Some people have wondered what NASA would spend money on if they stopped spending on SLS. The following essay looks at this topic and suggests a couple of better places to spend NASA’s money:
https://spacenews.com/op-ed-nasa-at-60-the-best-of-our-energies-and-skills/

To make the next 50 years of human spaceflight different from the last, government spending should change its focus from federal job creation to that of creating private infrastructure that, while serving government purposes, is also available to other private industries. Where to start? First, stop projects whose only goal is to maintain infrastructure that has little value to the American people “beyond the room” — especially when those projects are not going well. Prime examples are NASA’s Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and the Orion capsule that rides on it. … renew and extend the life of the International Space Station and prepare it for the future. … Phase two is for the U.S. to make a commitment to go back to the moon and attempt to use the resources there to anchor future activities in space.

“But shouldn’t we at least consider the best arguments on the other side rather than just assume negative motivations?”

Unfortunately, the timing is suspicious. There have been other sudden new requirements that have caused delays in the start of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, and only the commercial companies are being audited for safety concerns, not Lockheed Martin and Airbus, which are making Orion and 1-1/2 service modules. This safety audit puts only the Commercial Crew Program at risk for delay, not Orion, the service module, or SLS. This also seems suspicious.

If NASA were actually concerned about this issue, why did it only come up now, just before the demonstration launches, rather than come up at the beginning of the program, when a safety culture could design in the desired safety?

“We are after all dealing with the lives of NASA’s astronauts. Would it be OK for NASA to have little insight into the safety culture of the companies that their astronauts will depend upon? Might they have appropriately learned the lesson that an organization’s safety culture can result in the loss of crew?”

Once again, NASA is giving a pass to the companies that are making the hardware that NASA will call its own. Any problems that arise from Orion-SLS will be as pinned to NASA as was the problems on other NASA spacecraft (Apollo and Space Shuttle) — not pinned to the commercial manned space companies. NASA is being selective in its auditing program, showing concern only for the astronauts flying commercial rather than civil space.

“As SpaceX knows full well, sometimes rockets go boom. If one of these companies’ crew rockets exploded, might the cause be a failure of the company’s safety culture? Might a for-profit company cut safety corners due to the pressure to make a profit. Might employees not speak up because they fear being fired if they do?”

If the concern included the rocket going boom, then ULA would also have to be audited for its safety culture.

The for-profit US airline industry demonstrated even after deregulation that safety was a prime issue and that corners were not cut. There were still accidents for two more decades, but the airlines made safety such an issue that fatal accidents are now amazingly infrequent. Just as with the airlines, it will likely take the manned space industry a long time to learn the hard lessons that will happen, and like the airlines, I doubt that accidents will be due to a lack of concern for safety.

“So, if you were NASA, footing the bill, and it was your astronauts, you would want to know the safety culture of both companies? No?”

So why not audit Lockheed Martin and Airbus? Wouldn’t you want to know the safety culture of those companies, too? Their equipment could cause deadly problems, too. An Apollo capsule, the design model for Orion, killed one crew, and an Apollo service module would have killed another crew if there hadn’t been a lunar module for the crew to use as a lifeboat.

An obvious answer to my questions: it is not about NASA’s concerns for safety but about power over a company that is independent and works best that way. It seems, unfortunately for Boeing, that the net was cast wide in order to cover up the object of the exercise.

Unless the object of the exercise is to further delay the Commercial Crew Program, in which case Boeing is also a target for harassment.

I;m far more concerned with the dementia drugs prescribed for members of Congress:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/uproar-as-capitol-hill-pharmacist-dishes-on-alzheimers-prescriptions-for-the-powerful

It’s a pure bureaucratic power play. If they’re concerned about safety in the workplace, you audit the workplace records. If you’re concerned about the safety of the product, you examine production records and test product. All workplace interviews do is give the NASA bureaucracy an opening in the “gotcha” game perfected by the likes of Robert Mueller.

We are after all dealing with the lives of NASA’s astronauts. Would it be OK for NASA to have little insight into the safety culture of the companies that their astronauts will depend upon? Might they have appropriately learned the lesson that an organization’s safety culture can result in the loss of crew?

As SpaceX knows full well, sometimes rockets go boom. If one of these companies’ crew rockets exploded, might the cause be a failure of the company’s safety culture? Might a for-profit company cut safety corners due to the pressure to make a profit. Might employees not speak up because they fear being fired if they do?

So, if you were NASA, footing the bill, and it was your astronauts, you would want to know the safety culture of both companies? No?

As a way to calm Senator Shelby, and assure their overall budget being passed, NASA may be yet again appeasing him by this delay in Commercial Crew. Every day that Commercial Crew is delayed, Senator Shelby has less need to expend *his* political clout to hold together the SLS/Orion coalition in Congress. This is yet another round in that delay game.

I accept for NASA, slowing down the SpaceX Mars missions is a win.