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NASA Attempts To Cut Back Constellation

Posted by Soulskill on from the just-stop-sending-checks dept.

FleaPlus writes "In a surprise move in the battle between NASA and certain members of Congress over NASA's future direction, NASA has told its contractors to cut back nearly $1 billion on this year's Ares/Constellation program, stating that the cutback is necessary to remain in compliance with federal spending laws requiring contractors to withhold contract termination costs. While complying with budgeting laws (and in line with NASA's desire to cancel Constellation), this move is also potentially in violation of a 2010 appropriations amendment by Sen. Shelby (R-AL) and Sen. Bennett (R-UT) which prohibits NASA from terminating any Constellation contracts. If NASA's move goes through, the biggest liability is $500M for ATK, the contractor who is/was responsible for the first stage of the Ares I medium-lift rocket."

11 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Augh. by Pojut · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It pisses me off to no end that we can afford to spend trillions of dollars killing each other, but we can't afford a few billion dollars exploring the universe around us.

    What the fuck, people.

    --
    Living With a Nerd
    1. Re:Augh. by flitty · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, more accurately, we can only support exploring the universe around us if we find a way for private companies to sell tickets.

      --
      Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
    2. Re:Augh. by camperdave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That is annoying, true. But what is more annoying is that these senators are clinging to this expensive program when there are cheaper, safer alternatives that would save jobs, and eliminate the necessity of going to the Russians and saying "Hey Ivan. Can you possibly give me a lift to the ISS?". They are clinging to this program simply because it brings money into their state. They are willing to sacrifice the US manned space flight program, the prestige of the nation for pork. I think Shelby in particular is in a position of conflict of interests. He controls how much money NASA gets AND he represents a state that is home to some major NASA contractors.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    3. Re:Augh. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It pisses me off to no end that we can afford to spend trillions of dollars killing each other, but we can't afford a few billion dollars exploring the universe around us.

      It pisses me off that the decision over which program survives and which dies has more to do with which senator's district the plant that's going to build it resides in.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:Augh. by morgauxo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      No, private companies are only selling tickets to LEO. There is a big difference between running circles around the world we have been on since pre-history and actually exploring another one.

    5. Re:Augh. by morgauxo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Constellation had a heavy lifter and plans to go to the moon. The cheaper alternatives end at the ISS. Is that the whole point of the space program now? Astronauts just sit in a can and look at the planet they just left for a while and then come back down? Choose a heavy lifter in 2015? Come on, that's just punting it to the next administration with no real plans to go anywhere.

  2. Attention NASA and Congress: by Skarecrow77 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I do not care whether it's Ares V, which doesn't really quite exist yet, the even more vaporware "new heavy lifter" that president Obama spoke of, or some weird hybrid that the nerds down in propulsion dynamics wrote up on the back of a napkin 2 or 3 years ago and havn't told you about yet...

    But will you PLEASE get our monkey asses to Mars before I die?

    I'd love to see the beginings of a manned Mars base (even, dare I dream, a colony?!), but at this point I'll take Neil Armstrong's grandson standing there holding a flag with 50 (or even 52) stars on it.

    Pick a heavy lifter that can get the job done, put some intelligent technial people in charge of it, give them the money and resources to get it done, and LEAVE THEM ALONE for the next decade. Also, if it's absolutely necessary to get the job done again, I'm ok with you telling them that the russians (or maybe the chinese, the're more likely to believe that nowadays) are going to take over the world (scratch that, the galaxy) if they don't succeed.

    That is all.

    1. Re:Attention NASA and Congress: by FleaPlus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Pick a heavy lifter that can get the job done, put some intelligent technial people in charge of it, give them the money and resources to get it done, and LEAVE THEM ALONE for the next decade.

      You don't need a heavy lifter for space exploration. In fact, it just eats up the funds you'd need for actual exploration. There's a reason that each of the times that a country has developed a heavy lift rocket in the past it's been canceled in a few years due to being far too expensive.

      A better alternative is propellant depots, allowing you to use smaller, pre-existing launchers and refuel in space to get to where you want. Propellant depots play an important role in NASA's new plans:

      http://selenianboondocks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Depot-Centric_Human_Spaceflight.pdf
      http://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/viewrepositorydocument/cmdocumentid=230949/Section4.pdf

  3. A billion dollars... by Necron69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Would have bought us two more SpaceX's and four more new rockets, based on what SpaceX has spent in their 8 years or so of existance.

    NASA's Constellation program is a massive budget boondoggle.

    Stick a fork in it....

    Necron69

  4. Re: NASA to cut back on Constellation by pnewhook · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is a great example of how NASA is trying to cut a wasteful program but is having its hands tied by Republican senators with solely their own selfish interests in mind and not caring about the usefulness of the end output. I can't remember the exact number but something like over 90% of the NASA budget is mandated of where it is spent by congress and the NASA administrator has no control over it. NASA has no choice but to be inefficient when saddled with restrictions like that.

    NASA would be far more effective if it wasn't mandated by law to keep current contracts in place. Constellation was mandated by Bush, is completely unrealistic and unsustainable, and they are trying to terminate it which is what any fiscally responsible organization, public or private would do. However senators are passing stupid laws to prevent them from taking the right path. ,

    --
    Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
  5. Re: NASA to cut back on Constellation by Skarecrow77 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You are correct except for your knee-jerk desire to place blame on a single party. BOTH parties pull as much pork money into their states as possible, and in this case as many of the NASA contracts are in states that tend to vote republican, it happens to be republican senators pushing this particular issue... but do some reading on the subject and you'll find that there are plenty of democrats in the same situation with NASA contracts in their states as well.

    Polictics is politics. No matter what team you're on, you play the same game. Political parties matter about as much as uniform colors. You root for the burgandy and gold team, I root for the yellow and black team.