NASA’s ‘Shuttlyndra’ a Massive Waste of Tax Dollars
This is a tale of a government investment gone far awry. Favored by politicians promising jobs in a high-tech industry of the future, and fueled by political cronyism, it consumed untold amounts of taxpayer dollars, with little to show for it, despite warnings by experts that its business plan was flawed.
No, it’s not Solyndra — it’s much worse, at least in terms of the amount of money proposed to be wasted on it, and in other ways as well.
Let’s call it “Shuttlyndra,” aka NASA’s Constellation, then called the Space Launch System, aka the Senate Launch System. The Solyndra scam wasn’t a federal contract per se — it was based on taxpayer-guaranteed loans, which meant that the taxpayers would never have to pay off if it had worked. Shuttlyndra isn’t just a contract, but multiple sole-source, no-bid, cost-plus contracts, guaranteeing that the taxpayer money will be spent. And because of the nature of the contracts, in which the contractors are reimbursed for time and materials regardless of results, and there is no real competition, there is an excellent chance that the taxpayer won’t get much for the money — at least if its predecessor program, Constellation, is anything to go by.
NASA spent ten billion dollars on Constellation over five years, and had little to show for it except a very expensive and flawed suborbital test of a dummy first stage, and a half-built capsule with uncertain requirements. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that anything has changed in terms of management at NASA to overcome the ongoing moral hazards that created the waste the first time. It is really an intrinsic feature of traditional NASA contracting that has resulted in failure after failure after failure of NASA programs in their stated purpose. These failures are never punished because in the minds of those primarily responsible for funding it on the Hill, the real purpose is that the jobs continue to flow.
The saddest thing, perhaps, is that, unlike the supposedly novel approach to solar cell production ostensibly being pioneered by Solyndra, it’s not even particularly high technology. The program is premised on the notion that we have to maintain the same decades-old “space infrastructure” that we’ve had since the 1970s, by continuing the obsolete and costly Shuttle technology into perpetuity. At least if Solyndra’s promises had been kept, we would have had a useful new technology. But all that SLS gives us is a heavy-lift vehicle that will fly rarely, for which no payloads have been defined or budgeted.
But the biggest difference between Solyndra and Shuttlyndra is the scale of the waste of taxpayer funds — and that’signoring the billions already wasted. Shuttlyndra is planned to consume eighteen billion dollars in the next few years, and much more before it can do anything useful. Compared to that, the half billion wasted on Solyndra is couch-cushion change. And Shuttlyndra will be the negative gift to the taxpayer that keeps on giving, eating up billions of dollars per year that could be spent on actual useful space hardware for sending humans beyond earth orbit, until it’s finally canceled (if the porkmeisters in Congress ever allow it to happen).
It was easy to see, even in prospect, that Solyndra was doomed to failure, to all except those who actually decided to throw taxpayer largess at it.
Apparently there is no longer a need for the space shuttle, SETI, or other heavenly projects.
But why not? Why cancel things now?
1. The shuttle was still needed, mainly to support the International Space Station. And the reason the ISS was built was mainly to provide a rationale’ for continuing the shuttle program long past its intended ten-to-fifteen year lifespan. Thereby avoiding building newer, more advanced manned orbital delivery systems, on the “don’t change horses in midstream” principle so beloved of Senators and Congressman determined to bring government jobs home to their states.
Not to mention neo-Luddites who liked watching money- and lives- being thrown away on a rapidly-obsolescing system that by its very existence, prevented more advanced systems from becoming operational.
2. SETI (the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) still exists. But now it’s privately funded, as it always should have been. While not a boondoggle or a fantasy, SETI was and is mainly based on the assumptions of what another civilization will do, made mainly by radio astronomers and “social scientists”, whose assumptions are that other civilizations are;
(1) All advanced and peaceful, unless
(2) They are as irrational as those “experts” perceive ours to be, in which case they
(3) Promptly destroy themselves soon after acquiring nuclear power, or even industrial civilization. If not, they
(4) Use radio telescopes to send messages out into the void in the hope that somebody else will hear them, and on the 21-centimeter “hydrogen band”, aka the “watering hole”, at that.
Disregarding the illogic of (2) and (3), a more probable outcome is that radio astronomers in other civilizations are busy “listening”, as well, and nobody is doing much transmitting. Also, the 21-centimeter band is a very poor choice, precisely because it’s the “hydrogen band”; the usual background “noise” on that band from interstellar hydrogen makes a terrific jammer. Listening to “quieter” areas on the “dial” is done, but all the “big boys” are obsessed with 21 centimeters.
Between NASA and the National Academy of Sciences, our space efforts have become, as stated, little more than a jobs program at the space agency. And on the radio-astronomy side, mostly an excuse for tenured academics to preen themselves over just How Much Smarter Than Everybody Else they really are.
As to actually accomplishing anything, if you demand “results”, you must be a teab****r. According to them.
clear ether
eon
My view is that all space and astronomy programs are about to be replaced with something that will make them obsolete.
Because, like the Apollo “flags and footprints” missions, these are seen as primarily political projects. They are not seen – as they should be – as ways of increasing our ability to live and work in space, as investments in our future.
“These failures are never punished because in the minds of those primarily responsible for funding it on the Hill, the real purpose is that the jobs continue to flow.” Correct. Sen. Nelson’s and Gov. Scott’s mantra is jobs, jobs, jobs. If even the cost-benefit ratio is out of whack, if it keeps a few thousand people working, it will stay funded. I live not too far from the space coast, and the prospect of another 10,000 people out on the street looking for work where the demand for their job skills isnt’t exactly skyrocketing (pun intended), is not appealing.
Good article but a better word to describe something riddled with incompetence and corruption is Shuttlebama.
“… perhaps foremost, [Obama] wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering,” – Obama’s NASA Director Bolden. After saying that, he’s still the director a year later…
Something tells me every dime poured into the gaping maw of this once mighty American project is an obscene waste of taxpayer dollars. NASA, like virtually every other federal lever of power and influence has been hijacked by an extremist president to propagandize his anti-American class warfare Down-With-America! destruction.
What this article fails to address is the fundamental unconstitutionality of the space program itself. Nothing in the constitution allows the federal government to engage in research purely to “explore” or “study” except for the military usages thereof. Defense usages are the only constitutional avenues for space research and therefore NASA should be abolished except where it’s programs enhance national defense and those programs should be under Air Force or Navy control.
Please note that I’m an amatuar astronomer and have been for 50 years. I loved Heinlein’s books about going to space and I’d love to do so, but the constitution is my only contract with government and unless an amendment is put in place making exploration and research of space part of the federal mandate then it is unconstitutional
I have to disagree here, and not just because the Constitution doesn’t *prohibit* funding space research. There are simply things that the market will not due that ultimately accrue to society’s benefit. The “market”, with rare exception, simply won’t invest in pure science. Yes Bell Labs, under the then regulated AT&T, did so, as IBM still does today. But it’s usually with the hope it will ultimately advance the company’s technology advantage.
What company, for example, would ever have launched Voyager, whose travels to the edge of the solar system and beyond left us awestruck as it turned its camera back to the folks who launched it? Civilizations explore, sometimes for glory or prestige, sometimes as an expression of their own aspirations and vision. I recall as a teenager watching news of the moon landing with my family, including my immigrant father; often critical of America, even he was moved by the achievement.
That said, we must distinguish between the pathbreaking and the mundane, between that which moves us forward and that which simply lines the pockets of the select few. Constellation fits the latter category and should be scrapped.
Ray, you and everyone else should read the tenth amendment. It says that if the federal government isn’t specifically given the power to do something in the constitution that it is not allowed to do that. That such extra constitutional actions and powers are reserved to the states and to us, the citizens. Show me where it gives the federal government a mandate to explore anything. Please, I’d like to be wrong about this, quote the section of the constitution that allows the feds to do space exploration, or any other scientific endeavor not related to military needs.
Lewis and Clark, exploration of the Antarctic and Arctic. Actually, this all goes under the “interstate commerce” clause. The purpose of exploration is to gather knowledge that will enable individuals and private enterprise to function better and exploit (bad word, I know) new areas. Whether the Roman government’s roads or the British government’s contest to develop a clock accurate enough to measure latitude, governments have always lead the way in doing that research and development that is too long-term or expensive for private enterprise. I see this as one of the proper functions of government.
The Tenth Amendment does not say any such thing.
It says that the Constitutional powers that the Federal Government does not have are reserved to the states.
But it doesn’t DEFINE what powers the Federal Government has.
Alexander Hamilton first defined the notion of “IMPLIED powers.” These are powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, but are implied by the words of the Constitution.
Hamilton found clauses like “promote the general welfare” implied a lot of powers that the Constitution didn’t specifically enumerate.
So we’ve lived with the notion of implied powers since the earliest days of the Republic.
Who gets to decide what those implied powers are? The Congress and the Supreme Court.
For example, the power for Congress to standardize weights and measures implies paying for research to best do the same. The power to organize Territories implies the means of their acquisition.
You are right, the tenth doesn’t say what the constitution allows the federal government to do, but it does say that if it isn’t in the rest of the constitution the feds can’t do it.
“Promote the general welfare” could very well, under “implied powers”, allow the government to force people to purchase health insurance, as in Obamacare. Let’s not get too carried away with allowing the government to absorb powers unto itself, implied or otherwise. On the other hand, the government already subsidizes a lot of private research, through grants to private companies, institutions and individuals. Former President Dwight Eisenhower warned that such partnerships could establish symbiotic realationships for political purposes, such as support for AGW, to establish a revenue source that will allow the government to penalize and tax “carbon” generators. Government involvement in anything always carries the risk of politicization, corruption or crony capitalism, as is presently happening with NASA. That’s one of the primary reason that many anti-NASA posters want the Feds to get out of the space business.
You’re welcome to disagree, but the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 specifically cites the Article I authority for the creation of NASA. Section 102(b) flatly states “The Congress declares that the general welfare and security of the United States require that adequate provision be made for aeronautical and space activities.” [It would be nice if all acts of Congress were required to cite their constitutional authority -- it would avoid the slipperiness we see in the administration's defense of Obamacare (is it a tax? is it the regulation of interstate commerce?)]. Unfortunately, one can pack a lot of nonsense into the “general welfare” clause, and it might be that NASA is one of those things. But at this point, I wouldn’t hold my breath on the Supreme Court siding with you on the unconstitutionality of government space exploration.
Then they screwed up, because the general welfare clause is no grant power.
“These failures are never punished because in the minds of those primarily responsible for funding it on the Hill, the real purpose is that the jobs continue to flow.”
That’s what drives taxpayers (at least me, anyway) crazy. The government, whether it is NASA or the Pentagon or some other agency, is never accountable for ANY of this money. You say that billions were lost on this program? So what is the response we get from Washinton? Ooops, sorry, we just blew about $10 billion of your money. Thanks for sharing, see you again. NOBODY is held accountable for any of this and billions are wasted each year.
Perhaps the worst example is Obama’s nearly trillion dollar “stimulus” bill that only stimulated more debt, because it certainly didn’t create a lot of jobs! And what do we say to the guy who’s working maybe two jobs to feed his family while the federal government is literally throwing away billions of dollars? Do we just say, “Sorry fella, you just have to work a little harder to cover the massive debt we ran up on YOUR dime?”
This is reprehensible, and both the Democrats as well as the Republicans KNOW it. And tell me the truth, if Solyndra had NOT received so much media attention, do you think the government would have cared about a bad $530 million loan? In Washington, that’s just a rounding error. The only reason this is an issue is because it’s an election year.
There are many, MANY, government projects FAR WORSE than Solyndra and nobody ever talks about them. If you really want to cry, read about the history of the Littoral Combat Ship that’s now being built by our Navy. This was supposed to be a small ship that was to cost about $200 million each. Now it costs almost $600 million each and we don’t even know for sure if it can do the many jobs it was created for. And did you hear anybody get put in jail over that? Did anybody lose a pension or get fired? Nope, not a one.
The next president MUST control Federal spending on just about everything. It’s a tall order, but we need somebody to have a staff of true believers to go to Washington and remind everybody there that it is NOT their money they’re playing with. It is ours, and we’ve worked damn hard for it. A true conservative needs to be elected and he or she must question every expense and act like the cheapest S.O.B. on the planet. That president must feel like the money is personally coming out of his or her pockets. And the next president must hold more people accountable for massive financial losses in Federal programs, and that means at least firing them if they screw up. If none of the candidates are at least talking about this problem now, then they will not be serious about solving it when they become president.
‘NASA delenda est’
In a time when the creation of new wealth is even more important
than the creation of jobs, and every new source of wealth needs
to be developed as rapidly as possible, the roadblock to progress
which is NASA has become a threat to national survival.
Remove it now.
On the other hand, check out the work being done at SpaceX (www.spacex.com)
see particularly
http://www.spacex.com/assets/video/spacex-rtls-green.mp4
The boosters aren’t fully reusable yet, but that’s next on Elon Musk’s agenda. Less than $1000/lb to orbit! This is what NASA should have been working on.
All part of the plan by the national socialists to evacuate as much money as possible, knowing that’s the key to “political entropy” and creating a crisis whereby they can start more and heavier restrictions on citizens.
The ploy is to make it appear that the money is being used for good things, when they know full-well that it’s going into a giant black hole, never to be seen again. In other words, wasted and thrown the the wind. Smart people such as the readers of this blog, and some others know this but are powerless to do anything since the media, constricted by dedicated marxists and filled with stupid ideologues for employees, will never report on it. Then, the RINO’s in office actually can’t see anything wrong with the wasted money because they actually believe the marxists “mean well”. Then, their own version of not saying anything so as to not draw any undue attention to themselves just makes them that much more complicit in the financial destruction of the nation.
Nice going, ruling class jerks.
Meant to say, “Thrown to the wind or re-routed to the coffers of the national socialists, so they can use it for party-specific activities”.
Breitbart has a story (linked from Drudge) that is quite critical of the current commercial space efforts: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.947744aa7f2a9543ab7c4b0e24b9136c.221&show_article=1
I wonder why Breitbart thinks commercial space is a problem?
I could see Breitbart making the assumption that because Musk leans left, his efforts should be attacked. I think Breitbart blew that call.
Looking at the article, I don’t think they know about Spacex.
I hope Rand could do an article for them. I’ve seen Maet at Ace’s site make nice comments toward new space, and I think that the Whittle/Simberg video was posted there; I know it was posted at HotAir.
I do think it is important that we have the ability to fly people into space and return them to the ground safely.
I don’t think any of the current plans are great, but Constellation had the advantage of existing and being able to fly people on space missions within the next few years. We are now stuck with no access to space until the Russians figure out what is wrong with their system and we will be abandoning the Space Station in the next few months for lack of a safe way up and down.
Now we are going to start all over again and it will likely be 2025 before we have an operational manned spacecraft.
Yes, there were problems with Constellation, but not fatal flaws. The report said it wasn’t funded well enough to return to the Moon. There were several possible responses other than cancelling it. They could have overhauled the Moon portion of the project to make it more cost effective. They could have asked; do we need to go to the Moon? They could have increased funding so it would be successful. Cancelling it with no alternative space craft in the hangar was irresponsible. We need to go to the space station, and it is good to be able to continue to fly space missions. The LEO portion of the project would have given us that capability.
My opinion is, NASA should restart the LEO version of Constellation so we have something to fly missions with. Then, their next big project should be to work with the big contractors to create a new generation of engines and airframes that trade off max performance for lower cost of manufacture and use somewhat larger rockets that cost less per unit to manufacture and fly. Costs are high because we are using improved versions of the rockets that date back to when I was a kid and Davy Crockett was on TV Sunday nights. The new Congressionally mandated BFR is more of the same, the same old technology, the same old river of pork mentality.
We need new lower cost launch vehicles. If we had them we could undercut every other launch service provider, corner the market for commercial launches, and at the same time lower the cost of military and science mission.
oldguy, you need to check your meds. First you argue that Constellation could have been successful, then you argue that the BFR (Constellation zombie) is old tech pork. Then you want NASA to redo the whole space program over again. All the while you totally ignore the commercial space people like SpaceX.
So you really didn’t read the blog post before you commented, did you?
“oldguy, you need to check your meds.”
You sound smarter if you do not open with a gratuitous insult.
~ ~ ~
Constellation was the program name which included the Orion manned spacecraft which is what we have now that is almost ready to fly. Yea, it would be nice to have some low cost, much better, privately built and financed manned spacecraft, but we don’t, and if history is any indicator, we won’t any time soon.
Meanwhile both the Russians and Chinese will have manned space programs. The fact that Orion has only flown one test mission does not indicate it is a failure, it indicates they have just started testing after about 10 years of development and it is within a few years of being operational. We could have been flying manned missions in 2014. I would be surprised if any new system is flying operational missions before 2025.
People have been proposing commercial launch systems since forever. Please name one that succeeded. Privateers do not have the staying power or resources to build launchers that are viable. How are they going to raise the money needed for manned vehicles and survive the 10 plus years of spending with no revenues? Realize that Japan was not able to develop their own manned flight capability. You expect some Silicon Valley style start up to do it? How? By designing it on their iPads with the iRocketScience app and having it built cheap in China?
That choice will lead to no US manned space flight program or buying rides from the Russians and Chinese.
You must not have read my post before you responded.
The new Congress designed BFR is old tech pork. A cobble job of Shuttle parts designed to insure that any future big rocket gets built in senior committee members’ districts.
We need new low cost engine and airframe technology to drastically reduce the cost of spaceflight. If we were smart we would build the factories for these new rockets on government land right next to KSC. This would reduce the cost to the government who is the largest customer for space launches, allow us to corner the launch market worldwide, and spur new technology development.
The reason we do not get the tech spin offs like we used to from the space program is they aren’t doing anything new. NASA is a moribund bureaucracy in need a major retooling. It is stuck in 1968, but it has to be saved and revamped for the 21st Century.
Meanwhile both the Russians and Chinese will have manned space programs. The fact that Orion has only flown one test mission does not indicate it is a failure, it indicates they have just started testing after about 10 years of development and it is within a few years of being operational. We could have been flying manned missions in 2014. I would be surprised if any new system is flying operational missions before 2025.</o?
Old Guy, your numbers are inaccurate. Orion isn't close to being capable of carrying people. From this Aviation Week article dated last week:
In a series of Sept. 14 announcements, NASA’s congressional supporters and White House officials brought a potential end to a standoff over the agency’s post-shuttle, human spaceflight future. They featured pledges of $18 billion through 2017 to kick off development of a 130-metric-ton SLS to dispatch the Orion/MPCV capsule on a flexible path of exploration, reaching an asteroid by 2025 and Mars a decade or so later.
With $6 billion of the agreed-upon total, NASA would ready the capsule for a series of milestone flight tests, beginning with a mid-2013 two-orbit unpiloted mission. The flight would boost Orion to an altitude of 5,000 nm for a steep, high-velocity re-entry to characterize the performance of the ablative heat shield and parachute descent and ocean recovery.
Lockheed Martin has reserved a Delta 4 Heavy for the demanding unpiloted flight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, though the choice of launchers is under evaluation.
A second test of the Orion/MPCV’s Launch Abort System would follow a year later. Also lofted from Kennedy, the spacecraft would rise atop a Peacekeeper missile first-stage solid-fuel rocket motor to 50,000 ft. for release of the unpiloted capsule in a test of the abort system guidance and navigation controls at maximum aerodynamic pressure. The abort system executed a successful unpiloted launch pad abort demonstration in May 2010 at White Sands, N.M.
If funding permits, Lockheed Martin would like to leverage the integration and performance results from the 2013 flight for a piloted circumnavigation of the Moon in 2016.
Constellation was canceled because it was running massively over budget and the schedule was slipping more than a year for each year that passed. NASA has already spent $5 billion on the Orion capsule and all that has flown is a boilerplate mockup on Ares I-X and one pad abort test with another boilerplate capsule.
By way of contrast, SpaceX has spent a total of about a billion dollars. With that, they developed a series of rocket engines, the Falcon 1 & 9 boosters, launch facilities in multiple locations, the Dragon capsule, manufacturing and flight prep facilities, mission control facilities, and conducted flight tests. NASA has verified SpaceX’s development numbers and has admitted it would’ve cost them at least 10 times as much and taken longer to develop the Falcon 9 booster. Boeing is also making good progress on their CST-100 capsule.
Big government space programs built by cost-plus developers are doomed to budgetary extinction. We simply can’t afford to keep wasting money that way.
“Constellation was canceled because it was running massively over budget and the schedule was slipping more than a year for each year that passed.”
All manned spacecraft in the past have been late and over budget. That is because Congress always pressures NASA for unrealistic timetables and prices. dumb, but that’s Government work in the spotlight.
It was cut so Obama could have more money to give away to favored constituent groups.
“NASA has already spent $5 billion on the Orion capsule and all that has flown is a boilerplate mockup on Ares I-X and one pad abort test with another boilerplate capsule.”
That is how all previous manned spacecraft have been tested. The real flight worthy crew capable craft are not flown until either the last unmanned test or the first manned test.
“By way of contrast, SpaceX has spent a total of about a billion dollars. With that, they developed a series of rocket engines, the Falcon 1 & 9 boosters, launch facilities in multiple locations, the Dragon capsule, manufacturing and flight prep facilities, mission control facilities, and conducted flight tests. NASA has verified SpaceX’s development numbers and has admitted it would’ve cost them at least 10 times as much and taken longer to develop the Falcon 9 booster. Boeing is also making good progress on their CST-100 capsule.”
I will be shocked if it ever flies an operational mission. Every private launch system to date has failed.
We are on a path to no manned space program, and guys like you are as guilty as Obama and the Democrats. Private manned spaceflight is a Libertarian/Tea party fairy tale. I like the market as much as the next guy, but I also recognize that it needs profit or the hope for profit for it to work. I doubt there will be any profit in manned spaceflight in my lifetime, but that does not mean we shouldn’t continue to fund progress. A far better use for tax money that high speed trains and windmills.
Ah you just do not see the big picture. This is an Historic Moment for America. When our first black president destroyed our space program, so he could give away more US taxpayer money to more important things, like buying the black and latino votes with welfare and food stamps.
If SLS fails, will there still be demand for Falcon X? That’s super-heavy lift to LEO, at least.
Reply to Old Guy (by someone who has worked on space systems for over 20 years):
Me: “Constellation was canceled because it was running massively over budget and the schedule was slipping more than a year for each year that passed.”
Old Guy: “ll manned spacecraft in the past have been late and over budget. That is because Congress always pressures NASA for unrealistic timetables and prices. dumb, but that’s Government work in the spotlight.
It was cut so Obama could have more money to give away to favored constituent groups.”
I can count on one hand the number of decisions Obama has made that I agree with and have several fingers left over. Cutting Constellation was one of those because, according to the Augustine Commission, the program wasn’t underfunded but poorly structured and managed. They were on track to spend up to $50 billion to develop the Ares I and Orion alone, with a first flight date no earlier than 2017. They would only be able to meet that timeline by robbing other programs for money and dropping support of the ISS. That kind of spending for that little capability (4 people to LEO) was an abomination that deserved to die.
It isn’t just the manned spacecraft that were late and over budget. Look at NASA’s history and you’ll find that almost without exception, every major project they’ve done – manned or unmanned – has been late and/or over budget, often by massive amounts. NASA has a terrible track record at managing large projects. A lot of that is probably a holdover of the heady Apollo days when their unoffoical motto was “Waste anything but time.” It’s hard to come back to management excellence or fiscal responsibility when your agency was born in an era of profligate spending.
Me; “NASA has already spent $5 billion on the Orion capsule and all that has flown is a boilerplate mockup on Ares I-X and one pad abort test with another boilerplate capsule.”
Old Guy: “That is how all previous manned spacecraft have been tested. The real flight worthy crew capable craft are not flown until either the last unmanned test or the first manned test.”
Wrong. The first Shuttle flight carred two men (Young and Crippen). It never flew unmanned.
Me: “By way of contrast, SpaceX has spent a total of about a billion dollars. With that, they developed a series of rocket engines, the Falcon 1 & 9 boosters, launch facilities in multiple locations, the Dragon capsule, manufacturing and flight prep facilities, mission control facilities, and conducted flight tests. NASA has verified SpaceX’s development numbers and has admitted it would’ve cost them at least 10 times as much and taken longer to develop the Falcon 9 booster. Boeing is also making good progress on their CST-100 capsule.”
Old Guy: “I will be shocked if it ever flies an operational mission. Every private launch system to date has failed.”
As has every NASA manned system since the Shuttle. Over the decades, NASA worked on several manned spacecraft to replace the Shuttle. All failed.
Old Guy: “We are on a path to no manned space program, and guys like you are as guilty as Obama and the Democrats. Private manned spaceflight is a Libertarian/Tea party fairy tale. I like the market as much as the next guy, but I also recognize that it needs profit or the hope for profit for it to work. I doubt there will be any profit in manned spaceflight in my lifetime, but that does not mean we shouldn’t continue to fund progress. A far better use for tax money that high speed trains and windmills.”
America is on the edge of bankrupsy. Spending tens of billions of dollars on wasteful programs is something we can no longer afford, be those programs high speed rail or poorly conceived space transportation systems. If NASA is going to survive our rendezvous with financial reality, it’s going to have to find a better, more cost effective way of operating. If it can’t, then NASA doesn’t deserve to survive any more than other government agencies that serve no useful purpose. Orion and SLS represent the worst kind of government waste. They are political pork that only serve to create a small number of jobs in select congressional districts as opposed to serving the nation as a whole.
Old Guy: “I will be shocked if it ever flies an operational mission. Every private launch system to date has failed.”
SpaceX has launched *and recovered* a Dragon capsule already. They’re proceeding to a test rendezvous and docking mission which will see a Dragon capsule dock at ISS later this year. They’re neck deep in development on a man-rated version of the Dragon. They have several Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 missions in the Win column and are moving forward with facilities to handle Falcon 9 Heavy. These guys are on their A game, doing everything that Ares/Orion would’ve taken NASA another decade to accomplish. As much as I loved NASA (my father spent his entire career at NASA/Goddard, and I put in a few years there as well), I’m thinking it’s time to let the private sector take the baton and run with it.