The license requires Boeing to launch half the constellation by ’27, with the rest in orbit by ’30.

The real significance of this constellation, combined with those being launched by SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon, and even the Chinese, is that they are creating a gigantic demand for launch services. A lot of rockets of all kinds from many companies are going to be needed to put in orbit the tens of thousands of satellites now proposed.

Such demand, should it continue, guarantees that launch costs will drop, because there will be a lot of business and competition to force the costs down.

The United States, which paid for and built the bulk of ISS, has no way of getting its own astronauts to the station. The United States at present also has no way to bring cargo up to the station.

The result: We no longer own our own space station. Though the U.S. has strict laws on the books to prevent the transfer of technology to the Chinese, restricting communications by government officials with China, the Europeans do not. And since they can send cargo to ISS while we cannot, they feel free to negotiation with the Chinese for the use of our space station. Moreover, the Russians I am sure will heartily endorse these negotiations.

And what can the U.S. government do? Nothing.

Instead of focusing on a solution to this situation, the members of Congress tasked with supervising NASA want NASA to build a giant heavy-lift rocket (SLS) to use with the Orion capsule, neither of which is designed to go to ISS. Moreover, neither will be capable of flying humans into space until 2021, one year after ISS is presently scheduled to be shut down. Even then a single flight will cost billions, which makes this system useless for resupplying ISS.

And people wonder why I consider these elected officials stupid. And if they aren’t stupid, they surely are irresponsible and incompetent, at least when it comes to the American space program.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) asked NASA Administrator Charles Bolden during a March 21 hearing on the agency’s 2013 budget the same question he asked of the White House’s chief science adviser last month: would NASA’s partnership with commercial companies to develop astronaut transports be cheaper if the companies competing for NASA funds combined their efforts into a single “all for one and one for all” project?

Similarly, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) made the same stupid argument in her continuing effort to keep the funding of the Space Launch System, the rocket-formerly-called-Constellation, as high as possible, at the cost of cutting everything else in NASA if necessary.

If you needed any evidence that members of Congress are ignorant idiots, you only need read the comments of these elected officials at these hearings to get your proof. Wolf or Hutchison as well as several others from both parties very clearly haven’t the slightest idea what these various space companies are building. Nor do they have the faintest notion of the difficulties entailed in building these manned space vessels.

First of all, the rockets and capsules being built by all of the commercial companies are fundamentally different from each other. Dream Chaser is a space plane like the shuttle. Boeing’s CST-100 and SpaceX’s Dragon are capsules more like Apollo, though neither is much like the other. And Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus capsule is not even designed to carry humans, just cargo. It can’t return to Earth.

So, how the hell does Frank Wolf imagine it would save anyone any money to combine the efforts of these companies? The only way he could even make this suggestion is if he has never even glanced at any news story anywhere, describing these rockets and capsules.

Hutchison is even more shameful. She has become the queen of heavy-lift, not because it will get the U.S. manned program back into space (which it will not), but because it brings jobs and pork to her state. And she has been willing to let the budgets of any other NASA program die in her effort to further that pork.

Many of these elected officials have indicated that they want to cut commercial space in order to put funds back into the Mars program. And in this area, NASA administrator Charles Bolden displayed his own stupidity.

Bolden said during the hearing that the Mars program was targeted for budget cuts because “when we took a look at the portfolio, the area that seemed to be in the best shape was our Mars exploration.”

That explanation did not sit well with members of the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee. “That’s an answer that says, ‘in order to make budget cuts, we savage the most successful program we have,’” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat whose Pasadena-area district includes the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Yup. Bolden actually made the argument that because the Mars program was so successful, they decided it deserved to be cut.

Meanwhile, these same elected officials continue to campaign for the one program at NASA that truly is a waste of money, the heavy-lift Space Launch System imposed on NASA by Congress. Costing about $3 billion a year, SLS will only produce its first manned launch about nine years from now. (Wanna bet that will never happen?) Yet, despite its high cost and unlikely payoff, Hutchison and other elected officials somehow think the program is getting short-changed, and want to cut commercial space in order to pour more money down that garbage drain.

As I wrote last November, NASA should focus its spending on its most successful programs, the planetary and astronomy programs and its relatively inexpensive competing commercial manned space program, and dump SLS entirely. Should they do that, we not only would get some really spectacular planetary missions to Mars and elsewhere, the astronomy program could be revived, the manned program might function more effectively for far less cost, and the overall NASA budget could even be cut.

Sadly, no one in either the Obama administration or Congress seems interested in doing this, which makes me very depressed. If SpaceX’s first launch of Dragon to ISS, presently scheduled for April 30, does not succeed, I can see the entire American space program dying for want of brains in Congress.

So, tell me again why NASA needs to spend $18 to $62 billion for a new rocket, when it already can hire Lockheed Martin to do the same thing? Though the Delta 4 Heavy can only get about 28 tons into low Earth orbit, and only about 10 tons into geosynchronous orbit — far less than the planned heavy-lift Space Launch System rocket — Boeing Lockheed has a variety of proposed upgrades to Delta 4 Heavy that could bring these numbers way up. Building these upgrades would surely be far cheaper than starting from scratch to build SLS.

Corrected above as per comments below.

This is not surprising. Webb already has a strong constiuency (astronomers, the public) while the Space Launch System has little support outside of Congress and the specific aerospace contractors who want the work. With tight budgets as far as the eye can see into the future, and the likelihood that Congress is going to become more fiscal conservative after the next election, it would not shock me in the slightest if SLS gets eliminated and the money is given to Webb. And if the SpaceX and Orbital Sciences cargo missions to ISS go well then cutting SLS would almost be a certainty, as this success would demonstrate that these private companies should be able to replace SLS for a tenth of the cost.

And I also think this would be a much wiser use of the taxpayers money.

Finally, I’ll point out that there was certainly nothing on Wednesday that refuted the findings in the Booz Allen study that NASA’s estimates beyond the 3-5 year time frame are fraught with great uncertainty. Hutchison and Nelson claimed last week that since the near term estimates were reliable, there’s no reason to delay getting the program underway. That’s the sort of good governance that explains why programs often explode “unexpectedly” in cost after 3-5 years…

In other words, this is what government insiders call a “buy-in.” Offer low-ball budget numbers to get the project off the ground, then when the project is partly finished and the much higher real costs become evident, Congress will be forced to pay for it. Not only has this been routine practice in Washington for decades, I can instantly cite two projects that prove it:

• The Hubble Space Telescope: Initially budgeted at $350 million. Final budget: $1 billion
• The James Webb Space Telescope: Initially budgeted at $1.2 billion. Present budget: more than $8 billion

I just happen to know the budget numbers for these two projects off the top of my head. However, if I did a little digging I could add numerous others to this list, from high-speed rail to nuclear submarines to Mars rovers to ISS. Why should this new rocket be any different? Unlike privately built and financed projects, there is no incentive for a government-mandated, government-built, and government-financed project to keep costs down. The money comes from coerced tax dollars, and there are no profits expected at the end of the rainbow.

With the new commercial space companies, they are building their rockets not for NASA but for themselves, in order to make money by selling a good product at a reasonable costs. NASA just happens to be one of their customers. The result is the cost is much less, the rocket gets built much faster, and everyone wins.

NASA figures it will be building and launching about one rocket a year for about 15 years or more in the 2020s and 2030s, according to senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement was not yet made. The idea is to launch its first unmanned test flight in 2017 with the first crew flying in 2021 and astronauts heading to a nearby asteroid in 2025, the officials said. From there, NASA hopes to send the rocket and astronauts to Mars — at first just to circle, but then later landing on the Red Planet — in the 2030s. [emphasis mine]

In other words, after spending $1.7 on the National Space Plane, $1.2 billion on the X-33, $1 billion on the X-34, $800 million on the Space Launch Initiative, and finally, almost $10 billion on Constellation, none of which ever flew, NASA is now going to spend another $35 billion on a new rocket that won’t fly for at least another decade.

To be really blunt, this new rocket, like all its predecessors, will never fly either. It costs too much, will take too long to build, and will certainly be canceled by a future administration before it is finished. It is therefore a complete waste of money, and any Congress that approves it will demonstrate how utterly insincere they are about controlling spending.

A clarification: Some of the $35 billion mentioned above has already been spent for the Orion capsule. This however still does not change any of my conclusions.

This is madness. One flight, unmanned, in seven years? No sane customer would ever buy such a product, especially when there are now a number of cheaper competitors who will likely be flying manned in less time.

Note also that even if NASA’s figures are exaggerated, which I am sure some Senators and Congressmen will claim, I would bet that they are not that far off, based on the space agency’s fixed labor costs and past history.

All of this is fantasy and foolishness. These senators might succeed in forcing NASA to spend money on the heavy-lift rocket that Congress has mandated, but there is no way the space agency will ever get enough funding or time to finish it. Even if the lower estimates are right, the cost is exorbitant, many times that of what the private companies have spent for their rockets and ships. And if construction does begin in earnest, it cannot be finished before the arrival of a new President in 2016 (at the latest), who, like all new Presidents, will have his own plans and will not want to build something started by the previous administration.

Much better to end this farce and save the money, especially considering the debt of federal government.

This solid rocket motor has value, but ATK’s hope that NASA will use it as part of the Congressionally designed Space Launch System, what I call the program-formerly-called-Constellation, is probably a false hope. They might get a few years of funding from Congress, but the whole thing will die stillborn when the funding runs out.

Better that they packaged the motor as part of a private launch system and tried to get some commercial business with it.

Regardless, the video is fun to watch. Check it out.

White House budget officials increasingly are concerned that some of NASA’s manned-exploration plans may be unaffordable, especially as the space agency weighs options that would raise the cost by billions of dollars by speeding up the development of rockets and spacecraft, according to people familiar with the issue.

The cost concerns are coming to a head, these people said, as the White House Office of Management and Budget ratchets up questions about NASA’s proposed program in light of the current emphasis on deficit reduction.

None of this surprises me.

First, the exorbitant costs are par for the course. There is no way a Congressionally designed rocket can be built cheaply, especially by NASA with its high and fixed labor costs. Second, I expected from the beginning that the Obama administration would balk at building this, partly because of that cost but mostly because Obama never really wanted to build it in the first place. Since the moment he took office he has done everything he can to cancel the Bush space exploration effort.

Expect this heavy-lift rocket to be the first casualty of the new budget-cutting effort. And from my perspective, that will be a good thing, as any money spent for this monstrosity will be a waste. There will never be enough money to finish it.

Whether the commercial space subsidizes will survive as well is problematic, however. Unlike the program-formerly-called-Constellation, those subsidizes don’t yet have the constituencies in Congress to support them. In the present atmosphere of budget cuts, they might easily go away, especially since I think Obama doesn’t really care about them that much. I am glad his administration has been pushing the development of this private space industry, but I also suspect that the President really wouldn’t mind if the money was spent on something else, such as education, as he said during the early days of the 2008 campaign.

• The next manned space ship launch from Baikonur likely to be postponed.
• ISS crew may be cut to 3 until Progress situation clarified.
• Russia postpones Soyuz rocket launch after crash (different launch than the manned mission above).

The longer term consequences? Congress will anguish over the lack of a shuttle. Some will demand more money for the program-formerly-called-Constellation, while others will demand more money for the new commercial companies. In either case, they will ignore the reality of a bankrupt federal government that simply can’t afford either at the moment.

“All three program estimates assume large, unsubstantiated, future cost efficiencies leading to the impression that they are optimistic,” the team said in its key findings. A risk assessment revealed the funding reserves projected for all three programs are insufficient, according to Booz Allen Hamilton. NASA has not disclosed its internal cost estimate for the Space Launch System. “Due to procurement of items still in development and large cost risks in the out years, NASA cannot have full confidence in the estimates for long-term planning,” the executive summary said.

This project is nothing more than Congressional pork. It will never get built. Sadly, it might waste a lot of money before it never gets built.

Though I don’t agree with all of Dinerman’s points, he provides a complete and excellent analysis of the present political state of NASA. To me, the key quote is this:

NASA’s Administrator and his Deputy worked hard, along with the President’s science advisor and the rest of the White House team, to alienate a critical mass of members of Congress by ignoring their concerns, rejecting their advice and blindsiding them with critical space policy decisions. The Obama administration then wrecked the previous program on the grounds that it was underfunded and behind schedule, and replaced it with a new program that looks as if it is now underfund and behind schedule. Congressmen and women being human, and under massive pressure to cut spending, have now cut the guts out of the space agency’s proposed budget.

In related news, NASAspaceflight.com reports that those NASA documents state that the agency’s plans for building SLS will take 21 years (!), with the first flight not taking place until 2032.

No wonder NASA has stalled releasing these documents. Nor am I surprised. Based on the budget that Congress gave the agency, it is literally impossible for NASA to build this rocket any faster. And at that rate, no one should be surprised if it never gets built at all. Far better to cancel it now and save the taxpayers the money.

Bah. Perry claims to be a so-called small government conservative, yet he wants the government to spend a fortune to build and run the space program. Meanwhile, Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Kate Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas) were around in Congress when President George Bush announced the shuttle’s retirement seven years ago. Their effort since then to fund pork through NASA and thus have NASA build a giant new rocket system, either Constellation or its new Congressionally-designed replacement, has been a disaster. Right now it would be better, and far cheaper, if they stopped fighting the new commercial space companies and instead get behind them, especially since the Obama administration itself has done a very poor job of selling this new industry.

A little support from Congress could go a long way to not only reinvigorating the aerospace industry, it could speed our country’s return to manned space, with multiple competing companies.

The heavy-lift rocket and capsule that Congress insists NASA build is a complete waste of money and nothing more than pork. It will never get built, mainly because Congress has given NASA less money and less time to build it than they did for Constellation under the Bush administration. Unfortunately, the reason they continue to require NASA to build it is to provide pork to their districts.

In a perfect world this funding would be cut now, especially considering the state of the federal debt.

Nonetheless, Congress has still mandated the rocket’s construction, and as far as I know, we still live under the rule of law. As stupid as the program-formerly-called-Constellation is, the Obama administration has no legal right to stall the program or try to kill it. If the funds are appropriated by Congress for this rocket, than the administration must spend those funds. That the Obama administration continues to defy Congress on this matter is just another worrisome example of their willingness to ignore the law.

That our society seems increasingly willing to look the other way in this matter is even more worrisome. If we don’t start demanding that our politicians from both parties obey the law, it won’t be long before they abandon it altogether, for their own power-hungry purposes.

No one should be surprised by this. Obama has never wanted NASA to build this rocket, when it was Constellation and now when it is the program-formerly-called-Constellation. Moreover, Congress hasn’t given NASA enough money or time to do it anyway. Better the program die and the money is used for something else, or cut entirely in order to reduce the crushing federal debt.

The downsizing, prompted by cutbacks in defense and government contracts, jumped from 6,121 in the first six months of 2010 to 20,851 this year, based on planned layoffs announced by major employers.

Though I have always favored shutting down the government space agency and replacing it with privately-built rockets and spaceships, the manner in which this is being done now is disgraceful. George Bush declared the retirement of the shuttle seven years ago. Since then Congress, Bush, and Obama have all done an abominable job preparing the nation for that retirement.

Had Bush and Congress focused on building up private space in 2004, we would now have a robust private space launch industry ready to replace the shuttle, as well as hire those laid off shuttle workers. Instead, they focused on having NASA build the pork-laden Constellation system. Then, as that program was actually nearing some completion, Obama shut it down cold turkey.

The result of these political follies is that the United States no longer has the ability to get our astronauts to our own space station, while tens of thousand of skilled engineers are without work. If anyone has any doubt about the foolishness of putting our faith in politicians, this whole disaster should end that doubt forever.

The good news in all this is that these engineers are not going to starve to death. They are skilled and passionate about what they do. I have faith they will find other work. In fact, I strongly believe that many of them will create new work, infusing our society with new industries and new innovation.

It is just a shame that the transition had to be as painful as it is.

As much as I’d hate to see the Webb telescope die, it has cost far more than planned, is way behind schedule, and carries a gigantic risk of failure. However, if I had a choice, I’d rather they cut the $1.95 billion for Congress’s homemade heavy-lift rocket, the program-formerly-called-Constellation. There is a much better chance that Webb will get completed, launched, and work, than there is for this improvised and impossibly costly Congressionally conceived rocket.

Idiots. They give NASA less money and less time to build the program-formerly-called-Constellation, and then are surprised when things don’t go well. Of course, it doesn’t help that the Obama administration is trying to sabotage the project anyway.

As I have said previously, this rocket will almost certainly never fly. NASA has to start over after spending billions and years developing Constellation, and is being given less money and time to do it.

And even if I am wrong and this rocket does fly, I bet it will do only one flight and then be retired as too costly.

All this does is make the name change of the program-formerly-called-Constellation official. The pork continues nonetheless!

This is a non-announcement, made to appease those in Congress who are requiring NASA to build the program-formerly-called-Constellation. NASA will do as Congress demands, and in the process will build nothing while spending a lot of money for a rocket and space capsule that can’t be built for the amount budgeted.

The possibility that NASA’s budget might cut by several billion doesn’t bother me a bit. Unlike it seems everyone else, I ain’t gonna be one of those who says “We need to cut the federal budget, but just don’t cut MY favorite program.” NASA shouldn’t be immune to cuts. In fact, NASA could easily lose the several billion dollars per year that’s going to be wasted on the program-formerly-called-Constellation.

And if Congress decided to cut the subsidies to the new commercial space companies as well, I probably wouldn’t cry that much over that either. I think these companies can make it on their own. I think there is a market for their product. By taking NASA’s money up front, they are then forced to take NASA supervision, something I think will be very damaging in the long run.

The amounts that NASA is giving these companies is minuscule, compared the monies spent on the program-formerly-called-Constellation. Yet I bet they all get their rockets/capsules launched and in operation, supplying cargos and crews to low Earth orbit, before NASA even test fires its heavy-lift rocket.