Congressional Reaction to NASA Budget

After President Bush proposed the moon program in 2004, congress decided not to fund the small increase that NASA sought and the Bush administration did not press the issue. SInce the budget was probably too low anyway and the Iraq war continued to be expensive, what congress did was reasonable. At that point, the project was doomed, and a new project should have been selected that would fit the available budget. However, nobody at NASA pointed out that the budget was not adequate for the mission, probably for fear of losing their job, and that is how we got to this point.
So now we have to select a project that will fit the budget, and going back to the moon is not possible. Personally, I would not mind a small increase in my taxes to allow NASA to do something interesting, but I am in the minority.
Steve

"represents a radical departure from the bipartisan consensus achieved by Congress in successive authorizations over the past five years."

And nebulous non-defined un-goals to boot.

It's like they made it up in an hour.. and then magic propulsion unicorns will get us to Mars in weeks.

Congress is NOT going to allow this budget as is that is a certainty.

I bet Orion survives. Obama will lose some power in November this year no question, and probably out by 2013. The next President will decide.

"I bet Orion survives"

That seems the likely course of action. The only way to quickly have a spacecraft operational is to continue Orion, flying either on an Atlas or Delta.

"I bet Orion survives"

If so, I don't think it will be the same Orion. For one it will need to be landing on land. But I don't think its the right vehicle at all and the only way that Lockheed could gain on time is if they keep NASA at arms length.

I expect you'll see a group led by Boeing come in with an X-37 derivative, perhaps a larger vehicle though the vehicle as it is nearly the size and capacity of X-38.

I wouldn't be surprised for Lockheed to revisit their Steidle era spaceplane.

And of course there are the 'commercial' contenders, any of which ought to be launchable on other expendables was well as Falcons, etc.

I think any of these CAN be flying by 2015. The NASA Orion could have been/should have been ready by 2012 and now could be flying by 2015. Remember, Shuttle, which was a much larger, much more complex vehicle (and which included the booster segment) was flying -aero only- within 5 years of program start and it was done on a shoestring budget.

Its only when you start getting into the bureaucratic and political circle jerks and nonexistent technical management that was Constellation, that the relatively easy starts becoming the impossible. As someone on another blog wrote, he moved into industry from NASA and it was like going from 10 mph to 90 mph.

NASA has the capability to do a lot better, but it means actually putting capable people in charge of the activity they lead and supporting them with a small capable well-selected team. Then NASA becomes like a contractor.

That was not what happened on Constellation. We now know where that led...

"I think any of these CAN be flying by 2015"

I just don't see how that is possible for a new spacecraft to design, fabricate, test and qualify in 5 years. Perhaps a LM or Boeing, but that's rather difficult with their standard way of doing things. Pushing things too fast can lead to doing things at risk before it's qualified and when a test fails, big delays result.

A case in point is the heat shield and water/land landing with Orion. While it's true they were targeting a lunar return, it's still something that hadn't been done since Apollo. Some of the technology can be transferred, but for a new company with no manned spaceflight experience, this can overwhelm them and lead to mistakes.

Then there's the question of employees. How many would SpaceX (as an example) have to hire? 200? 500? It looks like they have 500 currently so you're talking about a major increase. Then you have management questions. There's been a lot of complaints about NASA management. Just wait.

Then there's the question of employees. How many would SpaceX (as an example) have to hire? 200? 500?

More people is never the answer. When Chris Kraft was asked 'was there anything that might have made Apollo go more smoothly, faster? could you have used more people ?', he responded 'with more people we might not have been able to do it at all, we could have done it with a lot fewer'

If you look at how successful groups, like Kelly Johnson's Lockheed skunkworks of the 50s that could design and build a P-80 or F-104 in a few months time, or an SR-71 (A-11/12)in 2 years, they are not large. They have the minimum number of the right people with experience, knowledgeable about the company's support organizations so they can call in for support when its needed.

Every previous US spacecraft other than ISS was conceived, designed, and the first vehicles built in a period of 5 years or less. ISS was different.

All the earlier US spacecraft had this sort of organzational set up with fairly small program offices and the larger NASA and center institutions supporting them.