposedly because Colorado is a bluish-purple state and killing Orion would cost a lot of jobs in the Denver area.
Yes, I read in the HEFT report “An exploration crew vehicle requires additional capabilities as compared to a LEO class crew vehicle”. Well ok, I can’t dispute that, but what are they?
* A better heat shield for direct return
* Extended life support
* Solar panels
* Radiation protection?
An Apollo style mission takes about twice as long as rendezvous with the ISS. I think they forget this. Current LEO class vehicles have about twice as much radiation protection as Apollo had, and there’s only about twice as much radiation exposure on the way to the Moon as there is in LEO. This all just sounds like minor improvements to Dragon.
Very minor considering Dragon already has a better heat shield and solar panels are part of the design (next launch perhaps?) Life support seems to be a level playing field, we’ll see. As you point out, radiation protection is better than Apollo. The radiation issue is more about what you do after you get to the moon rather than in transit for a few short days.
Dragon suits it’s purpose. We need other vehicles, but hopefully they will be as prudently developed as Dragon has been. That does not appear the case, especially with respect to cost of development. Considering the cost, they seem to lack ambition with regard to capabilities as well.