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Senators Question Removal of NASA Program Manager
Hugh Pickens writes "The New York Times reports that one day after the removal of NASA's head of the Constellation Program, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, chairman of the committee that oversees NASA, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, the committee's ranking Republican, have asked NASA's inspector general to look into whether the NASA leadership is undermining the agency's moon program and to 'examine whether this or other recent actions by NASA were intended or could reasonably have been expected to foreclose the ability of Congress to consider meaningful alternatives' to President Obama's proposed policy, which invests heavily in new space technologies and turns the launching of astronauts over to private companies. Congress has yet to agree to the president's proposed policy, and has inserted a clause into this year's budget legislation that prohibits NASA from canceling the Constellation program or starting alternatives without Congressional approval. The Constellation manager, Jeffrey M. Hanley, whose reassignment is being called a promotion, had been publicly supported by the NASA administrator and other NASA officials. But he may have incurred displeasure by publicly talking about how Constellation could be made to fit into the slimmed-down budgets that President Obama has proposed for NASA's human spaceflight endeavors."
Can you imagine if the Congress of the 1950s had, instead of funding the Apollo program, wanted to fund production of the Wright Flyer?
Senators thinking too much of their sponsors and pets in addition to the perpetual conflict over the imaginary difference in US parties(republicans/democrats) is the reason why we're not going anywhere. The congress is a fucking kindergarten full of uneducated, dishonest and selfish man-babies who feel entitled to have everything their way, and if they have to face critique they'll cry until your ears bleed or you let them have it their way.
Perhaps when India or China start their mars missions congress will sober up.
... but why is it so hard/expensive to repeat something that was done several times 40 years ago using comparatively horribly primitive technology? Somehow I expect this to all 'go away'. Not everything in the world is a conspiracy, but not everything isn't, either. Hello, NASA -- what gives?
Every day in the business world, people are "reassigned" because they are not on-board with the boss. I've seen more than a few upper level managers get "promoted" because they voiced displeasure about the direction the company was taking. This is the way the world works.
If Congress wants the US space program to be top notch and succeed, then they need to *fully* fund it. Its "put up or shut up" time. Either give them the money to go to the moon, or close down the program.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
They wouldnt have been able to put up a manned version until 2018. The Ares I was unnecessary, you can use
Delta IV or Atlas V already proven rockets plus the Falcon 9 launching next month.
The Ares V heavy lift rocket could be done faster,cheaper and more reliably by a shuttle derived heavy lift vehicle
such as the Direct 3.0 , the tooling is already in place for Directs version using the existing shuttle tooling.
Rocket engines burn fuel at high pressure, they do not propel themselves by explosion. The only explosions are explosive bolts to separate the stages.
If you want a rocket propelled by explosions look at the Orion Drive, which fires nuclear bombs behind it, which then explode and propel it forward.
Best short summary: Norm Augustine's testimony to Congress http://legislative.nasa.gov/hearings/5-12-10%20AUGUSTINE.pdf
"...the mismatch of ends and means coupled with technical problems that were encountered on the Ares I program were such that during its first four years the program slipped between three and five years...". Read that again. After four years of development and billions of $, the objective was no closer than it was at the start of the program. I could cut NASA some slack on that if they were attempting to develop new technology, but the Ares I program was largely based on well-understood technology and an existing industrial production base.
The Program Manager does not set the budget and he was not delivered the budget that was estimated for the job. So maybe the dismissal was unfair. But the PM's job is explicitly to develop the program within the actual (not wished for) triangle of resources, schedule and performance. If the delivered resources are so inadequate that the completion date never gets closer, then something else needs to change - this is the PM's job.
The Obama administrations efforts to kill Constellation is rooted in a desire to prevent Bush from receiving credit for any future moon landing or exploration of Mars.
This is not idle speculation, and has been reported in many places. NASA finally had a "engineer" in the top position leading the program (Michael Griffin). Griffin was focused on engineering and science instead of playing politics and the Obama administration has crushed him.
Let political correctness be damned; Judging from your name you're a girl, which explains why you're stuck in the "make a safe home for your future family" mindset and can't see the purpose of space exploration, the biggest and most important engineering challenge there ever was. It's probably also why you're not rated troll.
As to why space exploration is important: resources, including energy: green-24/7 unclouded solar energy, and space in abundance you cannot comprehend, microgravity manufacturing could also bring us some interesting goods. You want a safe space and nice upbringing for your children? get us out into fucking space then, our 6 billion people earth starts to feel a bit crowded, in space, you could have a billion children for yourself and there still would be plenty to go around.
Of course, there's the problem of no preexisting infrastructure, but if no one starts building it, it will never be built, just like our power/water/sewage/transport grid didn't grow and evolve by itself, it was built at the cost of billions of dollars and the sweat and blood of thousands of people over centuries of time.
Stop yelling at your man for rubbing those sticks together in a seemingly purpouseless fashion, he's inventing fire and you'll fucking love the steak he'll cook.